Guild Wars 2

Thief healing is best done through venomancer/stealth healing.

You’re looking at a 30/0/30/10/0 build:
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.7.3.10.20.0.0.0.0.0.154.157.158.159.178.0.0.0.454.458.462.0.0.0.483.489.492.498.0.0.0.0.0.30.0.30.10.0

With high healing power and power equipment to fully boost leeching venoms to absurd levels.

Used correctly by staggering your venom use, you can make every hit for everyone near you heal for 400 for the next 16 attacks. On a 30 second cycle.

For emergency healing fire down black powder shot then switch to shortbow and use an unfragmented clusterbomb in the black powder field for AoE stealth that will apply regen to everyone it hits.

Columba.9730:

LOCO.1785:

Columba.9730:

In WvWvW, thieves can exploit the culling bug to remain perma stealthed and dish out the highest dps. They also can move the fastest. Literally, some thieves can never nbe seen for entire fights. God mode.

You probably believe they can shoot fireballs from their eyes and bolts of lightning from their a55 too.

Plz, stop making up crap. You only make yourself look silly.

with the culling bug, thieves don’t need much stealth to be perma stealth. so perma stealth and the highest dps = god mode.

You really need to stop using the phrase perma-stealth as it implies a lot of things it is not.

Culling and rendering issues, might not make you visible in combat but they do not also give you all the other additional benefits of stealth. Such as shadow art traits, untargetability and the stealth 1 skill.

Whether deliberate or not, what you are doing is over stating the issue considerably. Please stop doing this, you aren’t really helping your point by making it intellectually dishonest.

Culling and Rendering is an issue that needs dealing with, it really doesn’t need a ton of spin to further confuse matters.

Perhaps in future call it permanently unrendered… As this correctly states the actual issue.

Thadren Calder.1397:

You mean the PvP dummies for sPvP in the mists where the damage numbers aren’t even close to what you get in WvW ya….that makes sense.

You are aware that the game is not and likely never will be balanced around WvW, right? By its very nature it is completely unbalanced, simply because it allows gear from PvE.

sPvP by definition is a controlled environment striving for balanced pvp. WvWvW is pretty much anything goes.

So if you are here to complain about thief in WvWvW, I am afraid you are likely outta luck. Because the main imbalance from thieves in WvWvW is that they are allowed 100+ crit damage from their equipment and it has very little to do with actual the class balance.

Tulisin.6945:

Alice.8694:

Pistol Whip: Pistol whip is easily the strongest skill we have when you take into account both damage per initiative used, overall damage and the fact that it can hit 3 enemies within sword range for full damage.
However it’s clearly outshined on single bosses by sword auto attack which is much safer, simply because it doesn’t root you.

It is outshined in most situations by sword auto attack, since auto does more DPS, is initiative free, and applies conditions. PW, on the other hand, gets stun, evasion, and hit volume (more hits, less overall damage) in return for these downsides.

I cannot speculate on its dps as I have no data to back up the specific dps differences of sword auto attack and pistol whip.

And I’d like to add, for the most part dps is a meaningless concept in guild wars 2, due to the nature of the combat.

However in terms of overall damage, pistol whip does slightly more. However I do not believe the slightly higher damage, unreliable evasion, stun and hit volume make up for the rooting and high initiative costs.

Dispari.3980:

Alice.8694:

Dispari.3980:

Alice.8694:

Death Blossom: This skill is obviously weaker than others but the problem with this skill is only noticeable if you compare it with our other method of stacking 3 bleeds; Cluster Bomb. Cluster Bomb is cheaper to use, deals more damage, doesn’t root you in a fairly obvious set animation and lastly it is ranged.

Death Blossom makes you invincible, and it’s easy to just immediately do 9-12 stacks of bleed on something. Also the bleed from Death Blossom lasts 150% longer. Also Death Blossom does 3 stacks of bleed and Cluster Bomb does 1 (it says 3 because if you detonate it early each one can bleed, but a regular shot will only do 1 stack). Also you can’t spam Cluster Bomb because of the extra detonate mechanic, which will likely make you miss if you actually use it. And even if you do, it costs an extra 1 initiative.

Firstly cluster bomb is just as effective as death blossom in close range, you can launch and detonate very fast, almost fast as you can death blossom. While moving I should add.

Yes, but then it’s not ranged, which was one of the “advantages.” If you use it from range it does one stack of bleed slowly. Even if it is better for initiative spent over time, I haven’t seen any “melee shortbow” thief builds running around. Although that would be funny.

My apologies I thought the “Optionally” was obvious to everyone.

Dispari.3980:

Alice.8694:

Death Blossom: This skill is obviously weaker than others but the problem with this skill is only noticeable if you compare it with our other method of stacking 3 bleeds; Cluster Bomb. Cluster Bomb is cheaper to use, deals more damage, doesn’t root you in a fairly obvious set animation and lastly it is ranged.

Death Blossom makes you invincible, and it’s easy to just immediately do 9-12 stacks of bleed on something. Also the bleed from Death Blossom lasts 150% longer. Also Death Blossom does 3 stacks of bleed and Cluster Bomb does 1 (it says 3 because if you detonate it early each one can bleed, but a regular shot will only do 1 stack). Also you can’t spam Cluster Bomb because of the extra detonate mechanic, which will likely make you miss if you actually use it. And even if you do, it costs an extra 1 initiative.

Firstly cluster bomb is just as effective as death blossom in close range, you can launch and detonate very fast, almost fast as you can death blossom. While moving I should add.

They also removed cluster bombs detonate cost a few patches back.

So long as you are draining your ini as soon it becomes available, clusterbomb is still out damaging death blossom.

Secondly death blossoms evasion is terrible… It has huge openings at the start and the end of the move. Making its evasion useless as a trigger evade and mostly only useful for pot luck evasion. It certainly doesn’t make you invincible.

