Guild Wars 2

In the image the rifle clearly has all of those; stock, barrel, trigger and muzzle. Its even got a strap.

The Barrel is obvious. The muzzle is partially off the image. The stock and trigger are hard to see just due to the blurring effect in the lower left of the image.

I’ve included an annotated image for those who don’t see it.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Gunsnroll.2657:

Berelious.3290:

That looks to me like a Rifle.

Ok to settle this once and for all, look at those 2 pictures, if you still see a rifle, a spear or wathever else than a staff, you’re blind and I feel sorry for you.
Or you’re just a troll.
And the preview show the staff in game.

Yeah I don’t get how people can possibly see a rifle in what is quite obviously just a stick.

There is no stock, barrel, muzzle, trigger or any sort of mechanism on that entire stick. How could it possibly be a rifle.

It’s clearly a rifle. It’s just a magic rifle that doesn’t need a stock, muzzle, trigger or bullets.

It’s a blow rifle, kinda like those darts but much less range and has the possibility of the user passing out due to lack of oxygen.

Thief’s will get war horn, eles will get rifle, why not? It could happen.

Based on nothing but a trailer background character people concluded absolutely that Thieves get rifle. It could’ve been a random npc, npc’s dont have to follow the rules that professions follow, and it was later admitted (in response to spears) that the art team took some liberties when they made this trailer.

And now, based on a piece of artwork, people are concluding without a doubt that Thieves get the staff!
It could be anything, it could be a new story npc, or better yet one of the new Stronghold champions. Didn’t they announce one that stealths you as his support ability? Sounds like it could be a Thief based champion.

It would be quite a laugh when in the end Thief gets neither staff or rifle. That whole “no spec gets the same new weapon” is just speculation as well.

So…common forum speculation is that Thieves are getting staff for their elite spec now?

Fantastic. That is absolutely amazing, in that I will have absolutely no need whatsoever to bother with the new elite spec. Which, frankly, is less amazing as it is intensely frustrating. Seriously – in what world does handing Thieves oversized magic sticks make the remotest amount of sense?

We’ve been over this with the mace requests – there is nothing a new melee set can do that Sword/* doesn’t already cover. Sword/Pistol deals piles of damage, it stuns and interrupts like a mad thing, it has insane evasion, it has mobility and extra condition handling, it has a friggin’ pulsing blind field. Sword/Dagger rips boons, and has a great deal of cripple and other control on OH Dagger, as well as more evades on #3.

No mace, and no melee staff, are going to be able to keep up with the full-bar awesomeness that is the Sword sets. Sword/* is already better at defense, disruption, control, and damage than any bass-ackwards melee magic-stick could be, and if someone says “well maybe it’ll cast shadowy magic instead, huh?!”, I will mail them a set of instructions which will enable them to most efficaciously punch themselves in the mouth.

They may as well not even give the Thief elite spec a weapon at all if that weapon is going to be staff. What a horrible waste of space. This thing better have some positively insane traits, or some truly ludicrous utilities, if it wants to get any play at all over a bog-standard sword or dagger set.

Blagh. So freaking stupid…

Palador.2170:

Jordo.5913:

almost (90%+) everything that that_shaman data mines lately ends up in game

That’s all the more reason for the devs to throw in fake/junk data, though. They want to make it a big reveal, which they can’t do if it’s all datamined before they’re ready.

Im just picturing everyone at Anet reading this thread and the other like it laughing their kitten off.

@Xyonon: While I respect your points on the potency of power builds, I’m surprised you completely ignored the main point of my post: my condition mesmer build, as outlined above and even with some suboptimal combat choices (Runes of the Traveler), has been effective in solo world content, world bosses, and dungeons.

This is to say your dismissal of the build appears to stem largely from lack of experience with the build in question, as I have personally played the condition mesmer in all available PVE content, and it has performed swimmingly.

Furthermore, your claim that there is no “viable good” condition damage build for Mesmer relies on a rather poor definition of viable, in which you define “viable” as “better than other builds of the same class.” (in particular, power mesmers)
We who speak English natively know, of course, that “viable” means “capable of working successfully; feasible,”
and in non-competitive content has little to nothing to do with how it stacks up against other builds of the same class.
For a proper definition of viable, I can safely confirm that the clone condition mesmer build is viable, as it does sufficient dps in dungeons, open-world roaming, open-world events, and world bosses to be “capable of working successfully; feasible.”
Indeed, none of your points have anything to do whether the build doesn’t work.

Since my earlier post in this thread, I’ve done many additional dungeon runs, including multiple paths of Arah. The build has worked well in those settings.
I run the Silverwastes regularly, and do world bosses periodically. In all cases, watching my damage output, it puts out a strong showing, easily enough to put the lie to your claims.

Far from being a “mindless fanboy of conditions,” I have put the build to extensive testing because I do enjoy it, in ways I don’t enjoy my power mes, condi engi, zerker thief, power ele, celestial ele, healing ele or longbow ranger (I do enjoy those for their own reasons).
You, on the other hand, have demonstrated a “mindless” devotion to “the leetzors!” in your apparent insistence that a build is only viable if it is optimal.

