Guild Wars 2

It’s at noon PDT at http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2.

I had to figure this out too, found it on twitter. Would it really have killed Devon to add that useful information to his “Check out my livestream on Fri for more exciting info guys :PPP” replies.

JDribbz.6520:

To the TC charr thief in [PiNK] wielding the incinerator , well played duel sir until you ran off that is O_o

That was me!

It was a cool battle, we swapped having the lowest health countless times, I threw out my elite then you threw out yours, neither of us did any cheap crap or ran away to reset.

Good d/d elementalists are a brutal 1v1. We both have a lot of mobility, healing and condition removal, so it’s an attrition fight. I think you were winning though, you maintained a little more HP than me and if I started getting sloppy with dodges it would’ve been bad.

I bailed because that thief threw down that dagger storm, that plus the other SoR standing around made it feel a little unfair.

Good duel man, cheers.

I’m specifically referring to the thief Black Powder (pistol off-hand 5) ability. The guild wars 2 wiki states in every relevant article that enemy projectiles passing through a smoke field should miss.

Smoke fields don’t seem to have any effect on incoming projectiles.

Clearly the wiki is wrong, but is this by design or a bug?

I’ve been really trying to make d/p work in PvP. For 1v1 it’s great. But allowing projectiles to get through makes the survivability way below that of a stealth spamming build. No matter what I do, no matter how much death metal I play and mountain dew I drink, nothing will change that I’m a sitting duck while “rooted” in that tiny field.

BP is already hard to work with: enemies easily move out of it, aoe’s, cone attacks, charges (most/all knockbacks) are unaffected by it, high initiative cost, a relatively long cast time, trash damage. I can only assume it was intended that it block projectiles like the wiki describes.

It would be great if upgrade purchases worked cooperatively so, for example, anyone could contribute to buying a 75S upgrade and get an gold/silver/bronze event reward relative to their contribution when the upgrade completes.

Something like that would incentivize people to buy it as a way to “buy” karma & xp (even better if outmanned) and keep them invested in the objective point and staying in the map.

There’d have to a minimum contribution amount or else everyone would donate 1C.

You can also switch weapons and do both if you have mad skillz.

I know you love your up leveled 1v7’s but when that friendly jumps in to help a few DB’s will wreck face. Those things do about 4.5k per target if the bleeds aren’t removed.

Mumu.6203:

Well it’s the price to pay to make sure that the whiners can get their stupid useless honor badges or their WvW kill count point …

No. It’s not.

Every problem mentioned about the alt-F4 instant death solution is solved by having a 1-2 minute disconnect timer that every other major MMO uses. The DC timer fixes many problems common to all MMO’s, such as getting booted out of a full borderland and fractal disconnects (you have a window to reconnect and not helplessly screw 4 other players) and absolutely solves the original ALT-F4 issue (you have 1-2 minutes to kill the person who killed gw2.exe, if you can’t accomplish that you certainly wouldn’t have killed them if they had stayed connected).

Too many people here are so elated that the handful of ALT-F4’ers they met will now get a death penalty that they dismiss the obvious drawbacks of this second rate solution.

I also come from WoW so I know what you mean Kilgore. WvW feels like a mix of open world PvP and Alterac Valley to me.

You know what to do. Capture and defend objectives to get server points. Kill enemies to get badges of honor.

But battleground “honor” like rewards? It’s not there. I think it should be. There’d be a more interest in WvW if there were desirable rewards that you could get through WvW (BoH gear isn’t that, it’s kittenedly expensive, ugly and few people want the stats). The same would be great with sPvP.

Here’s the way I see it. In GW2, WvW is where you earn the recognition we all crave in MMO’s. Let’s say you have your Abyss CoF armor and craft a legendary. You look like a commander in Satan’s army. Sweet. But then what? Stand around in Lion’s Arch? Grind to fractal level 50? I guess. But IMO, you go to WvW. That’s end game. It’s the place to show off the armor (PVE achievements) and skill (PVP prowess) you’ve perfected. That’s where you make a name for yourself and people think “oh kitten Kilgore’s going beast mode again!”

The only other place I think you can sort of show off your armor and skills is farming Orr events, but I can’t see anyone making that their end game.

