Guild Wars 2

Reikou.7068:

Arganthium.5638:

Personally, I play 10 0 0 30 30 in every game mode (though it’s certainly better in WvW and sPvP than it is in PvE). The setup might be decent for bunking a point (it certainly would if you run a defensive/tanky amulet), but IMO the idea that it’s a defensive trait setup is a somewhat superficial view. First of all, Zerker amulet gives the build (and, for that matter, builds in general) its punch. Furthermore, however, whatever damage the build loses from not taking 30 into CS is made up for with initiative, giving me more range of flexibility and mobility that I can take into battle, which, combined with Lead Attacks, gives the build a lot more damage than might otherwise appear. The build also, of course, gets a fair bit of healing from AR.

As for match ups, the build really has the same match ups as the other S/D builds. Personally, I can beat any build, at least, on a good day, anyways.

I’m usually talking from a tPvP point of view, and I’m assuming you run S/D SB with that.

S/D SB with 10/30/0/30/0 already has plenty of initiative gain to keep up what it has to do, and with SB3, and dodging can bunker a point for a good 10’ish seconds if necessary, even with berserker amulet. The build you use 10/0/0/30/30 has even more initiative gain, and even more vigor. Really the only reason that I can see that this build has advantage over other meta thief builds in tPvP would be to thief bunker.

But then again, I’m probably looking at it wrong. I’m genuinely curious as to how you play the build in tPvP, and how it compares with 10/30/0/30/0 S/D SB Play, or even 10/30/0/0/30 S/D SB Play, and what it brings to a team that is objectively better than 10/30/0/30/0 or 10/30/0/0/30 S/D.

Yes, I run SB with the build.

Now, to be frank, damage-wise, I do not think that the build deals any more damage than either of the other two builds. My reasoning is that the increased initiative combined with Assassin’s Reward allows for the build to play more of a bruiser than a burster play style, but a bruiser that deals enough damage to do the same amount of damage in the long run that the other S/D builds deal (not to imply that 10 30 0 0 30 and 10 30 0 30 0 are “burst” builds, per se, but they’re certainly more bursty than 10 0 0 30 30 is, for obvious reasons).

Furthermore, from what I’ve seen from watching other S/D players, it would seem that, while they have enough initiative for their needs, they have to be weary of falling under 6 initiative, after which First Strikes is turned off, and they also have to be extremely selective about how they use their initiative, too. On the other hand, 10 0 0 30 30 offers a much more generous amount of initiative for the player to utilize, but perhaps the most important part of that fact is that it’s okay for the player not to use the initiative, because of Lead Attacks, which doesn’t have some kind of threshold requirement like First Strikes does.

So, on a superficial level, that’s the difference I see. However, the implications of these differences is extremely significant. For example, a bruiser is better at absorbing damage than a burster is (and any S/D player will have to absorb damage against proper play), which means that there’s less damage dealt to your teammates. Furthermore, because bruisers can absorb more damage, they’re somewhat more forgiving in that a single mistake won’t kill you instantly (not all the time, anyways). Plus, if 10 0 0 30 30 is really able to absorb damage better than the other S/D builds, then it would, logically, be better at holding points 1v1. Also, because there’s more initiative to draw from, there’s more mobility both inside and outside of battle, via skills like Infi Strike/Return and Infi Arrow.

Anyways, that’s just my take on it. In practicality, that may not all be completely true, but I’m just giving you the theoretical basis for my reasoning. The 30 CS builds, for instance, might deal slightly more damage, but personally I’m okay with that in exchange for the benefits that the 30 Acro and Trix give.

PS Nerone, I’ll respond to your message as soon as possible. I was recently banned for three weeks, so I can’t currently send messages to other forum users. -_-

Justin ODell.9517:

@Sensotix.4106

We didn’t promise anything, we shared our high level road-map plans.

This is why we don’t like sharing dates. I know you’re waiting on things, and the wait is driving me crazy too, but saying we made promises when we clearly did not does not help get the content out sooner.

If you want greater transparency, like I do, then you must accept that dates, features, and plans are not a static promise. Things can happen to shift priorities, dates, or designs, causing things to changed, be pushed back, or accelerated.

Please stop.

/personal rant

I can handle the fact that the dates aren’t able to be easily set in stone, that’s easy. But in return, what I (and other players) want is larger changes with far more significance to them. You can be completely opaque about when the changes occur, but you can’t also be opaque about what they are. So far, the community has absolutely no idea when the changes are scheduled to happen, and we know so little about the changes (and even what we know is highly subject to change) that, for all we know, there isn’t even an upcoming patch. The little we do know is no less upsetting; we’re not looking for 8% nerfs to Healing Signet, or nerfs to Turrets, and for all we know, the problems that have been plaguing this game for the past half a year or more are still going to be problems for another 3-4 months after the patch, if not for longer.

Then there’s the community; we’ve tried incredibly hard to give suggestions to balance the game. Certainly, not everybody agrees on certain issues, but of the issues that we do, in large part, agree on, we have no indication that ANet is even listening to us. Personally, I’ve been extremely vocal about my opinions, and I’ve done everything in my power to help the game. I’ve even sent (or offered to send) my theorycrafting spreadsheet that I’ve spent well over a year slowly developing and that literally nobody else has access to. The only response I’ve ever received was from the Customer Support team, who couldn’t understand what my request was when I asked them to forward my email.

So whatever, fine, you can be obscure about the dates. But when that’s combined with a lack of information about the patches and with insignificant patches, the community, you have to understand, is going to be extremely upset.

Reikou.7068:

Arganthium.5638:

S/D is nowhere near as popular as any D/X set or S/P, but it’s still seen, certainly (wouldn’t call it meta though, especially since I hear that Sizer isn’t playing S/D any more). It’s a good weapon set with a slightly higher skill floor, but the learning curve and skill ceiling are both tremendous.

