Guild Wars 2

D/d if you’re running conditions since death blossom applies generous bleeding while deadly arts gives poison with dagger skills.

I run a power build however and I use staff, sword/dagger, and shortbow. It’s better overall personally I think because vault tends to have a quick launch making dodges more responsive though staff 3 is also a dodge but is harder to time properly. Staff 4 has a blind on it. Staff also has a better autoattack because you apply vulnerability stacks on the third move.

They also need to do a radical rebalancing of traits. Acro overall was a step backwards because they took away one of its only good traits, 50% more movement speed in stealth that came in handy to stay on moving targets for the tactical strike, put it in shadow arts, and put a passive in its place? What does that passive do? Gives you auto evade if you go below a certain health threshhold. It procs in situations where you should go down anyway so it masks mistakes or getting outplayed. Traits should promote active, skillful play (like vigor upon dodging, all boons from traits should have active procs like this) not crutches.

yolo swaggins.2570:

babazhook.6805:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Agemnon.4608:

What buff? You can’t have 50% movement speed in stealth anymore. If anything shadow arts got buffed. Too bad, I really liked having vigor upon dodging and that movement speed at the same time at least in PvE.

It got moved to Hidden Thief.

It is much a much better fit in SA as well.

It was the only logical choice.

How do you figure that? Acro was subpar as it was and now it’s even worse without that trait. Now there’s really no reason to take acro over shadow arts since now that it only really offers vigor on dodge. I mean it’s good but shadow arts just offers so much more. All they did was redistribute one of the only good traits in acro to shadow arts.

Acro had one of the best concepts for boons since you actually have to earn your vigor by dodging but the traitline was good before the patch due to the extra stealth speed but now it’s just bad. I think every class’s boon generation through traits needs to have the same active play concept.

What buff? You can’t have 50% movement speed in stealth anymore. If anything shadow arts got buffed. Too bad, I really liked having vigor upon dodging and that movement speed at the same time at least in PvE.

Jourdelune.7456:

Chaith.8256:

@Evan, in my humble opinion, we need tighter MMR grouping and longer unranked queues if necessary.

Extremely large skill discrepancy within teams

What we really need, is to have PRO league players mentoring other team as COACH to make more high MMR players.

Stop keeping all your secrets, share and let people evolved to get better matches.

But nearly all players lack the foundation enough for those top level “secrets”. I do however support a coaching system where a coach has classes for certain MMR brackets. They’d be paid in real life money, gems, or gold (coach accepts which currency) and would take place in coaching arenas. They’re almost exactly like current arenas but where everyone is green until they go into established parties or agree to a duel or whatever to get in some practice. The coach will gauge the students’ weaknesses and see where they need improving or even if their play style agrees with their chosen class. Other classes could involve things like Teamspeak, MasqVox, strengths and weaknesses of different Teamspeak programs, and other factors outside the scope of mechanical skill and when and where to rotate. Coaches should be at least diamond level MMR (similar to Platinum on League of Legends where they’re better than 98.5% of other players) and ESL experience.

Novices would learn things like, “Why you shouldn’t attack beast at the start of Forest or rush lord at the start of Legacy and why you shouldn’t blow all your endurance and energy when starting a match” whereas intermediates would have all this knowledge and would need to learn more specific things. Advanced players would focus on polishing rough edges in rotations and technique enough to break out of gold/ruby while diamond players (coaching this level would be reserved for legendary or the top .1% since they have knowledge that diamonds lack) would learn even more advanced techniques, since other diamonds share the same level of technique and knowledge they do but the problem for anyone at this level (in any game) is finding that little something extra to push you ahead.

I won’t say I hate it, the story was good in places (when you save Zojja you really feel bad for her and she’s so worried about Taimi too and that scene had lots of emotional impact) but the maps need to be like Silverwaste instead of being on a fixed timer. Also Dragon’s Stand should do something about the need for taxiing.

kuritsutian.2987:

Agemnon.4608:

Keadron.9570:

Ele isn’t a hard counter to anything atm. It can’t survive a burst and even specd into full damage doesn’t do enough to put down anything but a thief (lots of people playing thief now who don’t know the class well enough)
Yes an experienced thief will know how to get out of the burst was meaning the ones who aren’t

The funny thing is last patch I killed eles on my thief but on my ele still got killed by some thieves though I still won some duels but that was usually against careless p/p thieves who’d unload when my magnetic aura was off cool down on top of the burning I’d inflict on them.

So in this patch logically thieves have an even better chance against eles when in the previous meta it was just about an even 1v1 as long as the ele went staff.

While on ele, use stoneheart, helps with thieves a lot.

Back then diamond skin was too invaluable and would be more useful this patch if it weren’t gutted but switched between diamond skin and stone heart depending on their comp.

Senario.2038:

Chaith.8256:

Having a fun and balanced game extends past ‘esports’, profession & amulet balance is objectively better than pre-patch.

ArenaNet caters balance for all skill levels, too. Not just ‘esports’. They nerfed Tempest hard, and Dragonhunter a little bit because they’re dominant at lower divisions. PvP Profession & Amulet balance isn’t perfect, but objectively better than pre patch. If you’re very upset about how your stat options are limited, remember that’s the way PvP’s always been

I wouldn’t say it is OBJECTIVELY better. Unless you consider just making the classes that were meta before nerfed into the ground and getting classes that were maybe not meta and buffing them to top tier as “better”. That isn’t better, that is flipping who you use.

