Guild Wars 2

Mine focuses more on evasion than stealth. Works brilliantly in WvW and PuG sPvP.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmkzz9mmblvomblvop9Mfxcscckq

Use LDB to stack bleeding and the dagger auto-attack (auto hits while dodge rolling if you roll through the enemy) to apply poison to prevent healing.
- 3 escapes with “Withdraw” and “Roll for Initiative” and “Shadowstep”.

- Initiative return from “Steal”, “Withdraw”, and “Roll for Initiative” ensures I can keep a stack of bleeds up even on people with purges.

- I use the Adventurer rune set for the extra dodge.

- “Steal” and “Withdraw” stack “Vigor” so I can keep up the dodgy playstyle.

Overall it makes me really hard to hit. And give me a way out if I do happen to get hit.
I use the carrion armor set/pvp jewel to give myself the boost in hp as well.

Highest I’ve seen so far is 146 per tick and that was with a 15 stack of might (might affects bleeds more than most would expect).

Scyatic.7604:

waeren.9743:

Also without subscriptions I’m guessing they have to be a bit more careful with server/bandwidth costs.

And unfortunate downfall of not having a subscriptions. There is no incentive on Anet part to beef up the infrastructure or maintain the player base. All the money is made getting you to buy the game, once that’s done its actually better for them if people not play ( till the next paid expansion).

Unfortunately, speaking as far as profit margin goes, this is totally correct. As long as the keep their promise of no “pay to win” items in store, the gem store simply won’t bring in the monthly income that a sub would from the average player at least those in WvW.

tarnin.1690:

Adaneshade.2409:

The difference is GW2 is using physics computations in particle effects which DAoC did not. There is quite a bit more being computed in a GW2 30v30 than a DAOC 200v200. Just give the hardware time to catch up.

But its not, their servers are not doing particle effects, your client is doing it. I have a very high end machine and still cannot see half of the enemies. It’s not my computer, its their inability to handle their own engine or netcode. One of the two is ins’t working properly or its some combination of both that’s making it junk.

I’m still wondering (I wonder if sniffing the stream is considered hacking)if they are using tcp packets instead of udp and its creating a ton of over head.

Yes client do “render” but the server still has to track locations of all of that to send the information to all the other clients seeing the arcing Treb shot or what have you. Vs moving targets, that’s white a bit of data being manipulated. Since shots have to be calculated in trajectory to hit whatever.
To my knowledge this has never been done before. Previously you fired “at” a target here you can just fire in a direction and hit anything that happens to stray in the way during that travel time.

waeren.9743:

tarnin.1690:

Adaneshade.2409:

fefner.5729:

Well we are not exactly talking about “many”.
DAoC subscription numbers weren’t exactly huge but the players just seem to be pretty vocal.

This is true but in Daoc we didn’t need to queue to get in to the “End Game”, they had servers and the technology for everyone to RvR with no lag, no invisible players, small groups could take on large groups by good team work and a system which made you keep playing through their Realm Rank system. GW2 supports zerging and it’s the zerging which made ppl quit many mmo’s with similar open pvp content.

This is where I’ll have to disagree with DAoC being the “Messiah” of PvP MMOs. Early DAoC RvR was just as, if not MORE laggy than WvW and just as zergy (Anyone else remember zergs having to take off cloaks so ppl wouldn’t crash?). It took quite a while for hardware to catch up. I expect the same thing to happen in GW2 over time.

This was only during relic raids. Yes, i too remember having to look at the ground, take my cloak off, and /stick and hope it made it to the keep. Outside of that massive force though (200+ people in one area going to fight antoher 200+ defending) the lag was almost non-existent. In this game a group of say 30 vs 30 , and most of the toons dont even load… its 2012 why is this kinda crap happening? Hell, I could even see the color and different armor types of the enemy! Not here. That game tracked all the same stuff this one does PLUS more and this was 12 years ago.

Also, once they went from flat file into to an actual database, that cured a ton of their lag issues (yup, original daoc digged info from flat files ala MUDs.)

Well we expect more from a game as well. All these extra polygons,shaders, textures, … are quite a bit more taxing.