Some examples of trait setups:
10 30 0 30 0
10 30 0 0 30
0 30 0 30 10
10 0 0 30 30 (my creation. Nobody plays it apart from me, but it’s easily as effective as the other builds are IMO. Bunch of scrubs who haven’t analyzed the build- much less used it in even a single match- like to criticize me for it though. Whatever, y’know?)

10/30/0/30/0 S/D has a ridiculously low skill floor, I’d say slightly higher than S/P, but still really low.

10/30/0/0/30 S/D on the other hand has a much higher skill floor IMO.

10/0/0/30/30 is interesting IMO, but I’m not sure what sort of role it would have absolute advantage in over other trait setups. Perhaps maybe for bunking a point? I’d like to hear your opinion of it, as well as what sort of level of competition you play that trait setup at?

Additionaly, I’m curious as to what 1v1 metabuild matchups does that setup have advantage in, and which does it have disadvantage in?

That said, yes, S/D has recently “fallen out of favor” as the S/P does what S/D used to do, which was train and pressure the opponent’s backline, simply better. Thats not to say S/D isn’t still strong. I’d wager 10/30/0/30/0 S/D SB is still very viable, and incredibly annoying to play against, and still has very many good 1v1 matchups if you can play it well.

Personally, I play 10 0 0 30 30 in every game mode (though it’s certainly better in WvW and sPvP than it is in PvE). The setup might be decent for bunking a point (it certainly would if you run a defensive/tanky amulet), but IMO the idea that it’s a defensive trait setup is a somewhat superficial view. First of all, Zerker amulet gives the build (and, for that matter, builds in general) its punch. Furthermore, however, whatever damage the build loses from not taking 30 into CS is made up for with initiative, giving me more range of flexibility and mobility that I can take into battle, which, combined with Lead Attacks, gives the build a lot more damage than might otherwise appear. The build also, of course, gets a fair bit of healing from AR.

As for match ups, the build really has the same match ups as the other S/D builds. Personally, I can beat any build, at least, on a good day, anyways.

RedSpectrum.1975:

Arganthium.5638:

S/D is nowhere near as popular as any D/X set or S/P, but it’s still seen, certainly (wouldn’t call it meta though, especially since I hear that Sizer isn’t playing S/D any more). It’s a good weapon set with a slightly higher skill floor, but the learning curve and skill ceiling are both tremendous.

Some examples of trait setups:
10 30 0 30 0
10 30 0 0 30
0 30 0 30 10
10 0 0 30 30 (my creation. Nobody plays it apart from me, but it’s easily as effective as the other builds are IMO. Bunch of scrubs who haven’t analyzed the build- much less used it in even a single match- like to criticize me for it though. Whatever, y’know?)

Arganthium, as a thief who loves being stealthy I decided to go in acro for PvP, whilst looking for a build I stumbled upon yours. It is now my PvP build. Has been for about 2 months now. It is actually incredibly fun and has even taken out warriors who’ve invested nearly everything in survivability for a build that invests little into damage trait wise. So I too play your build, don’t get rash now.
What I love most about it is that I so far have never once ran out of initiative. The only thing the build falls short for is condition burst builds and it seems to be 1:1 with D/P burst 10/30/0/0/30 builds which really surprised me. So yeah Argy’s build is pretty legit, I suggest you guys check it out.

D’aww, you make me blush. c’:

Just about anything except for an elementalist or a non-Spirit ranger can kill or otherwise defeat a thief in a significant number of situations (and those two can’t only because they’re classes in dire need of help right now). Contrary to popular belief, a mesmer can very easily kill a thief, and I do it all of the time on my mes toon. Otherwise, I’d have to agree with Caed’s analysis on which builds are the most effective against thieves.

S/D is nowhere near as popular as any D/X set or S/P, but it’s still seen, certainly (wouldn’t call it meta though, especially since I hear that Sizer isn’t playing S/D any more). It’s a good weapon set with a slightly higher skill floor, but the learning curve and skill ceiling are both tremendous.

Some examples of trait setups:
10 30 0 30 0
10 30 0 0 30
0 30 0 30 10
10 0 0 30 30 (my creation. Nobody plays it apart from me, but it’s easily as effective as the other builds are IMO. Bunch of scrubs who haven’t analyzed the build- much less used it in even a single match- like to criticize me for it though. Whatever, y’know?)

Sunt.6835:

Stealth is not broken. 30 shadow arts is broken
They ban SA and PU in touney for a reason

How is it broken? That’s complete and utter nonsense, especially in sPvP. SA thieves do absolutely nothing for your team- most of the time, they might as well not even exist (and with the amount of stealth they have, you wouldn’t notice them not existing anyways). Stealth thieves deal minimal damage and can’t decap points- they’re completely useless. You would be far better off taking a Mesmer or a Warrior, both of which would deal far more damage and be far more useful for point capturing than an SA thief.

As for SA/PU being banned in tourneys, I’ve never heard of that before. It’s certainly not banned in tPvP, if that’s what you mean, but I’ve never heard of a player banning them before in any “normal” player-run event either.

EDIT: also, to answer the OP, people think we’re broken because two of our specs are extremely easy to play (D/P and S/P). Not as easy as warrior, necro, or some engi specs for the amount of reward they give, but still very non demanding in terms of skill required.

infantrydiv.1620:

What Thieves shut down:

-Mesmer (Can evade all shatters)
-Elementalist (Can evade all burst)

-Basically any Glass Cannon spec other than Guardian:

-Power Necromancer (Trains out of fight)
-Berserker Warrior (Trains out of fight)
- Power Ranger (Trains out of fight)

There’s a lot more to Mesmer than just Shattering, first of all. However, a well-timed shatter will still hit a thief, and even if only one of your shatters hits the thief, you can still deal massive damage.

