Showing Posts For AcidicVision.5498:

Appearance Change: When?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

They had make-over kits in GW that let you change everything but height, gender and base profession.

And there was a slightly more expensive extreme make-over kit that let you change everything but base profession.

The make-over kits were one of, if not the, biggest selling item in the cash-shop. It’s a pretty safe bet those are already on the table and you will see them eventually. But I’d expect them to be one of the more costly items. Comparable to additional character slots.

That’s why I’d like an ETA of some sort. Not a promise. Just a “we think we could have this by X time”

LOL! You’re a funny one. For the least five years, every single time anyone has asked Arenanet when anything will be available the answer has been “When it’s ready”. They remind me of Charelston Heston in The Agony and the Ecstasy. The day you get a direct answer from them on when a feature will be available or fully implemented, go ahead and give Gabe Newell a call also, and ask what the deal is with Half-Life 3.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

(edited by AcidicVision.5498)

Let me switch factions...

in Suggestions

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Made your choice kid. Now you’re stuck with it.

I like the look of some of the great swords better than short swords. My thief will never be able to use a great sword.

I like some of the light armor better than medium (especially Kodan balance set), I will never be able to wear light armor.

I chose to find my real parents. So I will never know what its like to have joined the circus.

I chose to help the Hylek at some point and now there is an army of stinky frogs in my home instance that I cant get rid of.

I picked Order of Whispers. I cannot have Vigil or Priory gear.

There are a lot of silly mistakes the game will let you make by not confirming things (buying soulbound Karma gear you can’t wear), but the order decision is not one of them.

There are also three achievements. One for joining each order. So re-roll and next time be more careful with you decision. The game only tells you it’s forever.

And saving individual points in an mmo so you can re-make decisions? wtkittens is that about? Instinctually make choices based on how you feel personally or from your characters perspective. There is no “right” or “wrong” path. They all lead the same place with equivalent rewards and a slightly different narrative. There is no rewind button because you didn’t like the way something played out. Your character ends up getting to own your decisions and that’s what makes it their story. At least most of you probably don’t have frogs in your house!

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Any Update on Bugged Orr SPs?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

If you have a Guardian that can help you out, staff skill 5 temporarily fixes them. It looks like they are “stuck” on their initial spawn points and never move to the area where you can trigger them.

The guardian skill knocks down and “un-sticks” them. When they get up, they walk in to position and you can interact to get SP.

…until they respawn, then they are bugged again.

It should be fixed, but if you are desperate then there is a work around.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Event Cap Makes Legendaries a Nightmare

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Since legendaries are items that were designed to take several months of playing to acquire…I do not sympathize.

They weren’t included for hardcore players with twelve hours day to grind out events and mats to get in a week.

So no, the event cap doesn’t make legendaries a nightmare. It makes extreme karma farming for the purpose of getting one as fast as possible in-efficient and you’ll probably burn out before you get close.

If you are farming the same events in a rotation enough to get hit with the anti-bot code, then you are doing it wrong. Story mode with guild-mates give big karma bonuses. Guild banners only take a few hours to create and give a big karma bonus. Consumables grant more karma. And these work in every 60-80 zone in the game.

I’m sorry, but IMO I would rather you add a little variety to your routine and earn your karma in one of the many ways available, than loosen up anti-bot anti-farm code and make the script and gold-farmer problem worse. State of game as whole > err mah geerdd I want legendary now!!

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

So, i bought the wrong exotic item with CF badges.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Maybe a pop-up warning about buying soulbound armor that isn’t for your class? That would allow you to preview something and still require an extra level of verification without having to bother GMs or retrofit the buy-back system to include dungeon tokens.

I mean, there’s a pop-up every time I want to salvage some crappy green boots that aren’t for my class and are 40 levels below me to make sure I am POSITIVE I want those mithril ingots. …It couldn’t hurt to add one to keep people from losing their dungeon tokens on something they cant use or maybe mis-spending them due to lag.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

I don't like scripted weather

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Well, looks like weather is something that won’t change any time soon. I’ve seen “speed up timers” , “slow down timers” , “make effects more common”, “turn effects off”, “there is scripted weather” , “the weather is dynamic”.

Just saying people, the areas where changes are usually implemented are areas that the community comes to a consensus on and says “yo, we really don’t like the way this thing works. Here is why”.

From this thread it actually seems like Anet did it perfectly. They hit the exact middle of the road. Upsetting a few people on the extremes of the too much/too little camps instead of every single person with an opinion on one side or the other.

With that…I can’t wait to see this Wintersday if there is going to be three ft of snow on the ground in Divinity’s Reach while Queensdale is the picture of Spring.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Our Time is Now Trailer. My thoughts.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Careful guys. I got an infraction for sharing my opinion on this in a similar thread last week. And my post wasn’t nearly as lambasting as some of the others here (or even the OP for that matter).