Also without subscriptions I’m guessing they have to be a bit more careful with server/bandwidth costs.

Wish that culling issue didn’t exist though -_-;

Yeah kind of hate that they implemented that. The culling is on purpose >.< I can only hope they will be able to upgrade server to the point that they can remove that code sooner rather than later.

waeren.9743:

tarnin.1690:

Dware.4259:

waeren.9743:

Well we are not exactly talking about “many”. DAoC subscription numbers weren’t exactly huge but the players just seem to be pretty vocal.

Actually DAOC’s 250k was huge back in the day.

Different era before wow.

Exactly. Every post he brings up the “low” sub numbers. It was a gen2 mmo and those numbers were massive. WoW changed it all by dumbing the game down and making it where my mom could successfully play. DAoC was the FIRST with a 3 way open pvp war where you had “forced” allies. Instead of a FFA style, it was team based. It evolved over about 6 years then settled into what it is now. It WAS revolutionary and held peoples attention for a long time. This game needs to take the good parts of RvR and intergrate them or the game will die out. Look at WAR which was wow/daokittene. Hows that doing?

Well it wasn’t many, I’m not saying it was low.

About the numbers that UO had, about half of EQ had, less then l2, less then half of FFXI, less then swg, 1/10th of lineage subs. So yes I guess those numbers are ok but I wouldn’t call them huge.

If we would be using logic the this game should be a wow clone since it has lost less population percentage wise then DAoC?

It’s nice that you liked DAoC and yes some great suggestions have been made by DAoC people. But please DAoC is not this god game you proclaim it to be.

Yet you still neglect to address the argument of WvW being modeled off RvR. Until that is rebutted I will still claim that RvR comparisons trump those of any other game in terms of what will be successful and improve WvW as a whole.

The difference is GW2 is using physics computations in particle effects which DAoC did not. There is quite a bit more being computed in a GW2 30v30 than a DAOC 200v200. Just give the hardware time to catch up.

Keep in mind that Thieves guild has a 3 MINUTE cooldown too. So it’s one of those “save it until you absolutely need it” skills. Granted in 1v1 it is a bit of an “I win” button since it turns into a 1v3 essentially after that.

fefner.5729:

Well we are not exactly talking about “many”.
DAoC subscription numbers weren’t exactly huge but the players just seem to be pretty vocal.

This is true but in Daoc we didn’t need to queue to get in to the “End Game”, they had servers and the technology for everyone to RvR with no lag, no invisible players, small groups could take on large groups by good team work and a system which made you keep playing through their Realm Rank system. GW2 supports zerging and it’s the zerging which made ppl quit many mmo’s with similar open pvp content.

This is where I’ll have to disagree with DAoC being the “Messiah” of PvP MMOs. Early DAoC RvR was just as, if not MORE laggy than WvW and just as zergy (Anyone else remember zergs having to take off cloaks so ppl wouldn’t crash?). It took quite a while for hardware to catch up. I expect the same thing to happen in GW2 over time.

waeren.9743:

And no one that has not played DAoC will say that they did it better then the rest. Maybe you should’ve tried some other games? Can we agree to disagree? :P

As I said great idea’s are welcome, but DAoC ones and not DAoC ones.

All these DAoC references are just getting old quick. We all know them by now. Should I start posting L2/EQ(2)/SWG/Eve/WoW in every thread to balance it out a bit? After all, all most of those had bigger subscription numbers.

Except all of those are PvE-centric games with 2-faction short-game PvP making them useless examples in terms of this style PvP. (With maybe SWG and EvE being possible exceptions. However EvE is a sandbox and SWG was still 2 faction or FFA)

P.S. – None of those were cited by Devs as being even remote inspirations for their WvW system to boot.

Dware.4259:

waeren.9743:

Well we are not exactly talking about “many”. DAoC subscription numbers weren’t exactly huge but the players just seem to be pretty vocal.

Actually DAOC’s 250k was huge back in the day.

Different era before wow.

Good Point.
Have a look at WoW’s early numbers as well. They had only about 250k. The reason they grew so large over time was their PvE focus and excellent IP.

