Guild Wars 2

Sounds like you just had some kitten picking on you. On my server usually we wave people through from the other servers. Why? Because it’s rude not to and it takes a very specific dishonorable type to gank someone who’s clearly not out for any sort of combat experience and is trying to get badges.

If I see a commander in there though I’m gonna kill them, they’re there to fuel their side with blueprints/badges, not to farm badges for armor/legendary weapons.

I’m posting this to give Anet some insight in hopes they can learn from my experiences.

I’ve started to play less and less GW2 for the following reasons.

1) Removal of all efficient “farming”
2) The inclusion of Ascended items
3) The waypoint system and how, because of its cost it isolates the players
4) The dismal drops
5) The massive inflation on the TC

Now not one single factor I’ve listed has stopped me from enjoying the game but rather the cumulative effects of these which overlap.

Farming wouldn’t be a big issue except Ascended items are unjustly expensive.
Ascended items wouldn’t be a big issue except for the dismal drops and TC inflation

The waypoint system wouldn’t be a big issue if the efficient farming still existed.

Every choice that has been made has unintended consequences and while I don’t expect everything to go smoothly some of this was just common sense, you didn’t need a oracle to know that the removal of farming spots like Plinx would effect the TC which in turn would make Ascended gear a massive grind, etc.

Please Anet, if you read this go through all the changes you’ve made and create a pictograph with 2 overlapping circles and use this method to figure out which changes are overlapping in roles and creating this cumulative effect that is rendering GW2 as a sub-par MMORPG because at first you guys had it right…what happened?

To me the thief profession has the most potential but because of underwhelming utilities such as traps and venoms, traits which trigger internal cooldowns or support the underwhelming utility skills and the unsynergistic weapon sets (P/P is the perfect example of this) it’s the profession which has to rely mostly on gimmicks which in response gets Anet to nerf the Thief over and over.

The problem with constantly nerfing the thief is 1) the nerfs totally miss the point or 2) they take away the only viable options for the thief to remain viable.

What I think needs to happen in order to fix these issues is a redesign of most thief traits, especially the ones that trigger internal cooldowns and a redesign of the weapon sets (not all the abilities need a redesign but there are weapon abilities which are clearly not worth using and which lack synergy in the weapon set).

drifter.8453:

BabelFish.7234:

Jezath.7395:

or have 2 slots maybe? one for infusion and one for sigil/rune

That’s my thought as well, just have 2 slots and be done with it, same with ascended weapons.

it might cause unbalnce issues if it all stacks togeather.

Imbalance in what PvE? No such thing. In WvW? Its already imbalanced, look at Rifle Warriors kill shotting for 20k piercing damage, look at P/D thieves soloing 4-6 players…

WvW is the very definition of imbalanced because some people won’t be fully leveled and thusly won’t have the same traits and gear.

Saulius.8430:

i see you rarely run into tanky mesmers what if i told you, that blind makes only 1st attack miss?

Then you’d be lying. After looking in the Mesmer forums blind kills off 1/2 of the Mesmer skills.

Daendur.2357:

BabelFish.7234:

Daendur.2357:

i suggest you to change game. You grinders have already done enough damages with those absurd requests. More grind ?!?! WTF!
I earn more much money than before the patch. Running 1 istance a day is more rewarding than before. Kill a champion that can drop is more rewarding than before.

If its more rewarding then why do I get more rares out of farming lvl 80 trash mobs?
Why do I get more t6 mats out of farming trash mobs?

That champion takes a decent chunk of time to kill and the rewards for doing so don’t make me go “hey look there’s a champion lets zerg up and go kill it!” instead it gives me the exact opposite inclination., I want to avoid it so I can grind the smaller, easier to kill and more rewarding trash mobs.

The rewards for the work do not scale properly or in layman’s terms: Anet is paying fast food employees $125/hr while Lawyers are paid $75/hr.

because you are farming, not playing. I hope they’ll put a DR on common mobs to stop ppl like you.

To put it bluntly: someone sounds a little resentful and butthurt, applying their arbitrary terms of what is playing a game and what isn’t to others.

Jezath.7395:

or have 2 slots maybe? one for infusion and one for sigil/rune

That’s my thought as well, just have 2 slots and be done with it, same with ascended weapons.

On the off chance this thread doesn’t get deleted:

I agree with 2) there needs to be some serious changes on that subject.

3) There’s nothing wrong with a bit of bark, it’s when the bark turns to bite that things need to change. A good example is a old roommate of mine and I would play Black Ops, we’d talk smack back and forth but it was all in good fun and games, we never crossed the line and if someone did we let the other know and we stopped talking smack for a little bit.