Anyways…no sir I didn’t like it. But I do admire that Anet stood behind their marketing team by telling us all we already bought the game, so we aren’t their target audience. Insinuating it wasn’t made for us, so it only makes sense we wouldn’t associate with or understand how it’s supposed to sell copies. Well we are consumers, gamers and the core demographic, so that seemed a bit snooty to me. But at least it was a response.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Which elite skill do you use?

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Thieves guild in PvE and dungeons. They are just too good at adding dps and taking the heat off of you. For skill point challenges and veterans I usually pop it instantly to burn down as much enemy health as possible before black powder chaining it to death for a nice safe kill.

In sPvP I use dagger storm with signet of malice and will occasionally trait in to venoms to get leeching and extra application. It’s a pretty reliable way to go from no to full health without burning your signet.

Basilisk venom has been beyond useless since they changed it in BWE2 or 3. Hounds of Balthazar seem to die much much faster than the thieves. Mistfire wolf can be fun when you are tra-la-la-ing around a zone, but not as useful in clutch situations as Thieves or even dagger storm.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Basilisk venom = most useless elite skill ever

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Yeah, it’s pretty bad. I ended up buying it because it’s the only elite available under water, but trying to ever use it in PvE ends up hurting more than it helps. And 1v1 or even 1vSharks in Raid on the Capricorn, forget about it.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Anonymity Hood

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

The fact its used to transfer a skin is regardless. The exploit is that there is a way to flip soulbound items from one character to another.

Soulbound items are meant to be character locked. A way to transfer a soulbound item (that even maintains its labeling), from one character to another, circumvents the binding system. And that is an exploit.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Mail exploit being used by gold sellers.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Something I noticed today that I’m not sure has been documented or not:

Gold sellers are flooding player mail with ads. Our inboxes our limited to 10 pieces of mail at a time from other players. But there is apparently a buffer for mail that stores what you do not have space to receive and delivers it when you free up room.

Checking my mail when logging in, my box was full of spam. As soon as I deleted one, I would instantly get another.

As fast as I could delete the mail, more filled my inbox.

Besides the obvious multiple violations here of TOS, it seems they have uncovered a passive aggressive way to grief players. You could send someone 100 pieces of mail and effectively block them from getting anything legitimately sent by other players until they sit there and delete each one individually. You wouldn’t even be aware your friend sent you an item until you sorted through them all, and I KNOW people would accidentally delete legitimate mail while clicking repeatedly to root through all of the trash.

This goes way beyond /m spam or the occasional mail. This is targeted harassment and has a direct impact on players and trade.

Now I am not sure how extensive the changes would be on the database side and in the mail framework, but a filter to not receive mail from anyone that is not on your contacts list would eliminate the gold seller spam, and potential for player abuse.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Auto-attack makes hidden thief trait useless

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Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Do you have the trait specced that causes steal to do damage? That treats the steal as an attack and will break stealth.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Hello my Bow user friends, read this if you want better bows

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

The Shortbow Skill 1 for the Thief is amazing. it hits every target for the same damage, bringing all of them down so quickly. Don’t know about the other professions though.

I love it to, but the there should be a skill chain that rewards multiple followed hits,

I think sigils proc based on hit. A sigil that causes burning for example, when you hit a guy it can proc burn then bounce to another guy and proc burn and then back to the first guy and add to the burn duration.

I have seen a single arrow hit a target up to four times. Now if you are specced for precision and have a 60% sigil, then that’s a kitten of a reward for follow up hits on multiple targets with a single button press.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

I don't understand the point of designing off hand light skills

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

One question though JonPeters, what about giving thief (for all 3 of their weapons) 5 abilities with no offhand? I hear thieves complaining all the time about lack of variety, so why not throw in 3 new weapon loadouts? Just a thought

This is a terrible idea. I suppose the main hand weapon should then have double stats to make up for loss of the three stat boosts + sigil bonus/effect + attack/defense bonus that you get from an offhand, that it magically loses when an offhand is equipped or swapped?

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Legendary Weapons

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

The forums are not an accurate reflection of the overall gaming community and also there is only about 3 or 4 people here actively challenging my perspective which is very minor considering in game I haven’t spoken much about it but already have like 100 people all feeling the same way as me within two guilds alone. This is a deep rooted question that I feel will be forever ongoing.

But it’s not a question. And it won’t be ongoing forever. Legendary and prestige equipment will always be aesthetic only. That’s one of the core tenets of the game. The day you see that change is the day you can buy a +200% xp sword from the cash-shop and they announce a $15 mo. sub fee. It’s never going to happen.