RPG PvP has always been a bit of a niche and PvP-centric games simply don’t support the numbers typically that PvE games do. That doesn’t make the points of players from past PvP-centric games any less valid; contrarily, they are more-so due to this entire discussion being about PvP.

There were other games that did sieges, true. But none of them can claim the accolades or success of DAoC. No one who played DAoC will say that anyone else has done it better. You simply don’t get as much universal acknowledgement without doing things right.
They did make some mistakes which caused a sharp decline in subs, but I see no one asking for those mistakes to be repeated here.

Just look at the number of posts by former DAoC players….still claim that “many” is inaccurate? In any case, we are the only group of people with any experience in this PvP style (3-way large scale objective based PvP in a fantasy MMO setting); and having seen it evolve over the course of a decade. We know what works and what doesn’t.
With GW2 being based on that system, perhaps listen to people who know what they are talking about?

Mikitten058:

DAoC is DAoC, GW2 is GW2, WoW is WoW, ect…

I don’t get why everyone is saying :

change xxx
_____game had it right
GW2 should change to how ________game was.

All the time. >_<
Like why play GW2 and then try to change the GW2 game into a game players have played in the past. I can understand valid concerns, however so many just want GW2 changed to what they are used to, and it’s getting a bit old at this point.

Go back and watch Dev interviews from pre-launch. Even they state that WvW is based on DAoC’s RvR system.

That system has been popular for over a decade now and for good reason. For the most part they succeeded in capturing the “essesnce” of RvR combat. These posts are simply from a players viewpoint on what made the RvR system fun.

They aren’t asking for “DAoC 2.0” there are plenty of differences that have been embraced, primarily the new “resource” dynamic. Also, I don’t see any ex-DAoC players complaining about the lack of buff bots or massive AOE CC. Ignoring other features that WERE greatly enjoyed just because “GW2 is GW2” would be a grave mistake.

The people posting these comments are speaking from experience and anyone fortunate enough to have played the games brought up will agree on the points made……if that many can agree then the idea must have some merit.

@ Asilion
“— If you want to have more of that “instant infamy” as soon as you steamroll someone, consider ditching your 10 man Abyss dyed CoF armor and go for distinct and crazy visual customizations. “WoW that purple-yellow-teal Power Ranger looking guy is unstoppable”

Problem there is that enemies can not see your dye color. If you are red team you show red, green team shows green, and blue team shows blue regardless of the dye color you pick. Only team mates can see your real colors but they see your name so it’s not an issue with them.

Indeed it is ^.^

The non-condition damage buff of orbs to me just validates my kills more :-P Since I’m really not doing any more damage with them.

You have a 916 base crit maybe closer to 24% or so but yeah I think ya should take another look.

Breaking it down carrion would gain a little over 6k hp and about 150ish more condition damage while reducing crit to around 26%. DPS wise it’s really pretty much a wash; it’s the HP that’s cool. However since I don’t have an issue with dying alot anyway, it’s gonna boil down to whether I’m willing to cough up the 35ish gold /gag worth of mats to craft an entire new set……

The crit tree seems like a waste, too if you don’t have +crit damage gear in addition to the crit damage from the line.

Yeah I’m avoiding the min-maxing scenario and I really like the minor/major traits in the power line plus the +duration from power.

Yeah I’ll look into it, although building yet another full exotic suit seems a bit daunting atm >.<

But then again, I wouldn’t caught dead charging into a zerg as I dislike the entire zerg mindset and prefer to do small fights vs ppl who hone skills…..Too many zergers get complacent spamming ranged stuff and never develop any real combat prowess of their own.
Not to say that’s you by any means, Knyx, as it takes some serious cohones to melee deep inside that mess.
I just like to fight vs ppl I actually respect as a real threat to me on their own not relying on some zerg.

Was a serious soloer/8v8 guy in DAoC as well, never was into the zergy siegey stuff.

Yeah to get away quickly I tend to shadowstep to a point where they chase then shadow return do 2x dodges spend init on hearseeker180 degree turn do both utility rolls then 2x roll and heartseeker again. Ordinarily the initial port/return confuses them just long enough for me to put enough distance for signet of shadows to kick in and I’m gone at that point.