The problem is that PvP balance affects every other mode and it shouldn’t, PvP balance in an MMO should NEVER infringe on other game modes because the systems are entirely different. The problem with this view is that a PvP player may see it as “fun” to get things balanced in their favor but anybody who is in WvW and PvE can recognize that changes made to classes due to PvP are terrible for their “fun” in the game. This isn’t a game that is solely about PvP, the vast majority of players clearly play PvE and WvW considering that you have several maps of dragons stand always filled up every time they are up and that alone is likely a sizable chunk of players compared to those who are into PvP. This is even more relevant now with Raids out and PvE content having something challenging to complete. Making assumptions about what I am or am not upset about is silly.

Look, read my exhaustive post above. It explains exactly what is wrong with Anet’s Esports and even suggests how to fix some issues. And yes, I know that there is a class limit now; However that should have been in there FROM THE BEGINNING. Because it wasn’t we saw things like teams of Elementalists which promptly got the class nerfed pre HoT.

PvE balancing is trash on the mobs’ ends too. There’s an elite mordrem nuhoc mob that by himself isn’t bad but together with lots of other mobs in the Auric Basin meta means you’ll be spending lots of dodges (all while seeing through the mess) but has a whole four seconds of a knockdown in addition to an AoE pull skill. Some classes will instantly die to a four second knockdown (oh, the time gets refreshed if it happens again too) given the vast quantity of hard hitting mobs in the area. Since thief and ele have the lowest base health knockdown timers need to take those into account. The only things that should have four second knockdowns are PvE players (since it’d be too OP in PvP for the reasons stated) and certain bosses who you’d face alone or in pairs (so you could read their tells and respond accordingly) as in large groups those frogs can be obscured by even bigger mobs and you’d get knocked down without any warning.

Then you have mobs that are a package deal, you scorpion wire one then his buddies run towards you too (but the pulled mob should be dead by then if it’s a standard) while others have too large aggro radius like the mordrem mounts. Sometimes they just won’t break aggro despite all the hints that I don’t wanna fight (when I don’t I usually do though). In PvP real players can be forgiven for a relentless pursuit but in PvE mobs lack free will so I won’t forgive them since their programming could have been more reasonable.

Krysard.1364:

Dristig.9678:

The lobby NPCs that represent professions have become completely irrelevant. They don’t apply conditions and they don’t even buff themselves. It makes it almost impossible to relevantly test builds. I know a big AI update is out of the question but can you give them some updated skills at least?

Mesmer can Moa you, and engineer sometimes rampage’s. Kitten, even guardian sometimes uses Tomes, they are so broken they can wipe anyone in seconds :o

I actually practice dodging signet of bane and polymorph moa against them and when to time interrupts against the necro’s heal. Their downed state hits harder than actual players and the necro in particular is cheap.

I agree however that there needs to be elite spec NPC’s to practice against as well.

Tapioca.9062:

Mortifer.2946:

What are you talking about? I finished the story and never got this warbler thingy. What does it do and when was I supposed to get it?

It warbles.

I’m guessing you chose to defend Jaka Itzel instead of attacking the Mordrem the first time on your character. The choice you make there sends you down minorly different story paths. Ibli’s path has you looking for Itzel scouts and you have to do some sweet, sweet gliding to get the attention of one. Tizlak’s path has you looking for scouts who will show up in response to the warbler.

After the story step is over, you keep the item and can continue to use it to make an annoying noise.

I could have missed the warbler?! Tizlak is one of my favorite characters in the game he was just so awesome. His idea was also the superior one since offense is the best defense given that defense is what you do if you’re at a disadvantage and need to recover whereas offense is utilizing your advantages to snowball. Like in chess you can run your rook up a lane to attack the opponent’s pawns leading to a big advantage but defense sees this possibility and you’d oppose rooks on that lane to keep that from happening. Defense is sometimes a necessary evil, but make sure the burden of defense is on the opponent whenever possible.

Also Tizlak for Destiny’s Edge 2.0! :D Kill off Marge or Kasmir if you need to if you feel it’s too crowded. I don’t like Canathe but he needs to stay since the male to female ratio is already weird in it.

Keadron.9570:

Ele isn’t a hard counter to anything atm. It can’t survive a burst and even specd into full damage doesn’t do enough to put down anything but a thief (lots of people playing thief now who don’t know the class well enough)
Yes an experienced thief will know how to get out of the burst was meaning the ones who aren’t

The funny thing is last patch I killed eles on my thief but on my ele still got killed by some thieves though I still won some duels but that was usually against careless p/p thieves who’d unload when my magnetic aura was off cool down on top of the burning I’d inflict on them.

So in this patch logically thieves have an even better chance against eles when in the previous meta it was just about an even 1v1 as long as the ele went staff.

Ohoni.6057:

Also you’re given ample time before a match to make such decisions and generally get ready and if it were unintended I’m sure there’d be measures in place to prevent it.

That’s what we’re talking here, putting in measures to prevent it.