No, we can’t evade all of the ele’s burst. Nice try though.

I don’t know about glass cannons, but I run a Zerker amulet + Soldier’s jewel and an overall offensively-oriented build on all of my professions and I do just fine.

Power Necromancers suck anyways, it’s not a matter of thieves training them out of a fight.

Zerker warriors? LOL not even remotely close.

Power Rangers also suck, there’s a reason why they’re considered the class most in need of help right now.

Norvos.9304:

That was a terrible Thief.

I… Do you… Do you even… WTF?

Yeah, I run 20 20 30… That is, 0 20 20 30 o.O

Vuh.1328:

Pretty much this.
Also people should learn that having great survivability vs both condi and power while also providing very high damage and team utility through cc or other means is not okay(looking at you s/x thieves and hambow warriors).

Of course I get how warriors fit this description, but Sword thieves? Really? Yeah, they have high damage, that’s obvious. They also, of course, have some degree of team utility via a few widely spread tactics and traits, like Bountiful Theft and TotCrime, or Signet of Agility or Cluster Bomb + Ranger’s Steal, but that’s really as far as it goes.

S/X thieves of both types can suffer significantly against an opponent who knows when each is vulnerable, such as at certain points during casts, at strategically important points in battle (healing, positioning, etc), and so on.

Against condis, S/X thieves can be punished massively, especially if the opponent makes good use of movement-impeding conditions. The fact that thieves are less able to do the one thing they so desperately need (be mobile) is a massive hamper to their abilities. Against power, again, knowing the cast times and weak spots in those thief builds can allow you to kill a thief very, very quickly.

And team utility? There’s a reason why S/X thieves are commonly considered solo roamers. If anything, they have some of the worst utility in the game. To think otherwise is borderline insane, to say the least.

Does Mesmer need some buffs? Sure it does, but it’s not nearly as bad as everybody seems to think that it is.

Saturn.6591:

Easy. If those two people are elite, you have to be Chuck Norris. Otherwise, you won’t win. This rule applies to all classes; not just Mesmer.

^ this. Except maybe if you’re a really good warrior.

Against elite players, though, you’re not realistically going to 1vX them unless a) your opponents have bad gear (there are many elite sPvP players that have bad gear) b) your opponent is having a bad day or just testing a build, or c) there’s some other factor that is causing your opponents to lose, like having really, really bad teammates (I lost one 2v1 in WvW on my Mesmer before because I felt that I had a moral obligation to res my nearby ally who was absolutely horrible. In every consecutive 1v1 against that enemy thief, I never once got remotely close to dying.)

Shockwave.1230:

At least now we know if ANet doesn’t say leaked patch notes are fake they’re real

That’s still TBD.

Slim.3024:

So I will make a prediction.

If these patch notes are real, people will complain about how Anet doesn’t know how to balance. Though if these turn out to be fake, the very same people will claim that whoever came up with these balance changes has more of a clue about pvp than all of the Anet balance team combined.

You just can’t win guys.

An 8% HealSig nerf? That’s enough to laugh anybody out of the community on the spot. Nobody is going to claim that that person knows what they’re talking about overall,

That being said… It is still to be determined whether or not that person has more of a clue than ANet does.

Dee Jay.2460:

Every class has at least one, sometimes two skill-sets that are either completely useless or very, very niche.

Mesmers have Mantras and Thieves have Venoms and Traps.

Mantras are far from useless. MoConcentration has been my go-to stun breaker for my past few Mesmer builds because of how reliable it is and how much utility/support it has, for instance. That being said, ever class has some useless utilities, yes .

EoNxBoNx.9213:

Every leak so far has been accurate to the release notes. Why not these?

Allie Murdock.8152:

Because they are not real.

Something is tingling my Spidy-senses here and telling me that this is a bad counter-argument, shockingly.

Personally, I’m skeptical about the notes, but I won’t be surprised whether or not they are true. But by judging ANet’s past behavior, I see no reason why these notes wouldn’t be true (or at least close to the truth).

If your girlfriend can’t play a warrior, then I’ve got bad news for you.

http://youtu.be/yc86ZXFsriM

Dravic.5241:

Thanks everyone who contributed to this thread. There is a lot of information here to digest and I have already been testing out the different builds, to see what one is right for me.
Also after running through some build ideas I came up with this.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYmiP3eS4E/5Ey2jKUo4JvHk1YZWaFoJA-jUyAYLBRySgoCgpvioxWFLiGraBTVCoMXUt3oIa1yAkPBA-w
Does anyone have any critiques or anything advice they might give on this build?

Replace Blinding Powder with Roll For Initiative or Shadowstep, and consider replacing Signet of Agility as well. Otherwise a fairly solid build; you’re able to take Valkyrie (which tends not to be as good as Zerker) because you don’t get any extra vitality from Acrobatics. Looks good.

Krisztian.8405:

A lot of people have been saying a lot of things about the warrior class, and I wanted to clarify somethings.

1. Armor does not equal toughness. Armor = Defense + Toughness. Defense is an attribute which comes from the type of armor a profession wears (light, medium, or heavy.)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor

Thank you for using a long-winded method of basically just saying that toughness is essentially the same thing as Armor (i.e. a +100 increase in toughness is no different from a +100 increase in armor). Your formula is wrong by the way, it’s actually Defense= Armor+Toughness.

2. "At level 80, all professions have a base 916 power, precision, toughness, and vitality. "
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute

Since all professions have the same base toughness, the defense attribute is the only difference. Thus warriors and guardians have the highest base armor in the game. However, it is not by much.