Hai guyz imma rouge wut traitz gimme da blue invulnreable buff I died too much fauking 100 sword warriorz lol

A funny story:

The day that Twilight was put up on the TP was the same day I finished the Incinerator. I didn’t think it was possible either. So the minute I forged my legendary I accidentally posted it for 1 copper to test it out thinking it wouldn’t work.

I freaked out and fumbled for 10 seconds to unlist it but if some lucky person had been monitoring it they could’ve gotten my Incinerator for 1 copper.

From the stories I’ve read I think everybody gets durpy the closer they are to finishing their legendary. I’m pretty certain my mistake is why the Incinerator is shown in the TP results now.

Any ways, it’s possible and clearly intended to post legendaries on the TP. I agree it’s lame though.

This is how I imagine the guy who controls the roll tables for the mystic forge and salvaging:

http://i.imgur.com/KDO1X.gif

Thanks Urthona.

It’s too bad we have a 2 week dead period followed by only half a month to complete the monthly

The to-be-determined text could be better as well (it looks like an error). I guess they saved money on localization.

Mag Li.2581:

Xavi.6591:

Don’t finish 100% map completion if you are a Mesmer.

why?

Dat star.

(doesn’t show on your clones)

I’ve searched and haven’t found an answer on this.

My December monthly achieve tab currently shows 50/50 World Invaders Killed and 7/7 Fractals completed. The other 3 are shown as bizarre question marks “????”.

I’m pretty sure this means that the other 3 can’t be started yet, presumably until the winter event starts where I’ll need to decorate trees or something. But can some one confirm or explain what’s going on?

I think there were a few blocked prereq’s in Oct (candy) and Nov (karka) but I didn’t pay close attention and I don’t remember having 3/5 blocked for half a month.

Thanks.

Do the foot prints ever show up for enemies in WvW?

Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it (which is sort of a let down, I would want the enemy to see me in my full awesomeness).

Red is dead……..

Maladon.5760:

Aeden.5896:

Sometimes my computer just reboots for no reason…

No it doesn’t

Haha, if only.

To be clear, I want ALT-F4 fixed. I just want a 1 – 2 min DC timer like every other MMO. If I disco during a 1vX I’m of course fine with you guys ravaging my motionless, helpless thief.

Nepumuk.6071:

Habib Loew.6239:

Alt+F4 is no escape…

Why not instead leave the character of the player in the game for 10-20 seconds, vulnerable to attacks? This alternative method seems to be well established in plenty of similar online games, as it would avoid issues like being stuck in combat state without actually being attacked. If no enemy manages to kill this player within the time-frame, then no one should get any loot or death penalty.

(first, it’s awesome we’re getting these updates for Christmas, <333’s)

Exactly. While the penalty sounds like a satisfyingly brutal “F U” to ALT-F4’rs from Arenanet, this just totally sucks for people that legitimately disconnect.

Sometimes my computer just reboots for no reason, do I get the death penalty? Sometimes the client crashes. Death penalty? Sometimes my cable modem just disconnects. What then?

Did he actually kill anyone?

I love WvW, but I’m a little worried that the changes are going to be something like this:

“Get ready for a one time WvWvW event that will change the borderlands FOREVER!!!

BEHOLD, orbs are back, guarded by a new terror in a previously unseen underwater objective point! Explore these new realms, and you might even find hidden treasures! We’ve added more, stronger monsters to the war lands where agony will kill all but the strongest of hero’s!

You spoke, we listened! One time events. More underwater combat. More jumping puzzles. More exciting dungeon combat. Coming FEBRUARY 15th!"

It is an awkward mechanic. Independently, an instant cast shadow step is great, and a “steal ability” skill with traited self-buffing is interesting.

It would have been slicker if F1 was a straight shadow step on a shorter base cool down (30 seconds) and F2 was “steal” (traits would apply to F2) with the same range as F1 on the current cool down (45 seconds).

That would give a gap closer to melee thieves, steal would be useful to ranged thieves and it would reduce the number of times you waste the benefits of F1 because all you want is the gap closer or the initiative or the stolen skill.

Wow Wild Bill’s really shaken the tree with his 2 video threads.

You know GW fan, you’ve convinced me.

ALT-F4’ing is a very unclassy thing to do and isn’t justified it by saying the enemy didn’t “earn it” or you need the money or a cat jumped on your face.