Based on my observations of the data here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-Steady-Damage/first#post938509

Pistol Whip: Pistol whip is easily the strongest skill we have when you take into account both damage per initiative used, overall damage and the fact that it can hit 3 enemies within sword range for full damage.
However it’s clearly outshined on single bosses by sword auto attack which is much safer, simply because it doesn’t root you.

Suggested solution: Remove the rooting in PvE.

Unload: The damage was much higher than I expected, but the time taken to put out that damage is pretty slow. At the end of the day, it’s outshined by sword auto attack in both damage and speed.

Suggested solution: I’ve been thinking on this for a while now and I think balancing this move for bleeds would be a bad choice. And when we consider it doesn’t have the 3 target hit capabilities of pistolwhip, it is significantly weaker than pistol whip. If we are to leave the damage alone then either it’s cost should be reduced or its fire rate needs to be increased.
I’d also say buffing the pistol bounce trait to 100% but making it so it only effects vital shot, sneak attack and unload would be completely fair considering that pistol whip hits 3 targets within range. At the moment that trait is next to worthless and needs serious revision.

Shadow Shot: It’s damage is way below other dual skills, mostly because it only hits once. The pistol shot doesn’t actually deal damage, it only blinds. I’m not sure if this is intentional, but it is the least desirable of all dual skills.

Suggested solution: Make the pistol shot deal damage.

Death Blossom: This skill is obviously weaker than others but the problem with this skill is only noticeable if you compare it with our other method of stacking 3 bleeds; Cluster Bomb. Cluster Bomb is cheaper to use, deals more damage, doesn’t root you in a fairly obvious set animation and lastly it is optionally ranged.

Suggested solution: Increase evasion to be reliable for the whole animation or add more bleeds to the attack to balance out the higher cost and yet half the damage..

Sword Pistol
Tactical Strike: 32.
Ini cost: free.

Slice: 34, Slash: 34, Crippling Strike: 55.
Auto attack total: 123
Ini cost: free.

Pistol whip initial hit: 14, Pistol whip flurryx8: 16.
Pistol whip total: 142
Ini cost: 5.
Damager per ini: 28.4 + brief evasion and daze.

Dagger Dagger
Backstab: 103. (from behind)
Ini cost: free

Auto Attack
1st Double strike: 14, 2nd Double strike: 11, Wild strike: 35.
Total: 60
Ini cost: free

Heartseeker
Above 50%: 41, Below 50%: 62, Below 25%: 83.
Ini cost: 3.
Damage per ini: 13.6, 20.6, 27.6.

Death Blossom.
Three hits, 12, 12 and 8.
Total: 32.
Ini cost: 5.
Damage per ini: 6.4 + Three stacks of bleeding.

Dancing Dagger: 20 per bounce.
Ini cost: 4
Damager per ini. 5 per bounce (4 bounces maximum)

Cloak and Dagger: 43.
Ini cost: 6
Damage per Ini: 7.1 + stealth and vunerable.

Dagger pistol
Shadow Shot: 52
Ini Cost: 4
Damage per ini: 13 + blind.

Sword dagger
Flanking Strike: 32, Flanking Stab: 64.
Total: 96.
Ini Cost: 4
Damage Per Ini: 24 + One boon removed.

Short bow
Trickshot: 25 once per bounce. (3 Bounces maximum)
Ini cost: free.

Cluster single explosion: 66
Cluster triple explosion: 23×3
Ini cost: 3.
Damage per Ini: 22 or 23 + one or three stacks of bleed.

Disabling Shot: 34.
Ini cost: 4
Damage per Ini: 8.5 + evasion + cripple.

Pistol Pistol
Sneak Attack: 5 shots hitting for 10 plus 1 bleed per shot.
Ini cost: free

Vital Shot: 17.
Ini cost: free

Unload
Eight hits for 13: 104… However data actually showed 7 hits for 13 and one for 19: 110.
(repeat testing needed)
ini Cost: 5
Damage per Ini: 20.8 or 22.

Bodyshot: 23.
Ini cost: 3.
Damage per ini: 7.6 + vunerable.

Headshot: 11.
Ini cost: 4.
Damage per ini: 2.75 + daze.

Black Powder: 11.
damage per ini: 1.8 + PBAoE Blind.

Best base damage for ini cost: Pistol Whip
Worst base damage for ini cost: Black Powder

How the numbers were obtained: Completely naked, Traits refunded, Steady weaponry.

Things to improve on: If anyone can get me the exact time taken for each skill to act, I would be able to compare time/damage/ini taken for every skill as well. This would be useful in highlighting under performing skills.
A numerical ‘steady’ value for bleed and poison would be awesome… If anyone has a good idea on how to work that out.

Updated as of 6/12/2012.

I have a questions for all these people who feel betrayed by Arenanet. Are quitting because of a new item tier or feel that because there are higher levels of progression their time spent playing is worthless.

Did you also intend to feel betrayed/upset when they added further levels to the game? Something they’ve were saying quite plainly before the game was even released.

Hunt.1925:

Feedback:
I don’t think any thief should be able to kill anyone in less than 2 sec. Before you start flaming me, I’m a tanky elem with full exotic gear with toughness and vitality. I have scarified a lot of power and Precision for survivability and I still get 2 shot’ed. If I was using my Power, crit and precision gear it would have been a one shot kill. I’ll even post a screenshot to prove it. So yes something needs to be done with a Thief’s C&D and BS. Getting hit for 11k+ in one hit is outrages with 2600 armor. Now if I was using my full excoitc glass canon armor that would have been a one shot kill.

Numbers like that are only possible in world vs world vs world, sPvP has limited crit damage bonus.

They’ve already said WvWvW isn’t the focus of their balancing for obvious reasons.

It’s an awful idea, it would completely cripple what little utility we have and further compounds the bottleneck caused by initiation in pvp.

Ncsoft does not equal Arenanet…
Arenanet is a studio owned by Ncsoft.