Like I said the problem with it is luck enters more. Maybe prevent stacking but the only fair way to issue it is to bring about soloQ since premades have the advantage of a composition they know is good, which is especially strong against a random composition of classes that may be subpar and the different teammates have different ideas of how to start or play the game.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes. Let’s say you queue as a thief but there’s already one on your team, then you switch it up. Or you could see that the other team has two of something that hardcounters what you’re on, so you switch to something that hardcounters them.

Oh, I totally get why you’d WANT to do that, I just don’t see why they should allow it.

Let’s say you have your example, but you have an identical example on the other team, two thieves there too. But in your team, you have some other class that you’re good at, set up, ready to go, so you switch, and your team is stronger for it. On the other side, neither of the Thieves is well prepared to swap, they don’t have a useful alternative, so that team is stuck with two thieves. They are at a disadvantage. Why should they be stuck with the disadvantage of the matchmaking system, while you’re allowed to reset it?

The goal should be for the matchmaking system to limit that happening as best it can. If it does happen, however, that’s your bad luck, deal with it. It’s better than allowing teams to build unfair advantage like you describe.

As for your second case, that should be a risk you take. If the system is in general balance, then any build that can “hard counter” another, should be fairly weak when faced with other options. So if you choose to field a “hard counter” build, then you’ll randomly find matches where you have a huge advantage, and others where you have a huge disadvantage, high risk/reward. If you don’t wan that risk, you run with a more balanced build. You shouldn’t be able to offset the risk of an unbalanced build by being able to swap it out when it’s inconvenient, you should be stuck with it whether it’s ideal or not.

But the entire point is to minimize any luck factor involved. If the other side didn’t bother at least becoming proficient on another class then that’s on them. I have some tempest, druid, daredevil, and revenant proficiency but really prefer either daredevil or revenant or going druid if the team needs extra support. I have a dragonhunter and warrior too but never used them in PvP lately.

Also you’re given ample time before a match to make such decisions and generally get ready and if it were unintended I’m sure there’d be measures in place to prevent it.

• Even with the few passive traits we have, none of them impact the meat of the profession (weapon skills and initiative) at all which is the main source of our active gameplay.*

What about vigor on dodge? You get to dodge more often if you have essentially perma-vigor. That involves taking acro however meaning you’ll need to sacrifice either DPS or (now) better movement in stealth to stay on your target to ensure you get the daze or knockdown (sword/dagger then switch to staff).

I think each class needs to have one traitline absolutely removed and have its most competitive traits replace traits no one takes/clearly inferior options in other traitlines and have something like the vigor on dodge be packaged with dash or in revenant have salvation removed and giving eluding nullification to Glint though the rest of that traitline needs to be rebuilt from the ground up along with Ventari itself.

Ohoni.6057:

Sure, do that. Why would anyone swap characters after loading the map anyway? Is there a reason for that which wouldn’t be cheating? If you want to swap characters, do it in the lobby.

Yes. Let’s say you queue as a thief but there’s already one on your team, then you switch it up. Or you could see that the other team has two of something that hardcounters what you’re on, so you switch to something that hardcounters them.

Zephyria.6103:

From google:
Etymologically-speaking, “oriental” is hardly pejorative, deriving from a French term which basically translates to “Eastern” (and still exists as French “orientale“). In other words, one might describe it as a Latinate antonym of “Westerner,” a term which Europeans and Americans take little offense at.

Mind you…there’s plenty of sites arguing the reverse, and what it boils down to is anyone can take something and get offended at it, depending on how sensitive they are about certain things.

Also, if said in a hostile manner..yes, just about any word can become offensive as well.

I’d certainly hope it was obvious I meant no harm in my use of it.

I know you meant no harm but the term usually suggests exclusion and foreignness and in the past has been used deliberately to emphasize those points with the implication of the “other” not belonging. I’m personally not fond of the term Asian since Asia is a huge place that includes places as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Iran, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, and lots of other countries making it too vague but isn’t offensive. England and America also use the terms quite differently too, when an American says Asian you know they mean someone from the Far East whereas if an English newspaper uses the term they could be talking about someone Middle Eastern. It’s preferable to use the specific country or even regions within that country (China alone is quite diverse culturally ranging from Uyghurs to Han and others) but usually isn’t necessary given how general (but not too general) topics are.

Ele isn’t meant for 1v1 but rather group support. Eles have a trait that gets rid of chill on dodging but the chill can be applied faster than you can blow your dodges. Also some water skills can be traited for removing conditions. A sage ele might have good healing and condition damage but needs testing.

Mo Mo.1947:

Well the height of the Norn doesn’t actually seem to have changed much. :)

I’ve put together a side-by-side height comparison between GW1 and GW2.

In both I have my minimum height human characters standing next to a Norn. The GW2 Norn is a max-height character, and the GW1 Norn is Olaf Olafson. (The GW2 Norn player happened to be named Olaf as well, :P )

I tried to get the resolution about the same, but the resolution isn’t really the important part. What’s important is the ratio of height between the Norns and the humans. Olaf has some poofy hair so I drew his line slightly below the top of his hair. Even if I hadn’t, the size of the Norn seems pretty steady throughout the 250 years.

