Guild Wars 2

These people who are making lots of gold in WvW; are they playing a different game than I? My box said “Guild Wars 2”. I do not rake in golds in WvW. Any pittance made from involvement in 10 or 15 keep takes/defends, 10 or 15 camps taken, several dolyaks killed in a typical 2 hour play session rarely nets me anything over 20 silver. If I get lucky to sell some of the junk I nab via mining/herbs and waste gear drops….. I might see 40.

Are you people never having to repair because you only stick with the self-rezzing zergball? I’m serious. I’d like to know exactly, and I mean exactly, what you are doing because I want that cash too and I don’t want to set foot in PvE for it. Ever.

Plenty of things a small group can do.

You’ll have to accept that getting run over by enemy zergballs is going to happen. /shrug Especially with the maps not being particularly large. But that also means you can find lots of action faster, so it’s got positives and negatives.

If the enemy zergball gets you…. well you know where they are now. So move on to the other side of the map. Or go to one of the other borderlands with some siege and attack some keeps.

PinCushion.7390:

Pet peeve of mine, here. Combine it with a near constant rotating server lineup means you have no clue who your enemies are ever. I want to know who the really awesome guilds are in WvW. I want to know which guy just ganked me for the 5th time in a row. I want to quake in my boots when a 5-10 man group of “Super Awesome Title Here” players crests a hill and commences to beating the pulp out of our PUG.

It’s not a game-breaker, but it’s certainly something I miss.

It really is. The anonymity stuff works fine in say a single-player RPG. But the whole point of playing online in a multiplayer affair is to interact with other people.

It’s sort of hard to do that when enemies are filling the role of nameless, faceless, bad ninjas in a kung-fu flick.

Mirage.2597:

DAoC 8 man was all about who had the best/fastest sorc outfront

Spoken like a true as… I mean Alb.

I don’t doubt there are players doing this beat squad stuff right now. I was only pointing out that most players in DAoC did it for ego. Seeing “XXXXX was just killed by ZZZZZ!” on your chat log in realm appropriate color (for who did the killing) was what it was all about. You got to know the names, not only of your realmmates but also the enemy. Their title was over their head: “Norse Flammen Herra” or “Saracen Warder” (Their [Realm Race] [Title Rank]). But when you clicked on them, you could see chat message “You target Riddick”. It made it much more personal, whether killing, being killed by, running from, or hunting them. A simple glance at the titles over their heads would also let you know what type of fight you were going to be dealing with. Tangling with an Emerald Rider or a Einherjar meant a tough battle. A Myrmidon or Brehon, not so much.

WvW in GW2 is near completely anonymous. All the bad guys look the same. Hell, all the good guys look the same and are nearly indistinguishable. Clicking on them tells you almost nothing about who they are.

Why not change the capping dynamic?

Instead of an all or nothing flip, that is currently stopped by ANY defending player in the circle…..

A check for defending players (team that owns the camp currently) vs. enemy players. Whichever side has more players “wins” the tug of war, and now the camp starts flipping in their direction.

Cap the speed at a constant, so the only thing that matters is that one side (defender or attacker) has more numbers to get the flip going. So the only calculation is “who has more numbers here atm?” (once the boss mob is killed). This constant would prevent 100 man zergs from flipping a camp in 3 seconds.

Gilandred.9870:

Anet has already demonstrated that they are not interested in debating or discussing these issues further. They closed other threads, including the “big one,” without so much as a clarifying comment. That’s who they are, and if you thought otherwise, their actions have now spoken louder than words.

QFT.

voyager.4982:

Mimizu.7340:

to paraphrase Herac-l-i-tus (forum filter hates ancient greeks):

He doesn’t mind if you call him Herakittenus.

lol

Raincrow.1840:

Ryth.6518:

My point is that many of you just need to take a break. Come back when the new content comes out. That is how this game was designed.

They DID just release new content. If the answer to new content release is to go play something else, they’ve messed something up in a major way.

Ryth.6518:

WTF do you expect when you play this game like a job?

I don’t play the game like it’s a job. I’m a solo player, somewhat casual. I don’t think you understand the complaints at all. The new fractals REWARD those players who make the game a job, and screws over the rest of us who don’t. Just becuase you don’t realize the impact upper tier gear has on you, the casual player, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Raincrow, these types of players who think it’s “no big deal” to the casuals will get rude awakenings when they are in WvW and get the hammer dropped on them by enemies that DID get all that “no big deal” grind armors.