Fun so I get to slave away for a month or two to get 1 of these puppies with the infusion. If I hibernate I might even get 2!

ASP.8093:

smug.3895:

Is this how most thieves feel?

The only time I actually get annoyed is when people launch or pull things inappropriately, if it turns what’s generally a stable battle into an unstable one.

I see people do it to downed opponents in WvW about two nights a week. Maybe this is some rare warriors misunderstanding what ‘stomp’ means?

That’s exactly my point. I’ll sometimes get annoyed if they pull aggro and run out of my AoE but I understand why they have to do it, no worries.

But when they start doing silly things like using knockbacks, etc and forcibly move a mob out of my AoE…that’s when I say something.

I did before I posted this, there’s no info on how this specific item is obtainable.

Screw the karma where do I go for consistent gold farming? I need t6 mats or gold to buy t6 mats.

I’ve noticed this as well, there’s clear discrepancies between animations and damage calculation which is not good for a mmorpg based on action.

Daendur.2357:

i suggest you to change game. You grinders have already done enough damages with those absurd requests. More grind ?!?! WTF!
I earn more much money than before the patch. Running 1 istance a day is more rewarding than before. Kill a champion that can drop is more rewarding than before.

If its more rewarding then why do I get more rares out of farming lvl 80 trash mobs?
Why do I get more t6 mats out of farming trash mobs?

That champion takes a decent chunk of time to kill and the rewards for doing so don’t make me go “hey look there’s a champion lets zerg up and go kill it!” instead it gives me the exact opposite inclination., I want to avoid it so I can grind the smaller, easier to kill and more rewarding trash mobs.

The rewards for the work do not scale properly or in layman’s terms: Anet is paying fast food employees $125/hr while Lawyers are paid $75/hr.

I’d prefer a system where we can transmute any armor appearance onto a corresponding piece regardless of if it’s heavy, medium or light.

This would also open up a whole world of customization options for their horizontal progression.

Just make the kitten things sellable on the TC and make t6 mats have a higher drop rate, right now the drop rate is too low.

This clearly boils down to Balth needing to be fixed, not fixing it imo is silly.

I agree with this thread, there isn’t much of a reward for grinding anymore which unfortunately has become essential for their Ascended items as well as legendaries.

They need to adjust the drop rates because as of this moment there isn’t a whole lot of ways to gain gold in a time efficient manner or undo the nerf to event chains such as Plinx.

I watched a video on a gamer show that addressed the ascended items and legendary weapons.

The video said there would be “scavenger-type” legendary items added and that legendary weapons would have their stats adjusted to always be top tier.

Make the outmanned buff give orb stat boosts, make the orb boosts give the currend outmanned buff buffs.

This means taking orbs gives your team additional exp, mf and karma while being outnumbered gives you additional stats.

I’m actually doing more of a glass build now (not exclusively glass though)

My accessories stack Power/Prec/Crit Dmg
My armor stacks Power/Tough/Vit/Crit Dmg in that order.
My Weapons stack Power/Prec/Crit Dmg

The precision, power and crit dmg make me hit a good 1-3k harder then before. I expect the Ascended rings and back piece to boost my dmg around another 1-1.5k

I’d like to see them exchangeable for badges of honor. This fuels the WvW system by letting you sell that trebuchet your team doesn’t have need for tokens which in turn buy other blueprints you need.

This is assuming this is a mystic forge recipe. What on earth do I require to make this bad boy?

Or is it a drop from FotM?

a katana can easily pierce armor when used to stab, you’d be hard pressed to find a non “greatsword” that could slash through chain mail, let alone plate mail.

What we need is a system to find people on the same level as us. Without it FotM just isn’t viable.

dragoaskani.6271:

BabelFish.7234:

My build does hold aggro around 80% of the time, if your ally is doing a high damage burst you don’t go ahead and burst ontop of that risking stealing aggro and reducing efficiency, you space the bursts apart so the aggro stays focused on who needs it.

This is the difference between a knuckle dragging pub player and a pub/guildie who understand basic mechanics.

Its your responsibility to use your brain-or-if you cannot go do solo PvE where you wont muck things up for the rest of us.

You are aware there are mechanics at work in this game for aggro besides damage and healing right? Pick your knuckles off the ground long enough to go learn about mobs that attack highest armor, lowest armor, hp variables, etc.

Way to make assumptions. I know how aggro works and one of the leading causes is out bursting X character.