Ncsoft closed/stopped directly supporting two of its western MMO’s fairly recently… Aion and City of Heroes.

“Game Production Studio (Seattle, Washington) – The NCsoft Game Production Studio brings products from the NCsoft development teams in Seoul to the West, including Lineage, Lineage II, and Aion.”

Perhaps you are thinking of the krait dagger, it is a level 80 crafted rare.

You’ll most likely get a box that randomly generates loot from the same loot table as the karka chest.

Primal.9513:

snip
TL, DR:

1)Horizontal doesn’t mean you don’t want the best gear, it means you want a gear cap.

2)Vertical means you don’t want a gear cap, since you can’t progress vertically if there is a gear cap.

3) There is no such thing as diagonal progression. you either have or have not a gear cap.

Since you asked me directly to address your points I shall…

1) Incorrect and I’m sure most horizontal progression focused players will tell you this. Essentially you are attempting to tell another person what they are thinking and this is wrong. I have asked a few horizontal progressionists their opinions because they happen to be good friends of mine.
I’ll have to wait till their online to get their permission to post the conversations but the main jist of what they said didn’t have anything to do with a gear cap. They fundamentally don’t care about gear.

What they did all say (all five of them) is that they want to experience all of the content without being forced into vertical progression. And they all agree that the game completely and utterly, hands down accomplishes this. They’ve even been with me in a few fractal runs. Some of them aren’t even 80 yet and they still got to experience the content without having to succumb to deliberate vertical progression. And personally I agree with them.

2) Incorrect and I’ll explain why in point 3.

3) The game itself is diagonal progression. All the content is horizontal yet within that horizontal progression there is subtle vertical progression: Leveling, item tiers, skills to unlock. The game itself proves you wrong.

In short having a gear cap isn’t synonymous with horizontal progression. Nor does having one mean there can be no vertical progression. Vertical progression has always been present within the game and it is rather absurd to demand that because the game is released that they must not continue to add some within the content updates along side the horizontal progression.

And as a side note: Technically there is still a gear cap in place. Ascended is simply the new cap and this will be more obvious once all the ascended slots have been released.

proxy.7963:

The thing about good statistical evidence is that it’s difficult to debunk. So far, I’ve yet to see any statistics that really support either side of the ‘Ascended/FotM made people leave’ debate, largely because actually gathering meaningful statistics related to the issue is more complex than just looking at the numbers of players in the game/in a server/on the forum. It’s a lot of warm air and important-sounding words with little evidence – all testimony and no proof.

It’s almost silly that this needs to be said… +1

Galen Grey.4709:

LOCO.1785:

The damage is done.

The people expecting/wanting pure horizontal progression have left.

if they left because of this, they didnt want pure horizontal progression. They wanted to have the best gear without working for it!

pure horizontal progression means you dont care about the gear and Gw2 certainly allows you to do that safely! Wanting the best gear isnt horizintal progression its vertical progression and thats the problem! people seem to want easy vertical progression which is entirely differnet from wanting horizontal progression.

I know several horizontal progression focused players and this non-controversy barely registered to them. A lot of what they saw was other people trying to sell them the hysteria on how bad the new content was.

I’ve been meaning to make a joke video where it shows lion’s arch the day before the patch… Then some clips of the doomsaying about how broken GW2 is now thanks to ascended gear… Then back to peaceful lion’s arch several days after the patch.

99.9% (since this thread is made of made up statistics, might as well join in) of horizontal content is untouched by ascended gear. Horizontal players don’t give a kitten. <—- actual kitten for dramatic effect because who doesn’t love kitties…

Gehenna.3625:

Yep this is true.

On the other hand you could argue that for people who like stat progression this simply may not be enough and there’s the issue of infusion.

Since ascended gear is required to add infusion, this armour will be required for specific content, not just high level fractals but more content in the future as well. As it is unclear and a lot of work to get together it, I think this infusion business will be more significant than the actual stat boost.

The stat boost is in that sense very small and one could wonder why they even bothered because the real difference will be in the infusion. Sadly also there we see stat bonuses. I would like to see the difference in about a year between exotic gear and infused acended gear then.

In the mean time since we don’t know how much of the new content will require infusion, people will logically feel required to get ascended gear cause they don’t want to miss out in the future.

That’s why I expect that by that time it will be easy to get and infuse the armour. And that begs the question, why do it now?

So it seems a waste of time and either way it’s not content for me, which leaves me with the rest of the game which is half deserted because of FotM and was getting stale for me as it was.

Different people, different likes.

I know a couple of groups who hit level 20 in fractals with 0 agony resistance. So within the current content… That means agony resistance is a “Make things easier” stat. Basically it’s a luxury stat… As design goes, that’s a really good concept. I hope they can consistently encourage it within future content.

Gehenna.3625:

No worries. It is simply my opinion but it is what I believe.

There is much more that I have an issue with in GW2 however. As I stated earlier in this thread, the manifesto does talk about grind and story line. Those are two elements that are not living up to the manifesto in my view.

Also the voice acting and some key bugs are annoying to me. I mean the list goes on. This whole debacle was just the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. Trust me, I can have a discussion with you about GW2 completely ignoring the manifesto and the bottom line is that even then I can make a list of items I am not happy with in this game, manifesto or not.

I don’t doubt it, so can I… But I’ve been in this game (being a gamer and more so an mmorpg gamer) a long time, long enough to know expecting that list to go down significantly in a few months is completely unreasonable.
(And if you think about it, the list has gone down considerably.)

But that isn’t really the issue here is it, the issue isn’t people having reasonable issues with the current game. Most of this latest debarcle was mass hysteria, people taking the worst interpretation of arenanets actions and declaring that the recent changes had ruined or destroyed the game. By implying greater problems would necessarily follow rather than addressing what was actually added during the patch. Many of the actual problems and concerns with the LS patch were actually highlighted and apologised for by Chris during the AMA.