The only question you and your friends have now is whether or not you want to spend the time and resources chasing skins. Or what else you will focus on since legendaries aren’t worth it to you.

You can kitten on the forums and in /m all you want, but you will always get the same response. Regardless of how many silent/vocal supporters you might have.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Legendary Weapons

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Also… in regards to all the “Dude its a legendary it is supposed to be hard” bs. You are not reading my post correctly. I am not argueing the path to legendary being challenging I am arguing the items are not worthy of the title of legendary.

See…that right there is where you are screwing up. Did players from other games think they would flood in to this one and complain enough to change the entire design philosophy to fit what they are used to?

From day 1, and in countless interviews, videos, press statements and forum posts over the years since, it has been said repeatedly and plainly…max stat gear will be easily available to every single player. Dungeon, elite, prestige gear will be AESTHETIC only. Everyone stat wise is on an even playing field (hi balance), but the people that get to look the coolest and get the best titles are the ones that put forth the time and effort.

So the absolute best looking things, with the most impressive effects, in a game where the rarity of an item is determined by the uniqueness of its appearance are in fact…legendary.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Guild Wars 2 Breaks 2 Million Sales

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

My wager is that Snaylor hasnt complete even half of the things in this list…
Guide to End game

There is still a “carrot on a stick” so to speak. But there are multiple carrots and multiple sticks. That’s where people are getting screwed up. They genuinely have no idea what to do when they have options. Without being directly told what to do, they can’t find anything to do. /shrug c’est la vie.

On topic…Well done Arenanet. We have an over/under pool going at work for how long it will be until over 3 million is announced.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Legendary Weapons

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Its LEGENDARY dude. They should take a long time and be hard as kittens to get.

And Anet knows how to do hard weapons. Destroyer, Tormented, Oppressor, and Envoy sets took at the very least a month of solid focused game-play to the cause for the easier ones and well approaching or over a year for the higher end stuff.

So no, there is never “too much work” for a skin. In fact, the more work it is, the more rare the skin becomes, to more the prestige of having it. This has been posted a million other places, but ill add it again since some people must have missed it:

Guild Wars isn’t and never was about players getting their jollies by having a belt buckle that gives them a stat based advantage over other players. Guild Wars is and has always been about player’s getting their jollies by being more skilled than other players…and having a bad kitten belt buckle to show off an accomplishment to all passersby.

I feel sorry for your disposition. If they follow the same trend they are known for, every content patch and expansion is just going to increase the time and investment needed to create these skins. Destroyer → Envoy , Obsidian → Vabbian.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

A grueling decision.

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Its just not for some people dude. My fiance started with the engineer, leveled it to 30 and absolutely hates it now. She said she would delete it, if it wasn’t her highest level character and have so many pretty things already. So she rolled a Guardian and is loving every minute of it.

On the flip side a guild friend of mine had a Guardian he leveled to 17 and wasn’t liking it at all. Was constantly asking advice on how he should trait, what skills he should unlock, what weapons to use, because he just wasn’t having fun with it and assumed maybe he was just playing it wrong. So he rolled an Engineer and is having a total blast (no pun) and won’t shut up about it.

Just try them all. Eventually you’ll find a class that clicks and it might be the one you thought youd never care for.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Endgame missing

in Suggestions

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Hey look, we have a thread chaulk full of things for you to do…

So You Hit 80? A Quick Endgame Handbook

If you can’t find anything there to keep your interest, well, it’s not that the game doesn’t have anything to do. It just doesn’t have that particular thing you want to do.

Edit: HA! Ill figure out this textile thing eventually

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

(edited by AcidicVision.5498)

Very annoying feature in-game!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

In the control options set a hot-key to target the closest enemy. Done and done.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

So, yeah I'll say it. Any working DPS meter mods out?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

That is why any decent dps meter tracks all those things. As for antisocial, well, internet is antisocial anyway.
Anti-casual is preciselly the reason why it is not implemented I think. Right now no way to check who has subpar gear, who autoattacks all the time and fails with dodges regularly. Why is that? So that no feelings get hurt, everyone is a “winnar” and is “speciul” snowflake.

An armory style system that lets you look up someones gear and stats is on the way. The extended experience stuff all took a back seat to launch and ironing out existing systems, but we are seeing it all being slowly added. Beginning with these forums.

Have you played explorable mode dungeons yet? Did you play PvP in the original GW? ArenaNet doesn’t care about your feelings. They don’t give a kitten if you feel special. Their stance has pretty much always been, if you aren’t good enough at PvP then get better. If there’s a build that is giving you trouble, figure out how to beat it. If you want to look shiny and unique, then earn it.

I can’t tell if your total misconception is coming from some sort of bias or unfamiliarity with the game or developers. But once you finish story mode, the hand-holding stops and Anet sits back and smiles while players enrage each other with new and cheesy ways to murder one another until a counter is discovered, and their end game dungeons invite you in and then spit your character back out leaving their kittens sore for days.