Oh there will be plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth then.

These types have absolutely no vision.

For any players old enough to remember DAoC, and the abomination that was Trials of Atlantis… it’s an all too familiar story of forced-PVEing ruining RvR (exact same thing as WvW here).

I like WvW. I don’t want to PvE any more than was necessary to get to 80 (which honestly isn’t even required if you’re willing to zerg it up in WvW as an uplevel). I don’t want a PvE grind. Period. I left WoW because of that. I quit DAoC because of that. I ditched Rift because of that.

And when I saw it’s arrival here in GW2, my heart sank.

After that, it’s been hard to even give a flip about WvW. Since it’s only a matter of time before I’ll be heavily outclassed in my already outclassed yellows.

Versatility?

Engineer.

It’s not. even. close.

While you can’t technically do everything at the same time, you can do just about everything with a simple change of your selectable traits (don’t have to respec if you’ve chosen a general Engy spec, simply swap your choices for your spec) and different utility skills selected. Literally can make it like an entirely different class, without ever having to respec.

Jack of all trades. You won’t ever get that with a Thief. While Engineers have plenty of bugs, and other balance problems… there is always *some*thing you can contribute in any and all situations.

Anyways, that’s my 2c having both an 80 Engy and Thief.

Not as much fun as DAoC.

Since it’s hard to tell who is who, you don’t know who you’re killing or who killed you.

And that was the whole point of DAoC’s beat squads. Ego.

I have not seen this.

How are you EVER going to stabilize tiers as long as free x-fers are still here?

And when Anet ends it, if ever, what you’ll get is an announcement that it’s coming. Which will mean a flurry of x-fers prior to the cutoff date. Which will mean several more months for the tiers to stabilize again as the quality/quantity of players has to be played out.

This is what is so baffling about the whole sordid thing, as it stands currently. Balancing out tiers is nigh impossible as long as players can just free x-fer like ping pong balls around to different servers as soon as theirs loses, or just to bandwagoneer up on a server that is “good” (for now…)

It’s asinine.

If you are outnumbered on a map, which is normally the case if your side is losing in overall points handily, what exactly is the benefit to “stand and fight”? To be more fodder for the meat grinder? So the enemy zerg can have more fun, while you spend time dumping gold on equipment repairs, and long runs of fruitless play where you are earning NO XP, NO gold, NO karma?

I’m simply asking you to look at it from the other side’s POV.

It’s beneficial to run, hit keeps, and run some more to rinse/repeat for the smaller/losing team. I personally think there are several factors in WvW that conglomerate to cause this. But ATM it’s the more effective, more efficient strategy for outgunned sides. And I don’t expect it to change for years.

The problem here appears to be players that don’t understand what the Comm is and why it’s in the game.

Players that think it’s a leader for the entire server? Mistaken.

Players that think it’s a guy that is smart? Mistaken.

Players that think it’s a guy who knows his way around WvW? Mistaken.

Players that think it’s a guy that knows how to lead? Mistaken.

It’s for a specific guild, with expendable income, and it’s to overcome Anet’s woefully inadequate guild features. Missing features that make it exceedingly difficult to organize your guild runs if you have more than 5 players, thanks to NOT being able to see fellow guildies (or I should refer to this as a “raid” group) on the map.

As constructed, it’s best to ignore the Comm icon, and pay attention to chat. That will give you a far better idea about who is worth following/helping, and who isn’t.

I am not averse to such a WvW points earned, ranking systems (in general, an actual REWARD for participating in WvW effectively) to create something similar to the Comm icon. Perhaps even fleshing it out to have other effects, or abilities exclusive to the ranking etc. But ATM, it sure don’t seem like Anet is putting any effort into making that happen or any other improvements for WvW-exclusive players.

Sylosi.6503:

Kneemin.4235:

First; calling people lazy or slackish is a statement, similar to calling someone ignorant. Its a state of being, if you slack you fall behind. Calling someone a “scrub” is derogatory. Linguistics, my friend.

Perahaps in your bizzare world slacker is a compliment, it is considered derogatory where I am from, if you don’t like being called names, then don’t do it to others in the first place.

Kneemin.4235:

I really don’t think you were ‘misled’, but rather you expected a far more radical version of what is already in play, which again is readily available for you in sPvP as seems to be their intention.