Don’t make assumptions.

Ropes.8690:

Here are a few tips I’d like to throw out there. I don’t know if they will apply to your particular scenario but it may improve your own playstyle. (note that this is for PvE play)

1. If the mob is targeting a non-melee teammate, you can’t expect them to sit still just so you can pistol whip the mob. Instead, try helping your teammate with just using the sword auto attack. It will do about the same damage as pistol whip but you will also cripple and weaken the foe to help your fleeing teammate.

2. The main benefit to pistol whip over the sword auto attack is the stun + 1sec evade. When you haste through it, that evade does not last nearly as long and makes it less usefull. The damage output of hasted pistol whip vs hasted auto attack is negligible (pistol whip just adds the damage numbers together so you get to see more big numbers but that’s really just a visual thing).

Basically, sword/pistol has a lot of versatility and can be better used to support the “bad players”. Just popping haste + a skill that locks you in place doesn’t seem very advantageous in many situations (I guess would help if you need SoM or sigils to trigger more).

In my case I pop it to allow massive AoE damage and allow my superior sigil of air to proc more often/heal me.

When an ally goes kitten acquire aggro and lead the mobs out it not only mitigates the damage my spec does but it also hurts themselves by allowing the mobs to live longer.

This also applies to perma blind field, I’ve seen allies lead the melee mobs out of them before…

Dacromir.6207:

Okay, it is not the responsibility of others to keep enemies in position for your skills. They are not your tanks. It is your responsibility to use positioning and skills such that pistol whip will hit them.

After all, if you’re standing over there and I’m standing over here, why is it my job to drag the mobs over to you or not attack so you can hold aggro? The player must go to the mobs, not the mobs to the player.

In GW2, a good group consists of 5 players who work well as a team but are all capable of handling themselves. If you want a group of mobs to sit still and eat your damage, either hold aggro on them or use your skills to make them sit still.

My build does hold aggro around 80% of the time, if your ally is doing a high damage burst you don’t go ahead and burst ontop of that risking stealing aggro and reducing efficiency, you space the bursts apart so the aggro stays focused on who needs it.

This is the difference between a knuckle dragging pub player and a pub/guildie who understand basic mechanics.

Its your responsibility to use your brain-or-if you cannot go do solo PvE where you wont muck things up for the rest of us.

Mention raid in title, check
People flood in making wow comparisons, check

Don’t get me wrong, I HATE WoW but this is typical no brainer wow-phobia.
Raids are the only thing WoW had 100% right for a few reasons.

1) it encourages communication and coordination between large groups vs epic bosses
2) it instances those epic bosses so crap like last weekend lag doesn’t happen

I support this as long as its implemented properly and works for GW2, it cannot be simply copy-pasted over from WoW as WoW has different mechanics.

Just bought some of my zerker accessories to replace those emerald ones…the results were…uhhh broken?

Look at my attack…I also have 208% crit now…

Pragmatist.1349:

For Leveling id say go for Shortbow and Sword/Pistol. Use Thieves Guild + Ambush trap and two utilities of your choice. Its the most effective way to level tbh. As for build. Work towards 30 Critical Strikes, 20 Acrobatics and 20 Trickery.

QFT
S/P+SB has a lot of different ways it can be run but in terms of leveling it is by far the most effective weapon set, combined with the stat placement you’ll actually find that the game gets easier with you level increasing to the point where dungeons are relatively easy and high level areas like Orr are a total joke.

Pragmatist.1349:

Mm we do have similar builds. I enjoy having so much initiative regen, on trash packs in dungeons we can basically just stack and nuke while i keep up permanent blind with Black Powder. Makes the knights in TA or the CoF path 2 defend Magg room very easy. Its basically like… Thief tanking + good dps.

How do you get 175% critical damage?

Critical hits have a base damage multiplier of 150%
My weapons are berserker’s, my pants and chest are valk, all my accessories are slotted with exquisite beryl and my back piece is berserker’s spine guard.

So I actually have a crit damage of 196%, lol. I just need more precision so it happens more often.

Swapped out Signets of Power for Furious Retaliation, I like that trait already <3

Ragnarox.9601:

what skill he is auto attacking all fight , and skill 5 when need stealth, no skill just 2 buttons. and no real threat by opposing players. and yes i must concur with stx they couldn’t see you after you get out of stealth. i had same issues last night with one thief. so rendering bug is still operative.

Dodge timings, feinting. He displays excellent mechanics and uses every skill bar dancing dagger.

By your logic all thieves are skilless as we all have rotations.