Anyways, as other people have said, there is a huge portion of the player base that still cant figure out the lack of tank/healer/Dps thing. Just last night I seen “Tank LFG AC SM”. That guy will probably be looking for a while. There are even more players that are totally confused as to why they die all the time and why the ele or guardian aren’t “keeping healz on them”. Not kidding here folks. Cant make this stuff up.

Something like a DPS meter isn’t needed until people figure out how to be accountable for their own survivability and until they figure out how to actually play their class. I’m normally all for options and information analysis. But in this case, there is an ocean of kitten-hat players out there that actually are pretty “speciul” in the way they haven’t realized yet this isn’t their old MMO and giving them a tool from their old mmo that they reflexively view as a personal bench-mark and comparative classification metric is a horrible horrible idea.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

So You Hit 80: A Quick Endgame Handbook

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Why isn’t this stickied so we can just link it every time someone starts complaining about end game and nothing to do?

BTW, I would recommend adding obtaining the commander titles for WvW so you can lead squads, helping to level up a guild for storage/buffs/area events (feast, banners), claiming keeps for your guild in WvW for the status, hunting down all of the puzzles in the game and getting the achievements for them. And since you have Orr and decent cash generation, play the trading post.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Sword + Pistol seem a bit weak

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

My build is similar to DevilDoc’s. 30/30/0/10/0. Im stacked for precision/condition damage on my armor with 4 major infiltration runes, one major vamp and one major balth. Power/prec on my accessories. Earth runes in my weapons to cause bleed on crit (since I aoe crit almost all the time) and major sigil of corruption on my offhand.

Im not sure that build would be viable at all with p/p, since you need to trait into ricochet and short-bow gets it for free. Or with d/d since your best way to aoe stack bleeds would be leaping death blossom and that’s unsafe without again re-allocating traits or wasting utility slots.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

What are your favorite slot skills?

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Shadow refuge and smoke screen have pretty much become mandatory when I am doing dungeon runs.

I tried it a few times to experiment and now it’s pretty much expected that when one or more people go down, a shadow refuge drops on them for stealth rez and life-steal field. And during initial pulls smoke screen goes up for everyone to combo through to blind melee and to lure in ranged. Generally, if smoke screen isn’t on cool down, then it goes up somewhere.

Roll for initiative is also really really handy. Particularly in the Waves and Citadel dungeons.

I haven’t checked it much in other dungeons yet, but in Ascalon catacombs, scorpion wire will let you pull mobs out of a group without aggroing all of them.

Pro-tip: In the Crucible of Eternity dungeon, smoke screen is one of the only skills that RELIABLY blocks the final bosses one-shot kill ability “Kill shot”. Dodging is difficult, reflecting does not work, interrupt does not work, and breaking line of sight on pillars does not work.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Sword + Pistol seem a bit weak

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Slot 3 – Pistol whip has much much more utility than heartseeker. It’s an interrupt, a snare, applies multiple stacks of conditions, does aoe damage, evades some incoming attacks and has dependable damage regardless of enemies health level. In these ways its like a less hibbity hoppity around version of heartseeker and leaping death blossom combined.

Slot 2 – since death blossoms multi-hit, evade, and aoe is covered by 3, that leaves 2 open for another skill. Infiltrators strike. A very dependable get out of jail free card, that ignores snares. The Dagger/Dagger substitute is 5, which stealths you and inflicts a condition, but does nothing to help you if you are snared, stunned, poisoned, crippled, or bleeding. You are invisible and likely dying slowly or just stuck in place.

A nearly 100% safe combo for thieves in PvE is short bow disabling shot(3) to slow and space, a few arrows to apply venom (utility + 1), weapon swap and infiltrator strike(2) in for two pistol whips(3,3), shadow return (2), and weapon swap back to short bow to finish off or recharge initiative on boss mobs.

Slot 4 – Dancing daggers is nice but they are sort of like short bow – lite. You already have a ranged set of either pistol/pistol or shortbow. And if you are runed out efficiently your main set off-hand procs an effect or enhances your next attack on swap. So why use a ranged attack shoe-horned on to a melee weapon rather than just swap sets for huge gain? A pistol offhand gives you headshot, and lets you chain daze enemies, which is especially useful on veterans. Over-all much more useful than flipping a dagger at them.

Slot 5 – We already went over the risk with vanilla cloak and dagger. In PvP this skill is a kitten good reason to take a dagger off-hand because of the amount of harassment you can do with it. But its meant to be an evasion skill and it’s horrible at evading PvE AI and mitigating damage.

