Guild Wars 2

If you don’t want to do WvW, you don’t have to.

You also don’t get a Legendary.

That’s how the game is designed.

dons shades, rides Harley into sunset

Logun.2349:

I don’t think people literally mean the Manifesto video itself when they talk about Arena Net not living up to the “Manifesto”.

Arena Net spent 4 years selling us on how other MMO’s were doing it wrong and it was time to change the genre.

Player separation, competition over mobs, nodes, and quest objectives were going to be a thing of the past. They sold us on WHY this game was going to change things.

Walls that prevented players from grouping with anyone anywhere were being torn down, which was the main reason behind the trinity being removed.

They spent 4 year telling us WHY GW2 would be different and free us from the grind with dynamic events, and extraordinary open world game play where we all wear flowers in our hair and just play for fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjxvj2I_CCA

“we don’t think its ok to force player into dungeons at endgame”

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

Then with one patch they introduce player separation, grind, and turn the open world into a lobby for the never ending FotM hamster wheel.

They have all but admitted this was a mistake and it’s obvious with the divide it’s created in the community, can you really blame people for feeling betrayed.

No. What we can blame people for is not having some patience after the apology is made to give them some time to try and fix the mistakes they obviously want to correct. We can also blame them for blowing the mistakes completely out of proportion to make it seem like the current status of the game is grind FOTM or you will be weak in comparison to someone who has grinded FOTM.

Neither of which is correct.

P/V/T gear doesn’t exist outside of certain areas either. That doesn’t make it 50% better 100% of the time.

And Ascended gear is intended to drop in all areas of the game. A public apology was made in the REddit AMA for it not being implemented that way to begin with.

Corvindi.5734:

Same thread I linked, page 12:

“Whoa there. I wasn’t trying to start a fight. I’m sorry if it sounded that way.

ANet has already made it clear (in past announcements, interviews, etc.) that max level gear will be available to everyone through normal game play. I’m paraphrasing, but they said that by level 80, everyone should have max gear. By that reasoning, we can extrapolate that the items available in the shop will be cosmetic in nature, and not confer any statistical advantage.

There will almost certainly be armor and weapon skins that are difficult to get in game, but since they won’t provide any advantage, then it really doesn’t matter if you get them. They will be a matter of personal preference only.

There is nearly literally no way for them to make the game P2W based on the game model."

---

Again, how many examples do you want is the question, I could probably find you hundreds. I’d rather not and I’m pretty sure I’ll get infracted if I actually did post hundreds of quotes, but I could do it.

1) Again, max level gear is intended to be attainable by everyone through normal gameplay, thus ascended gear drops being implemented in other places than FOTM in the future.

2) You aren’t quoting an Arenanet employee.

3) You are taking an argument on P2W in the item shop out of context to prove another point, which is completely unrelated.

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Corvindi.5734:

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Links to proof please?

It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just like to double check my sources. So far a lot of the issue has come from people having different interpretations and I want to see if they actually said all of this in black and white.

I can, of course. The real question is, how many links and quotes do you want?

We’ll start with this one:

By DarkWasp on a Guru thread on microtransactions from February:

Keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 will be somewhat like Guild Wars in the way that you should be able max out your level and items in a month or two.

So selling of max stat items and XP potions would have a much smaller impact than other MMOs. However, if you play with others buying such a thing would be a kitten thing to do. They have not said they would sell these things, BTW. In fact I think they confirmed NO xp potions two years ago.

Just something you should think about before anyone freaks out about GW2’s micro-transactions. Aside from the fact that there are micro-transactions at all, that is kind of worth freaking out about if you’re an older gamer with a history and all this new market stuff rubs you the wrong way. But hey, at least there’s no monthly fees.

Source:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/23920-gw2-cash-shop-info-changes/page__st__240

Chris Whiteside already admitted in the last AMA that the current grind for Ascended items will be being reduced.

I’m not sure where the problem is here?

What is said and what is done are sometimes two different things, though I’m willing to take a wait and see approach. However, the point was that at no time did devs correct the apparent misunderstanding that there would be no gear released later that would make the current, easy to get best level 80 gear obsolete.

That quote isn’t even a good one, I’ll find you some that better illustrate the point. Players almost universally assumed no gear progression. The only exception to that might be the acknowledgement that levels might increase (I doubt many assumed levels would increase but gear would not).

Thus, the apology from Chris Whiteside, stating that they should have closed the time gap between exotic and legendary attainability prior to launch by implementing ascended gear beforehand.

Then, perhaps it could have been better balanced and less of a grind.

People are literally angry over something that has already been openly apologized for and is being worked on. It’s absurd.

Raine.1394:

Bluebird.1890:

Narkosys.5173:

If that were the case then legendaries should have just been skins and not stats.
They should have clearly stated that they will go wow lite and add a huge grind and say that lengendaries are mandatory because they will always be BiS. That way you never have to grind weapons again.
This game was marketed to the casuals because of the low grind availability of top tier gear.As of right now there is 1 way to get that gear and is 1 hell of a grind.

Now if you go back and see the material you will notice that most people got the impression of no stat increase because the devs directly inferred it and that the gear grind was minimal. This was a major selling point for them and many fan sites touted this.

At the very least this is disingenuous not to state that VertProg will always be a persistent factor.
Also they should have changed the name as this game goes against the fundamental principles of the original and should have not been used as a marketing tool so that no misconceptions could be made.

As of right now they are trying to appeal to everyone and in the end appeal to no one. Clear vision and road map would help with any further miscommunications.