If you WvW you should accept the consequences.

But I agree with Slic that the whole issue just shouldn’t exist (e.g. if they had a 30 second DC timer). As long as it’s an option, people are going to do it. In some sense, it’s crazy that right now the only reason not to do it is because it’s “cheap.”

Guild Wars Fan.3249:

“…Look at how uber I am! Running around in a setting where teamwork is the driving motivational factor in builds, I’ll bring in my 1v1 optimised build and then show everyone how much better I am than them by claiming there is some kind of fairness involved. Knowing full well that I’m only going to fight 1v1 to 1v4 or 5, when the other guy(s) are optimised around 5+vs5+ in general.

Then, I will laugh at how easy it is (despite the aforementioned build advantage I have) to kill them and take badges!
…

Slic wins because he optimizes for 1v3+ while everyone else optimizes for 5+v5+?

So what would happen if 5 Slic’s fought your “team optimized” 5? Are you saying all of a sudden he’d lose his magic solo power?

I don’t think that adds up.

Maybe you’re spec’d for “seiging” or jumping puzzles or something.

I have to say though, even as a Wild Bill fan, I would love a video of guy’s fighting (and beating) him. I never found him in T1. I don’t think I’ve ever fought a decent P/D thief (maybe there’s been some in giant zergs so I didn’t notice) and I’d love to know what we look like from the enemies point of view.

swinsk.6410:

What is shadow strike? Guessing it’s not a D/D weapon skill…

Shadow strike is the p/d 3 that should be swapped with shadow shot the d/p 3 but I can only imagine that the Anet feature crews got confused because the names are similar which is why we have the current silliness.

I would rather they change Last Refuge to cancel attacks and casts.

The minor drawback of possibly canceling a channel like unload, whirling axe or dagger storm is completely overshadowed by making the ability work as presumably designed.

Slic.2406:

…IMHO, since other players use alt F4 ALL the time, I’m justified in using it every time I’m out numbered, especially if I get chased by 10+ for 5mins (that almost always happens, if I survive and have to run). Nothing like saying eff you to badge-hungry skill-less zerg than leading them on a 10-20min chase and then restarting client once they get lucky on immobilize/cc. If you want to condemn me, go ahead, but I doubt you’d also agree that zerg deserve to get a badge off me when I’m solo.

Slic, you’ve inspired countless thieves and have skills, but you’ve become kind of angry and jaded since your first vid’s, what’s up?

I actually agree with your ALT-F4 diatribe. Solo’ing successfully requires substantially more confidence, skill and focus than following a mob. I do the same thing, especially if a zerg appears out of no where thanks to GW 2’s awesome network throttling designed for 1995 28.8kbps modems. And I don’t feel bad. Maybe I should, but sorry, you didn’t earn anything.

I’ll sometimes ALT-F4 if I’m in control of a 1v2+ and Last Refuge dicks me over. I feel a little bad then, since the enemies didn’t do anything wrong, but my rage at losing because of a poorly designed minor trait that is guaranteed to randomly kill me regardless of what I or my enemy does is overwhelming.

No, you’re not.

Entering the enemies spawn area is a class B felony in every state except Delaware.

I heard about a thief that stacked stealth duration and got in there all the way to the azura portals to /dance for a few seconds before getting killed by invulnerable players.

He’s in San Quentin now.

You think head shot is a bad pistol ability? Remember “body shot?”

You probably forgot it existed. It is criminally awful.

Dagger 2: Heartseeker – new PvP’rs drown in their own tears over it.
Sword 2: Infiltrator’s Strike – best thief skill in the game.
Pistol 2: Body Shot – useless, absolute worse thief skill in the game. Worse than Last Refuge trait and underwater combat combined.

Oh this reminds me, possibly related:

On Sunday my CoF P2 group bailed because the instance was so bugged.

A cinematic played in the middle of our fight with that dude + giant spider (right before the spider nest gauntlet).

When we got to the bomb section I’m not sure what happened because I was disconnected (I don’t think because of my internet connection) but whatever it was it caused us to fail the event and everyone was so frustrated by then they left.

The whole time we experienced ridiculous lag (like… Karka event level) and DC’s.

I will rarely stomp unless I’m stealthed, even 1v1. Trying to stomp unstealthed is death most of the time.