Not when the alternative for another set is the god-like infiltrators strike, with black powder in the 5 slot. Black powder is an AOE blind and creates a smoke combo field. Another great combination, if you have been in the thick of things for too long or just forgot to set infiltrators (2) and need to get out is Black powder (5), short bow weapon swap, disabling shot (3). If you haven’t been paying attention, that is AOE blinding enemies, moving away to safety while simultaneously shooting through your own combo field and AOE blinding again.

tl;dr: d/d – Anything is flashy and fun. But s/p – shortbow gives you more options and flexibility, still does respectable damage, and provides much higher survivability.

Note: I was comparing plain Jane skills here. I know that proper traiting can make up for some of d/d’s short comings. Namely Cloak and Dagger. But I prefer my traits to level up my utilities and attacks without having to bring them up to par first.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

(edited by AcidicVision.5498)

Let's see some thief pics

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Here she is. The screen shot was in hi-res, but forums don’t allow bmps

Attachments:

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Game Improvement - Suggestions

in Suggestions

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Suggestion for guild UI:

Move the Add Friend and Kick from guild options away from each other in the click context menu! Lol, people keep getting accidentally kicked from the guild.

Or at least have a click to confirm for things like kicking and blocking.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Underwater Thief Skills

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Nine tailed strike. Thats all you need. Get in melee range, use the skill. If the enemy attacks, you do about omgwtkittens amounts of damage. If they don’t, you regain initiative. Lather -> rinse -> repeat.

I have killed veteran level bosses, including story bosses, using this skill alone. And they never did one single point of damage. It’s easily the most ridiculous skill in the game, with consideration to land and water skills.

Seriously. Get right up in the bad guys face and just sit there with a spear and hit 3.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

The role of Thieves, and the lack there-of.

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Blah blah…blah blah blah…blah blah blah

Lol, you tried to put all those things in to one build? This explains everything.

I pointed out the advantages you can gain from stealth. You pick the few that are effective for your play style. You don’t try to do EVERYTHING.

Yes you can spec to rely completely on heart-seeker and pistol whip, if you want to strike hard, fast and get out. 2k damage? I see you have done your home work. Try about 16k+ damage in less than 3 seconds.

If you dont believe thats possible we can sync up in sPvP any time and ill be glad to show you. You will never see me. When I hit you, you wont be able to do a thing. You will be dead and stomped before the stun duration would have even expired and by the time you spin your camera around to see where I went, i’ll be gone.

Thats a thief. No other class can do that.

In WvW those types of builds are more difficult. There is a risk reward relationship. Its harder to stay alive during a siege, but once the gates are broken you can pretty much guarantee a gank on the lord.

Once again, this all comes down to the player and not the class. At this point I think Thief just may not be your forte. Maybe you should try something else.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

The role of Thieves, and the lack there-of.

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

- You can trait to blind people when entering stealth, that puts you at an advantage.
- You can trait to move faster in stealth.
- You can trait to get a 100% crit chance coming out of stealth That trait and assassins signet + heartseeker is plus TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY percent damage. …out of stealth.
- You can trait to heal while in stealth, along with shadow refuge this is akin to having a second healing skill. Which puts you at an advantage.
- You can trait to regain initiative in stealth which, allowing instance access to weapon skills while a target’s are probably still in cool down. This is an advantage.
- Weapon skills can be completely safe on whiff by triggering stealth + granting stealth bonuses. See: cloak & dagger for a hit confirmed guaranteed crit on heartseeker or pistol whip. Why? Because it put you in stealth.

At this point I’m just pretty sure you haven’t spent any time getting familiar with the class and finding it’s strengths and utilities and are just mad it doesn’t work the way you want. So it’s impossible for you to see any of the advantages or possibilities. They are there. And most people in WvW and sPvP alike are of the opinion thief stealth and trait combinations are too strong.

Even the thief players can sometimes admit the stuff we can do to people just isnt right.

Edit: Also, I can survive WvW encounters I might otherwise lose because I can turn freaking invisible. If you can’t escape combat using stealth, you are doing it wrong. Plain and simple. If you ARE escaping combat and situations where other classes would otherwise be stomped…congratulations, you saved yourself having to do the ten minute run of shame back from your base. And that also is a pretty kitten big advantage.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

(edited by AcidicVision.5498)

Thief Build.

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

I have been using sword/pistol – shortbow for the majority of the game. Level 80 now. My traits are 10/30/0/30/0.

My armor and accessories are stacked entirely for crit and condition damage.

My sword and short bow are runed to cause bleeding on critical, and my pistol is set to give me a stack of +condition damage per kill, up to 25 stacks.

All said and done, I have about a 60% chance to crit + 5% on dual skills + 5% when flanking.