I’ve been meaning to make a joke video of lions arch before and after the patch, sunny sky, crickets chirping. Because the patch didn’t drastically change the game, it merely added some content that needs work. Work they admitted needs working on during the AMA.

All that leaves is the hysteria and the snowball fallacies. People declaring the game has been ruined, way before their own classification of “ruined” has even occurred.

Gehenna.3625:

snip
Yes I am free to interpret as I choose. As are you. This is why some people leave the game and are upset and some stay and are fine.

But consider this. In the AMA they said they knew they would get this big negative reaction. That means they knew a lot of people were under this impression and they did nothing really to clarify this before they introduced the Lost Shores. Although they didn’t actually state there wouldn’t be any powercreep they also happily let people believe there wouldn’t be, even though they knew this perception was out there. Aside from what was or wasn’t said by Anet, I find that by itself less than honest and that is why I am upset about all this.

That implication doesn’t really work… It would have if it wasn’t for the fact that since before and after launch there was a vocal group giving negative reactions to everything Arenanet said, did and didn’t do.
It’s literally gotten to the point where I am making bets with my friends on what will be the next big non-controversy. We’ve had bugs, bots, precursor weaponry, new content, cash shops and dyes to name the ones off the top of my head.

You are holding the devs in the least charitable interpretation possible of what they do. And from the outside it seems like the only reason for this is that if you don’t… You have nothing to be upset about. Until the next thing comes along to be upset about.
(I am using the you term as a fairly blanket stereotype here, I not directly addressing you Gehenna but the situation as a whole.)

George Steel.1804:

What once was the golden child of new-age MMO’s, Guild Wars 2, is now one of my least played games. And it’s not only me. snip

You have a lot of misconceptions, you also seem to be expecting more than is humanely presentable.

Allow me to explain for you.

Just after launch they split the devs into teams with the intention of progressing in as many areas at possible at a reasonable pace. They even make a blog post about it, which I am sure most people ignored since it didn’t contain anything they could rant about.

This is why pvp and pve content is coming out before everything has been fixed. To put it simply, it’s easier to make new content than fix the current content. So the teams working solely on the monthly content are easily out performing the debugging team.
As one of the level designers for pvp pointed out, designing new maps is easy compared to coding complex systems.

This is the best solution, they need to keep putting out monthly content because a… they said they would and b… it keeps the GW2 world relevant and active. They also need to keep dealing with bots, fixing bugs for classes and the world, overhauling the world to have better scaling, encounters and rewards.

You seem to be expecting them to ignore all these things and solely focus on the things you feel are most relevant. Which is not only unfair to the rest of the playerbase but also detrimental to the life of GW2.

With the 250 or so devs divided into groups to tackle the different areas of the game. This means that all problems with the game as well as introducing content are being tackled at a steady pace and fair pace

Yes some areas of the world are still broken, but the phenomenal amount of bugs that I encountered at launch are gone. The bots got handled in an overwhelming manner… They’re just gone. And we are getting, albeit buggy and rushed, new content every month as promised.

Essentially you have inhuman expectations for human developers.

From my perspective a lot of the framing rhetoric that follows with these types of negative criticism such as:

“They lied.”
Demonstrating that something they said several years ago was intended to decieve you into purchasing the game so that they could to suddenly change it once they have your money, will be considerably hard to prove or demonstrate… It’s also considerably hard to believe when the rest of the game is in line with their manifesto.

“They broke their promise.”
You are the type of person who when their girlfriend or boyfriend splits up with you, you lash out at said person with something along the lines of “You promised you’d always love me.” when no promise was really made, just the intention to try.

“I bought an orange and got a banana.”
A strawman at the base level… No you bought a product from a genre that is well known to get continuous changes to its design over a long period of time. And because you think one of those changes is bad, that is enough to justify claiming the product was being sold in a deceitful manner, ignoring the very nature of the product.

They are sub-consciously using this kind of negativity in the hope that they upset other people. In order to make the situation more negative overall. In the hope that if they make the situation a lot more negative Arenanet might be more likely to cave to their demands.
They’re basically trying to back up their opinions with an angry mob in order to be heard.
And then you see posts like “X number of people were this pissed off, we clearly deserve direct feedback.”
And what they fail to qualify is they expect it on their time frame and not Arenanets.

If Arenanet has demonstrated anything with their public communication, it is that they only make press releases when they are absolutely sure of something.

Your degree of anger does not entitle you to anything more than any other GW2 player. The only thing a GW2 owner is really entitled to is a few hundred hours of good gameplay. After that everything else is given at the behest of Arenanet. That isn’t to say I think that Arenanet shouldn’t at some point go into greater detail on ascended items and how this feedback has effected it. But at their own pace when they can fully explain to us how the situation will be handled from here onwards.

It’s depressing because the snowball of meaningless negativity overwhelms all discussion going on in between the actual players of either side of the issue.

Do state you don’t like something.
Do State why if you can!
Don’t try and create a movement of negativity to enforce your opinions, you will undermine your own feedback by making it non-constructive and destructive.
Don’t expect Arenanet to solely react to you, there is a lot of us here and your investment in GW2 was in no way any more valuable than everyone elses.

Raine.1394:

HiddenNick.7206:

Raine.1394:

There’s a simple resolution to the question. Could you define gear treadmill for me?

Why?

Because we are dealing with an unresolved question: Is it a gear treadmill? I say it is, you say it isn’t. It’s a simple question to answer. If we come up with a definition of “gear treadmill” we can evaluate the introduction of Ascended gear based upon that definition. Then, we won’t have that unresolved question standing between us.

A gear treadmill is a system where you must perpetually put in effort to maintain the same level of power as the content around you succumbs to power creep.

Ascended is not a treadmill, as it acts as a higher plateau, demonstrable by the fact that legendaries will be elevated to ascended strength. similar to how exotics were before ascended was introduced.

