Guild Wars 2

In beta I loved this skill. It had a larger range and flowed so nicely with the fight. Then they nerfed (or fixed) it to 600 range and I’ve lost count of the amount of times the skill has failed because of it.

But more annoying is when you spawn a clone successfully a lot of times it doesn’t make it to the enemy target either at all or in a timely manner. I’ve noticed it spawns, runs a few yards away from you then pauses before running to the target. Why can’t we have the clone spawn at the target player location instead? Or give us back a 900 or 1200 range.

Great videos, thank you for putting all this information out there.

Can I ask why you haven’t permitted them to be viewable on mobile devices? Isn’t it just a checkbox when uploading?

I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong but I’m having trouble actually doing enough damage to take people down in a timely manner. My survival skills seem ok – I can use dodges, stealth and combo fields to put up retaliation and escape if needed. I’m hovering around 15.5-16k HP, 2800 armor and with food and oil, about 48% crit chance with 66-70% crit damage. I don’t have access to Fractal gear yet though.

Maybe it’s just more practice needed. Very enjoyable though.

I have a level 80 Thief, Mesmer and Guardian. I’ve seen things from both sides of the fight and I’ve seen more than enough examples of entire groups being unable to take down a thief and for that thief to either escape or come back to harass the group. AOE isn’t a viable counter. It’s positively infuriating to fight against a thief who stealths every 4-5 seconds. It takes a few seconds just to get sight of him again, target him and try to land a couple skills, by which time he vanishes again. Some say ignore the thief. But the truth is you can’t.

I would like to see thief stealth skills brought in line with those of the Mesmer. Short duration, longer cool down. Effective but not overpowered. But in doing so other aspects of the class will need a careful boost because, as others have said, the Mesmer also has clones.

Inspiring stuff, thanks Seven!

Can I ask what your decision process is for when to shatter and when not to shatter?

I’m looking forward to JS ‘effing off to another match-up because they’ve ruined WvW this week with their massive zergs. So much so that it’s causing higher than usual culling issues. You literally cannot move because of JS zergs.

Good riddance.

I would prefer to see a debuff added which hampers successive revivals forcing you to release. Maybe a permanent damage, health or speed debuff (or a combo of all three) which builds exponentially each time you’re revived such that you are essentially ineffective after the third revival.

Whatever the reasons – transfers, return from holidays etc. there’s no debating that the JS numbers we vastly superior this week making it hard to forge any progress. It wasn’t just one zerg quickly roaming the map. This was multiple zergs in multiple borderlands.

Great fights last week and the start of this week but now JS seem to have spawned like rabbits and all we encounter are massive zergs.

I’ve been playing with this build for the last few weeks and I love it, thank you. It fits my more aggressive play style really well. Occasionally with longer fights I find myself running out of options with everything on cooldown. I suspect I need to develop some better situational awareness and dodging skills.

Great battles but the double teaming against AG was inevitable when JS were 10,000 points behind.

My first 80 was a thief but I currently spend most of my time playing my 80 Guardian and I have to say I’ve seen the problem from the other side. Many times our group was getting harassed by a lone thief who was just uncatchable. He wasn’t able to kill anyone but it was frustrating not being able to lay some consistent damage down before he disappeared again.

I really want to see the thief be a viable class which isn’t nerfed to obscurity but something needs changing, if only culling.

You mean you might have to roll with a team that has condition removal abilities?

Oh wait… your not rolling with a team, just solo?

Don’t wait, assume you didn’t kill us because we’re OP and you’re about to get wtfpwnd with a backstab or two.

Wait…. Are you saying you can kill thieves? That ain’t right. What class are you? I need to go to your forum and complain.

I was really surprised to find stealth so radically different in this game compared to what I’d been used to. It seemed crap that it only lasted for 3-4 seconds at a time. But I learned that it makes things so much more strategic.

In previous games people moaned about perma out of combat stealth. Now they’re moaning about temporary stealth. The crux of the issue is stealth, specifically on the thief, is one of the few truly unique skills in this game. Therefore almost every class will bemoan it and begrudge it in some way.

Nothing much more than trolling going on here, move along.

In my opinion skill #3 on all classes should act as a form of interrupt to enable you to dodge or avoid a stomp. Now I suspect what you want to occur is for skill #3 to not interrupt an action or spell such that despite using skill #3 the thief still gets hit regardless.

AFAIK skill #3 doesn’t grant immunity, just stealth. Therefore AOEs could still hit the thief. Makes perfect sense that you shouldn’t be able to see something that is stealthed, nor target it directly.