It’s a 7-14% decrease in damage. Sure, it isn’t much overall, but it is very good to have for being a base stat. However, you also forgot to mention that base health (again, technically different from vitality, yet still having the same general effect) is different between different professions.

3. Warriors and Necromancers tie with the highest base health in the game at 18,372. They are followed by Engineer, Ranger, and Mesmer at 15,082, and they are followed by Guardian, Thief, and Elementalist at 10,805.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Health

Thank you for stating the obvious. However, Necromancer also has light armor.

4. "Attack is a value that is listed on the hero panel [...] This is purely a derived value and is not directly used in any calculation."
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attack_%28attribute%29

In other words, useless; unless you’re attacking someone with no extra toughness, but who does that?

What’s the point of this comment? No half-knowledgeable player uses attack in his/her calculations; I know that I certainly don’t. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to prove here.

Romgaard.1965:

U really need to get out more.
healing signet makes us “OP”?…really…guess the regeneration boon also makes people “OP” then.

Regeneration heals for a third of what Healing Signet heals for, is a boon (and thus removable), doesn’t have a 100% uptime, and tends to be one of the main healing mechanisms of builds that run regeneration anyways.

Full zerker does not give u 3K armor….just saying

3k armor is an obvious exaggeration, but a relatively standard warrior build like this one can easily get over 2550 Defense (armor + toughness), which, combined with the additional 8k health and Healing Signet, makes warrior ridiculously OP.

BTW…warrior stats has not changed since day 1 of this game…why is it a big deal now?

Because warriors were, for a very, very long time, horridly underpowered, to the point in which asking for a nerf to them was completely irrational. Nowadays, however, that’s completely different. The problems warriors once had have now been fixed (with interest on top), and that extra 8k health and additional toughness makes a massive difference.

Where the hell is this “perma-blind” nonsense coming from, anyways? I have never been “perma-blinded” before on any class by any other player in any game mode before. Ever. Absolutely absurd.

sorrow.2364:

Arganthium.5638:

Yeah, and meanwhile, Warriors can be even more survivable while dealing about 300% more damage with Zerker’s amulet. There’s a reason why thieves simply can’t run Soldier’s amulet- it’s because it turns us into stupidly underpowered warrior copies.

This is just blantatly false.
Thieves run berserker amulet for the same reason because guardians run cleric amulet. The damage potential of thief is so high that running a safer amulet choice is a complete waste, also considering that thieves are much more survivable compared to any other professions with berserker (yes, even warriors).
You can run soldier amulet and the damage is still pretty high, but the point is that the defensive mechanics are still the same (evades, blindness, stealth) which aren’t tied to stats to the point that not bringing berserker means losing potential.

Actually, the damage potential of thieves is fairly low (just look at their damage coefficients). However, somewhat ironically (to the untrained viewer, that is), thieves actually have massive defensive potential. Thieves have two reliable defensive mechanisms, evasion and stealth, though they also have the lowest base health and medium armor in exchange.

Now, I generally assume that defensive mechanisms are multiplied on top of defensive amplification via stats. For instance, if I take 50% less damage by having evasion, and I take 50% less damage by having Healing Power/Toughness/Vitality, then the amount of damage dealt to me is .5 × .5 or 25% of its original amount. Logically, this makes sense, and so we can say that defensive mechanisms are, in fact, tied to stats- in fact, they’re tied to defensive stats very heavily.

However, our lower skill coefficients have to be made up for somehow, and that “somehow” typically involves using Zerker amulet. In the past, I’ve stated that the maximum amount of total damage comes from amplifying both your defense and your offense equally so that, when multiplied together, they reach the maximum possible amount. However, when you take into account the defensive mechanisms involved, you find that offensive stats actually need to be greater than defensive stats. That is, until you take into account other offensive mechanisms and the like, such as condis, range, control, etc, but thief doesn’t have many of those (or they don’t matter that much) anyways.

So really, thieves don’t run Zerker amulet because their damage potential is too high, but rather, because their defensive potential is extremely high (as well as their initial defense), and to reach that maximum point of defensive amplification x offensive amplification, thieves will typically have to take more offensive stats than defensive stats because the offensive stats scale faster overall than the defensive ones do when stealth and evasion are taken into account. Furthermore, there are diminishing returns on evasion- i.e. why bother to evade as often when you’re taking very little damage in the first place? and so on.

Also, the part about thieves being more survivable than warriors with zerker on is complete bull. That might be true only if you’re talking about focusing on surviving as opposed to killing or capturing an objective when you’re in combat, which is a completely pointless focus.

For some reason, giving S/D builds points into SA has been all the rage recently. I’m not convinced that doing so is actually useful (read: putting points into SA is an absolutely horrid idea), so I’ll just give you three trait sets you can mess around with, and you can see which one you like the most. These are all sPvP-oriented in origin, but they’re perfectly viable S/D + SB builds for WvW.

10 30 0 30 0
10 30 0 0 30
10 0 0 30 30

As for D/D, a setup of 25 30 0 0 15 or 10 30 0 0 30 are probably fine as far as high-damage builds go, and then there’s a ton of more defensive builds running SA out there as well.

Juan Ignacio.8903:

how can u say that any class in this game is hard? -_-

He never said it was hard, just hardest.

I don’t think any class is difficult, but if you really want to play thief… artfully (in a manner of speaking), then you really need to have some serious skills. It certainly isn’t a 3 spam or a 5-2-1 spam- at least, it’s certainly not any more spammy or faceroll-y than any other class.

And Apollo, just cut it. We all know you play ele, and nobody argues that ele isn’t one of the two most underpowered classes by a huge margin. That being said, I and others have already given you pages worth of advice for countering thieves, and your complete ignorance to our advice is, at the very least, rude, if not downright outrageous and hypocritical.

JETWING.2759:

Tetsuyja.7805:

JETWING.2759:

The problem is that reflect projectile.

lol?! first all complain about WA is OP and does too much damage and now u want that u can make damage with range weapon after u get told how too “avoid” WA ?!

serious?

take the advices u can read in the previous posts und wait 3,5 secs or kill the thief with melee weapons – thieves often have less than 14k hp.

Not soldier thieves.

Yeah, and meanwhile, Warriors can be even more survivable while dealing about 300% more damage with Zerker’s amulet. There’s a reason why thieves simply can’t run Soldier’s amulet- it’s because it turns us into stupidly underpowered warrior copies.

We should make a list of the threads where serious nerfs are, in fact, called for.

For instance:

Steal
Consume Plasma
Whirling Axe
Skull Fear
Throw Gunk
Ice Shard Stab
Mace Head Crack

Stealth
Revealed on miss/block/blind/obstruct/etc

Weapon Skills
Backstab
Black Powder

Weapon Sets
Sword/Dagger (2)

Is everything that the thief has OP nowadays? Like, we only have two unique class mechanics (initiative and steal), and given how people have complained about initiative since its origination, I guess that means that now the incredibly overpowered Steal also has to be nerfed.

If you’re dying to Whirling Axe, you’re doing something wrong. I end up wasting the skill ~50% of the time or cutting it short because of how ridiculously vulnerable it makes you.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We aren’t second-class citizens. I know it kind of seems that way right now, but big things are coming that we just can’t talk about. We’re still cranking, trust me!

Isn’t this always the ANet excuse? “Yeah, we have big things coming up- but we can’t talk about them lol!1!!1!”. Then we find out that those “big things” are amazing changes like an entire 8% nerf to Healing Signet, if they even exist at all.

We’ve had enough of this nonsense, we want answers, not these ridiculously vague comments.

renegade.4851:

The thing that strikes me most is not understanding how the developers work
Since 6 or more months we have been having a heavy Warrior/Ranger – (bunker engi) meta

Lemme stop you right there. This isn’t actually wrong, but I’d just like to elaborate that when we mention Rangers, we are specifically talking about Spirit Rangers. Every other Ranger build is absolutely horrid right now.

with classes like elementalist, mesmer, any other engi spec apart from bunker as well as necromancer being unviable or close to being unviable or even worse just in a completely wrong spot

Elementalist is undoubtedly in a bad spot. However, Mesmer, Engineer, and Necromancer certainly aren’t unviable. Many players have shown that Mesmer continues to be very much playable, and truth be told, it is yet to be proven that Thief (the class most commonly cited as the rival to Mesmer) has any sort of theoretical edge over Mesmer. In fact, if anything, the computations and strategic analysis seems to favor Mesmer (though only slightly) over thief. Certainly, though, they are no worse than thieves, or only very, very slightly worse than thieves, if at all.

Engineers are in something of a state of limbo right now. On the one hand, their bunker/point assaulter builds are just absolutely ungodly in their power- it’s insane. On the other hand, however, all of the engi’s other builds are subpar or below par compared to similar builds of other classes. The build linked in my signature, for instance, is a powerful burst/control/DPS build, but is no better than your run-of-the-mill thief or mesmer build. I feel that a lot of the people who play engineer and don’t run bunker/assaulter builds are, quite simply, bad, which may be part of the reason why engineer is seen as being bad right now. I certainly haven’t seen a good non-bunker/assaulter engi in months, though I feel extremely comfortable playing one.

Necromancer is only really bad (if at all) because of how ridiculously overpowered warriors are, making condi necro difficult to play against the one of the (if not the) most-played classes in the game. MM, however, is not at all in a bad spot right now- as a matter of fact, I’m extremely tempted to say that it’s overpowered.

Let’s face it…since last summer nothing has changed about that fact – nothing

S/D thief has gotten worse.

It’s not fun to play against the current meta builds and not fun to play them either so a huge change would be required

If you still consider S/D to be meta (which, judging from what I’ve hear about you, I’m going to assume that you do), I find that build both fun to play against and fun to play with (though the fact that about 95% of sPvP thieves run 10 30 0 30 0 is just stupid- 0 30 0 30 10 and 10 0 0 30 30 and 10 30 0 0 30 are all at least as good as the standard). The most fun part, actually, is playing with that build against other S/D thieves. To the untrained outsider, it might seem like a boring fight with few sparks flying and a serious lack of blood-bathing (one person, much to my sadness, called it “fairy dancing” the other day). However, at this point of playing the build, I’ve come to realize that every fight with another S/D thief is really what I think sPvP should be like- it’s all about action and reaction, about very well-timed evades and attacks, and about important plays at just the right times.

PvP changes in general happen pretty much every 3 months which kind of are like “please dont leave the game yet” – changes that are trying to hold players in (sometimes successfully – I am still here)

You guys got a lot of feedback from the whole community…

Nothing disagreeable here (particularly since more facts are stated than opinions). It’s true that ANet has shown a distressing apathy towards the community.

Especially things like diamond skin coming into the game or skyhammer still being in the solo q rotation make me wonder how much the developers care about our feedback -

Diamond Skin in and of itself is an absolutely terrible trait, yet the idea behind it is even worse. If this is how ANet is going to balance in the future, then this game is going to go even further south than ever before.

As for Skyhammer… Yeah, never been sure what ANet’s problem with that map is. Thieves would be unplayable on the map, if not for the semi-complex terrain that makes mobility more valuable.

…Cheers

Sensotix

I don’t see everything the way you do, Sensotix, but I won’t deny that the vast majority of points you make are mostly or entirely true, so I have to say that I support the general message of this post.

SnowHawk.3615:

nerf warrior because I can’t play my own class! :C

“Don’t nerf warrior because I can’t play!”

MiniMe.1960:

MidoriMarch.8067:

Nerf warriors best at everything

highest toughness
highest HP
having massive attack damage while extremely tanky + healing signet hp regen OP
having ridiculous mobility that outruns thief
having 20k+ hp and 2600+ toughness while wearing full berserk set having massive attack damage
+ more

I have all professions and warriors are far superior than any other classess while its extremely easy to play u can just facepalm everything in pve/pvp/wvw.

What a bunch of crap, almost everything not true. Get over the books and come again if you have something true to say.

I’m assuming that the OP was talking about base stats, in which case…

1. Warrior does have the highest base toughness (or armor- toughness and armor have the same effect though), though it is the same as Guardian’s.

2. Warrior does have the highest base health, though it’s the same as necromancer’s.

3. I recently made a list of skill coefficients that did 90% of Larcenous Strike’s (thief) damage or more; the abundance of warrior skills there compared to every other class should tell you something. That, and the fact that a Level 2 Eviscerate already does more damage than a back-sided Backstab. The part about being tanky is quite true, due to warrior’s superior base stats, as well as Healing Signet (which, taking into account cast times, ability to interrupt, reduce via poison, etc) is easily the best healing skill in the game.

4. I wouldn’t say that warrior necessarily can outrun a thief (though many are far more mobile than your standard D/X thief), but the OP does have a point in that warriors are easily the second or third most mobile class in the game while hardly having to build to be mobile (as opposed to thief and engineer- engineer being the other candidate for second most mobile- both of which require you to build specifically to be mobile).

5. Standard warrior builds run at least 20 into Defense nowadays, so the idea that warrior can have over 2600 armor and 20k health (ESPECIALLY over 20k health- that’s incredibly easy to get on warrior wearing Zerker) is highly plausible. That being said, I don’t see how this is much different from #1+#2 and #3, but it’s still true.

Let’s be fair, at least it’s not in SoloQ (and it’s still more fun than Skyhammer).

Interceptor.2653:

Arganthium.5638:

Naw, even poison/blind doesn’t work because of warrior’s insane healing, Cleansing Ire, and Zerker Stance.

Oh please. Warrior healing (which is about to be ratcheted back, for those not paying attention to the devs)

Yeah, an entire 8%. Warrior’s going to be unplayable now.

is significantly scaled back by our plentiful access to poison.

It’s only significantly scaled back if there’s a 100% poison uptime. If it’s, for example, a 1/3 uptime, then the healing is only scaled back by ~1/9 of the original value. On the other hand, a burst heal can be entirely reduced by poison with a single 1s poison (for instance).

Cleansing Ire only works if you connect, and Zerker Stance in this match-up is facing a class that can disengage at will.

Not if your opponent is running Longbow. Either way, though, the short recharge and lack of adrenaline loss on missing Arcing Slice or Eviscerate makes it extremely easy to get rid of condis anyways.

Not sure what you’re trying to say about Zerker stance.

There are countermeasures to poison/blind, but they are not some unassailable fortress of protection that makes those conditions “not work” for the purpose of winning against a Warrior.

Why don’t you show me some gameplay where you use blind and poison as your primary mechanism for killing warriors.

As for weakness (mentioned elsewhere in this thread), thief doesn’t have nearly enough of it to be worth much. Cleansing Ire and Zerker stance, again, remove any weakness that you’ll apply as well.

Thieves without 15 DA or Sword are the only ones that have this problem, since they are forced to combo off of Choking Gas. Sword-users can re-apply Weakness at the end of the auto-attack chain (which means that if a Warrior removes it, you can put back on), and everyone else has Lotus Poison (suitable for Steal or Lotus Strike).

That weakness is only, at max, a 26.67% uptime if you’re absolutely optimistic about it, and if your opponent is getting auto-chained by the sword auto attack constantly, then he has much larger problems than just facing weakness. That you think otherwise makes me question how much you actually know about the weapon set, and, for that matter, thief.

On my S/D build, when I play sPvP

This is a thread about fighting Warriors in WvW. Look at the OP’s stats. PvP is basically irrelevant to the point.

I was making a comparison. Furthermore, to say that my point from the standpoint of sPvP is “irrelevant” is completely and abhorrently wrong; there are very few differences, statistically speaking, and the method of getting points and the size of the maps are irrelevant themselves to the nature of 1v1s, which is the standpoint from which I’m speaking.

In WvW, it’s almost impossible to kill any warrior. You’d better have some great gear on you.

This is nonsense. I’m nowhere near the top 1% of Thieves, and I have plenty of Warrior takedowns. I can even kill those Benny Hill types that go Sword/Horn + GS and try to outrun everyone when it looks like they are going to lose.

WvW is full of people of all skill levels, so if you can’t take out a Warrior here and there, you either have a really wack build or you don’t play often enough.

Yeah. that’s what it is.

I was talking about good/half-decent warriors, or warriors with good gear. I can kill just about anybody too if they a) suck or b) have terrible armor.

Also, stop with the veiled insults, you’re just making yourself look ridiculous.

yanniell.1236:

Warriors are kid play with my P/D Condi build. And I recently got Perplexity Runes, with almost make me feel bad for them.

lol okay then superstar

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Poison to reduce their healing and a TON of blinds.

Naw, even poison/blind doesn’t work because of warrior’s insane healing, Cleansing Ire, and Zerker Stance.

As for weakness (mentioned elsewhere in this thread), thief doesn’t have nearly enough of it to be worth much. Cleansing Ire and Zerker stance, again, remove any weakness that you’ll apply as well.

On my S/D build, when I play sPvP, I can beat the majority of warriors. They’re not so overpowered that it’s literally impossible to kill them, but against a half-decent warrior, it takes some extremely strong skills to get the advantage and pull out a win. There’s really no solution (like poison and weakness) to warriors; you just have to pull out the stops and go toe-to-toe with them.

In WvW, it’s almost impossible to kill any warrior. You’d better have some great gear on you.

3. Warrior

4. The rating system is absolutely kittened up.

Burnfall.9573:

Warrior

If you want a class that puts a lot of work and effort and still remain Op, this is the right class for you.

Thief

If you want a class that puts no effort or work whatsoever and still remain OP, than this is the class for you.

-Reap and Reward Class- > Warrior

" Before the reward there must be labor. You plant before you harvest "

-Reward than Reap Class- > Thief

" Before the labor, reap the reward. Harvest before you plant "

OP, I leave the Truth in your hand,

You decide->

Hey Burnfall, why don’t you show us some of your play?

EDIT: may I also add that most of the community would swap warrior with thief in your statement. Even some of the most militant thief haters (/cough Helseth /cough) would probably say that warrior is easier to play than thief.

ronpierce.2760:

Arganthium.5638:

Mobility is one of the ultimate expressions of skilled play. Nerfing mobility is a serious nerf to skilled play.

Also, thieves can’t teleport across maps in seconds. Nice try though.

I disagree. Several classes having obvious out-maneuvering abilities such as teleports and leaps that not ALL classes have (IE Necromancer and to a lesser extent, Guardian) mobility is not skill, its a way to cheese yourself out of a fight or get picked over other classes because others are too slow to be as effective. That isn’t a skill issue. It’s a design issue.

First of all. There seems to be this widespread misconception among the community that “if A class has X, then I should have X too!”. For the sake of diversity, however, this cannot happen. Other classes can share some advantages, or they can base their advantages off of the advantages of other classes (i.e. you have mobility? Well, I can reduce your mobility!), but to imply that all classes should have one thing or another just makes this game extremely bland. Next thing you know, we’ll all be playing warriors (though I’m guessing at least third of us main or play warrior often anyways).

More importantly, though, mobility isn’t just about running off (though that seems to be what inexperienced players use it for most often), it’s also for in-combat strategic advantages. For instance, being able to port up to a ridge at a critical moment can be the difference between life and death. Back when Infi Strike (on thief) wasn’t completely broken, the ability to teleport back to a certain point up to 1200 range away instantaneously allowed for complicated but skillful plays involving your positioning relative to your opponent’s.

Anyways, all classes (except for Necromancer) can get a ton of mobility if they want, certainly enough to put them on par (if not above) most builds. For instance, on my engi, I often run Rocket Boots, EG (mobility via Acid Bomb), Speedy Kits, and Rifle’s Jump Shot for mobility, while using Net Shot and Overcharged Shot for negating my opponent’s mobility, and, to a lesser extent, Elixir F. On my Triple-Meditation Guardian, I can teleport to almost any enemy instantaneously via Flashing Blade + Judge’s Intervention. On my staff ele, I can reduce my opponent’s mobility via skills like Frozen Ground, Gust, Static Field, Unsteady Ground, and Shockwave, while increasing my own via Cantrips and Burning Retreat. On my Mesmer, I use Phase Retreat for tons of tricky Butterfly Leaps as well as Chaos Storm and Temporal Curtain to boost/reduce my opponent’s mobility. Mobility isn’t necessarily a given; often you have to build for it (as in my engi, guard, thief, and, to a lesser extent, mesmer). Even if you get a lot of mobility/mobility reduction naturally, though, it takes an entirely different mindset just to be able to utilize that mobility to its extent (try playing staff ele while focusing on reducing enemy mobility greatly).

Stogzlol.4795:

i think the mobility nerfs over did ele. thieves are out of control vs ele right now and i doubt anet knows because half the developers are warriors.

Everything (excluding non-Spirit Rangers and other eles) is out of control vs eles. And don’t be so ridiculous, of course ANet knows this. It’s just that they’re going to find the least optimal solution to fix how badly ele is doing right now.

BoB.6082:

Saturn.6591:

BoB.6082:

They actually haven’t changed any other vigor on crit traits in other classes.

Actually, they did nerf access to vigor for quite a few classes already.

Not vigor on crit.

Because the classes that have been nerfed don’t have vigor on crit traits? What a godawful argument.

Either way, they’re nerfing Guard as well next patch, and ele will probably get nerfed when it’s rebuffed back to the same level as other classes.

Mobility is one of the ultimate expressions of skilled play. Nerfing mobility is a serious nerf to skilled play.

Also, thieves can’t teleport across maps in seconds. Nice try though.

“I die too quickly, therefore give me buffs and nerf other classes.” What an extraordinary argument.

oZii.2864:

Arganthium.5638:

Once eles get back on par with other classes, then this trait should be nerfed.

Should it?

You sound confident that it should be once Ele is on par with other classes but maybe the other changes that happen including this are what put it on par with other classes. What would put elementalist on par with other classes that it’s vigor would still need to be nerfed? Just calling for nerfs is easy and happens alot on these forums.

arbitrary wall of text

Dude, you went way overboard on this.

First of all, I’m not calling for just a nerf- I’m calling for class-wide buffs that, once sufficient, can be supplemented with a single nerf.