Their intention was this, from their own blog, by their lead dev:

“We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

With ascended gear they have broken that statement in two ways, firstly it is no longer optional if you want to be “just as powerful” and secondly it is no longer optional if you wish to do all the content as they have introduced a gating mechanism with “agony”, so bascially repeating the mistake other games made years ago and have since worked out is a dumb idea, radiance in LOTRO for instance.

So yes people were misled, because they don’t expect a company to go back on its proclaimed philosphies, nearly as soon as the product is launched.

Basically, this.

The developers have told us how different this was going to be from the “standard”, only to make it almost exactly like those other games..

Sylosi.6503:

Kneemin.4235:

First; calling people lazy or slackish is a statement, similar to calling someone ignorant. Its a state of being, if you slack you fall behind. Calling someone a “scrub” is derogatory. Linguistics, my friend.

Perahaps in your bizzare world slacker is a compliment, it is considered derogatory where I am from, if you don’t like being called names, then don’t do it to others in the first place.

Kneemin.4235:

I really don’t think you were ‘misled’, but rather you expected a far more radical version of what is already in play, which again is readily available for you in sPvP as seems to be their intention.

Their intention was this, from their own blog, by their lead dev:

“We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

With ascended gear they have broken that statement in two ways, firstly it is no longer optional if you want to be “just as powerful” and secondly it is no longer optional if you wish to do all the content as they have introduced a gating mechanism with “agony”, so bascially repeating the mistake other games made years ago and have since worked out is a dumb idea, radiance in LOTRO for instance.

So yes people were misled, because they don’t expect a company to go back on its proclaimed philosphies, nearly as soon as the product is launched.

Basically, this.

The developers have told us how different this was going to be from the “standard”, only to make it almost exactly like those other games..

Same.4687:

IF Ascended gear will not be made available through any other means but dungeons. I will drop this game so fast the only thing you will see before it dropping the ground is a dustcloud.

There are some exceptions:
– Ascended gear is fully craftable via materials found OUTSIDE of dungeons
– Considering the last one this means you should be able to buy them on TP
– Via some sort of Karma/Badge payment

If they are going to try and make me run the Fractal thingy, I’m out.

FTW.

Caltrops are not necessary for a Cond build. Nice to have, but not necessary. Particularly if you are going P/D, you can live without them a bit more than a D/D guy since you aren’t spending a ton of time in melee range anyways.

I suggest you try out all the utilities, to see which ones you find useful. I play P/D, and Caltrops goes in and out of my choices. SoS is the one I never leave behind. Then, I’ve gotten used to having Shadow Refuge that it generally fills that second slot. So the third ends up with more situational options to me: Caltrops, Scorpion Wire, Smokescreen, Blinding Powder, or Shadowstep……. with Shadowstep being the normal favored. I loves me some fast getaways and trickeration.

No spec is good at everything. Players that say <spec A> is God, are ignoring the fact that it’s strength in certain situations does not mean it is God. Rather, it is strong in THAT particular situation. They all have strengths AND weaknesses.

Many can be offset by enemy skill level (or exacerbated by it) and/or enemy spec choices.

TBH, it’s fairly what I expected to see in a GW game. Limited slots for abilities forcing you to decide WHAT you want to do, and then using your player skill to accentuate your strengths while covering your weaknesses.

To say “such and such spec” is “easy” is foolish. None of them are easy. They all require a working knowledge of what your spec can do and what it cannot. Even the gimmicky BS builds did this, as even the lowliest mouth-breather recognizes that the BS builds were complete dumps… and hide for 45 seconds.

nm i found a way to get around the bad link

Level up. That’s your biggest problem. Uplevelling doesn’t help much when you are outgeared by 80s and they have all their Traits, while you are missing 21 Trait points.

If you insist on WvW to level, then choose a defensive build and stick with the zerg.

Shining KoW.4683:

Get Ancient Logs, and Orichalcum ore from Cursed Shore, and get all the other materials. You can do this for Malchor’s Leap and Frost Gorgesound. It’ll take you about an hour or so with a map that’s updated daily. You’ll make about a gold or more.

So in 3 or 4 months of disciplined, daily play you’ll have enough to buy that cultural armor. As long as you never spend any. Don’t die and have to repair. Don’t miss a day. Think of it as your second (or maybe third) job.

That sounds sort of ….. pathetic.