You can only rightfully claim that there is a treadmill if they add another degree of equipment stronger than ascended at some point in the future. With the express intent of drawing out item progression and forcing you to put perpetual effort into the game to maintain the plateau of power.

I expect the end of the thief… If this isn’t the patch that’ll do it, a following one will.
It’ll be a class where only the very skilled can barely struggle to maintain a decent kill/death ratio. Due to insistent reductions in burst and stealth and the classes overall lack of self defence, with the exception of running away.

We’ll maintain our status as the best at retreating, but only just and only if a class with movement skills and ranged snares hasn’t brought them that time.

Velron.3729:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

You lied to us, plain and simple.

Lied

“To lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally.”

You are not using this word correctly.

Fine.

Broke their promise.

kitten.

And which promise was that? With quotes please.

http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success

“Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

Already linked by someone else on the previous page.

Firstly, this isn’t a promise… It’s a design philosophy. By the very nature of reiterative design, designs change constantly. This is a guideline to how they intend on focusing that process.
Secondly, the content added can be read in a manner that fits this philosophy fine.

Dinks.2478:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

You lied to us, plain and simple.

Lied

“To lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally.”

You are not using this word correctly.

They used it correctly. Arenanet told us blatant lies. And now they are going back on their word. This is the definition of a lie.

Right then, so you have evidence to demonstrate when they initially made their statement it was intended to deceive readers into believing a design philosophy with the intent at the time to not follow through with it?

Because if you can’t, you’re actually committing libel. And by the very nature of lacking that evidence, Arenanet would win in court hands down.

“Trahearne is such a well designed and thought out character, I really feel moved to have been witness to such masterful writing.”

“Tybalt’s death was so meaningful and well written.”

“Arah is open!”

“If only the mystic forge was more random.”

“There’s so many ways to earn money at a meaningful rate!”

“Steal really defines the thief class like the mechanics of other classes do.”

Yes to a new gear rarity level.
Yes to a new gear rarity level with better stats.
Yes to a new and final level of the power plateau, until such time that the level cap is raised by an expansion.
Definitely No to a power creep gear treadmill.

Sparda.9750:

“i loved clock tower” ( seriously )

Clocktower was awesome.

Talloc.6835:

Alice.8694:

Talloc.6835:

Alice.8694:

Alexander Dragonfang.1759:

Alice.8694:

If you can point out, which part of this announcement explicitly points out that arenanet are turning GW2 into a gear threadmill, power creep snowball. Then your argument might actually hold weight. But you cannot, because it’s simply not there.

Maybe you missed it but…

https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ascended-EN.png

There you have it, power creep, small, weak, almost unoticable, but power creep after all.

But not a snowball, that is simply a higher plateau. The argument you are making is that somehow these ascended items are going to break the level limit and get progressively stronger.
Nothing mentioned here actually supports that.

Do you know what the snowball argument actually is? Please don’t give me a link, I’d like it in your words.

The snowball argument somewhat ironically is another name for the slippery slope fallacy…
But since you are more implying how it relates to this situation:
The sheer act of increasing the item power will somehow cause a momentum that forces Arenanet to add additional levels of power in order to continue the intended effect of adding the first.

It’s basically an assumption that because they added A therefore they must then add B, C, D, E, F and G to sustain the effect intended by adding A.

Which implies a deliberate ignorance to the current system in place and how what they’ve specifically said would effect it.

And what is your reasoning that they won’t add more progression now that their foot is in the door? I’ve got about five dead MMOs backing up my worries.

I can honestly say I wish I shared your optimism, but this announcement has given me a familiar feeling.

Your dead mmos are meaningless because there are too many variables involved in game development for you to use them as examples. Everything from design philosophy to the guy who makes the coffee in the morning could have some potential factor on how each of them didn’t perform. And more than likely, most of them didn’t die because of adding an additional tier of item rarity. Though you’re welcome to list them so I can speculate on why they died, for a laugh.

Your issue with the game, currently isn’t present. Had they already added a previous tier of item rarity and suddenly their adding another a few months in. I would understand and completely agree with your concerns. But this is the first time they’ve done this. While yes, this is shakey ground from here on. How they proceed from here is very much what decides if they use ascended as the new plateau or if they sucumb to a gear treadmill power creep.
But you cannot claim the latter, simply because they’ve added a new plateau for the first time. You can worry about it however… But there is a difference between worrying and outright claiming their implementing a gear treadmill power creep without any evidence to support it.

My advice to you is:
A. Calm down.
B. Make your concerns for the future known.
C. Don’t make sensationalist rage posts claiming the worst is already happening without evidence.
D. Drink some Tea, Coffee or beverage of choice.

Toggles.1783:

Death by Chickens.6902:

This outrage is hilariously stupid.

I guarantee an ANet dev will post in the next few days and explain that NO, they said nothing about adding new equipment tiers every 6 months, and as the blog explained, they saw a need to bridge the gap between Exotic and Legendary by adding ONE new tier.

You people are going to give yourself aneurisms over nothing. Stop freaking out. Constructive feedback is great, but ya’ll are taking it too far.

Just a fyi incase you don’t know, a lot of people think the anti-outrage is, as you put it, “hilariously stupid”.

You say they saw a need to bridge a gap. Do you realize that they’re doing exactly the opposite of that?

They are actually creating a gap between exotics and legendary.

Actually what they are doing is demoting Exotics to fancy Rares.

Talloc.6835:

Alice.8694:

Alexander Dragonfang.1759:

Alice.8694:

If you can point out, which part of this announcement explicitly points out that arenanet are turning GW2 into a gear threadmill, power creep snowball. Then your argument might actually hold weight. But you cannot, because it’s simply not there.

Maybe you missed it but…

https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ascended-EN.png

There you have it, power creep, small, weak, almost unoticable, but power creep after all.

But not a snowball, that is simply a higher plateau. The argument you are making is that somehow these ascended items are going to break the level limit and get progressively stronger.
Nothing mentioned here actually supports that.