It’s not that big of a deal. I have, at best, a 50% stealth stomp success rate, probably less. One player can rez faster than I can stomp. If players are laying down AoE’s and attacks I’ll bail on the stomp. One knockdown and it’s over. If I’m low on health stealth stomping is very risky and I’ll usually heal first and stomp if I can but usually by then they’re rez’d and/or I’m taking loads of AoE damage.

The whirling axe change is actually great. That ability went from the absolute best to the worst after they removed stability. At least the other more underwhelming steal abilities didn’t make me a free kill.

Yep, Last Refuge causes at least half my deaths in PvP, it’s bull kitten.

People recommending that you “expect it when you’re low health” don’t know what they’re talking about. Exactly what point am I “low health?” 25%? 50%? 75%? And what pray tell should I do while “expecting it?”

Fiddling with revealed probably won’t happen.

I think the reasonable, clear solution is to cancel any queued or casting attack when it proc’s.

Now it’s gone from unintentional garbage to pretty handy.

Edit: Lockheit’s suggestion isn’t bad either. Thieves should control their own revealed debuff. Dying because some friendly threw down a shadow refuge while you casted a CnD is terrible.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13tuac/im_the_studio_design_director_on_guild_wars_2_ama/

ArenaNet’s doing an ask-me-anything today and so far most of the questions and answers have been (disappointingly) on vertical progression (spoiler alert: they know all your concerns, relax).

So far there have been few questions about WvW and no answers, this is a great opportunity to ask a single great question directly to Anet if you weren’t aware of it.

I asked simply if there was anything new planned for WvW but it got buried to hell.

Edit: They posted this response on WvW:

hi nn776,

These are all cool ideas for WvW and you can expect to see some significant content dropping in this area of the game in the near future.

I would like to be more precise but can’t be but rest assured we are working a lot on not just new content for this area of the game but also progression, reward and beacon mechanics.

Chris

Q: Will thieves still get event credit for capturing nodes if they happen to be in stealth on the completion “tick?”

I assumed that was the reason stealth worked the way it did in WvW.

I’m legitimately curious, do you guys think that thieves burst is too high or stealth is too good? Or maybe something else?

In my opinion, burst is the biggest problem. No one should die 1v1 in under 2.5s , regardless of toughness and stun breakers. It just shouldn’t happen. Obviously, having low armor and no stun breaker should put you at a serious disadvantage to a burst opener, but right now the skill required to pull it off is way out of proportion to the risk and reward.

I don’t think there’d be so many complaints about stealth if people weren’t worrying the thief was just charging his cool downs to one shot them. For example, when a Mesmer stealth’s, it’s annoying, but I’m not worried about getting suddenly bursted down out of no where.

As for running away, yes, that’s annoying, but it’s not unique to thieves. Elementalist’s are probably much better at escaping and I never see anyone complain about that. Again, I think the larger issue is that thieves can do their cheap, low skill burst and, if they fail, just run away and try again, there is clearly unbalanced risk in comparison to the reward.

Mogar.9216:

ok fine they can have burst, they can have speed. But can we please put a 10 sec stealth timer? I’m getting sick of fighting an opponent that you can’t target for 1/2 of the fight.

I can see how you might think a 10 second revealed debuff on a thief wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but in reality 10 seconds out of stealth is a death sentence. What would we do after our 3 dodges are gone? We’d have to reserve stealthing for running away which is great for you but goes against the professions design.

It would make all melee builds garbage and pistol/pistol, our weakest spec, would become the only marginally viable spec because it relies more on blinds and evades.

The EXACT first thing happened to me. After 15 minutes I had to just leave party, it was so frustrating it’s pretty obvious some ones going to get blown off that and die especially at those wind traps.

My second group then had the hammer stay in MID-AIR after someone (of course) fell while carrying it. We’re still debating what to do. This is ridiculous, arenanet KNEW that people would die going up that and then they added a DOT to the hammer just to make it unnecessarily worse. >:-/

Edit: Attached screenshot of unretrievable hammer.

I liked this, it was nice to see a P/P pvp video.