I really like the females’ hair and armor in thosepictures ^_^ I hope that hairstyle comes to Guild Wars 2 someday. I also like that version of the monk’s outfit, something seems different about it compared to the GW2 version which is still nice.

As for a current Norn’s height I’d say Eir is maybe 6’5" while a max Norn is around 7’5".

and cube root law would make them really really heavy. Doubling in size = 8 times the weight.

That’s why I personally doubt that brontosaurus or maybe even T-rex ever existed. The form is far too impractical as it’d have trouble supporting its own bodyweight and require lots of energy to survive. Then you have bloodflow issues with a creature that big and its size makes it vulnerable to predators. Humans in fantasy and sci-fi settings are portrayed as average but I personally think we’re the giants taking those scientific laws into account. To say that humans are the biggest most advanced intelligent race in this galactic cluster would be a pretty safe bet.

AsurasRCute.4136:

You mentioned character archetypes in another thread, and that’s pretty much my answer for me personally. I like the dual pistol archetype (the Thief option here being closer to that archetype than the faffy Engineer option… dare I say ‘purity of pistol’…), and the rapier/pistol duelist archetype, to a lesser extent.

I don’t like the bow or rifle archetypes, so I keep struggling on with our dire P/P while my Rangers etc have never even left their starter areas. Pistols (and shortbows) are offered as an option for Thieves, so it’s Anet’s job to make those options right, and those who happened to take that option have every right to expect those weapons to work properly and be fun, varied and viable.

Some folks are more into how a set looks and feels (the archetypal vibe), than in taking an awesome and optimal set that they don’t like the vibe of. This might be the RP thing, or just that some sets match their preferred playstyle better, or both ideally.

Pistol/pistol is quite strong in groups with proper support but you need to be aware of reflect aurashares and skills that destroy projectiles.

Fortus.6175:

Agemnon.4608:

Didn’t they stack four elementalists a couple of seasons ago? And people say that ele is a dead class lol!

Strawman argument right there, people! So basically let me get this right, you are saying that in a time before HoT hit, eles were [rightly] OP, but somehow, after HoT hitting, and literally removing the only thing that made eles viable, while buffing everyone else, that the class is not dead?

Do you not see the poor logic in your argument?! A LOT has changed since the 4 eles meta…. how is that an argument to how poor the state of eles are?!

So just because we had a bunker mesmer meta a while ago that means in this patch they are not dead?!

honestly…..

I mean there are mechanics within the class that are useful so they’ll never really be underpowered. Try generating a burn or chill combo field with a thief. As for mesmer they have polymorph, portal, and alacrity.

I think people are getting overly dramatic about nerfs while ignoring the good their classes still have. The removal of celestial just means they’ll have to commit more to a certain role.

Zephyria.6103:

Being a newer player I didn’t know anything about Cantha. Looked it up and it’s very exciting! I love oriental anything usually so it’d be a definite yes for me. I’d be exploring every nook and cranny of the place.

AND THE SKINS…..all the excite for oriental based skins.

I know you don’t mean any offense but Oriental is considered an offensive term, Far East Asian is the preferred term.

Anyway, yes Cantha themed things! :D Masteries include learning martial arts skills (automatically unlocked in sPvP) to be able to harm certain opponents (needed to fight the area’s dragon since it’s his weakness), skateboarding, and elite specs including ninja for warrior (offhand dagger is his weapon and is the warrior’s version of daredevil with some stealth and three endurance bars) and monk for thief which will only two endurance bars but access to great healing and CC skills that use initiative with skills similar to druid. The monk would have barehands which will have ascended mender’s stats and skill 1 is a punching rotation while skill 2 is tiger claw (kung-foo skill…ugh I hate intentionally misspelling things to circumvent filters -_-) and skill 3 is a roundhouse. Skills 4 and 5 (left hand empty) are chi wave for 4, similar to druid’s staff autoattack but wider and stronger (consumes initiative so makes sense) and bare hands 5, which is a PBAoE that functions like Ventari’s cleanse tablet skill but washes all conditions but for heavy initiative cost. Monk’s elite skill will be a bicycle kick that is similar to UA in function but hits more often and goes through block.

Ninja dagger 5 will grant the warrior/ninja stealth but sword/dagger will only be similar to thief sword/dagger from the dagger side, sword skills are still warrior sword skills.

As for PvP I’d add a big 8v8 sPvP mode that’s a big map with lots of terrain features but no siege or NPC’s. You need to channel at certain points to progress to the central fort where channeling plants your team’s flag declaring victory. Not only channel but stop the other team from channeling too. Also a 20v20 mode where it has mechanics similar to before but instead of one fort you need to channel at the opponent’s fort and the extra people are so a team can agree who is on the offensive or defensive teams (which would switch as circumstances demand so you aren’t committed to offense or defense per se) and also with lots of environmental features like choke points.

This goes for humans as well, the humans are said to be in a tiresome war with the Centaurs among others, they have lost all but one last city (save Ebonhawke) and were often described as struggling.

That reminds me, all the above about Cantha would be in the second part of the expansion while the first would focus on the Woodland Cascades then transition to Cantha. The goal of the first part of the expansion is kill off all the centaurs ending with the centaur king begging for his life and the playable character kicking him a cliff saying, “You don’t deserve mercy!” especially if it’s a human PC while another race would say, “To prove I value my alliance with the humans I must do this.”