Generally I just shoot shortbow in to a crowd and my arrows bounce between targets, crit-ing and proc-ing bleeding multiple times on each one (I love short bow crits, they bounce between targets like a pinball). I position myself where I can hit as many at once as possible, weapon swap, and pistol whip. Once again, hitting multiple enemies, multiple times, and stacking even more bleed on just about all of them.

After that I can pretty much walk away and watch them die. Even on Orr. You can wipe out 4-5 mobs at the same time in about 7 seconds and it’s almost 100% safe (some mobs chain stun/knock down, I started taking roll for initiative to prevent that).

Lots of fun.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

The role of Thieves, and the lack there-of.

in Thief

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

I like my role in WvW as a thief. I personally have a blast stealthily setting a shadow trap or trip wire in front of an enemies gate portal and murdering them as they think they have reached safety.

Or running in stealth past the last few players/guards on the way to a fort lord and haste/pistol whip ganking him as the rest of my team shows up behind me for easy clean up.

Night crawler bamf builds are amazing for terrorizing supply lines and camps.

There are a ton of sneaky thief-y things to do. And I have more fun doing them and feel like I am contributing more in the long run than I do as 1 of the 10 elementalists or rangers that sits on a wall randomly pelting the zerg outside.

I think the issue here is more that the thief role just isn’t the one you want it to be.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Accidently promoted a Guild leader

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Well I haven’t had this problem specifically. But I have thought about it since my guild has two leaders. Its highly unlikely there would ever be some weird power struggle, but if one ever had to get rid of the other I wondered if power would default to the guild creator by default.

Speaking of guild window mistakes…anyone else have a problem with the kick button being right next to the represent button? I must have kicked a good four people on accident by now and had to invite them back. Those two should probably be separated a little more.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

A recommendation to Arenanet- PLEASE CONSIDER

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Question for the poster: Did you bother to read the title of the forum and what this forum is for, or did you just willy nilly pick one at random to host your tirade?

Out of curiosity, before this gets locked for being off topic.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

What's Going on with Heartseeker?

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

As a thief that builds around heart-seeker or pistol whip in PvP, I think anyone that has a problem with those skills should try them.

To get the damage that a lot of you are seeing means the thief is going all out precision and power. Traits and gear. Also, abilities are chosen specifically for that burst. Haste and Assassins signet usually.

So what you end up with is a super bursty glass cannon that cannot soak damage, cannot mitigate damage, cannot remove conditions, and can only do a full skill rotation on a target about once a minute. AND we still have to hit with it. Heart seeker isn’t the easiest thing to hit with, and pistol whip roots you in place to be punished if you whiff.

Beyond that we are usually running for our lives to circle cap abandoned command points while we are on cool-down or picking off players with low health from a safe distance with a short-bow.

Minimal investment in to toughness, dodging heart-seeker, or any sort of interrupt once a thief starts running at you usually means he has already burnt his abilities for the attack and you have just nullified the entire thing.

Nerfs aren’t always the answer. Recognizing and understanding how to combat the class is the answer. That might mean you need to try it yourself for a little while to see what works, what doesn’t and how things are actually done.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Reached Master Chef...Now what?

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Feasts I believe are a guild thing. Politics 5 if I recall lets your guild host a feast in one of the towns and any allies in the area can come get food for buffs.

The recipe for gift of food is bought from the mystic forge lady for 10 gold. I also think there are special recipes you can buy for karma from some NPCs.

Extensive list here: http://www.guildhead.com/discipline/3/chef

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

The cost of helping friends

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Monsters have different skills at different potency in relation to the number of players they are against and the damage its taking. Hrm…guess a better way to say it is the more players a monster is fighting, and the more it gets hurt, the more of its skills are unlocked. And just like player skills, the further down its bar it goes, the stronger the skills are.

So your theory is correct. They aren’t powers just because you are scaled down, but maybe you are hitting it a lot more and a lot harder than you did when you were level appropriate. Or there are more people participating. So now you’re seeing it do new stuff.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Reached Master Chef...Now what?

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

High magic find foods are the GREATEST! Not every one has realized this yet. But as more and more people reach orr and are farming dungeons, you will start seeing people buy stacks from the trading post.

My guild tries to keep our storage stocked so members can level faster and make more monies.

Other than that, start looking in to gift of food and collecting the stuff you’ll need for that after buying the recipe. Its an item a lot of people will need to craft their legendaries and you should be able to make a pretty penny off them once you recoup the initial investment.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Looking For good Thief trait build

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

The path of double dagger – double pistol is one wrought with temptation. The excitement of battle, the glimpse of a limping target. It’s these times the beast of DD-DP overpowers self control, and against all rationale, some primal fit over takes the thief and they mash away at Heartseeker or Unload with such fury that the keyboard trembles.