Do you know what the snowball argument actually is? Please don’t give me a link, I’d like it in your words.

The snowball argument somewhat ironically is another name for the slippery slope fallacy…
But since you are more implying how it relates to this situation:
The sheer act of increasing the item power will somehow cause a momentum that forces Arenanet to add additional levels of power in order to continue the intended effect of adding the first.

It’s basically an assumption that because they added A therefore they must then add B, C, D, E, F and G to sustain the effect intended by adding A.

Which implies a deliberate ignorance to the current system in place and how what they’ve specifically said would effect it.

Alexander Dragonfang.1759:

Alice.8694:

If you can point out, which part of this announcement explicitly points out that arenanet are turning GW2 into a gear threadmill, power creep snowball. Then your argument might actually hold weight. But you cannot, because it’s simply not there.

Maybe you missed it but…

https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ascended-EN.png

There you have it, power creep, small, weak, almost unoticable, but power creep after all.

But not a snowball, that is simply a higher plateau. The argument you are making is that somehow these ascended items are going to break the level limit and get progressively stronger.
Nothing mentioned here actually supports that.

Alexander Dragonfang.1759:

There is a point in life, where, logical falacies hold no importance.

http://mmohuts.com/gamelist

See al those names? they are all (ok. 99%) games that in one point in their lives were pushed a bit or missed the navigation for 1 milimeter. All of them.

Empirical proofs > Logical Fallacies. Even if it is a fallacy, i still hold an almost countless number of examples of my tesis, while you, on the other hand, even claiming me being wrong by these logical fallacy… How much games from there you can name that hasn`t become and endless snowball till crash to become nothing more than a wasteland?

Even more important, what will be diferent from after this between GW2 and every other game on that list? Every other game has something GW2 has but better, even some of them have most things GW2 has but better.

The only thing could do more harm to the game than this is making a p2w cash shop.

You have yet to demonstrate how this is going to be a power creep. Which is the entirely crux of your argument. This is essentially your assumption, based solely on the nature of other games by other development teams.

If you can point out, which part of this announcement explicitly points out that arenanet are turning GW2 into a gear threadmill, power creep snowball. Then your argument might actually hold weight. But you cannot, because it’s simply not there.

Talloc.6835:

Ah, the same response you gave me from earlier. Care to explain why they’re adding one set of armor with a new mechanic on it and it’s only happening this one time?

Or I guess you could just link your slippery slope argument website again.

Being an kitten won’t make your arguments any less fallacious, you realise this right?

You’re the one claiming they are going to add additional armour tiers after this one, therefore the burden of proof is on you. And as I already pointed out to you “Because they just added one” isn’t a sufficient answer.

They are pretty clear in the blog post why exactly they are adding an additional item rarity. Perhaps you should read it. :P

Wyrmrider.1692:

“Why is this a problem?”

1) For PvPers, it a problem because your best-in-slot gear may now be exclusively found in dungeons. (This isn’t 100% confirmed AFAIK, but it sure looks like it.)

2) For casual PvEers, it’s a problem because you’ll be behind the gear curve, and more hardcore players will start to exclude you because of it.

3) For hardcore PvEers, it’s a problem because you’ll be pressured to do the latest dungeon (the one with the best loot) to the exclusion of all else.

All of these are assumptions.
1) sPvP won’t be affected.
WvWvW has always been considered secondary in balancing compared to the rest of the game. They’ve always said this, this is nothing new. That being said it wouldn’t be difficult to add WvWvW methods of attaining ascended strenght gear either.

2) Tricky wording here since curve can imply several things, such as a treadmill. Of which there is currently none implied. People are already excluding players from dungeon pugs if their not in exotics. So I fail to see how the present system has stopped that at all.

3) Sorry but how is this an argument supporting your position?
Hardcore pvers will feel pressured into pveing… Oh no… The tragedy! Wait… but that’s what they like doing… They’re hardcore pvers remember?

Zefiris.8297:

Why are people getting so mad?

No idea, why are you angry?

It’s just more content.

Nobody dislikes the new content. People only dislike that the power plateau is no power plateau anymore. I have not seen a single complaint about the actual content.

Additional stats are not content. They are just numbers. They make you think you are achieving something when you really aren’t.

http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DAip2aIt0ROM

This video explains it very, very well. Just watch it and you’ll understand. It’s for an entirely different game, castlevania in this case, but the thing on avatar strength is precisely why people don’t like it and wanted the gear plateau instead.

Warning, the video guy curses a bit. He’s a bit crass, but his points on these are good.

Essentially, those of us that dislike ascended gear don’t want mcdonalds, we wanted our high-class dessert.

Here’s the problem… You aren’t demonstrating that there is no power plateau… Because you can’t. There isn’t sufficient data to claim otherwise.

The plateau is now Ascended, that’s basically all they’ve said and all we really know. So while I understand your negative feelings towards power creep. Right now your being fairly irrational claiming that because they’ve added a higher plateau, that the plateau doesn’t exist any more.

Next months content however, might better equip you to discern whether it is a plateau or not, depending on what they add.

I am amused by the lack of forethought behind any of this rage.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I am resisting my own inner demon screaming at the screen “OMG ARENANET WTF ARE YOU DOING?!”

Let’s look at this from the best case scenario:
Arenanet are striving for monthly content, this is not something guild wars 1 ever touched on.
Within that monthly content they need to find a way of raising the stakes for hardcore players.
May I remind everyone the stakes currently are so high that they consist of meet boss, get one shotted, lol.
Agony is a surefire way to limit a players advancement down an infinite dungeon. But also the infinite dungeon can be balanced so that for most players who don’t intent on pushing the limits of the dungeon, they will never meet agony. Or if they do, it will be in a difficult yet manageable amount.
Assuming they unlock item slots slowly, this is essentially gear designed around the monthly content. Eventually an expansion will come along and raise the level cap and rendering every exotic “not good enough” anyway.