Didn’t they stack four elementalists a couple of seasons ago? And people say that ele is a dead class lol! They offer mobility, excellent combo fields and can trigger said fields with blast finishers, and on top of that have aurasharing so ele I don’t think is going anywhere.

Of course Toker was winning on thief, his understanding of when to disengage and when and where to rotate elsewhere makes him perhaps the greatest thief in Guild Wars history.

So far class > skill, as proven by the skilless mesmer/rev meta we just had, and the emerging reaper/thief/scrapper meta.

I disagree strongly. You need skill to make the most of a class and if there’s a clearly objectively best comp then many teams will face each other running those comps.

Varezenem.2813:

Agemnon.4608:

Varezenem.2813:

Agemnon.4608:

I have this build and am thinking of modifying it with retribution in place of herald:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscmnnNuNSyJ7JRNlVlsoyrS4UZWJIscskFNFyegH8htDIANYtJRpKA-TZBFABAcCA+Y/BGeAADcEAW/QAAA

I have a mender’s amulet but the build editor didn’t update to include one as its stats compliment a burst healer/fighter hybrid and it was a tough call between eagle runes and runes of the centaur but the added swiftness from passing the tablet through allies was just too good.

Staff and double swords give good point control and rez stopping. Shiro for the typical control abilities and gap closer.

Ventari has on demand AoE cleanse. It’s inferior to druid’s healing seed but can be used more often since healing seed needs CA form and this would free the druid up for more CA lunar beam and black hole.

It’s quite expensive energy wise so I’m in the process of energy management. As for my thief:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYWn0MBlOhVmCOmCkmildCbeB+AvgeLhowVYLAUbmAA-TZBFABiXGAgnAAJ7P8wJAYgDBAA

Though I might replace sword/dagger with shortbow if boon corruption becomes too much of a problem and replace trickery with shadow arts if I can’t stay on an opponent while in stealth that well. That was acro’s old job but I’d be giving up too much for vigor on dodge and 50% movement speed in stealth since I’d need to take acro and shadow arts.

Been there, done that. Sustain is awful it’s weaker than shiro/glint with obviously lower damage…

Well of course it’s a tradeoff sacrifice some damage for Ventari utilities and extra healing output. Most players try optimizing damage anyway so there’d likely be no shortage of damage output. Maybe sage with Mallyx in place of Shiro would be better though I don’t really care for playing condition builds.

Problem is a point bunker has a minimum sustain requirement shiro/ventari can’t achieve that.
If you go mallyx/ventari with retribution/corruption/herald you would get something slightly better, still, team support wouldn’t be amazing.
And currently there isn’t anything that can get close to ventari/glint even after the shield and unwavering avoidance nerf.
The reason for that is that Ventari has a terrible sustain for the investment, and in pvp you can’t do support without being a bunker (you would be the focused imediatly).

Tested it and Ventari feels gimmicky and its long charge times are impractically long and the condition cleanse doesn’t cleanse enough, should half a half second cooldown at least since the AoE cleanse comes at a hefty energy cost.

I think there should be a panel where you can decide cleanse priority for conditions ensuring that the condition would be washed first in the queue (for all characters not just revenants): like you could set it to confusion first, then chill, slow, poison, weakness, burning, and so on down the line.

In PvP I noticed some of the opposing team’s names would turn yellow. Definitely a bug that could effect targeting.

Overall it’s a step in the right direction especially as far as thief and mesmer go but a slight lowering of energy required and lower cast times on Ventari tablet skills would have been good to allow for more responsive tablet use.

Varezenem.2813:

Agemnon.4608:

I have this build and am thinking of modifying it with retribution in place of herald:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscmnnNuNSyJ7JRNlVlsoyrS4UZWJIscskFNFyegH8htDIANYtJRpKA-TZBFABAcCA+Y/BGeAADcEAW/QAAA

I have a mender’s amulet but the build editor didn’t update to include one as its stats compliment a burst healer/fighter hybrid and it was a tough call between eagle runes and runes of the centaur but the added swiftness from passing the tablet through allies was just too good.

Staff and double swords give good point control and rez stopping. Shiro for the typical control abilities and gap closer.

Ventari has on demand AoE cleanse. It’s inferior to druid’s healing seed but can be used more often since healing seed needs CA form and this would free the druid up for more CA lunar beam and black hole.

It’s quite expensive energy wise so I’m in the process of energy management. As for my thief:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYWn0MBlOhVmCOmCkmildCbeB+AvgeLhowVYLAUbmAA-TZBFABiXGAgnAAJ7P8wJAYgDBAA

Though I might replace sword/dagger with shortbow if boon corruption becomes too much of a problem and replace trickery with shadow arts if I can’t stay on an opponent while in stealth that well. That was acro’s old job but I’d be giving up too much for vigor on dodge and 50% movement speed in stealth since I’d need to take acro and shadow arts.

Been there, done that. Sustain is awful it’s weaker than shiro/glint with obviously lower damage…

Well of course it’s a tradeoff sacrifice some damage for Ventari utilities and extra healing output. Most players try optimizing damage anyway so there’d likely be no shortage of damage output. Maybe sage with Mallyx in place of Shiro would be better though I don’t really care for playing condition builds.