Doctor Fu Manchu.4203:

Unload vs Black Powder: Unload costs 5 initiative, Black Powder costs 6. The question now becomes whether or not Black Powder’s potential stacks of blind are worth sacrificing about 75% of the damage an Unload would have done, and also an extra initiative. The answer is no. Black Powder only stacks blinds if the target is within the field of powder, which is your current location. Other than that, it blinds once. This skill is worthless against ranged enemies and casters.

I don’t know if you know this already, but Black Powder is a smoke field you can self-combo with. Because of that, if you use a projectile finisher through it (i.e. unload), it will actually stack blind on your target for each shot. Also, if you use a dagger main hand in your 2nd weapon set, you can switch to it and use heartseeker (a leap finisher) to get into stealth and run away or back stab. If you use the bow as your offhand and cluster bomb the ground, you AoE stealth.

That plus it really messing up melee combos is why black powder is actually a pretty good ability.

Being able to rez a downed player faster than you can stomp is ridiculous.

The downed penalty has virtually no impact on PvP and was clearly designed for players getting one-shot in PvE dungeons.

There is a large gamut between “removed downed and rez’ing completely” and “it’s fine.”

I think modestly reducing revival healing and significant diminishing returns for multiple revivers would go a long way to making all combat, whether it’s outnumbered 1v3, 5v10, or an even battle of 20v20, far more fulfilling while keeping the mechanic an important (and I think fun) part of the game.

Right now the mechanic over-rewards staying safely away from the enemy which I think most people agree is not a great PvP experience.

“I once used Body Shot and did not regret it.”

“Here’s some legitimate theorycrafting showing that Body Shot can be very good in [groups|dungeons|sPvP|WvW|farming|jumping puzzles]: …”

“5% vulnerability is worth 5 seconds of initiative.”

“Body Shot is good utility.”

“Guys, if they buff Body Shot it will be overpowered.”

“I didn’t win.” “It would have helped if you had used Body Shot.”

“Can somebody link the latest Body Shot build? I just saw some PvP videos of a thief pwning with it, so epic!!”

“Body Shot and our underwater skills do not need any changes.”

“<3 Body Shot!”

I like the downed mechanic but I think it needs some adjustment.

My biggest issue is one player can revive a downed player faster than the stomp animation. That seems really broken.

Large groups resurrecting dead players in combat is also pretty bad, it seems too punitive to defenders. Limiting res’s to out of combat only is probably too much, but I’d like to see harsh diminishing returns on multiple res’ers, especially in combat.

I would just love to see more regular titles (shown on target) available. Everyone’s either nothing, “Combat Healer” or “Been There, Done That.”

I would especially love it if there were WvW titles that weren’t ridiculous to acquire.

If there was a balanced way to issue tiered RP military rank titles like Soldier, Squire, Knight, Baron, Duke, etc. it would bring people into WvW PvP.

I think you’re upset because you couldn’t kill the thief. He tried to run away several times and you chased him hundreds of yards to force a fight. You know what happens to me, as a thief, when an elementalist I want to kill runs away and I try to chase him? He probably gets away, and I don’t post video’s complaining about it.

The thief’s utilities appear to be Shadow Refuge (the AoE stealth ring), Blinding Powder (vanish) and the run speed signet and he doesn’t seem to be doing a lot of damage. He’s probably spec’d for stealth and survivability which I think is a reasonable trade off for the profession and not some cheap-OP-thing.

Finally, while there is a “culling issue” in this game, the video doesn’t show it. By design, the thief has max 4 seconds of stealth and min 3 seconds out of stealth (ignoring shadow refuge), which is what I’m seeing in your video.

Culling would be seeing the thief use a backstab and go back in stealth in noticeably less than 3 seconds.

Edit: Didn’t realize this thread was necro’d

Guys. Let’s stay focused and review what this thread is about:

Before the 7 day transfers starts Blackgate could use a few more NA guilds.

True.

We have outmanned buff even in EB.

True.

BG is “High” and we could use some help.

True.

Now, I admit that, obviously, every time I log in to Blackgate I start the night by hacking a few orbs (can’t anymore :-( ) then I join a zerg and turtle (the only way I feel safe) while our mesmer’s glitch through the keeps (the only way we can take them) but then just get owned because we’re skill-less bandwagoners but our night crew gets everything back for us. I also alt-F4 any time I’m downed (which is all the time) and when logging back in I pass them time by trash talking SBI and JQ in the forums. That’s all true. We can’t stop it. It’s in the genes. It’s disgusting. We disgust ourselves.