Those items are the wrong ones, should have looked more closely….I’m using :

http://www.gw2db.com/recipes/8110-coral-orichalcum-amulet

with :

http://www.gw2db.com/items/26449-exquisite-coral-jewel-s

not sure why I selected those (brain fart).

One key thing to keep in mind if you do try my build is to save Withdraw and Roll for Initiative for disables and Shadowstep for knockdowns (I tend to use steal on CD as it’s a free poison refresh and gets me a goodie to use vs my target ^.^, prioritizing steal by class in 1vmany fights…Warrior > Necro > Mesmer > Engineer > Thief > Ranger > Ele > Guardian)

It’s true that if I fight enough ppl at once, someone will land something. I tend to pick my fights though. I am mostly a soloer and avoid the larger groups. I’m not going to sit here and say I win every 1v3 I come across or anything, I do get pinned down occasionally. I ‘m just assuming that it happens to every spec. I’ve nothing against the stealth builds at all, I just prefer my setup having tried multiple gearsets and specs.

Knyx.5926:

Adaneshade.2409:

I should add that the adventurer 6 piece bonus is worth more than any amount of HP as it effectively allows me to do continuous evasion while fighting. Don’t need higher HP if you never take dmg :-)

Same could be said for toughness, but in wvwvw it has been shown HP> Toughness.

Toughness only mitigates some……evasion is 100% as well as causing most attempts to CC to fail. I don’t claim to know how everything plays out. But with the particular rune/gear set I have I’m very effective in open field skirmishes. Granted it’s a VERY twitchy playstyle that many MMO gamers would not at all enjoy. (Almost feels like it follows the fight approach of capoeira by never stopping motion long enough to be pinned down)

Knyx.5926:

umm how are you getting 60% crit chance when with 30 into Critical strikes and all Berseker gear except like 2 jewels is at 52%. Also full Carion gear is going to get you more power then the points you have in Deadly arts

The sheer amount of precision on the Rampager’s gear, full precision spec only gets ya 300 precision…..Where I’m able to get 1915 out of the gear alone. I was mistaken on 60%, I must have checked with a buff up. With no orbs or buffs it’s 52%, my apologies. Still enough to allow me to be effective in both direct damage and DoTs.

I should add that the adventurer 6 piece bonus is worth more than any amount of HP as it effectively allows me to do continuous evasion while fighting. Don’t need higher HP if you never take dmg :-)

Actually, I like that I’m not a one-trick pony….since my build has plenty of power, combined with this gear my non-condition attacks are actually pretty decent plus I have a 60% crit chance without any spec in the precision line so I crit alot. This enables me to no be totally countered by classes with alot of condition purges because I can fall back to direct damage in a pinch.

no worries, I play exclusively in WvW, never PvE or sPvP. Because of that I use the following build……

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckzzc9cmlavomlavop9MfxcscVkq08kiO7khG7kiO7070M7kNo70V7ow270m

(Also has equipment setup) [Using full Rampager’s armor]

Knyx.5926:

@ Adaneshade I couldn’t disagree more.

High burst gib builds are better for sPVP and PVE, not wvwvw.
In PVE, since you have a stack cap on bleed, and a lot of abilities in the game do bleeding, you it becomes useless especially in a boss fight

In Wvwvw, if you are a high burst build all it takes is ANY other class to drop you in a few hits, 1 little touch of CC and you are DONE, with the high burst build you are only good at solo killing other solo players and lets face it, you both aren’t contributing to the war effort, you can do that in spvp.

With a condition thief in wvwvw you are 100x more valuable, not only can you kill solo, but running with a zerg you have a VERY important purpose. Whenever your zerg/group engages another zerg/group, you jump into the middle of your enemies zerg or go around it drop caltrops, hit a few death blossoms and dagger storm back in the direction of your group. This will 9/10 win the fight for your group by not only disorienting the enemy but doing nice damage AND slowing any retreat/kiting ability. At the same time if your group is losing this is another way of ensuring they have a successful retreat

Maybe you should reread my post, I just said EXACTLY what you did lol >.< not sure how you got the opposite? Conditions pwn WvW, crit for sPvP.

Shintai.5618:

If a thief had twice the HP, condition builds might be good.