D/D has 5,f1,1
S/P has 2,3,3,~,1,1,1,3,3,3,3,~,2,3,3.
I could keep going but I’m sure you get the point.

3200 (its actually closer to 3300) attack with a superior sigil of bloodlust on my SB and Assassin’s Signet.

We have very, very similar builds and I think switching my rings/amulet/earrings over to ruby orichalicum of the berserker would be a good idea (they’re emerald orichalicum or the valk right now, I’ve been finding I need a bit more glass in my cannon)

The haste is amazing if you take trickster, it allows my SoM to heal me faster and allows me to dish out excessive amounts of damage in very short periods of time.
That being said, it’s not for everyone. It makes you vulnerable after and you have to plan for that instance where you need to dodge.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

One solution to the problem of higher stats than current Legendary weapons is:
– Treat Legendary weapons like HoM items. No stats, just a skin. So you can stick the skin on whatever stats you like.
– Whenever ANET raises max stats, everyone owning a Legendary gets one Fine Transmutation stone for each Legendary they own. Each stone is intended for sticking the Legendary appearance on the new max stat weapon.

Last time I checked anet was scaling the stats of legendaries upwards to keep them slightly better then everything else.

Power/Tough/Vit with a sprinking of crit damage and precision.

Elmuerto.9840:

I think Thief is quite varied..yes BS build is the biggest hitter but I’d be loosing my fun utility skills, and thats where thief shines fights full of movement and variation. Fought a ranger last night (was a poor approach from my point as I was mucking around switching abilities) but he had me pounded 50% down then boom heal and stealth and called in the calvary, Ambush and THieves Guild, poor guy didn’t know what was happenning with 4 thieves at him..good times. I wouldn’t roll around with those abilities all the time at all but its fun to change up which a thief does well imo.

After playing with a BS thief while we were farming I have to say they are barely the heavy hitter in PvE and they sacrifice so much in order to get that extra 1000 damage.

What variant do you use?

Lysserd.4618:

I first I was outraged.
Then I remember how grindey the mats are in this game. Bots would probably bring the prices down.

That would be a good benefit of the bots because the market is so over inflated right now its disgusting. Items that used to cost 50s are now 2g+…

With that said I think allowing bots is a horrible idea but if the market doesn’t get better in a month anet is gonna have to step in or this game will be a gigantic grind-fest thanks to inflation.

I support this idea fully +10000

Awww you guy know you love the face hugging crabs these things kitten out <3
In all seriousness though, these monsters give dismal loot, dismal exp and are such a waste of time I won’t even touch them.

They single handedly ruin that new, pretty island Anet released and to that extent I support Runir’s suggestion. Remove the 2nd HP bar and make them drop better loot.

People like you are the reason we thieves can’t have anything nice
Stop owning so hard or they’ll nerf sneak attack

Seriously though, you’ve got skillz. Are you GoM or BP? Saw you were vs Anvil Rock.

This is single headedly the best piece of advice that anyone here could give Anet.

ddrake.5436:

So …… to sum it up…. at MAX you can get 3-4 PW in ~3sec I don’t care if you can regen like a god, you can only regen MAX 1 per PW if you are lucky, 2 per 10 seconds, and 3 from a steal, that gives you 1 extra PW so ~4 PW at MAX 2 seconds with haste, DONE… you can complain all you like, however this will not give you any more initiative in 4 seconds of haste I highly doubt you are the only person fighting and doing high damage output… 4 seconds of haste with 2 seconds of 4 x PW’s every 45 seconds does not seem to be worthy of a complaint.

3+2+2

1 per 1.6 seconds
2 per 10 seconds

PW=approx. 3 second duration

3×4=12
12/10=1 (rounded down)
12/1.6=7.5 (rounded down)

15-5+3=13
3 seconds have passed
13+1=14
14-5=9
3 seconds have passed
9+1=10
10-5=5
3 seconds have passed
5+1=6
6-5=1
3 seconds have passed
1+1=2+2(quick recovery)=4+2(Signet Use)=6
6-5=1
3 seconds have passed
1+1=2+2(Signet Use)=4

If you run another signet or SoM, you can extend this to 6 or alternately wait 1.6 seconds and PW again. Also your signet cooldowns are reduced so you could ideally use Signet of Malice 2x in this combo for another +2 initiative (12s cooldown).

Haste duration isn’t even long enough to fully cover 2.5 pistol whips, why are you factoring that in?

Haste is used to cause 2 PW to deal a high amount of burst and trigger on crit abilities such as sigil of air and to synergize with Signet of Malice for heals+stun+active evasion.