I have this build and am thinking of modifying it with retribution in place of herald:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscmnnNuNSyJ7JRNlVlsoyrS4UZWJIscskFNFyegH8htDIANYtJRpKA-TZBFABAcCA+Y/BGeAADcEAW/QAAA

I have a mender’s amulet but the build editor didn’t update to include one as its stats compliment a burst healer/fighter hybrid and it was a tough call between eagle runes and runes of the centaur but the added swiftness from passing the tablet through allies was just too good.

Staff and double swords give good point control and rez stopping. Shiro for the typical control abilities and gap closer.

Ventari has on demand AoE cleanse. It’s inferior to druid’s healing seed but can be used more often since healing seed needs CA form and this would free the druid up for more CA lunar beam and black hole.

It’s quite expensive energy wise so I’m in the process of energy management. As for my thief:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYWn0MBlOhVmCOmCkmildCbeB+AvgeLhowVYLAUbmAA-TZBFABiXGAgnAAJ7P8wJAYgDBAA

Though I might replace sword/dagger with shortbow if boon corruption becomes too much of a problem and replace trickery with shadow arts if I can’t stay on an opponent while in stealth that well. That was acro’s old job but I’d be giving up too much for vigor on dodge and 50% movement speed in stealth since I’d need to take acro and shadow arts.

Jortakk.6792:

For the Guardian:
Wings of Resolve: This skill is no longer affected by movement-altering effects, such as cripple and swiftness. It also no longer queues and will activate immediately when possible.

Rightio, so I guess it can be done.

Since playing an evasion based thief is all about immediately reacting to your opponents skills, why wasn’t something like this done for things like Flanking Strike (both), Death Blossom, Disabling Shot, Debilitating Arc, Vault or Shadow Assualt?

But it did, the autoattack speed was increased across the board on thief sword. Agree on debilitating arc though, that needs to be 10% faster.

How is it a buff if Thieves had it in another trait? They just moved it to SA instead of Acro. Hmmm interesting

It’s a nerf because we can’t have 50% faster movement in stealth with the vigor on dodge unless we take both acro and shadow arts.

Sword has satisfying damage and syncs particularly well with sigil of rage, though the random proc makes it unreliable.

The main issue, namely autoattacks not syncing well with sword/dagger 3, have been fixed. Autoattack 1’s third phase rooting you was just bad.

No it got nerfed because acro is missing its best trait that gives 50% movement speed in stealth.

I have a mender’s amulet but the build editor didn’t update to include one:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscmnnNuNSyJ7JRNlVlsoyrS4UZWJIscskFNFyegH8htDIANYtJRpKA-TZBFABAcCA+Y/BGeAADcEAW/QAAA

rune of the centaur adds swiftness upon healing and the tablet merely has to pass through people to grant it while staff and double swords give good point control and rez stopping. Shiro for the typical control abilities and gap closer.

Basically it’s a healing and bursting build.

PopeUrban.2578:

Agemnon.4608:

Ohoni.6057:

Feline Grace: This trait’s vigor duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

OMGOMGOMG! They totally fixed it! 4 seconds of whothekittencares Vigor to a whole FIVE seconds of whothekittencares Vigor! This is totally just as good as it was before they completely destroyed it now! Viva Acro!

I know right? Especially given how you’d normally refresh it anyway within that time but is more likely a fix for PvE.

My gripe with acro at the moment is how many traits overlap with daredevil making some of them redundant. The 50% movement speed in stealth was better off in acro because reveal provides too strong of counterplay to justify taking shadow arts. The grandmaster traits in acro especially needing a good look but they removed the best trait in acro and replaced it with a passive that has a cooldown.

Keep in mind that acro is base and daredevil is an elite spec. Daredevil is, essentially, improved acro, and thus can synergize with acro.

This seems like an academic distinction now, but after a few more elite specs are out, acro will be your only option for endurance related stuff should you decide to play another elite spec.

Which, in turn, indicates to me that acro still needs more love. Feline grace should at least also grant swiftness or a flat 25% move speed increase for starters.

Feline Grace is good enough as it is because it allows you to have excellent dodging upkeep. Apparently they thought it synced too well with the 50% movement speed in stealth which was a great treat since people know tactical strike is coming if you go sword and dagger while s/d + staff give lots of on weapon dodge, and with cloak and dagger can switch to staff for the knockdown skill. Sword/dagger and shortbow is a good alternative if you’re dedicating to a decap role rather than just mobility within the context of a battle (vaulting from target to target all while being mindful of the AoE spam).

What needs addressing are redundancies, like replacing hard to catch since daredevil obsoletes that particular trait.

Ohoni.6057:

Feline Grace: This trait’s vigor duration has been increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

OMGOMGOMG! They totally fixed it! 4 seconds of whothekittencares Vigor to a whole FIVE seconds of whothekittencares Vigor! This is totally just as good as it was before they completely destroyed it now! Viva Acro!

I know right? Especially given how you’d normally refresh it anyway within that time but is more likely a fix for PvE.