Now, I could go on for days talking about what buffs eles need and why, but that’s way outside the scope of this discussion. Let it suffice to say that, given how good eles once were, we can assume that a single nerf to one trait will not blow them back into oblivion, especially when supplemented with buffs. There is no reason to believe that ele can’t be balanced; once we accept that it’s theoretically possible for even one class to be balanced or close to balanced, the rest of the journey is simply a matter of adjusting all other classes to that standard.

Once eles get back on par with other classes, then this trait should be nerfed.

Swagg.9236:

Updates to damage numbers across the board.

Lol, you reduced the coefficients even more? What happened to skills like Infi Strike being supposed to be on the same level as Savage Leap?

I like how you’ve gotten so much negative feedback that you have either ignored out-of-hand (such as my feedback) or chosen to address by repeating the same mantras and exercising a policy of “I’m right and you’re wrong because in my opinion X and that is not your opinion so therefore you’re wrong.”

Thedenofsin.7340:

And tell them to tune down thieves so ele’s and mesmers can actually get some playtime!

Yeah, thieves are the reason why eles are bad. Not because they have the lowest base health, lowest armor, terrible mechanics, a lack of defensive mechanisms, extremely telegraphed attacks with long cast times, absolutely godawful healing skills (probably the worst in the game), terrible utilities, bad condition removal, and extremely limited trait options. No, that can’t be the case.

And mesmers? Yeah, they’re terrible, even though all evidence shows that they are at least equal with thieves (due to their base health in exchange for armor, and a variety of offensive and defensive pluses), if not better than thieves.

Justin ODell.9517:

o_O Where to people come up with this stuff?

From a) a severe lack of red tags in sPvP, but more importantly from b) the fact that apparently an 8% nerf to HealSig that is taking at least half a year from the initial start of the problem of HealSig to be addressed is considered “balance”.

Justin ODell.9517:

quote=3631996;Phi Is Sly.1857:]You playing warrior? or sin?

I play lock-down mesmer and a Teldo engineer build, in that order.
[/quote]

I’m not sure why people (at least, a few people) are so amazed by this. LD is becoming the new FotM for Mesmers, and virtually every Nade/Bomb engineer build has turned into a face rolling mess that is nonetheless extremely difficult to kill and extremely potent.

Null Field.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Arganthium.5638:

Phantaram.1265:

I think most people are missing the point of this thread.

Yes the meta is super tanky and within it thieves are just average. Take away the super tanky meta and it will be about thieves. Mesmer and ele, the other mobile power squishy roamers, won’t see the light of day because thieves are so far ahead of them and actually counter the mesmer and ele themselves.

There are layers of broken things in this game. The first one that needs peeled back is the tanky meta, after that there are other things that need peeled back. Thief is one of them.

What garbage.

Mesmer is by no means countered by thief. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that they have a theoretical disadvantage against thieves (i.e. they have 5k more health in exchange for thief’s 7% damage reduction, Mes has a little less burst than thief but a little more sustain, Mes has tons of AoE while Thief has great single-target damage, etc)- in fact, if anything, mesmers should have an advantage against thieves, simply on the basis of their wider range of flexibility (see my mesmer build in my signature) along with very, very slight pluses in a wide number of other areas.

AoE isn’t that relevant for a roamer. And even then thief does have some aoe through short bow #2 spam.

It’s extremely relevant for a roamer, since you’re supposed to be helping out your allies in team fights.

CBomb spam is generally ineffective and makes you a large (and extremely vulnerable) target.

Eurantien.4632:

Go play a power ranger. Get hit by pistol whip. Go re roll a thief.

Rangers are, IMO, even worse than eles at the moment (except, of course, for stupid Spirit Ranger specs). Looking at some of the community’s thoughts regarding this subject, you find that an absolutely overwhelming majority of players think that Ranger is either the class that is in the most need of help or the second in most need of help.

Phantaram.1265:

I think most people are missing the point of this thread.

Yes the meta is super tanky and within it thieves are just average. Take away the super tanky meta and it will be about thieves. Mesmer and ele, the other mobile power squishy roamers, won’t see the light of day because thieves are so far ahead of them and actually counter the mesmer and ele themselves.

There are layers of broken things in this game. The first one that needs peeled back is the tanky meta, after that there are other things that need peeled back. Thief is one of them.

What garbage.

Mesmer is by no means countered by thief. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that they have a theoretical disadvantage against thieves (i.e. they have 5k more health in exchange for thief’s 7% damage reduction, Mes has a little less burst than thief but a little more sustain, Mes has tons of AoE while Thief has great single-target damage, etc)- in fact, if anything, mesmers should have an advantage against thieves, simply on the basis of their wider range of flexibility (see my mesmer build in my signature) along with very, very slight pluses in a wide number of other areas.

Elementalist, on the other hand, is just a generally bad class at the moment. I have no problem crushing eles with any profession. Their base stats are the weakest of all classes (lowest base health and light armor), their heals are downright awful, their supposed “flexibility” is actually very limited, their damage skills are unreliable at best, their traits are extremely limited, their condition removal is weak, and so on. This has absolutely nothing to do with thieves being “overpowered” or some kind of stupid idea like that. Heck, you can’t even use the (already pathetic) excuse that S/D thieves are a strong counter to eles since there are virtually no players using S/D any more (Sizer was asked by his team to change weapon sets).

You might be a good player, Phantaram, but your comments are so off-target that I feel that you’re shooting way out of your league here. There’s absolutely nothing to support your comments; what little evidence has been provided by a large number of players supporting your ideas is either easily refutable with objective analysis (i.e. just because Sizer was “hunting” Helseth didn’t mean he was being particularly helpful to his team; in fact, looking at his gameplay, he wasn’t really doing as much for his team as Helseth was doing for his) or by determining the actual root of the problem, as I did with the elementalist.

1. Ranger
2. Elementalist
3. Thief