But a thiefs life is basicly kill before you get killed. And with the low HP pool you better kill fast.

Also as said, conditions can be transfered, healed, removed.

This is not entirely true. We have so much mobility in combat it is quite possible to kill an opponent and never take a hit, or very few at least. The common mistake I see failed condition thieves making is that they actually stand there and get hit. You have to simply approach every fight as if it’s going to be a stand off of some duration.

I don’t have to kill them fast so long as I don’t let them hit me…..just chipping away at them bit by bit until they cave. It does work quite well and is (to me anyway) WAY more entertaining than simply insta-gibbing someone one trick pony style with a backstab crit.

Granted, this is from a WvW perspective. The reality in sPvP atm is you NEED to kill fast due to the close quarters. In WvW, though, conditions are very viable for soloers, even arguably stronger as they work well vs even tanky builds as well as glass cannons.

I use Rune of the Adventurer x6, Superior Sigil of Corruption, and Superior Sigil of Agony for my D/D condition/acro build.

I like my D/D condition setup vs warriors…the key is to roll towards them LDB right out of it and roll a second time immediately afterwards giving them no window to actually hit you. From there just stay out of melee range till endurance is back up and repeat. IN the event that they do manage to get a immobilize in pop withdraw or roll for initiative and resume your “hit and run” tactics. If knocked down, steal from them or use shadowstep.

Whoever that necro I just fought in CD borderlands between the garrison and godslore was, much props. You’re pretty good, was a hell of a fight!

~Shadowkat

@Wiredgunslinger
“Also helps them to win when they are blatantly cheating. Oh what’s this…our last keep in EB…no swords up….yet all of a sudden here’s their army at our 2nd gate. Yah ok IOJ.”

Look up 5-man rule ;-D. Combine that with water gate and it’s easy to ninja a keep.

This is true, but the question comes from someone obviously more interested in solo play than group play, hence the reply that, yes solo play that is helpful to the team is possible and does have a place. Killing yaks, scouting, etc as even you mentioned…..

Plus, every supply camp a soloer takes then causes the enemy zerg to be forced to commit personnel to retaking that, weakening their overall position.

@ Scorpio
" Don’t listen to the cowboys all going solo to kill 1-10% of an army on the move, they are what make servers lose. Never was a war won by one person ever…"

Are you honestly telling me that taking supply camps doesn’t help the war effort? If I can do that by myself that frees up the larger groups to take towers and other defensible objectives.

I solo as well, flipping Supply Camps, killing sentries, killing Yaks, Killing the poor hapless zerglings that get separated from their motherzerg…..It is actually quite profitable.

We actually have several good commanders on IoJ……several bad ones as well. The best seem to primarily be in EB at this point while the others play in borderlands…..

I look more at the guilds the commander’s represent than their names though, [AoJ], [RvR], [BP], (and several others that I can’t think of off the top of my head) which have commanders that are strategically minded.

Ah, too bad I’m on IoJ, sound like a good bunch of people.

Well said….what server are you based on? Or is this some kind of cross-server deal?

Sokar Rostau.7316:

I don’t think “blocking” means silencing them, especially since you can block them already. I believe it’s blocking the annoying icon floating above their heads.

Join the commander of your choosing’s squad……the rest are blocked after that.

Ah, ok. Got a little excited thinking my old alliance was reforming here >.<

Is this related to Tuatha de Daga alliance from DAoC as well?

Doesn’t work at all,
green team has green dye
red team has red dye
blue team has blue dye
…regardless of what your allies see, that’s all the enemy sees.

Short duration matches simply go to whoever zergs hardest, fastest unfortunately…..any balancing results would be skewed.

Not saying your plan isn’t great and all, (in fact I think it’s genious) I’m just thinking of available dev resources and the major issue we have atm with culling and exploiting that I’d rather they focus on first.

ALot of the problem rests with the players rather than the commanders at this point. Anyone who mindlessly zergs after a random commander would otherwise be an absolute waste of space beating on SM’s gates or some other equally pathetic task. (As a veteran Hibby from DAoC I’m honestly speechless at the tactical ineptitude of the masses here >.< Even alb zergs were more intelligent [can’t BELIEVE I’m saying that])