My gripe with acro at the moment is how many traits overlap with daredevil making some of them redundant. The 50% movement speed in stealth was better off in acro because reveal provides too strong of counterplay to justify taking shadow arts. The grandmaster traits in acro especially needing a good look but they removed the best trait in acro and replaced it with a passive that has a cooldown.

Yep, what did I say? Extra movement speed in stealth is no longer in acro :( Now I’ll need to take extra movement speed in stealth or vigor on dodge since I don’t wanna give up critical strikes or daredevil. Apparently the combination of vigor on dodge and faster movement speed in stealth was too overpowered.

I think Primordus since it seems logical as he was the one who inspired the Rata Novans to research elder dragons in the first place.

Vague Memory.2817:

Far too much sustain going around. Before elites ele had the best sustain being almost unkillable and then Guard. After elites it been ele, druid, scrapper, and bunker mes. Hasn’t been fun fighting for 3-5 mins a time as a full high risk zerker against low risk builds that require 2-3 people to take down. Definitely the worse PvP season I can remember, that I would rather sooner forget. As for DH, I can’t believe they released such a broken elite, unblockable traps with dazes + obscene ranged damage. Their attitude is you guys have to put up with this broken stuff for a whole season before we can be bothered to do anything about it, is the worst PvP policy ever. One we can look forward to from the next patch as well.

The league had no real thought put behind it. MMR abuse, the bizarre pip gain/loss system, and I felt no sense of achievement on reaching diamond because it felt more luck based than any measure of my individual skill. We still have premade vs pugs, why? Because Anet’s PvP drive and balance is centered solely on trying to create an esport brand.

Actually dragonhunter was likely the best thing about season 1 because it had a clearly defined role as a bronzestomper and one’s relationship to it was a clear demarcation line: lesser skilled players complain about them whereas good players know their counters. Their bronzestomper role was a sign that Anet was starting to balance for skill (thief already had this treatment from the other side) but had lots of major tweaking to do on other classes. Being “OP” in lowerleagues but underpowered in higher leagues apparently wasn’t their intention however.

Engineer OP but needs more rifle and gadgets.

Manu.6078:

There’s nothing wrong when a streamer complain about an issue. There’s nothing wrong with Anet is working on a solution. After all , Anet decides what is important or not.
We can hope that in a day , a streamer will rage when he/she will not find the mouse cursor during a large fight or will be disconnected during a meta and will not be able to return.
#ragingstreamersforthewin

You shouldn’t even see the mouse cursor in a fight, you should actually be moving.

Amber was easy, emerald was a mixed bag, seemed easy in the first few tiers but the last tier I ran into rubies (this was early season so rubies then eventually became legendaries) and I got past that into sapphire. Sapphire was similar but not as bad in the last tier. I solo’ed and duo’ed most of it. Ruby seemed like it was going well until the patch hit and I went from 7 pips to 0 :( I then played more and stopped at four pips and just did unranked. Yes, the risk of getting Skyhammer was worth not dealing with the broken algorithm.

Overall while there were some close matches (even 500-500 one time, “lost” technically, but still gained a pip) it was mostly blowouts from one end or another and had lots of AFK’er and MMR tanker issues. A druid even ran around saying to kill him.

I did some light stronghold and remember having to completely carry since people really didn’t know what to do. My last stronghold was a complete blowout against a premade so I stopped queuing for it.

I have a good idea for an advert:

These two guys in their late teens, one black one white, dressed in skater gear are playing a game on the couch (holding X-Box controllers) express dissatisfaction with their game. Another scene has a 13 year old boy dressed like a cool kid playing a game on a headset and says, “Why do I even bother with this game?” And afterwards Rytlock busts down their walls Kool-Aid man style holding a box saying, “I got what you need! right here!” then clips of ESL footage (not…from this season of course) demonstrating the game while Rytlock goes over what to expect. Logan is wearing a hat backwards standing near a brick wall shaking a can of spray paint saying, “You gotta change with the times man!”

PvP narrator: “Go to Guild Wars 2 to buy the game right now!” Because I think he has a really cool voice “You’ve seized the henge!”

Coulter.2315:

What do you think the marketing budget would be better spent on? Pop-ups? Magazine pages?

The budget for esports needs to be justified and cleared by the company executives, it will be bringing in money.

The pvp championships are an event that brings attention to the game in a way that gives the players something to talk about and shows off the gameplay far better than a few more adverts (thats where the money would be spent if not on esports btw, not some magical new content tree).

Why not just by ads on MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network? That should raise awareness of the game.

I’m just worried about the acrobatics changes, what if they gut or outright remove the vigor on evasion or the 50% movement speed in stealth?

I think the next expansion should do something with gold and silver. I have lots of it and aren’t going to dump it because there might actually be a need for it in the future beyond leveling jewelcrafting (I got mine up to 400 in the first month the game was out since I wanted the Dreamer).