Finishing a player whilst stealthed is no different than using any stealth damage skill save for the fact that the stomp action animation is really long.

sigh It’s never enough is it. Maybe we should give every class the same skills with the same damage and the same survivability and we can all sit around in wvw talking about the bad ol’ times.

Fantastic video! So nice to see a different combat style that is still effective. Gives me hope that despite any crying and nerfs the thief will still be viable.

Thanks for the clarification. Good video!

People are focused on 1v1 balance in wvw when clearly that’s not the point.

In vid #8 around 5m 16sec you appear to use Shadow Refuge but I don’t see it on your hot bar?

Stealth is a method of damage avoidance. If it is severely restricted or altered then they’ll have to compensate in other areas to boost survivability.

I’ll stealth away from the nerf bat then backstab it for 1,000,000 dmg then re-stealth and walk away laughing manically.

Heartseeker damage was nerfed.
Pistol Whip damage was nerfed.
Backstab will be nerfed.

And now everyone’s complaining about stealth on a stealthy class? And in a game that radically changed stealth to an in-combat utility with very short duration rather than an out of combat perma-stealth. And thieves still hit too hard?

Oh I forgot, their are also complaints about condition damage with P/D.

What is it exactly that our non-thief brethren want?

Thanks all, sounds like auto attack is fine then

Hi all,

When main-handing Dagger, do you leave skill 1 on auto attack or do you manually trigger it to ensure best use of backstab?

Secondly, I see on the list of Thief skills a mainhand dagger skill (#3) called Twisting Fangs which is available when you have no offhand weapon. Why would you ever not have an offhand weapon?

I planned on playing a Mesmer on go live but ditched it quickly when I had troubles in my early teens (I know, crazy). I’ve ended up playing one of every other class barring the Necro and now have a new appreciation of the Mesmer after returning to it.

However one of my keys for the class I’ll level to 80 is interesting gameplay and the Mesmer appears to me to have a really limited set of skills compared with Guardian or Elementalist. At the moment I’m leveling with sword/pistol and greatsword or staff but this feels like it will become bland fairly quickly.

Does the variation from fight to fight come about from a mix of skills, clone management and timing? I’ll admit I’ve been quite ‘fire and forget’ with clones previously but now I’m starting to watch to see when a certain phantasm has completed its attack, check the mobs health and make a decision on whether to let him attack again or shatter.

The Mesmer always appealed to me in Beta where I spent 100% of my time in sPvP. I only have time to level one character to 80 and want to be effective both in solo and group WvW as well as having an enjoyable but interesting time in PvE. The Elementalist was just a little too much effort for the reward you got. The Guardian is great but I’m concerned in WvW I’ll lose functionality.

Hi all,

I see a lot of reference to stats and builds for levelling up, but I’ve never bothered to obtain and use sigils or jewels for the upgrade slots in my gear. Then again I’ve not gotten past level 40 on any of my characters yet either!

My Ele, currently my focus, is only level 17. Should I be concerned about sigils and other items whilst levelling? Will it make a noticeable difference?

This is an interesting read. My Engineer is currently level 26 and I do ok (but not great) in PvE. I’ve tried all the kits and weapons but my problem with the profession is that the multitude of skills don’t seem to gel or flow properly. It feels like I could press 1-5 in Grenades (or 5-1), switch to flamethrower and do the same without joining them up in some form of strategy.

Maybe that will change as I play him more.

Thanks for your replies and thoughts! I think, given I’ve hit a ‘bump’ with my engineer and warrior that is causing me to investigate another class that I should do exactly that. And as Animus says, I’m no rush so I can afford the time.

For WvW zergs I don’t mind manning or protecting siege. But my guild is also considering running some small specialist groups to intercept and run interference. Zerg mentality is quick to drop their main objective for what they perceive as ‘easy’ kills even if they chase them all the way across the map

Hi all,

I’ve played since launch and have no character at 80 yet and I’m not in any rush to. However I would like to focus on one character in particular and I’m trying to choose between my Engineer(25), Warrior(26) and Guardian(11).

My goal is a character which is effective in group based WvW (my guild is in there a lot so I wouldn’t go solo roaming) and which is fun and interesting to level in PvE. I want to avoid a class where I’m forever stuck in one build or weapon set and only ever pressing 2-3 buttons.

The engineer appears to have a fair amount of versatility yet feels somewhat disconnected – skills don’t flow. The warrior has been pretty easy to level but it feels lacking in options compared to the Guardian. I need to get him to 25ish for a better comparison but I’ve also been pouring over the forums for insights into the class.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated.