Guild Wars 2

nakoda.4213:

Arganthium.5638:

zaxon.6819:

i agree the system is useless. the issue i have is that it is now a part of the game and people can in some way consider it useful information.

in reality it is relevant information to anet not other players. since what is important to people who run a mmo is time played per person.

adding a /playedpvp would have = the same thing pretty much and they could have saved thier time and effort for bug fixing.

But if I’m looking to add a new Guard to my team, it’d be helpful to know which ones are the best that are free at any given moment.

No matter what the statistical system, the only way to ever judge that appropriately is to watch that player play, and/or play with that player.

what do you think professional scouts are for in RL sports?

They start with the stats (rank) and then observe. Then they interpret the stats based upon their CONTEXTUAL OBSERVATION of reality. Then they decide to put the player on the list or not.

So putting in scouts into a sport determines whether or not an unit of measurement is accurate? If ANet decided to replace the visibility of numbers like “power”, “precision”, or “health” and replaced them with subjective relative terms such as “powerful” or “weak”, would that mean that number cannot exist? Of course not, it just means that we don’t know what a particular numerical value is without researching it. Furthermore, watched “Moneyball”?

Also, your second part again assumes that there is a subjective value of numbers. In the situation that someone has to evaluate whether a player is “strong” or “weak”, I might agree with you if the categorical value is not based on a range of numbers (i.e. you define 1-10 as weak, 11-20 as mediocre, and 21-30 as strong), but instead based on personal influences such as bias (“oh, I can’t recall the last time I saw a twenty, this guy must be strong”), but this does not have to be the case. If we define strength as being relative to other players (which, by definition, it has to be, you can’t say that one player is stronger than the other without using relational terms between them), then we can simply run a numerical analysis on the skill of players based on the regression equations that we determine from our statistics that I mentioned in my response to Psycho. Thus, we get a numerical rank for players based on observed statistical facts that helped us to create both a regression equation as well as determine the value of some variable for a given player.

nakoda.4213:

more stats would be great, but you cannot expect them to measure skill.
even the reading of statistics is a subjective experience, because you have to reinterpret them, and everyone interprets differently, as this thread clearly showcases.

Does this change for anything? Everything is subjective. Yet, is subjectivity a bad thing? Not necessarily.

Furthermore, objects that can only exist as intangibles, such as numbers, can’t be misinterpreted if they are, by definition, objects of thought. Furthermore, numbers can only be interpreted one way as they are a measure of value relative to nothingness, which is the absence of something in a given context, and there is only one rational way to interpret nothingness- as an absence of existence, a term used to describe something that our sensory receptors can in some way experience.

nakoda.4213:

Arganthium.5638:

Did you really not read my original post? At all? Any of it? Or did you just see the words “skill level” and “rank” and think “omg he must think that skill=rank lol”

your leap of logic is midichlorian.

of course i read your post, you want a ranking system that reflects skills. not that rank = skill.

i never said rank = skill, nor did i say that that is what you said.

i said that rank != skill.

So if you knew that that wasn’t what I said, why for the love of reason would you even tell me that rank != skill in your first comment? It was completely redundant and nonsensical if you did realize this. In fact, most of everything that you wrote was redundant if the whole time you knew that I had already explicitly stated it.

You try to make a case against statistics, and, while interesting, it fails on a few very basic level. For one thing, you state that “statistics lack context without manipulation” (for all intents and purposes), but you use “manipulate” as if it’s some kind of taboo word (and, of course, we’re speaking of the alternate definition of manipulate: "Handle or control (a tool, mechanism, etc.), typically in a skillful manner: “he manipulated the dials”, just from google). Why should manipulation of statistics, then, be considered a bad thing? This you do not explain; you simply state it as your reason why this project fails. Now, if you really are using the other definition of manipulation (to change, essentially), then we’re talking about two entirely different things. You’re talking about statistics being faulty in that they have to be altered in order to exist (which means that statistics, by definition, are all false because they must express facts in false manners), while I’m discussing statistics as being facts as long as they are unbiased estimators of a true value. Your definition automatically assumes an incorrect nature of all statistics, so I’m extremely doubtful that your definition is true, unless you’re about to consider everything in life a lie (given that everything that we see is only an estimation of what is true, as there are no objective truths, simply subjective ones based on previous assumptions- ironically, we can deduce this only via previous assumptions).

There is a further, more serious issue with your argument. We already showed that manipulation, in the context of something simply being “used”, doesn’t necessarily make something inaccurate. However, you also suffer from the simple fact that there is nothing that doesn’t require previously defined context. You stated that “statistics lack context”, but that’s only in the situation that none is given to them. In one of your examples, you mentioned RBI, so let’s look at that. So, for a statistic about RBI to mean anything, it has to be stated that the statistic is given in the context of it being an RBI measurement. Well, what is RBI? It stands for “run batted in”, which refers to baseball, which refers to the human game of… You get the idea. Thus, stating that statistics “lack context” is an issue that is detrimental to their accuracy (which, I presume, is the entire reason why you’re denying that they can be used to evaluate player skill levels in the first place) is no different from stating that nothing is accurate and thus no measurement of anything anywhere can be used to determine anything, because everything requires context.

And you did say that my ideas don’t work.

no numerical tally system will ever accurately reflect skill, because skill is not numerical.

So my ideas being inaccurate isn’t the same as them being unable to work? I don’t think so; why measure something when you explicitly know that not only your statistic may be inaccurate, but actually uses a nonexistent scale to rank something?

You don’t even know what you’re saying.

zaxon.6819:

i agree the system is useless. the issue i have is that it is now a part of the game and people can in some way consider it useful information.

in reality it is relevant information to anet not other players. since what is important to people who run a mmo is time played per person.

adding a /playedpvp would have = the same thing pretty much and they could have saved thier time and effort for bug fixing.

But if I’m looking to add a new Guard to my team, it’d be helpful to know which ones are the best that are free at any given moment.

nakoda.4213:

your quoting skills are lack luster.

let me reiterate for you:

rank will never display actual skill level. ever.

no numerical tally system will ever accurately reflect skill, because skill is not numerical.

the ranking system as it is now, functions as a report of how much time that player has spent playing pvp.

Why is that a bad thing?

all you will ever have on any stat sheet is a relational representation of time spent doing something.

i wasn’t being facetious or trolling in either of my posts, i was discussing the issues you take with the ranking system.

how does that not address what you want to talk about?

Uh…

rank will never display actual skill level. ever.

Did you really not read my original post? At all? Any of it? Or did you just see the words “skill level” and “rank” and think “omg he must think that skill=rank lol”

no numerical tally system will ever accurately reflect skill, because skill is not numerical.

And on what basis do you make this claim? Can one’s skill not be greater than another’s? Lesser than? Can’t a person’s skill level grow, or decrease? Isn’t skill an objective factor, and not a subjective one? How can you possibly state that there is no way to give a numerical rating of a person’s skill level, particularly when you haven’t even researched it yet?

the ranking system as it is now, functions as a report of how much time that player has spent playing pvp.

Why is that a bad thing?

Give me a single instance where I said it was a “bad thing”.

I never did say that, did I? I said that it didn’t serve the purpose people were using it for.

all you will ever have on any stat sheet is a relational representation of time spent doing something.

You make the claims, you better bring up the evidence.

i wasn’t being facetious or trolling in either of my posts, i was discussing the issues you take with the ranking system.

how does that not address what you want to talk about?

Because you never addressed how my idea doesn’t work, just how ideas that I didn’t have are actually completely false.

nakoda.4213:

kittenkittenkitten

… Y’know, okay then.

Psychogene.6780:

I agree with you on most parts regarding rank,glory and leaderboard.

Glory points, current game mode and current leaderboard don’t have the means to measure ‘individual’ skill, and with the current pvp game mode more or less focusing on teamwork to win above all else the only real way to measure rank is your ‘teams rank’. I guess if you are in the no.1 team in the world you can say you are amongst the top 10 players in the world for whatever class you are playing.

The only way to know for sure if your the best team in the world is to participate in organised tournaments – hotjoins, solo and group queue wont cut it for numerous reasons. Its way more prestige anyway to say you are part of a team that has won tournaments then to say you were rank X but never participated in serious pvp tournaments. So hopefully there will be lots of organised tournaments happening coz this can only be a good thing for everyone concerned.

On the idea of developing some kind of algorithm to determine a players metrics, that kind of sounds like sports science to me so you might want to look in that field.

It is certainly true that having a good team in that kind of situation is very useful in determining skill rank; however, the issue comes up that there are millions of players, and you can’t rank each of them by having them play in a tournament with a control team of four people against another control team of 5 people to determine how good the person is. Not only is that impractical, but over time, your constants would no longer remain constant. It would also be deathly boring.

Also, even being the best team in the world doesn’t mean that you’re the best possible team in the world, which is why I’d like to look into ranking players based on different areas of play, like bunkering, support, etc.

On the idea of developing some kind of algorithm to determine a players metrics, that kind of sounds like sports science to me so you might want to look in that field.

This is essentially what I’m looking for, actually. I would like to be able to find good correlative equations to determine how good a player is; I just need to find a good set of two variables to measure and then get the actual statistics on this.

Conversely, John Doe who has done nothing but TPvP is likely to get hammered and frustrated with the chaos that is hotjoin until having played several matches.

Except that most teams don’t care about how much of a hotjoin hero you are, just how good you are in tourneys.

At the end of the day, a skilled player is skill regardless of what their rank shows, and i don’t think anyone will argue that.

Thank you for repeating my post…

Rank, at the very least, illustrates some level of effort and commitment to the game, which is positive for everyone.

But again, this isn’t a measure of skill. It isn’t even a measure of effort or commitment, given that there are other game modes in GW2 as well as many powerful, external game skills, like theorycrafting, strategizing, and team formation.

As for the leaderboards … <heavy sigh> I will need to put my thoughts in to more friendly words to talk about that.

Are you actually going to address what I wrote in my post this time?

nakoda.4213:

PvP games will always have a personal score (points)… why wouldn’t they?

The fact that rank is not a measure of skill is irrelevant. Time spent playing is time spent playing. Whether Player A with Rank 29 has developed keen and functional coordinated team play strategies or not is irrelevant. That is experience you earn while playing your tourneys.

The point of Rank is to illustrate to structured teams that applicants are not completely fresh out of the box. So, as a measure of time spent playing, it is working perfectly.

As it stands, if a team of all r50 players went up against a team of all r50 players, every player having just hit 50, the game would definitively broadcast which of those players are better than the others through things like personal score, team score, etc.

If Joe Blow farms hotjoin to get rank 50 and shows up in a tourney, he is going to get trashed, but after several matches, he is going to get better because he has already put in the hours needed to gain a commendable command of his class.

Tactics can be taught later.

Conversely, John Doe who has done nothing but TPvP is likely to get hammered and frustrated with the chaos that is hotjoin until having played several matches.

I thought at one point about suggesting a different rank for hotjoin vs tpvp, but in the end I decided that this is a bad idea.

At the end of the day, a skilled player is skill regardless of what their rank shows, and i don’t think anyone will argue that.

Rank, at the very least, illustrates some level of effort and commitment to the game, which is positive for everyone.

…

As for the leaderboards … <heavy sigh> I will need to put my thoughts in to more friendly words to talk about that.

You completely missed the point of my entire post and then decided to add some snide remarks to display your clearly superior intelligence.

For one thing, I never said that we should get rid of PvP game points. How you managed to interpret that just… Blows my mind. My entire post is a plea to the community to find an algorithm to better rank players, not to get rid of PvP points. The two aren’t even remotely related.

The fact that rank is not a measure of skill is irrelevant… (irrelevant kitten)…So, as a measure of time spent playing, it is working perfectly.

But you’re still missing the point; I’m not looking for a measure of time spent, I’m looking for a measure of skill. Unfortunately, many people misconstrue rank on this forum to mean the same thing as skill, which is why I included rank as a faulty measure of skill in my OP.

As it stands, if a team of all r50 players went up against a team of all r50 players, every player having just hit 50, the game would definitively broadcast which of those players are better than the others through things like personal score, team score, etc.

… Except that we already discussed that personal scores are meaningless, and that team scores only show how good a person’s team is, and, in a broadcasted game, the chances of that team being random is… Well, zero. Furthermore, team score, with such a small sample, would only rank how good a team is relative to another team, and even then that ranking wouldn’t be particularly good anyways. So you suffer from both sampling bias and sample size errors.

Still, none of this has anything to do with ranking skill, which was the entire idea behind my post.

If Joe Blow farms hotjoin to get rank 50 and shows up in a tourney, he is going to get trashed, but after several matches, he is going to get better because he has already put in the hours needed to gain a commendable command of his class.

Which goes to show that rank and thus experience are not good measures of skill. Perhaps another player, Doe Deer, comes along and reaches rank 20 just through tourneys. Now Doe has both command of her class as well as the tactical and strategic knowledge required to be considered, by many, a “good player”, even though she has much less overall experience than Joe, who farmed hotjoin and didn’t do any tournies and thus has lacking tactical and strategic. In fact, Joe’s experiences may actually hurt him in the long run, because his farming hotjoin may have created some irreversible habits that are detrimental to his playstyle that Doe doesn’t have.

Hey all, Arga here.

I and many others here feel that neither rank, points, or leaderboard status accurately represent how good a player is. For example,

Rank- isn’t an indicator of how good you are, just how much PvP you’ve done. This does not equate to more skill, just more experience in a particular area. Furthermore, this experience may not even be useful; perhaps after level 10 you already gained all/the majority of all the playstyle knowledge that you’re ever going to accumulate. Rank doesn’t measure how good a player may have been in WvW or PvE (either of which may influence how good the player is), and doesn’t specify in what areas a player is good (i.e. bunkering, backcapping, support, tanking, etc).

Points- only indicate what you did that game. You could potentially get the fewest points for holding points against crazy opposition, or for providing team support, etc. Absolutely no bearing on how good a player is, or what roles they best fulfill.

Leaderboard status- says how good your teams have been. If you have been with one team consistently, then this creates major bias in you leaderboard rank. This is probably the best measure of success however in players who have played exclusively with random teams, as in the long run you would expect that, if player A was an average player, that he and his teammates would win on average 50% of the time and lose the other 50% of the time, with results determined solely by individual deviations from the mean in a game, or by luck factors. However, this ranking still does not produce one vital piece of information: what areas a player is good in.

What areas a player is good in

I don’t know about you guys, but I think it’d be a great idea to develop some kind of algorithm to determine how good a player is in particular areas. Just ranking players based on power isn’t always a good indicator of, say, DPS skill; you have to factor in survivability, and while a GC spec might do more damage in the short run, a more survivable counterpart might do more damage overall in the long run.

Thoughts?

BobbyT.7192:

Arganthium.5638:

swinsk.6410:

If thief is perma stealth he’s not attacking you. If 10 guys can’t drop a thief when he does attack or use a trap you are terrible players.

L2P IMO.

This.

and that.

And those.

Zacchary.6183:

First off how do you even know a permastealthed thief is there?

Haha, that’s a good point. Might put that in my sig, actually.

Ryuujin.8236:

Svarty.8019:

Then Arenanet made them drop from new content and my investment was ruined. Great job guys.

My advice is to never invest in anything ever. Someone will change the rules and leave you with nothing.

This is why a wise trader has a wide portfolio, in order to spread risk. It happens in real life too; disaster, unexpected problems etc. can all serve to kill an investment dead.

As the saying goes don’t put your eggs all in one basket

It’s also why they try to go into safer investments.

I generally flip on middle-priced items on short-term investments. The way I do business, I calculate the numbers before I flip, and then I try to sell my items as quickly as possible.

This is applicable, I think, in a particularly interesting story from when I used to flip Sharp Claws, back in the day. Can’t remember how long ago it was, but they were selling at a very nice price of about 2s 50 or so. I’d buy them in bulk and then sell them, and, for a time, they didn’t seem to change in price in spite of my flipping. One day, however, they started to roll off a cliff. I’m flipping SCs, when I notice that the price on them is falling pretty rapidly. I sold off all of my SCs as quickly as possible for a price that, overall, lost me some of my money (I perhaps sold 100 SCs at 2s when I bought them for 1s 90). Not too much longer afterwards, they were selling for less than 1s 50. A few months later, they’ve now risen in price back to 2s 40 or so.

There are two points to this. First of all, like I showed, it’s better to just cut your losses to be as low as possible when your calculations don’t quite work out, but I’m sure you already knew that. However, another important note is that dead money is worthless money. One of the reasons why I usually invest in short-term flips is that they’re typically quite safe; however, because they’re short-term, it means that I can use my money to invest even more after I have gotten my returns on my flips. For example, would you rather get 30% interest on X amount of money that you invest over the period of one week, or get 4% interest per day on that X amount of money? As it so happens, assuming that those interest rates stay constant, if you chose the second option, you would net a total profit gain of 28%, but that’s assuming you don’t use your interest money to invest more. If you did, then you would get, in total, approximately 31.6% interest on your original X amount of money, meaning a 1.6% increase in income over the first option. So, I’d say that you should probably just cut your losses now and get investing with the money that you get from your investments, so that you can make more in the long run. No point in gambling when you could be using your money for better purposes, or could find your investment decreasing even more in value.

“Best elementalist build”

You’re kidding me, right?

swinsk.6410:

If thief is perma stealth he’s not attacking you. If 10 guys can’t drop a thief when he does attack or use a trap you are terrible players.

L2P IMO.

This.

You’re lucky in that the Mes forum has people like Osicat, Pyroatheist, Fay, and others. They’re all excellent, and you should go have a look at their stuff.

As a thief whose second most-played profession is a mes, I can give you a few pieces of advice. First, your build looks pretty DPS-oriented, so I might suggest swapping to a different build. On my mesmer, for example, I run something akin to this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsdWlwzipXTzoGb9IiJF9Gyd6RytcTXJF82FC-TsAg1CtIsRZjzGjNSbs2MKZRwMCA

Which I’m not saying is a pro build, or even a good build, but it’s one that I enjoy. However, there are a few important things here that could help you out:
- 2 stunbreakers. Blink is an excellent and easy-to-use teleport with a low cool down, and Decoy has a slightly longer CD but comes with stealth and a free clone. Stunbreaks are very good against glassier thieves.
- Staff is also very good as a pseudo-stunbreaker, as it gives you the opportunity to teleport away from enemies while stunned, which is incredibly useful.
- Lots of mobility allows you to force the thief into the position you want him or her to be in.
- Focus is extremely useful for pulling people out of SR.
- My defense in this build isn’t particularly high, but I offset that with the Chaos IV trait, mobility, and the LoS nuances that illusions naturally possess anyways.

That’s my two cents there.

Lux.7169:

noobftw.9654:

swinsk.6410:

30SA is only a must if you want defense/sustain in a fight.

Burst includes no SA whatsoever.

It’s not OP.

When you have easy 10 stack might from this line, yes, it gives you sustain, escape and better burst than DA.

Just check out the meta burst thief builds, it’s a must.

None one is running 25 30 0 0 15 meta burst build anymore in neither pvp nor wvw.

10 stacks of might? Without much power to begin with that extraordinarily weak.

No one’s running 25 30 0 0 15? Caed ran it during the EU vs. NA match…. He’s only one of the top 3 thieves in the game…

You must not pvp much.

10 stacks of might isn’t exactly weak, but you’re right that in the long run it really doesn’t mean anything. Furthermore, 10 stacks of might is actually fairly difficult for us to throw down and then be able to sustain; we can’t just burst the might stacks onto ourselves instantaneously. Also, having played builds that focused around might a lot, I can say that I don’t think I ever got over 12 stacks of might on my thief; most of the time, I had about 6 or 7 on me that I was able to sustain fairly easily. Of course, you can always take Signets of Power, but that means that you have to play a signet build. Either way, SoP’s might lasts only very briefly anyways, so it’s not like it matters that much.

I’m surprised somebody would say that “nobody runs 25/30/0/0/15”; in fact, it’s the most common spec I see nowadays, anywhere; and, of course, Caed does play it. I don’t agree with it from a theoretical point of view (diminishing marginal returns on offensive increases, and a virtually impossible skill level required to play the weaponset with maximum efficiency. Also assumes enemy incompetence and inability to counter bursts, but many top players have learnt how burst works and are able to counter it fairly well, even if it is a harrowing experience), but there’s no doubt that it is one of the, if not the most popular spec, and that there are very good people who play it like Caed.

People have already stated the main reasons, here’s my response in a nutshell:
D/D can only use, at most, 3 of its 5 attacks. D/P uses all 5.
D/D’s CnD requires a target, and must hit; also, it can’t be used in stealth. B/P+HS does not require a target, and does not have to hit anything; furthermore, it can be used to stack stealth.
D/D has only one thing going for it, burst. D/P has four: burst, gap closing, ranged interrupts, and blinds (many at range and many more at melee distance).

Really, the only way in which D/D might have an advantage over D/P is with CnD versus BP+HS combo. BP+HS costs slightly more than CnD, and can sometimes miss or accidentally target somebody and slam revealed on you. CnD is pretty good against stationary targets like clones or pets. However, that’s it, and of course there are all of the disadvantages to CnD that I wrote about earlier.

Shanks R Us.2489:

Celeras.4980:

I for one am thankful that ranks have zero impact on matchmaking. sPvP had almost no redeeming qualities before leaderboards/spectator/custom arena, and it wasn’t worth playing. Now that it is here, why should I be matched lower than a bunch of MLG tryhards because they forced themself into an undesirable grind (whilst probably complaining about it the whole way)?

Newsflash: if you’re matched with people who are terrible, one of two things happen:
-You’re matched up against a team with an equal amount of terrible and duke it out.
-Or, if the player pool is limited, you may be matched up unevenly. Luckily Glicko takes care of that 100% and you lose very little rating if youre matched against a vastly superior team (or win very few points for beating a vastly inferior team). Ever wonder why other bads on the forum complain about going 3-1 and losing rank? That’s why.

Get a clue. lulz @ my rank? lulz @ your score.

As a point holder, having more points means you’re not doing your job right. Lets say that ranger was holding his home point the whole game. He got neutralized minimal times, so he didn’t get recap points. He didn’t lose the point, so he didn’t get capture points. Score in pvp doesn’t mean much, having a high one doesn’t mean you did good.

… Except that the pictures you posted earlier then mean nothing if all they are just pictures of level 1 players playing in tourney matches.

The issue is that neither rank nor score show how good a player is. For example, I’m a rather low level 15 PvP player, and that’s not considering that I’ve only really started PvPing in the past week. That being said, I’ve clocked well over 300 hours on my thief, have been a buildcrafter for a good while now, and had a major focus on WvW before I came to PvP. Furthermore, as a WvW thief who almost never had more than 10g across all toons, and after at least 100 hours of WvW still doesn’t have complete exotic gear (and the gear that I do have is completely inconsistent within itself), and as a solo roamer who shadowed enemy groups and zergs, I’ve faced many battles where I had a clear disadvantage stats-wise to my opponents. You don’t get that in PvP; you’re always guaranteed to be on the same footing as your opponents if you want to be so.

The point is, in spite of my level 15 PvP rank, I would say that I’ve been through a lot on my thief that half of the people on this forum never have and never will experience.

So, if points don’t matter (which you’re right, they don’t), then all you can say from those previous pics is that rank does matter. Except that you can’t differentiate between a rank 1 PvPer that just got the game and a rank 1 PvPer that played WvW for hundreds of hours and has mountains of experience with buildcrafting and tactics.