But guys, as true as that all is, chill the kitten out and don’t throw up on the forums every time you see the word Blackgate.

The tooltip is a lie.

fractal.7039:

Aeden.5896:

I agree with Stiv, generally bleed duration > condition damage. …

On a 10 sec bleed every 10% of Condition duration is equivalent to 85 points of Condition Damage….
…So explain to me how condition damage can not equal or exceed duration?

Sorry, to be clear, I was talking about the condition damage attribute, not the % condition damage trait bonus. In isolation, 1% condition damage is more desirable than 1% condition duration, yes.

I was coming from sacrificing runes or sigil bonuses for bleed duration increases, which is almost always a significant damage increase (to cap).

Bleed duration increases aren’t that bad in PvP for P/D thieves. Bleeds are already so short, applied so often and clearing conditions so infrequent, condition removal isn’t as big of a deal as some are making it out to be.

I agree with Stiv, generally bleed duration > condition damage. You’ll never get enough +condition damage to make up for what you gained in one more bleed tick (there could be a whole separate discussion on how to optimally gear and spec).

One thing I wanted to add related to Emerge’s question on Exposed Weakness.

A while ago I traited Exposed Weakness (10% damage when conditions are applied) but was looking into switching to Quick Recovery (2 init/10 secs). I saw that Slic wasn’t using QR in his Wild Bill video’s, I was surprised how well I did without it, but you have to play very clean, QR gives you room to recover from mistakes and overextends.

I did some testing in the Mists and observed no change in tick damage with EW, so it appears that it does not apply to condition damage. Because of that, I switched to QR.

It seems wrong for EW to not apply to conditions, maybe others here have seen different results?

Slic you’re my GW2 thief hero.

Now that we’re in the same tier if I find and kill you in a fair fight I’m retiring since what’s the point after beating the final boss?

+1. Here’s what I wrote in another thread a few days ago:

Last Refuge is a stupid trait that causes at least half my deaths in PvP because it fires while I’m in a cloak and dagger cast, leaving me with revealed and often no initiative (that’s called a free kill). A minor trait that causes random, uncontrolled behavior like that with no way to opt out is terrible.

The only time it ever helps is when another thief goes full glass cannon, get’s the jump on me and get’s blinded in the middle of their little stun lock dance. I would gladly drop that to regain control of my own revealed debuff like God intended.

I’m sure ArenaNet’s aware, but I wanted to +1 that this is sort of a big deal for pistol/dagger thieves.

That’s almost an extra half-second out of stealth for us, which can be a not-insignificant reduction in survivability.

I haven’t play tested a ton since the Halloween change, but what I’ve noticed is that, before the change, after a sneak attack I could get 2 vital shots in (pistol 1), wait a short moment, and the cast cloak and dagger to stealth. This is consistent with what I think the previous times were:

Sneak attack (~0.3s revealed eaten)> vital shot (1s) > vital shot (1s) > ~.2s wait/evade > Cloak and Dagger (.5s cast)

This worked out well, it was an easy decision to wait that 0.2s and CaD if things weren’t in my favor since stealth >> 1x vital shot.

Now, the ~.3s delay makes this a little weird:

Sneak attack (0s revealed eaten) > vital shot (1s) > vital shot (1s) > ~.5s wait/evade > Cloak and Dagger (.5s cast)

The decision is weird now. Not only is the required wait after the second vital shot now 150% longer, but I’m half way to a 3rd vital shot, which maybe my animal instincts will go for sometimes since I’m just wasting time out of stealth any ways (and the vital shots are good cues). But if I go for that third VS, I’m now out of stealth a full 0.8s longer than I was pre-“nerf.” Ooch.

Either way, .3s or .8s in PvP is a big deal, even .3s is at least twice as many CC’s getting thrown on me, based on what I’ve seen so far it might be much more than that.

Big deal.

Please Arenanet, thank you for making such an awesome game that I love to play (and thanks for replying to this thread), but please, assuming you guys agree this is a regression, prioritize this to get fixed sooner than later.

I also thought that things seemed off after the Halloween update, I had to hold back my instincts on cloak and dagger timing because the revealed wasn’t dropping when I expected it to.