It’s only a gear treadmill if they consistently add new items each month that undermine the previous months content.
It doesn’t suddenly become a treadmill because they added a new item rarity.

Don’t get caught up in the deliberate hate and negativity and try and think rationally about the issue. There are ways this can be implemented that fit in perfectly with guild wars 2.
We can only hope now that they’re adamant on doing this that they maintain their principles and integrity.

gamefreak.5673:

Alice.8694:

gamefreak.5673:

Alice.8694:

gamefreak.5673:

Draven.9521:

BlackDeath.8106:

gamefreak.5673:

We are all wrong, your words of wisdom has shown me i am just a horrible player and backstab perma stealth thieves are balanced.

I am a newbie here, tell me how you can be a perma stealth backstab thief. i just rerolled to a thief.
Whenever, i cast CnD and then a backstab, i cannot get a second backstab straight away and after the first backstab i am out of stealth.
I even tried CnD—>backstab—> CnD (does not let me stealth) and thus couldnt backstab. Since i am a noob here, tell me how you do it? I so wanna own them people with that perma stealth backstab thief build i read about in forum.

you cant. its impossible, unless you exploit. Once you backstab you get a debuff for 3/4 seconds (cant recall) that keeps you from stealthing. Thats why there is no eprma-stealth BS thiefs.

OK i worded that wrong i am just so sick and tired of thieves trying to defend backstab.

Ironic considering you are reading the thief forums.

I’d say what you were doing is more akin to attempting to spout political deliberately erroneous rhetoric in the hopes of contributing to the negative air around a problem that doesn’t actually exist. There is no perma-stealth and by claiming there is you bring the validity of your opinion down to the level of someone who uses strawmen in order to provoke a reactionary response.

Of course I know you were just trying to rile people up, that much is obvious.
But it gives the distinct impression that you don’t have a valid reason for finding backstab so indefensible, if you have to resort to such tactics in order to try and put it down, eh?

Follow link and enjoy.
http://vimeo.com/52977465

Nice try to bait and switch…

It’s not even permanent, which I find hilarious… Not to mention it’s applications are minimal at best,Try harder next time.

No matter what i say about backstab and why I believe it should be toned down I will wrong.

Now you are correct it was not permanent and as for the build you can not devote your entire trait setup to just backstab damage but you will still do alot of damage. As to you saying applications are minimal at best I will disagree. It does serve a purpose in wvwvw though until they remove the stealth cap. It can delay the capture of camps and even keeps to give other factions time to defend or take it back however you look at it. Delaying the capture of camps gives time for your faction to retake the camp or if you are the attack faction more time for more players to show up to take it.

Like I said, it’s usefulness is very limited in scope. It’s also not stealthy, it’s almost impossible to not hear the black powder shot. It also leaves a fairly obvious cloud effect with aoe circle.
As we see in this video, the effectiveness of these idiots trying to find a stealthed thief with random ranged shots. While amusing, any class with an aoe knockdown can easily end this little charade.
And while you might erroneously call this permanent stealth, that name is already linked with another phenomena caused by culling issues in wvwvw. So to use that name is to deliberately exploit the ambiguity between what you mean and what people will assume you mean.

So if you really meant to refer to this, just be clear with what you say… It’s simply re-stacking stealth with combo fields.

There are no actual combat applications for this, because if you knew anything about a thief you’d know you don’t jump into combat with 0 int.

And as a side note, you aren’t even talking about backstab here… You are talking about stealth. To claim that you cannot say anything about backstab that won’t be ignored shows very little faith in the evidence of your arguments against the skill.

People using backstab to pull of insane damage tend to be quite skilled, capable of pulling off a string of actions in order to attain the right buffs and positioning to exploit their abilities and traits for maximum damage.
A nerf to backstab will not effect these people, they’ll keep finding ways to align skills for maximum pay off and hand you your kitten on a plate.
Nerfing backstab will only effect the n00bs who cannot perform this well and only ever see a 3/4k backstab.
Since you won’t actually stop the people who design cookie cutter burst moments unless you remove ALL the burst potential entirely. And the only people you are gonna harm in the long run is novices and people who cannot exploit the thief’s strengths to their advantage.

All you seem to gain from this is making an already easy class to deal with when played by a novice, even more of a free kill.

gamefreak.5673:

Alice.8694:

gamefreak.5673:

Draven.9521:

BlackDeath.8106:

gamefreak.5673:

We are all wrong, your words of wisdom has shown me i am just a horrible player and backstab perma stealth thieves are balanced.

I am a newbie here, tell me how you can be a perma stealth backstab thief. i just rerolled to a thief.
Whenever, i cast CnD and then a backstab, i cannot get a second backstab straight away and after the first backstab i am out of stealth.
I even tried CnD—>backstab—> CnD (does not let me stealth) and thus couldnt backstab. Since i am a noob here, tell me how you do it? I so wanna own them people with that perma stealth backstab thief build i read about in forum.

you cant. its impossible, unless you exploit. Once you backstab you get a debuff for 3/4 seconds (cant recall) that keeps you from stealthing. Thats why there is no eprma-stealth BS thiefs.

OK i worded that wrong i am just so sick and tired of thieves trying to defend backstab.

Ironic considering you are reading the thief forums.

I’d say what you were doing is more akin to attempting to spout political deliberately erroneous rhetoric in the hopes of contributing to the negative air around a problem that doesn’t actually exist. There is no perma-stealth and by claiming there is you bring the validity of your opinion down to the level of someone who uses strawmen in order to provoke a reactionary response.

Of course I know you were just trying to rile people up, that much is obvious.
But it gives the distinct impression that you don’t have a valid reason for finding backstab so indefensible, if you have to resort to such tactics in order to try and put it down, eh?