Eduardo.4675:

I see 0.75 secs for a pistol whip to end its animation here… yet, when i test it, i get 4 PW’s in 11 secs…
More of the same blabering…

Then you aren’t testing it properly.

Edit: Just tested this in HotM on a training dummy. I was able to perform 10 PW in a row without skipping a beat.

Currently the hardest to get armor in the game is Invader’s Armor mainly because of how badges are acquired (extremely low drop rates from killing players, relatively low drop rates for killing keep/castle lords and the jumping puzzles which are often used as a 3v1 arena and sometimes worse a deathtrap consisting of siege weapons and a guild waiting to gank.)

I’m all for a challenge to get said armor but there are a few things which concern me about this. First off because of the zerg mechanic some professions are left with a lack of AoE meaning they cannot collect tokens at a comparable rate as someone like a elementalist who can AoE for badges.

This also brings up another issue: with the release of ascended armor on the horizon that will totally invalidate this incredibly hard to get armor similar to how keeping legendary stats as they are would have them invalidated by ascended weapons (I know that legendary stats are being boosted to compensate)

To this end I suggest moving Invaders Armor to a separate dungeon token-like system and leaving the badges of honor solely for siege equipment and legendaries.

These new tokens would be collected for every keep/camp/castle taken.

Camps=1-2 token
keeps=2-4 tokens
Castle=4-8 tokens

This would make said armor more obtainable without the discrepancies it suffers today and in the future when ascended armor is released. This also makes the system more fair as Invader’s accessories are the only accessories with a Power/Vit/Tough stat allocation WITH a unused upgrade slot.

Since apparently people don’t understand how the build works here it is with a breakdown of how it works.

0/30/0/20/20

Signets of Power, Signet Use, Executioner

Signets of Power/Signet Use together give you 2 initiative and 5 stacks of might per sigil activated, this amplifies your damage and allows you to 1) spam more pistol whip or 2) spam more black powder.

Expeditors Dodger, Power of Inertia, Feline Grace, Quick Recovery

Expeditors Dodger, Power of Inertia and Feline Grace work together giving you swiftness, might and endurance each time you dodge. If timed properly you can maintain 4 stacks of might constantly.

Quick Recover allows you to spam more Pistol Whip or Black Powder

Kleptomaniac, Thrill of the Crime, Trickster

Kleptomaniac and Thrill of the crime allow you to shadow step to your foe in mid Pistol Whip (in case they move), gives you 3 initiative and fury/might/swiftness for additional damage and crit chance.

Trickster lowers haste’s recharge from 60 seconds to 48.

When built properly you should have over 3200 attack power, 2400 armor rating, 41% crit chance, 17000 health and 175% crit damage.

Your gear should be a mix of power/tough/vit with some valk gear and emerald berserker accessories.

ddrake.5436:

pistol whip and haste? with 15 ini how many P/W can you pull off …. the answer is 3 maybe 4 in…. 3/4 second per PW without haste… so.. ~3 seconds without haste… ~1.5 seconds with haste do you really need more than that ? after you have blown your ini, you are completely useless, it’s a fact.

That is so silly. 1st off if you’re gonna go for a PW haste build you take initiative regen as a trait (2 every 10 seconds). Next you take Signet Use (gain 2 initiative when activating a signet) and 3rd you go a bare minimum of 5 deep in trickery so stealing gives you back 3 initiative.

If you feel inclined to spam PW you can spam it 5-6 times and after that you roll back and start using your SB until your initiative regens…only people who don’t understand initiative think the things you just said, also I guess any class would be “useless” when they’ve done their rotation and everything is on CD for those few seconds, eh?

I should also mention Haste will speed through 2 PW and kick start the activation of a 3rd, it will not last any longer.

But that’s beside the point. Why bring up something as off topic as that?

When I pop haste and pistol whip I’ve been noticing allies will lure the mob out of my AoE. I’ll tell them not do do that and explain why…then they’ll do it again.

Why on earth are people so dense when it comes to team work?

This new gear, while appreciated is far too much of a grind. 250 stacks of a t6 mat is absurd as a grind because they rarely drop. I reserved judgment until I saw how they were implemented and now that they’re here I’m disappointed.

Either make t6 mats a more common drop or lower the amount to make them.

I agree, instance your monthly events because they are popular, create lag and gameplay issues.

Quip is one of the WOST legendaries out there. Thankfully Anet said more legendaries are on their way because man, some of them are absolute jokes.