Here’s a build I cooked up:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYWn0MBVmilOBOmCkmildCrbHMDyBzLwH4FcLAUbOQA-TZRBABAcIA24EAMz+DP8EAivMAA

Acrobatics and daredevil seem to have some redundancies but despite those dodge on vigor and extra movement speed in stealth seem strong while targets below 50% will have much tougher times recovering. The non-shadowstep skills are all about interrupts while I take critical strikes over deadly arts because of the extra crit chances. Vigor on dodge (sword 3 and staff 3 and 5 on top of the straight up dodges) will ensure you can always dodge but the build requires tight timing. I practiced dodging polymorph moa, point blank shot, and signet of bane against the practice NPCs since they’re hard hitting skills with subtle tells.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYWn0MBVmilOBOmCkmiFYCbOEWCbhdRhkwTQLBEAyAA-TZRBABbcCAmZ/h4LD8wTAAgDBAA

Is an alternative since it still has traits where you do extra damage below the health threshold and has the added benefit of mug. The healing seed has a cooldown so improvisation isn’t as good as it could be.

The big problem with things getting popular (not just bands but entire industries especially) is the values dissonance between the new consumers and the original consumers. Let’s say the originals value branching paths, challenge, a visible impact on the world including destructible environments, challenge, depth, complexity, and mechanical consistency in the main parts of the game (important qualifier since skateboarding or card games could be great optional content) whereas the newer consumers like simplicity, cutscenes, story, and may be socially different from the originals so somethings would be changed to accommodate them, so no ridiculous yet gritty themes for them.

Nothing wrong with a good story but if resources are going there instead of complex level design and the need to develop skills for an intricate encounter then it must have a cause. Even within this game the conflict can be seen, I mean look at how many people complain about Tangled Depths for being too confusing but the potential to get lost and die is part of what makes it such a great map. The story is also good especially the Rata Novus part. The only thing I agree with the casuals on is make the hero points vets instead of champions but tuned to give single players in full ascended enough of a challenge.

When audiences who don’t share your values and even have conflicting values enter your market things change because now companies will keep trying to get their money. Likewise when a band gets popular it tends to lose what made it appealing to the original audience. Instead of spreading an important message to the world and having technical excellence the original audience can appreciate they dumb their sound down and sanitize their message so as to “offend” the least amount of people possible as ordered by their record label.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m not defending ChronoBunker. I’m defending Mesmer generally. I got good and sick of being underpowered while I waited literally years for anet (lower case deliberate) to fix Mesmer after the confusion nerf.

Now it looks very much like that cycle is repeating and it really kittens me off. anet has NEVER done frequent or regular balance patches. There seems to be no reason to believe they will start now or fix this nuke nerf in the foreseeable future.

1. Anet is a proper noun and therefore should be capitalized regardless.

2.With all due respect it’s okay to have an opinion but Chaith is a top player. Part of that is a deep understanding of the classes but builds are only part of the battle, they are especially renowned for their sense of when and where to disengage and rotate.

3.The meta should be shaken up every now and then and mesmer was way overpowered this season. Mesmer will likely still be in a good spot season 2 since only it has portals, alacrity, cool down resets, and polymorph moa, but will require more skill to be useful.

4.Patches are rarely ever the end of the world, if you’re good you can experiment with different builds, comp sync, and change and adapt things accordingly.

From my experience it’s usually a necro or mesmer and occasionally a guardian. Though yeah all classes do it. Usually the thief does a lot like decapping and roaming but somehow gets blamed for losing even though those very people would run and die 3v1 or 3v2 at mid.

Chaith.8256:

There’s a handful of ChronoShatter Mesmers that I’ve seen at legend level, and they certainly work hard at the art, relying heavily on their reflexes. You are using a build that is extremely bad at low skill levels, when everybody else is using builds that start out significantly stronger at a beginner level.

Because you’re trapped in your self inflicted hell, it may seem like you’re being tormented by faulty matchmaking, or spiteful anti-Mesmer balance, but it’s actually 100% explained by your in-game choices and ability.

ArenaNet does balance and cater to beginner players that are clever enough to figure out some of the HoT builds that are very effective using simple strategies. You can actually go quite far in leagues, even in special cases where matchmaking cannot locate a player in the game who you are capable of outplaying.

Ithilwen, go now, armed with this information – visit metabattle.com – play a build that the vast majority of your Emerald opponents will have no idea how to dispatch, such as Bunker Chronomancer, Celestial Druid, or Celestial Tempest.

What’s considered beginner friendly? Stuff with lots of passives? I can kinda grasp the concept of great for beginners and balancing for skill in other genres but gets murkier with MMOs. I thought the dragon hunter was the best decision and a sign Anet was balancing for skill: easy to execute skills, some passive defense through base guardian traits, but against skill opposition isn’t that great. Apparently it wasn’t intended though since they’re gutting DH traps.

Thief seems to be the opposite: squishy, but if you time your attacks, dodges, and interrupts right is highly rewarding while keeping backstab cheese only viable in PvE and lower skilled matches. Acrobatics has a trait where evasion grants vigor and syncs kinda well with daredevil despite some traits in acro being redundant (increased movement speed in stealth is a godsend to ensure you stay on target but with acrobatics changes advertised they might gut the trait :( ) Balancing for skill enables (or should at least) highly skilled players to overcome bronzestomper “cheese”. Traits should steer in the balance for skill direction (well sort of) with making passives decent but proc on evade/interrupts more competitive.

The stronghold farming is intended behavior. People taking a comp and using a strategy they know is optimal to win. Now that stronghold was solved it’s time they remake the map so there’s no clear cut solution to winning on the map and in a way where any class can shine.