This is straight up just not true.

penelopehannibal.8947:

DeathPanel.8362:

It’s doubtful thieves will get staff since rangers are already getting the staff. It’s also counter to the theme of thieves to use staffs.

If anything thieves lack long range weaponry and a rifle would round out the thief class in that manner.

ArenaNet never said each weapon will be unique to one elite specialisation. >.<

But judging from the current reveals that is the route they are going.

My point about staff not begin on theme for thieves and that they lack a dedicated long range (1200+) weapon is still valid.

There is clearly only one way to resolve this.

Thief spec will be melee rifle.

OP not only didn’t see that it was in the patch notes (which makes it not so silent), but also didn’t see that some people support the change. Nor does he realize that some people have asked for the change.

The whole idea of downscaling has always been to make content meaningful. That means you know, there’s a chance for something bad to happen to you. Maybe you don’t realize it, OP, but a lot of people have been complaining the game is too easy. This is a nerf some of us have been asking for.

I said it in the other thread, I’ll say it here, and I’ll probably say it again a few more times in the future: there is absolutely nothing this oh-so-vaunted melee staff can offer the Thief that Sword/* doesn’t already cover.

Want a defensive/controlling set? Sword/Pistol has a monstrous evade, a stun, a rapid-fire daze, a pulsing blind field, and Weakness on its autoattack. It also deals buttpiles of damage mostly by existing.

Run Sword/Dagger instead? Trade the stuns and dazes for stealth and all the cripple in Creation, as well as excellent boon control for the PvP types or the two and a half instances you need boon control in the rest of the game. Still do buttpiles of damage, still get extra evasions. Both sets have the Sword’s innate shadowstep approach w/extra condition handling and also a high-damage cleaving autoattack with Weakness to take the edge off incoming damage.

Pretty much the only thing the sword can’t do is instantaneous burst, and somehow I think the crazed-insanity Backstab builds have that covered. The Thief is packed with excellent and comprehensive melee options as it is. There is nothing this staff can do that will be worth bothering with insofar as melee goes, and we can all take a good long look at the poor Necromancer to see how well “dark spellcaster” goes in this game, eh?

Staff for Thief elite spec would be a bigger travesty than warhorn for the Tempest. At least the warhorn might force some weird creativity out of ArenaNet for the class, and the warhorn itself is narrowly distributed. Everybody and their blasted mothers has a staff, though, and between all those guys, everything the Staff can really do is already done.

Useless. Just friggin’ useless. What a lousy friggin’ waste of an elite spec.

I feel like it would be too powerful with both Ground Targeting or self-targeting.

Being able to drop it onto a choke point is ridiculous. And yourself standing on that choke isn’t too hard.

I remember pre-patch having a noob-tube build for fighting the Molten Duo Fractal if my group couldn’t ever survive. It was a “solo” build meant for taking your time. Traited Blink Portal Feedback with Mirror Heal and Medic’s Feedback (it had a 10s cooldown back then). Sit on a dead NPC or ally and pop the Feedback then proceed to GS auto attack. If Bers jumps on you, blink away (don’t forget to drop an entrance portal across the fight from you) and continue auto attacking. Maintain Feedback to prevent Firestorm from hurting you. If Bers is about to blink onto you, cast Feedback on him, then blink onto Feedback after he blinks onto you. Use Portal if you’re panicking (or trapped in flame circles). Swap to Staff2 if you have no more blinks. Mirror when necessary.

Suuuuuper slow, but it works. Also you can retrait and change your gear after Bers dies since you have about 10s to OOC and retrait.

If you could just ground-target a Feedback you wouldn’t need to focus on as much stuff, not that that means anything and I’m just tangenting super hard right now so bye bye.

MCHarris.5648:

Idk, could be wrong but the picture of the thief with what looks like a staff could possibly not be a staff at all, maybe him going about while holding the rifle. Idk I could be wrong

Or… better yet… It’s a stolen weapon…!

New class mechanic:

Steal now “steals” (copies) the weapon of whom you stole it from. So if you stole it off of a ele with a staff, you get a staff with thief staff skills, stole a great sword you get great sword skills.

But something like that would only be implemented in year 2059, considering how many skills they would have to make.

Megalasers and teleportation devices are fine, but I draw the line at pistols, dang it!!

GummiBear.2756:

talking about IP though, i feel there need to be more clarity about that for new mesmer, wouldn’t be surprised if basically any new mesmer from now on dont even realise you make the shatter effect on yourself as well, it is literally not stated ANYWHERE

Good point.

Lord Kuru.3685:

“Play how you want.”

Unless it’s not how we want you to play.

I have the feeling that ANet are really, really sorry now that they ever came up with the slogan “Play how you want”. These days, it’s basically a club that dissatisfied players use to beat the company over the head with every time they do something that said players don’t like.