OP, sorry. I haven’t found a way to make good cash yet that doesn’t involve micro-analyzing spreadsheets and boring Trading Post playing. I’ve simply given in to the fact that I’ll be sub-par in gear, and just play.

It’s not really a glass cannon if you are adding toughness…

If you want to make yourself hardier, then it’s not just adding toughness but probably choosing some different specs or traits to accent. That would be much more effective than making a glass cannon build……and kitten the only thing it’s meant to do (damage) by choosing toughness.

I’d like to join up. Tried messaging Knyx in game, didn’t get a response.

Invite if you want. Cell Two is name, on Maguuma.

Granz.4068:

I agree they need to add some more depth to WvW for us to log in and play. They have put in this huge effort on this system and tried to “Make it fair” without PvP rewards. Frankly they need to come up with something. I really enjoy the game but this is an issue. I am fighting towards nothing… Gaining nothing is not the way of the gaming world now. Even FPS’s are trying to keep you engaged now a days. I am not sure what A-Net was thinking on this.

My guess is that WvW isn’t the main draw. E-tournaments are.

Which is why some of the WvW elements feel untidy. The framework is there, but much of the polish is not.

The carrot-on-a-stick system is the bread and butter of RPGs. And right now WvW badly needs some. Camelot had an innovative Realm Rank system, also progressively scaled, which also allowed you to buy extra abilities. It provided a reason to get involved in the large scale WvW. And it would take months for even hardcore players to hit RR10, let alone the casual Joes and Janes who could take years. But every player could reach RR5 with a bit of effort, and get the “gamechanging” abilities available to their class. Thereby making a RR5 player plenty viable against higher Ranks.

1. I like the idea of a loyalty point system. Obviously, making the points scale progressively higher at higher ranks (10k for rank 1, 30k for rank 2, 75k for rank 3, 200k for rank 4 etc, getting much larger between ranks as you go up) would make it take a good long while to get to those top tiers. You would definitely be an O.G. loyal player/contributor to your Server if you are getting to the top.

What I’d also like to see is perhaps giving effects like the bought Commander thing. Except this system would be infinitely better since it’s earned, not bought. As you get to maybe rank 5, now you show up on the map (give it a toggle to turn on/off if you like). It could say “<Rank 5 title> Cimry”.

Maybe at a higher rank, like 8, you could add the ability for the player to put waypoints on the map visible to all and put out a chat message that says “<Rank 8 title> Cimry is requesting aid at <waypoint location here>!” That way, the players would know who was putting the waypoint out there. Just in case some jerk wants to sabotage his team, the players would know and his rep would be harmed.

I mean, you could do all sorts of little things to be added to these loyalty ranks. What if you added auras to the player at certain ranks? To increase XP/karma/other objective points to surrounding players by small percentages? Maybe a small speed boost? Maybe a small damage boost or defense boost to higher ranks?

Perhaps eye candy stuff too. Maybe a banner that makes them visible on the battlefield. Or a glow. Etc etc.

I’m also talking very small on the buffs, like 5% or under. We don’t want these to be game-breaking. But it would give a buff to your team, and make players wish to remain in their server. Even GOSH…. trying to turn things around if it gets weak since they’ve got a lot of time invested in it.

You could really make it so that a player reaching a higher rank can bring beneficial effects to his team.

2. The free transfers have to go. They do much more harm than good. Sorting out the semantics of that is ANOTHER THREAD. Too much to discuss to put in here.

Okamakiri.8746:

And? No leveling or gear barrier in sPvP = all scrubs trying the supposed fotm. When they realize it’s not what it’s made out to be they go back to failing on their mains.

And don’t forget, posting on those “FOTM” message boards calling them all skilless n00bs spamming 1 buttinz.

They’d dominate us, but they don’t care to live on that 1 button. /rofl

This thread title was a bit of a let down.

How about “Another round of nerfs for retaliation but Thief still hitting too hard on glass cannon players”?

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Then let’s lay out the issues. Stealth rendering issue, able to stealth every 3 seconds to get a huge attack off that costs no resources( bigger if flanking ), stealth doesn’t break with damage, and stealth stomping.

After the initial contact combo (CnD→Steal→Assassin Signet→BS), the Thief is now missing TWO of those. Steal and Signet are gone for 45 seconds.

So at this point, the Thief is not getting “huge attacks of that cost no resources”.