This isn’t a duel, this is a video of one warrior running around with no purpose as you slay him/her, and another trying to duel you but failing miserably by running in random directions and looking like an idiot. Your build isn’t even all that good; you probably would have lost had you gone against a single more experienced warrior.

Not impressed.

One word (or five, I suppose):

PbAoE.

Works so well.

I’ll post this here again with a bit more explanation.

IGN: Arctu Spackle Yarba
Main Profession: Thief
Alternate Professions: Mesmer
Account name: Arganthium.5638
Practice Availablity: Every day (best on weekends though), 3-5, MST
Current PvP rank (Not Leaderboard): 14 (used to be a big WvW player, have since moved to PvP, so my rank is still rather low. I have clocked far over 300 hours on my thief, though, the last time I checked)
Level of Desire: Tournament play
NA or EU: NA

Hey all, I’m Arctu Spackle Yarba of the thief community. I tend to play a tankier thief spec that focuses on a less aggressive but overall more successful playstyle that has a good mix between dynamic and static advantages.

Here’s some of my play. I’m the little asura teleporting around, holding off some 2v1s and the occasional (albeit not very long-lasting) 3v1s and keeping points neutral.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGf0Mq8_Ds4

I’m currently looking for the following setup for my team (may be subject to change):
- 2 Necros
- 1 Mes
- 1 more Thief

Thanks all, see you on the battlefield.

Bas.7406:

I would highly recommend that a few of you signing up contact each other and put together some team practices, but we will do what we can!

Sounds good.

I’m going to get researching on these here guys, and develop a strategy that’ll work to make a good team.

Meanwhile in WvW…

“1 v 40 WOOT”

cufta.7309:

Arganthium.5638:

Nyctimus.4109:

The “I have a thief” argument is null and void when I can have a bunker build and laugh all the way to the bank vs spike builds.

But I do run a spike build, because it is fun. I can escape sometimes, but when I screw up, it’s a definite death sentence.

Outside of all the thief nerf problems and kittening our class up, this recent change makes me not want to play with people. I DON’T WANT to be near ANYBODY, when all it takes is for an ally to step on a trap and I am kittened for 30 seconds. They’re absolutely fine, but it says to me: you want a chance of surviving, don’t play near teammates. Which saddens me, because I love chatting with small groups of people while capturing small points and helping cover people with my thief. If I land a backstab on someone harassing a teammate, they aren’t harassed for much longer because people seem to have this innate rabid dog syndrome, where they see a thief they go for it and nothing else.

GG Anet, I can see why NCSoft are constantly trying to reign you in.

There are just as many tanking builds for thieves that work just as well, if not better than many bunker builds.

Also, learn to use evades, blinds, and mobility. My current build runs virtually no stealth whatsoever.

Ok.And what if i don’t want to change the build that am using….whatsoever.The one that’s uses stealth instead….whatsoever?And if i don’t want to use evades,mobility….whatsoever?Am i doomed then?
Whatsoever….Oh whait there is one more thing.What if i am to kitten to live without stealth?whatsoever

Edit: I did not know they change words with kitten on this forum haha….its anoying its realy anoying i would rather have ****** or —-—- instead kitten.I mean come on its the word that you see all over these forums.Its sooo kitten repetitive

Well, your desires are your problem. adapt or die, I suppose.

Also, I love how they replace words with kitten. It means that we can have kittening kitten statements like this kitten that kitten with everybody’s kittening brain. And kittens are kittening cute.

In other words, Jumper’s build but you took out 5 in Acro to give 5 to Trix?

My advice:
Weaponsets: you need to have dual S/D, in all honesty. S/P, while a good attack, is not mobile like FS is, and that’s what matters if you’re planning on running an evasion build.

You really need to get the extra 3 initiative for weapon swap; weapon swap is critical in this build. Of course, that would mean essentially copying Jumper’s build…

Amulet looks good to me.

Sigils are good, though I’m still not sure about SoA on your Swords.

Runes are… Awful. Please change them. I’d think that Lyssa with Bas Venom would work. Dwayna or Water runes could work. I’d focus on getting a little more Healing Power.

I could try to find somebody for you (or, if you’re willing, I could help tutor you), but first, I have to ask: what kind of spec are you trying to run? (i.e. burst, tank, conditions, etc)

Gungnir Grimm.7123:

the short share range makes it difficult for groups split between melee and range to all get it, and the unwillingness of pugs to listen or cluster up makes it generally perform far below optimal. if you run with the same group our your guild a lot then it works amazingly, but it simply requires more coordination then running in in mostly or even full zerker only having to really depend on yourself.

Even if you can only spread the venoms to 1 or 2 allies, it’s a fantastic build.

I wish there was a good answer to your question. I wish I could point out various flaws in the VS build for dungeons. But… In all truth, I think that it’s one of the best (and most theoretically correct) builds for a thief to take into a dungeon. It’s completely underrated.

In PvP and WvW, it’s a bit different, but VS is still a decent build.

Ok. Wow.

First, you begin by making allegations that suggest that I “lack experience” in either WvW or PvP… What do you think I am, some wimpy PvE player? I can recall quite well destroying your prized team of guardians at the SOAC tournament last week, watching as they spawned boons just before we stole them away. I remember holding multiple points against you guys in 2v1, and even the occasional 3v1 (although, admittedly, at that point I died fairly quickly). I remember evading attacks left and right, weaving my way through magic and some pathetic attempts at pinning me down, and slaying you guys.

So please, don’t start the game of “oh you don’t have any experience in such-and-such”, because I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the extent of my knowledge about strategy, tactics, and buildcrafting surpasses your knowledge of the subjects.

Now, you make the case for retreating in PvP as being bad, but not inferior to dying- which I agree with. Recall that thieves are very squishy, however, and we can’t just be escaping every ten seconds from just any player. However, your arguments for why escaping is “OP” in WvW are… Terrible. First of all, you completely missed the point of my question: what if an army never fought? If, whenever faced with opposition, it fled? You state in your own post that there’s a huge scale difference in WvW as opposed to PvP. If that’s the case, then doesn’t retreating every 30 seconds mean having to go very far distances as well just to get to a single point?

Again, I would agree that, yes, escaping is superior to dying, but you act as if the ability to escape is an advantage. It’s really not; it’s just the weakening of a disadvantage. If thieves had to escape as often as you seem to believe they do, they would never capture anything. Furthermore, the only objective that a thief, realistically speaking, can take is a scout. Maybe if you have the best gear, you can take a camp, but that would require a great amount of effort and skill anyways.

I find it ironic that you think that the ability to retreat makes thieves overpowered. Let’s run an experiment, then; every time you run into enemy forces, run as quickly as possible in the opposite direction from them. See how much you complete by being able to retreat so much.

Bas.7406:

Arganthium.5638:

Still looking for a team, guys. Anyone wanting to join up with me on one?

We are doing what we can today to put together something better than just a guild for people who want to play. Android has a guild where some of the best players are there to help coach some of the newer players we will be merging Practice Squad with the GW2Esports reddit guild, and Academy of the Mists will be setting up some stuff through their website to further help the member of the GW2 Esports Reddit Practice Squad.

Cool, thanks.

This one is just plain ridiculous. PvP is turning into a sport, and by withdrawing vital information to people who watch your playing, you’re taking out a lot of fun from watching matches.

Mufa.1326:

Problem #3:
You are unable to rank player, you are actually ranking the best team player plays in.

This is my biggest issue with the current ranking system; leaderboards say nothing about how good a player is. Like Doc above me stated, it’s certainly possible to go up in the leaderboards by soloing, but even then, that still doesn’t give a very clear indicator of how good a player you are, just how good your past teammates have been.

I’m trying to figure out an algorithm to determine the value of individual players right now. It’s difficult, admittedly.

Still looking for a team, guys. Anyone wanting to join up with me on one?

ProxyDamage.9826:

Arganthium.5638:

Sil.4560:

Thieves have excessive escape from everyone in WvW and Anet doesn’t seem to care.

This is one of the worst complaints about thieves I see.

“Oh, thieves are OP because they’re really good at giving up points!”

WvW is not PvP. Sil specifically said “in WvW”.

In PvP abandoning a point can cost a match. In WvW abandoning an area so you can survive means you’re still a problem. In PvP staying power is king. In WvW survivability, especially through disengage, is.

Yes, imagine how powerful armies would be if they suddenly fled every time they were engaged in battles.

WvW starts with the individual, and when you have individuals out of combat for 30 seconds because of their “lol OP escape”, I fail to see a difference between that and having the individual dead for 30 seconds.

Nyctimus.4109:

The “I have a thief” argument is null and void when I can have a bunker build and laugh all the way to the bank vs spike builds.

But I do run a spike build, because it is fun. I can escape sometimes, but when I screw up, it’s a definite death sentence.

Outside of all the thief nerf problems and kittening our class up, this recent change makes me not want to play with people. I DON’T WANT to be near ANYBODY, when all it takes is for an ally to step on a trap and I am kittened for 30 seconds. They’re absolutely fine, but it says to me: you want a chance of surviving, don’t play near teammates. Which saddens me, because I love chatting with small groups of people while capturing small points and helping cover people with my thief. If I land a backstab on someone harassing a teammate, they aren’t harassed for much longer because people seem to have this innate rabid dog syndrome, where they see a thief they go for it and nothing else.

GG Anet, I can see why NCSoft are constantly trying to reign you in.

There are just as many tanking builds for thieves that work just as well, if not better than many bunker builds.

Also, learn to use evades, blinds, and mobility. My current build runs virtually no stealth whatsoever.

Auesis.7301:

Thieves are a total menace – if played right.