When the fugue passes, the Thief usually finds himself drained of initiative. Signets, elite, and healing skills all on cool-down, face down in the mud. The battered victim of a Guardian or Mesmer who’s weapon choices did not take ill possession of their wits and patience.

Huge rewards await the truly disciplined. The secret of the 9k heart-seeker. The ricocheting pistols of infinite bleed. These are only for those who have mastered the beast and forsworn duel skill talents until their true power is understood and can be harnessed and controlled.

Gods be with you.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Black Lion salvage kits should be exempt from karma item salvage prohibition.

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

People found small mistakes and exploited them to the tune of tens of thousands of items, generating hundreds of gold. Anet put in measures to fix it before long term damage was done to the game wide economy.

A more polished fix is probably being designed that doesn’t involve inflating the price of karma items and limiting their usefulness.

If your hull springs a leak, you do whatever you can to stop the water and then worry about patching it up and making it pretty when you get back to shore.

Blame the kittenholes that had to grossly exploit something in an attempt to get over on other players. They are the reason we get nice things taken away. Just have to hope a little less heavy handed solution is on the way now that they have time to come up with one.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

The cost of helping friends

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

I think you’re doing something wrong dude. Even at level 80 way-pointing from one end of the world to the other costs less than 4 silver. Areas in the same region usually cost about 1-2. You should be making back whatever you spent to travel somewhere within the first 10 minutes or so of being there.

The only exception I see to this is running around an area and unlocking all of the way-points, then teleporting around the zone to grab the map objectives afterwards. That’s something I would do at very very early levels to clear areas I didn’t particularly like. Now though, it would cost around 25-30 silver. And you lose anything you would have gained from normally doing DEs in route. So I just hoof it (…like a centaur).

Also, backtracking in lower areas, you shouldn’t really be dying more than six times, which is the number it takes to break a piece of armor. You are down scaled but still have the benefit of all skill slots, traits, jewelry bonuses, and higher level rune and sigil effects. Sure you won’t be rofl stomping everything in the area but short of soloing champions or DE veterans standard area level environment renown and heart mobs should barely be able to touch you.

You may want to examine your gear and trait choices or where the flaw is in your play style.

Far as rewards go, dynamic event cash and xp, and the karma for going back and helping friends is always nice. Also gives you a chance to get some low level mats for crafting while you are in the area playing with people and save a trip later if you need them or pick up a new craft.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

A word of advice: Don't buy keys.

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

So what I get from this is YOU didn’t feel the items in the chest were worth it and found little value in them while OTHER people did.

Some people have gotten more value in gems out than they put in and some haven’t. Go figure there would be such disparity and someone feeling they didn’t get their money worth when playing with an item that is essentially a nickle slot machine.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

What to do with lvl 80?

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

There are 50+ puzzles in the game that there are achievements for. I doubt the OP has hunted down and completed all of them.

I doubt he has completed the three additional paths for each dungeon. I can buy a bug preventing progress on one, but not three.

I would wager he doesn’t have a legendary weapon, or prestige set of armor.

I would be surprised if his PvP rank was above deer. And extremely surprised if he is a commander or has even held a fort claimed by his guild in WvW.

Leveling 1 character to 80 means you have a character in one of THREE factions in the game. So you haven’t seen nearly a third of the story content.

Maxing out one crafting profession of the eight is dismal.

Congratulations. You hit 80, but in the scheme of things have actually accomplished very very little. But now that you don’t have to worry about leveling any more you can actually enjoy everything the game has to offer.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

(edited by AcidicVision.5498)

I can't get over token farming

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

This is funny…one half of the forums “There is nothing to do after max level! I don’t think i’ll be playing long!” and on the other half of the forums “The rarest and most exotic stuff in the game takes too long to get!”

If you all ever got together you’d have the most self-entitled, impatient babies ever to exist.

Nothing in the game requires you to have a specific armor set. If you really really want one for your character, then do whats required. If what is required is too much for you, then you don’t get the thing you want. There is plenty else to enjoy. -Fin.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Zhaitan's a weenie (spoiler)

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Agreed. The entire encounter could be summarizes as:
Fight risen→Zhaitan cut-scene→fight risen→Zhaitan cut-scene→fight risen→Zhaitan cut-scene→fight risen→sit in a turret that doesn’t move or identify-ably target or hit and mash two until the life bar is empty with no threat whatsoever.

My guild honestly didn’t believe it was over. We sat there after he fell and waited for “the hard part”. Then we exited and went to the next story bit thinking he came up from the ocean for one last attack while everyone was celebrating. Nothing.

AMAZING story. EXCELLENT pacing and delivery. Kittening poor finale. The claw of Jormag and Tequatl are much more involved, interesting and challenging dragon encounters. Maybe its a case of he just never being able to live up to the expectations everyone had…but when the only time your character actually attacks an elder dragon, he sits there for 5 minutes doing absolutely nothing…its really disappointing.