At best, 3 seconds later he tries to CnD you again. But unlike the initial contact where the timing might have surprised you, NOW you KNOW where he HAS to be (even if he’s stealthed). Why aren’t you dodging away? Using any mobility abilities you have to relocate yourself for the 3 seconds he’ll be stealthed? Moving like a crazy man to make it HARDER for him to get your back for the BS?

See, this is what makes it so hard for Thieves to listen to this tripe. Players simply want to be lazy and have Thieves served up on a platter for them to kill in 2 hits with no effort. Instead of making life hard for the Thief, they act like fat cows then cry when they lose.

It wouldn’t be acceptable with any other class. You can’t stand there with your mouth hanging open, not bothering to use your abilities/traits/sense to get away from a Warrior Bull Charge→100derps, then cry when he kills you in 3 seconds. You can’t stand slackjawed watching Engy grenades FLY THROUGH THE AIR and catch them with your mouth, then cry when he kills you in 3 seconds. You can’t stand amok with your thumb in while a Ranger peppers you with the machine gun and his pet chews you dead in 3 seconds, then cry. Etc etc etc.

But if you play pathetically, with little to no effort at thwarting your enemy Thief…. why that class is OP. Gots to be nerfed. /rolls eyes

The free, easy, quick transfers is more harmful than helpful to the WvW.

Not only does it encourage bandwagoneers to jump TO successful realms, or AWAY from unsuccessful ones (instead of working to improve their realms’ lot)- it also is disruptive to building character of a realm.

People that talk about “teamwork” etc don’t seem to get it. When players are in n out depending on this week’s success/matchup, you get absolutely no consistency. You don’t know most of the players (they just showed up) or the ones you did know are now gone. Time, effort, goodwill etc invested in your ‘realm’ are wasted.

At this point, I cannot fathom why the transfers thing isn’t simply adjusted to be a 1-week sit out from WvW. That’s a quick, dirty fix that still lets players get to another realm if they want. Following this, ANET needs to make the system a paid-transfer with the same 1-week sit out from WvW.

It’s such a ridiculously easy correction, that I’m worried it hasn’t been done. That doesn’t cause me to think ANET cares much about the glaring problems with WvW atm. This is the easiest, simplest correction to one of the colossal problems, and they’re doing nothing. What about the REAL problems/difficulties such as invisible players, hackers, or design adjustments? If they won’t/can’t handle an easy, simple fix…..

koroshi.2658:

I am a guild leader of Attack of the Zombies, we run small rogue squads constantly for supply camps as soon as they are available. I have not yet decided to create guild videos, but that might actually be a good idea.

You will only see me solo when the guildmembers are doing something else and are too busy to come to wvw. I understand you might not see it as a “contribution” to wvw, but you could look at it in a different view like Tulisin.6945 said I do cap supply camps solo but its at a slower speed than if i would be with my guildmembers. I ussually cut off players trying to reach the zerg be it one or multiple players.

PS: thanks for the replies guys. Swinsk if you have any questions concerning on how to get the equips that i have i will happily help you.

Seriously, make a vid.

This is exactly the sort of stuff small guilds CAN contribute to their WvW team. Not everybody needs to mindlessly zerg, or aren’t in large enough guilds to siege keeps as a guild.

And it reaffirms that EVERYBODY can play a role in aiding their WvW team. Even down to a solo guy. Make it two or three guys, and you can really start wreaking some havoc.

Feel the same?

….Death Blossom….. I just can’t quit you.

And yeah, when I’m not rolling with the LDB, I feel naked and a bit more squishy. But I get the sword out or the high-energy traits (to roll my day away), and have a good time forgetting about her.

How are you using backstab on a continuous basis?

You need to be stealthed, you need to be behind your enemy.

When you attack from stealth, you are immediately removed from stealth.

Seeing as stealth has a 3 second debuff when you come out of stealth…. what is happening for that 3 seconds of visibility?

The problem is what’s happening in that time frame. Usually, it’s a subpar enemy derping his way to being a fat cow ready to be slaughtered by yet another BS setup in 3 seconds, instead of a playa dropping the 2 shot hammer on your weak, exposed, unstealthed, missing his used-up Assassin Signet, and probably low on initiative Thief.