This.

A lot of players already hate the thief for “teh OPness”. When they lose matches, they need some scapegoat to be able to blame, and the thief (in spite of being so “OP”) fills that niche completely; our uses aren’t instantly apparent to a lot of other classes. Thieves are very strong in offensive situations, and, contrary to your post, actually, they can be fairly good at holding points.

Ryuujin.8236:

I take it a certain thief ran into a class where heart-seeker spam wasn’t cutting it?

Yes, because that is exactly what I do. /sarcasm

Most of the people on this thread seem either really unamused or actually think I’m being serious. y’all are no fun.

/facepalm

Dude. Clear your mailbox. The delivery is in the queue to enter it, but your mailbox is full so it won’t enter. I’ve run into this problem before, it’s annoying, but that’s about it.

Sil.4560:

I think it’s mostly that they can get in and out of groups in battles while doing huge amounts of damage to select targets at little risk.

while doing huge amounts of damage to select targets at little risk

select targets at little risk

at little risk

You’re kidding me, right?

I’m addicted to evasion thief anyways right now. Still disappointed that this idea even got through though.

Alexa deStrange.8612:

- 500+ gold spend on upgrades.

Brando.1374:

and the regular one that any pug can buy with gold.

:c

For once, I have to agree that ANet did a really poor job with this.

Seriously? We all know that this “patch” was directed against thieves; we’re the only profession with enough stealth to make this trap worth using. 10 seconds, maybe I can understand. A pulsing reveal, perhaps. But a 30 second reveal that destroys a major class mechanic? Seriously? How desperate can you be?

vicious.5683:

Arganthium.5638:

Half a month after the last PvP patch.

as a necro, I’ve been waiting for a decent PvP patch since ever…

Necros are pretty good…

Guts.4967:

I’m agree. This patch is one of the worst patch since month. I mean, it’s really EMPTY as a pvp POV.

Half a month after the last PvP patch.

Probably another one coming at the end of this month.

Da kitten is going on here people.

Auto attack:

Nuisance (1 second): Does damage and stacks confusion on opponents. Also creates a very annoying honking noise.

Attack 2 (CD: 8 seconds):

Call of the Wild Mesmer: Spawns a phantasm that appears as a crazed version of your character. Instakill if attack hits.

Attack 3(Channeled: 10 seconds)(CD: 10 seconds):

Call to Illusions: Spawns an illusion that runs up to enemies and Mind Wracks in front of them every half second for ten seconds.

It works perfectly!!!

Can’t practice right now, but if you’ve been organizing teams and already have me scheduled for one (not sure if this is what you’ve been doing), then please PM me or message me in-game about whom my teammates are, thanks.

XII.9401:

ariel.7614:

Hi everyone.
I would like to show you some videos, of the best Thief players I’ve ever seen.

Jumper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9_UR1dCoT8

Zoe L
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8GnwgrCoek

Caed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Rpac2ywh0

Seba Z
http://www.youtube.com/user/pigiaduroitastini

Who do you think is the best player?

Carried by broken class

Carried by broken class

Carried by broken class

Carried by broken class

I’m sure they think it’s skill. To each his/her own.

Lol.

Yes, eles require so much skill- I mean, how can they possibly find a good build to play? It’s not like their forum is littered with them, right? And attunement swaps? Man, it must be pretty darned difficult to figure out when you need a lotta offense, a little offense, a little defense, and a lotta defense.

Engis? I mean, wow; spamming conditions, grenades, or the same combo over and over and over again must take a lot of skill.

Guards totally take a lot of skill too. I mean, they have to learn how to use (gasps) melee weapons!!! And then, and then- they have to support their team!!! So difficult!!!

Mes… Oh man, you have to, like, control your weapon skills and your illusions at the same time (which are mostly autonomous anyways). Impossible.

Necros must have a very difficult time figuring out how to make condition builds or minion masters.

Rangers must have a difficult time with their infinite health regeneration and approximately two played builds.

And warriors? Who could figure out how to play a bread-and-butter class like them?

But thieves? Psh, no skill required there. I mean, it’s not like they have to balance low defensive pools with good offense, or manage their initiative wisely. It’s not like there are a plethora of different, all equally viable thief builds. It’s not like they have to learn how to blind and evade others at the right time or face annihilation. It’s not like that “lol permastealth” actually happens to be very counterable, and that stealth in general doesn’t last very long (except on SR), and that thief movements in stealth are, like, predictable or something. It’s not like our class which is infamous for being so easily able to escape also suffers from major point loss whenever we try to run away.

The point is not that we’re the most difficult class to play, but that calling thieves- and these thieves especially- unskilled is absolutely kittening stupid.

jim.5380:

I will work on a guide soon, just wanted to post this so thieves stop running annoying sustain s/d

Oh, the irony.

Because theoretical correctness doesn’t matter, apparently.