Some in my group were actually comparing it to a sort of recent boss dragon fight in another popular game. Fight on an airship, oh look a dragon sitting on a tower, oh look he fell down into a whirlpool, “I wonder if we fill fight on his back next?”. It was just really sad.

I mean…dudes, its a dragon made of dragons. He could have flew behind the airship and attacked with his 45 dragon tongues. Or gone under the airship and had them come up through the deck. He could have had freakin eye lasers that insta-downed unless you read the attack and got in Logan’s bubble shield (ala human intro).

Its probably too late to do anything about it now. But I hope they put aside a little time and creativity for the next elder dragon.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Trading Post underpricing

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Let me check my silver….ummm, I don’t think I’m going to be able to buy 4500383 orders of leather…..hmmm.

That’s a common crafting material. If I’m not mistaken the OP was talking about actual crafted goods.

Green and up weapons, armor and accessories. Even things like boxes and bags. Rarer crafting materials or sigils. Usually those things have 1-6 units at the obviously under-cut price. And unless you are just starting out, its a trivial thing to buy 6 10-slot bags at the lowest asking price, mark them up and repost them.

Common crafting goods…merch what you don’t need or put them in the guild vault. Unless you care about that 1 or 2 copper more per unit than the merchant offers and are willing to wait for it…

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Trading Post underpricing

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Well I hate to give away my secret, but it may help to stop all of the complaining a little bit. Here you go: buy the competitors stuff and re-list it. If I have an item listed for 6 silver, and someone under-cuts me and sells the same thing for 5s, I buy theirs and re-list it. Re-listing at my price means I have profited 89 copper on the item. Or I re-list for a few copper higher than my original price to profit an even silver.

The result of doing that is you have cost your competitor money since, with TP taxes included, they were selling under vendor price. You have profited off of their loss (a small profit, but one none the less). You have removed a competitive item from the shop, improved your original items position, and if you list the newly acquired item at a different price than your original then you have at least the top two listings for the thing you are selling.

A player could honestly go in to the market with just a few copper in their pocket, buy the lowest priced listing of an in demand item, sell it a few copper above the next lowest price listing and be rolling in the silver within a few hours.

The longer the game goes on the more alts people make that need crafting materials and gear. The market will tighten up and prices will stabilize. So while you have the chance, why don’t you take advantage of the people that haven’t figured it out and make make a fortune instead of sitting around complaining like akittenabout someone trying to snipe your sales?

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Guild Wars and no Cloaks?!?!?!

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Its a gold. And it changes your armor which pretty much sucks.

I had a chest piece I was really fond of and thought using the emblem was just going to decal the design on to the back or front of it. Nope. Instead it replaced the entire look to the armor you have by default when you go in to the mists, and put the decal on the front and back.

I’m sure the guild weapon-smith will do the same thing and I’m not interested in having my exotic skin sword being transmuted to a standard Tier 1 cultural skin for the benefit of having a tiny emblem on it no one will really see.

All said, I would much rather have the cloak, or maybe some sort of sash, or even guild town clothes that can have their visibility toggled (like gw: never, always, only in towns, only outside towns), than an overpriced super common piece of gear that you have to wear if you want to display your guild emblem.

Guild armorer and weapon-smith are two of the very few things I am sour with about the game.

So yes, there are options to display your emblem. They just aren’t very good ones and are very expensive for what they are. I would suggest just holding off and hoping a better alternative presents itself.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand

Warning: Players beware of satchel armor crafting

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: AcidicVision.5498

AcidicVision.5498

Dude, the games been out a week or two. If it looks like its an obvious mistake, report it as a bug. It probably is. Millions of lines of code, items, tables, crafts, mystic forge combinations, loot tables, vendor lists, ad nauseam. So the likelihood of a single digit typo lingering around is entirely possible. Its already been found with some cooking stuff and karma vendors.

Besides that…its a freaking crafting recipe. You accidentally crafted one thing in a digital world, where everything is replaceable, and you were disappointed so instead of shrugging and moving along, you’re just going to take your ball and go home? Part of crafting is the experimentation. Part of experimentation is risk. Risk comes with gains and losses. (begin sarcasm) I’ve spent hours in explore-able mode dungeons, spent nearly a gold on repairs, and gotten garbage loot at the end. Curse you Arenanet! (end sarcasm)

I don’t know how old you are, but be prepared for a long long road of being angry and quitting things, because life if full of little disappointments. You possibly learned a lesson…if you dont want to spoil discovery by looking up the recipes, then there is an inherent gamble of not getting out what you might put in. If you don’t want to gamble, then look everything up.

The Kismet
Dragonbrand