While I understand the new system inconveiences people who are leveling, let’s objectively look at this in level ranges for when the patch hit:

- level 1-15 : not affected really.

- level 16-31: slightly affected, didn’t have that much hero points to begin with. WIll clear up by the time you hit 40-50. Not being able to get the elite you want is likely the worst aspect here.

- level 32- 45: probably the worst off since you are right in the middle of the leveling process. Hard times, agreed. Not having the 2 trait lines you want will be the biggest gripe.

- level 46-59: not as bad off as the earlier tier since you likely got some useful things unlocked unless you’ve been really unlucky. Still the 2nd tier from getting screwed over wise.

- level 60-79: serisouly? you are probably 5-10 hours from hitting 80 away anyway. Inconvenience, sure. Gamebreaking? No. Also the high amount of hero points gained the last few levels allows for corrections.

- level 80: non issue.

As mentioned, this is a problem that will correct itsself over time. I find people funny who delet mid level characters over this. The time you lose to relevel could have been spent finishing your toon and getting the skills/traits you want. To each his own I guess. Gaining skills/traits at low levels does take a lot longer compared to the old skill system though. Seems a lot of people miss that point.

The interesting thing about technological development in GW2 is how split-personality it can be. For example, in Sparkfly Fen, you have an event at one end of the map where you have to use basically medieval technology (trebuchets) to sink a Risen ship, and at the other end of the map, as we all know, the Vigil have a huge laser emplaced to defend against Tequatl.

What this thread needs is more people telling the OP the same thing almost everyone else in this thread has said but in different words.

I suppose after decades of elves everywhere, “fantasy” has adopted a very narrow definition, with everything deviating from that definition needing an extra label to be properly recognised as non-standard fantasy.
Science-fantasy, urban fantasy, historical fantasy… if it’s just labelled as “fantasy”, people expect Lord of the Rings and are disappointed when they get Dishonored. Less the fault of an individual and more of creators producing the same content over and over again (though I admit, I used to be guilty of that as well; trying to be more creative nowadays…).
It’s also not really higher expectations, rather it’s expectations of a certain standard, like the abovementioned elves, dwarves, mages with robes and a single monolith religion for an entire country. Take any of those things and change them, people will think it’s weird and “not really fantasy”. Frankly, anyone expecting those exact same things from their fantasy has actually pretty low expectations…

Saruman had exploding powders and the men of Bree were industrialized. Reall, we were just one step away from seeing orcs with muskets in Middle-earth. An AR15 would be out of place in epic fantasy, yes.

Algreg.3629:

a fantasy world is what its creators make of it, there is no “Tolkien´s mandatory guide to boring copycat scenarios”.

Reminded me of the start of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtdurL_bfsc

You can always wait to purchase Heart of Thorns until after it is ‘complete’. =)

Good luck.

Low AP players that are likely to be beginners have less than 1k AP. So any AP requirement higher than that is silly. AP requirements in general are stupid. There are better ways to identify inexperienced players in your groups.

Please take a screenshot of the same place with the same char. Texture quality isnt the same everywhere. I cant even tell which is before or after.

I thought people wanted challenging group content….

Phosphia.7813:

lil devils x.6071:

No, you often have like 5 from one team standing around waiting to fight one guy in addition to the guys afk at the keep, the ones using the crafting the guys standing around killing harpies and the guys running around looking for tree nodes.. What you wind up with then is 15 on pin fighting 40 from the other team. JQ has multiple guilds running on maps at once, not an “omniblob” like the other servers in our tier. What winds up happening when you have all the randoms come in is massively outbalanced fights due to roamers/ afkers.

There is nothing wrong in dueling or roaming. If anything, that’s probably a whole lot more worth while than blobbing up with you.

Trying to ruin the gameplay for people who don’t blob with you won’t get you any less AFK people.

Having AFK people in the keeps and spawns can be frustrating, but you won’t find the answer to that problem in a thread about dueling etiquette.

Having proper builds, parties and fighting equal numbers =\= blobbing, which in our case, we are usually not facing equal numbers, we are usually outnumbered. Cooperative team play =\= blobbing. We could actually hop maps on reset night, and you cannot do that when you have " map blobs." That is what it means to have large scale pvp. They already have a place for small scale pvp, and tbh it is better than dueling in wvw since the playing field is leveled and it is more skill based than gear unlike dueling in wvw. Why duel in wvw at all when we have PVP for dueling?

People are just too kittening lazy to go to appropriate spots. No one is gonna interrupt your duel behind the mill at SC or in the obsidian sanctum.

As a real Guild Wars 2 quote but talking here about the RNG mini pets:

Costed me around $300 USD to get them all from the lovely RNG we have going for us.

Is this really how ANet does things?.. I would have much rather bought the Mini’s in a pack from the gemstore instead.

Why should ANet make the items reasonably priced and not RNG when people show they are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on RNG? Answer, they won’t.