These players probably also stand in Engy’s grenade circles or wonder what that big barrel of TNT is sitting on the ground. Then complain about Engy dropping them from 100-0 in 4 seconds.

ddrake.5436:

I think there is a hidden mechanic with backstab, it does intended damage to good players and 2x or 3x the damage to bad players. prove me wrong.

For another germane quote:

“Life is tough. But it’s tougher when you’re stupid.”

Very applicable to what you say there, ddrake. This game is tough, but it’s a whole lot tougher when you’re stupid/lazy/ignorant.

Well, here’s a build thread

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Post-Your-Build-Thread/page/2#post445522

Right at the top of this board…

Your question is too general. It’s best to determine what SORT of WvWing you’ll be doing. Run with the zerg? Run solo? Pick off stragglers? Aid teammates? Run supply and take camps?

Not every style of play is going to appeal to every player.

Knowing what you want to do first, then building around that is the easiest.

All the hard math and provable facts will not convince crybabies hating on Thieves.

The saying goes, “you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.”

Some guy gets thumped by a BS Thief and all they want is revenge on the class. That’s a lot easier than learning how you could counter them, or “lrn2play”.

I have found that I must turn auto-attack OFF when playing the Backstab build with Assassin Signet.

Unless I can pull the crucial timing of the 4 button presses from directly behind the intended target (so that I am already behind him from the Steal… in case autoattack goes off before I have repositioned myself to be BEHIND him), and quick enough that I get Assassin Signet popped AFTER Steal but BEFORE the autoattack….. then autoattack messes it all up.

Maybe that’s why you are seeing these guys mash the 1 button. I would much prefer to leave my #1 on autoattack, but it seems to cause this problem far too often. Which makes playing a spec where you blow your entire wad in 1 chain….. and are mediocre/useless for the next 45 seconds, quite frustrating.

Imperator totius Sylvari.9164:

It is called shadow refuge for a reason :P

Well the big stupid house icon doesn’t help much to make it a “refuge” since it’s a blaring AE THIS AREA NOW sign.

When you have to use it as a trick diversion to avoid multiple enemies, by coupling it with shadowstep….. that’s not exactly a refuge.

Revelstoke.8924:

Impressive video! Ive exclusively played sPVP so I have yet to touch W3 however some observations…

1) Was that server just….unusually bad or? 9/10 times the dude youre attacking didnt even try to fight back just run away and OFFER his back to you?
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?
3) Apparently one of the benefits of W3 is not everyone has max-tier armor/gems like sPVP. I can’t ever think of a time…ever…whirling axe has summarily crit for over 10k for me against anything in sPVP. Max 5-6 normally. I imagine its just scrubs wearing AH armor.
4) That fight scene with you bouncing between downed targets and keeping them all mitigated was kitten impressive. Well done.

1. That’s WvW for you. A wide range of player types, many of which are casuals that are sub 80.

2. My guess is it’s the rendering bug.

3. Sub 80 players. Even though base stats are uplevelled, the gear stats aren’t. Most players sub 80 have mixmatch gears anyways with stats all over the place. Being lower level items (as they can’t equip 80 items at level 23 in PvE), means they are at ridiculous disadvantages against a level 80 in WvW with his level 80 gears (even if those gears aren’t particularly well chosen)

======

Nice vid, Turn. WvW is always fun times.

Why worry?

There are a million ways to play. If you have found one you like, then who’s to tell you it’s wrong?

Never had any trouble dying in PvE. Engineer to 80, now levelling a Thief.

Low levels you don’t have much quality gear, but then the mobs aren’t exactly powerful.

PvE in this game is so ignorantly easy you could do it with autoattack and bumble your way to 80. I see plenty of bots doing it nightly.

If you don’t see him coming?

…Well, let me ask you- how do most fights turn out when you let the other guy get the first shot? Probably fighting an uphill battle from that point, non?

Now imagine if it’s a class that is specced, equipped, and traited to load everything they’ve got into that perfect, leadoff shot scenario.

So, as has been pointed out to you ad nauseum here, the best way to deal with such a circumstance is

A. Get your head out and avoid letting the enemy choose the battleground.
B. Pre-emptive defensive measures to lessen the opening damage.
C. A survivability spec (every class has em) and commensurate defensive equipment to survive the initial (and only) onslaught of a glass cannon thief.
D. Pre-emptive use of defensive abilities to throw his perfect setup out of alignment, and thereby neuter his spec.

But you aren’t interested in those, especially C.