Follow link and enjoy.
http://vimeo.com/52977465

Nice try to bait and switch…

It’s not even permanent, which I find hilarious… Not to mention it’s applications are minimal at best,Try harder next time.

gamefreak.5673:

Draven.9521:

BlackDeath.8106:

gamefreak.5673:

We are all wrong, your words of wisdom has shown me i am just a horrible player and backstab perma stealth thieves are balanced.

I am a newbie here, tell me how you can be a perma stealth backstab thief. i just rerolled to a thief.
Whenever, i cast CnD and then a backstab, i cannot get a second backstab straight away and after the first backstab i am out of stealth.
I even tried CnD—>backstab—> CnD (does not let me stealth) and thus couldnt backstab. Since i am a noob here, tell me how you do it? I so wanna own them people with that perma stealth backstab thief build i read about in forum.

you cant. its impossible, unless you exploit. Once you backstab you get a debuff for 3/4 seconds (cant recall) that keeps you from stealthing. Thats why there is no eprma-stealth BS thiefs.

OK i worded that wrong i am just so sick and tired of thieves trying to defend backstab.

Ironic considering you are reading the thief forums.

I’d say what you were doing is more akin to attempting to spout political deliberately erroneous rhetoric in the hopes of contributing to the negative air around a problem that doesn’t actually exist. There is no perma-stealth and by claiming there is you bring the validity of your opinion down to the level of someone who uses strawmen in order to provoke a reactionary response.

Of course I know you were just trying to rile people up, that much is obvious.
But it gives the distinct impression that you don’t have a valid reason for finding backstab so indefensible, if you have to resort to such tactics in order to try and put it down, eh?

Sniper rifle damage should get significantly weaker in close range.
Also you need a stealth skill.

This is a great idea though.

My recent and likely final armor change for a while, a composite of 5 different sets.

Amon.5042:

Arenanet have made it very clear that their focus is on playing for playings sake. Gear and cosmetic rewards are secondary to that and serve as a complementry system rather than a main gameplay focus in almost every way.

This is a rather dubious philosophy. You say it’s for playing sake but yet there are different different levels in gear and cosmetic designs. Why are they there? Players like this. Doing an activity with a high end reward that a specific type of player is able to get more immediately is hardly a balanced experience. Other activities could be made to give other types of players a chance in getting a high end gear besides the normal methods.

You seem to be under the delusion that the halloween events are a permanent feature. Let alone the fallacy of comparing older content to newer content. But lets ignore all this for a moment and get to the crux of your argument.

Whilst also ignoring that the rest of the mad kings armor is from the PvE content. That’s 5 pieces out of 6. Which lends itself a significant bias to those other types of content, that you seem to be attempting to claim don’t have a sufficiently valid amount of ‘reward’ to justify rewarding the slippers at the top of the tower.

While yes, those pieces are on a drop rate. Considering most people easily burned more time on the tower practising to hit the top than it takes to find one piece of the mad kings armor set by purely grinding the same amount of time. I fail to see how your argument even makes sense, let alone holds water when compared to the actual content.

Nayru.3947:

Alice.8694:

Fancy that, the mad king made a maddening puzzle that made you rage.

Mission accomplished if you ask me.

Except the point of a game is to have fun. Stop trying to act supreme.

Get off your high horse. The term “fun” is ambiguous enough as it is, so it’s funny that you use that ambiguity here to pointlessly attack me for what is essentially a sarcastic schadenfreude joke. White knighting abit much are we?

Due to the ambiguity of fun, one persons fun can be another persons torture. As we see here with the clocktower. Catering to everyone’s definition of fun is literally impossible.
An easy, unchallenging jumping puzzle wouldn’t be fun for anyone except those obsessed with getting rewards.
Arenanet have made it very clear that their focus is on playing for playings sake. Gear and cosmetic rewards are secondary to that and serve as a complementry system rather than a main gameplay focus in almost every way. This tower is basically the epitome of that philosophy. The reward and point of the clocktower, is to beat it. If you don’t enjoy trying to beat a challenge of this nature. Don’t do it.

CelticWish.2314:

This whole event to me seems more epic then any other event I’ve seen in a game. This is a part of the event. It takes some very good jumping skills, I will probably not get through it, but that is okay. It is what it is, I don’t have to have everything cater to my exact needs and skills. This to me is showing how round the game is, in real life there is plenty I can fail at as well. If many enjoyed it, to me it’s a success. No reason for us who can’t, bring everything down.

I think the golden rule to be wary of here is:
Don’t let one person ruin it for the rest of us.

It’s a shame more can’t think this way, there is content here for everyone. Deliberately so in many ways. And yet here we have people complaining too many people were catered too.

OH THE DRAMA…

You people crack me up.

Mad King Thorn won.

The game will be re-released under the title: The Mad king says…

Fancy that, the mad king made a maddening puzzle that made you rage.

Mission accomplished if you ask me.

Focksbot.6798:

Maybe I just have a feverish imagination, but I can imagine a system which allows a huge variety of outcome without being more complex to build/approach. For one thing, you could have a system where certain combinations of materials improve certain stats of a weapon while weakening it in other areas – specialist bows that consistently weaken/cripple but deal little damage, or armour that has added protection but breaks more easily, or armour that deals damage to all melee attackers (via an electric shock) at the cost of protection.

Two things really…

Firstly, In a game that seeks to have a static gear cap for balance amongst other things. I do not see the “variable materials/variable stats” approach being any more meaningful than what we have already. What we do need are more kinds of insignia to make the stat variations that are available but not yet craftable. If anything you’d just needlessly complicate the insignia system already in place for the sake of complexity.
No thanks.

Secondly, Runes provide these extra benefits already and this is a system that allows a vast array of customisation as an addition to crafting items. Which it would not do, if forcibly made part of the crafting system. Since you would then be forced to remake an entire item just to change the overall effect. Completely undermining the concept of runes, which was designed to allow you that freedom.
No thanks.

Both these ideas have been used before. The first most prominently in my mind from the playstation game: Vagrant Story. And the second is actually already within GW2, just in a different form.