Which nobody is judging as bad nor good. But it is what it is. You don’t complain when your offensive spec helps you beat down on some enemy that YOU got the jump on, do you? Well, you don’t get to cry when your offensive spec takes a whipping because it’s not very survivable.

In the real world, we call that a “trade off”. There seem to be a LOT of those in GW2. Makes things much more strategic.

So you saw the guy coming, saw him Steal… and did what?

You have been offered some advice about how to mess up this glass cannon build’s opening salvo.

You could also smoke bomb when you see him coming. If he Steals into you as the bomb goes off, he’s effed. Hit with pistol blind since he has to be in range to pull that Steal lead-off? Do you have Protective Shield trait to help if one of these hits is a critical?

Maybe you should ask at the Engineer boards for help. But it doesn’t seem like you want answers to help you, rather you just want blood.

So the OP is a “offense” spec Engineer (a class that is already a bit squishy) in Berserk gears….. and it’s a surprise that a Thief built completely for heavy, quick-hit opening…. blows him up?

Engineers have a few traits that can protect them when immobilized or stunned. But picking those would mean NOT picking “offense” spec.

Just wanted to point that out. The smoke bomb proc alone would practically neuter that glass cannon Thief blowing his wad on the initial contact.

But if the OP has found that his “offense” spec is keeping him more than competitive in small WvW fights with nearly every other class, then maybe being an easy kill for glass cannon single-shot Thieves is a tradeoff he’ll have to make.

DAoC used to broadcast a message to the local area when you died. Such as “Jimbo was just killed by a spraggon!” You could then /whisper the guy to ask him where he was for you to come rez (if you were a healer).

It would be nice if when you clicked on the dead player icon on the map, it showed you the name AT LEAST.

Dat’s 9 things you listed Tigger.

“Only” is generally used to denote a singularity.

Zandur.5012

Nice reel. You have mad skills but a lot of what you are doing with kits seems achievable with gadgets / elixirs which saves you the GCD. Most use of kits is swap in, use one ability, swap out. And why the tool kit? Is it just for throw wrench?

Welcome to life as an Engineer.

Epicboy.8096

Simon Sickboy.6250

I mean really what’s not to love? I roll with Rifle, ‘nades, Flame thrower and either Elixir Gun or Elixir B for PvE and i can see no situation where i would need anything else. Yes a few skills could be tweaked but this is not because i don’t like how they work, its because they just don’t work! (#2 on FT for example)

My exact same build O_O
And i completely agree with your post

You can PvE with just your gun and autoattack. Who cares about PvE?

The flaws are sharply accented in more competitive environments in PvP or WvW.

And I see the OP is basically saying “Play Engineer with rifle/grenades/ft” and it’s good.

Well, what about the other several kits that are supposed to make Engineers competitive since there is no weaponswapping? What about having all that “versatility”? You know, that thing you hear about when you are busy clicking between 3 kits trying to find the right ability to use in less than a 1/4 second of reaction time in competitive environments of PvP and WvW? While another class can simply use a 2 button combo to drop you like a sack of rocks.

Stunning, absolute garbage.

blurps.2340:

The problem with turrets isn’t really their performance, they can be quite useful for a variety of purposes, but the terrible handling and massive downtime. When you need one of the kitten things, you can bet they’re either on cooldown or just ouf of range and because of the cooldowns you can’t set a new one…

Mobility is king in this game and turrets in their current form just don’t support it.

Those are my general thoughts on the turrets as well.

Useless unless you are going to plant yourself in an area (PvE), try to bunker down in SPvP. For the PvE, why do that since the real gravy XP is from killing mobs while you are moving across the map (to get the spawn bonus XP, which is often multiples higher than the base XP)? For SPvP, there are other far better skills for a bunker build and 1 turret might be used as a side salad.

Best for WvW? Grenades. If you aren’t using them, you are doing it wrong.

Nothing else the Engineer can do is as effective as throwing grenades around. The kit severely outclasses the rest of them combined, does tons of damage, and doesn’t require you to get within a country mile of the bad guys if you pick Grenadier trait.

Anything else is a whole lot of fury to pretend you are helping, while that Grenade Engy over yonder is actually affecting the tide of the battle by raining death on the enemy.

The only drawbacks are utter complete boredom, extremely clunky interface for grenades, and sometimes getting smart enemies that will step 4 feet to the left or right to avoid your spam. Sometimes.