They appeal to me, and plenty of other people, who like the presence of both sides of the coin, in more moderation than is typically presented in modern triple A MMOs.

Please do not speak for us.

Bluebird, can a toss of the coin be both heads and tails at the same time? If they go with vertical progression, we all will need to hop on the treadmill. It doesn’t matter where they put the treadmill (dungeons, open world, crafting, etc.); if you want to “progress” you will need to hop on the treadmill. No will get out of the requirement to participate in the treadmill.

I played WoW for years and came to GW2 because the promised a different kind of MMO without a gear grind or treadmill. It’s a tired element of game design that is easy to develop and satisfies only one class of player. Remember, you don’t get the coin, you get heads or tails.

But, let’s look closer at the nature of the treadmill. Before the new tier is introduced all players are at power X as are the mobs. Then a new tier is introduced and everyone hops on the treadmill. When everyone hops off they are now all at power Y and the mobs have assumed power Y. There is no progression as there has been no change in the relative power of players and environment. This is why it’s called a treadmill. It’s just tedious work to arrive at the place you were before the treadmill.

Smart players more and more see that vertical progression does not offer progression of any kind. They have seen the Emperor and he is naked. They’ve seen the Wizard and he’s just an old man behind a curtain. This was the promise of GW2. It was marked as a different kind of MMO and specifically an MMO without a gear grind. The game didn’t follow through on the promises and people are disappointed. BTW, they are also smart enough to know that they are not going to get both sides of coin. The coins been tossed and those who bought GW2 and wanted to change it back to a tired, old formula won. You got your grinder so rejoice. Just don’t be surprised that people are disappointed with the departure from the promises.

Again, I do not grind. I don’t have a single Ascended piece. I have FOTM level 2.

I log in, and I do something random. I craft. I W3. I SPVP. I PVE. I run story dungeons. I run explorable dungeons. I explore. I look at builds.

I didn’t get a grinder. I got everything that you just said doesn’t exist.

So, yes. I got both sides of the coin. So did plenty of other people.

If you don’t agree, I am sorry that you don’t enjoy the game. Just stop trying to make it look like everyone who does is some WoW vertical progression grinding raider fanboy.

We aren’t.

Archmortal.1027:

Tolmos.8395:

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

This deserves attention but not so much because of looking for groups. This quote deserves attention because Ascended gear and the Fractals dungeon fly in open defiance of this statement. An Ascended gear piece will prepare you to have fun past Fractal 10 and additional pieces will prepare you to have fun deeper in the dungeon and so on. Looking for groups is certainly a valid concern as well, but not because we have to create our own (it’s honestly preferable to a LFD system as direct interaction is much better assurance of the player’s investment rather than a passing “oh I guess I’ll do this if the queue pops and the group isn’t horrible”).

You’d think the giant rift in the community that was created after the Fractals and Ascended gear were added would be evidence that people are not having fun from moment to moment. We’re seeing it all over the discussion and suggestion forums. Almost all the loud voices have taken a side on it to the point that someone’s common-sense post about treating each other’s posts with respect and adhering to the basic forum rules got stickied. Such a post should not have had to be made, much less get stickied to make sure no one missed it, but it was and it did because either a large or a loud (judging by in-game observation I’m leaning more toward large instead of just loud) portion of the community feels “betrayed” for lack of a better word. Ascended Gear is turning out to be a grind because they rolled it out without all the availability options and without realizing how bad things could turn out because of that. Whether they stated it’s changing soon or not, this happened because of the lack of forethought.

I still don’t see a reason to go through with vertical progression. They would have better-served their own intentions and the game community by altering Exotics rather than add an entirely new stat set to progress to.

If you aren’t having fun running the fractals, then stop running the fractals.

Ascended gear will soon be attainable in any portion of the game, as Chris Whiteside has attested to, and apologized for it not being done all at once.

Bornthisway.4609:

Stay on topic and if you want to troll do so elsewhere. This is a thread that is, yes, appreciative of the apology, but that also recognizes words are words. They need to fix their wrong and then I will be truly appreciative.

If the topic is that you appreciate the apology, but you just admitted you don’t truly appreciate the apology, then you aren’t staying on topic either.

Yukishiro.8792:

nachtnebel.9168:

“We don’t make grindy games” that’s the part of the manifesto they broke.

Yep. FOTM violates the spirit of the manifesto as a whole and that specific bit of it. I don’t see how anyone can even try to argue otherwise.

Now maybe the manifesto is wrong. Maybe people want a gear treadmill. But that is very clearly not what the game was marketed as and originally supposed to be.

FOTM violates this because it forces you to do only FOTM over and over for ascended gear, and not WVWVW, or PVE, or other dungeons.

Which, Chris Whiteside has already stated in the Reddit AMA, will be changing. Soon.

Again, where is the problem?

Corvindi.5734:

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Links to proof please?

It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just like to double check my sources. So far a lot of the issue has come from people having different interpretations and I want to see if they actually said all of this in black and white.

I can, of course. The real question is, how many links and quotes do you want?

We’ll start with this one:

By DarkWasp on a Guru thread on microtransactions from February:

Keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 will be somewhat like Guild Wars in the way that you should be able max out your level and items in a month or two.

So selling of max stat items and XP potions would have a much smaller impact than other MMOs. However, if you play with others buying such a thing would be a kitten thing to do. They have not said they would sell these things, BTW. In fact I think they confirmed NO xp potions two years ago.

Just something you should think about before anyone freaks out about GW2’s micro-transactions. Aside from the fact that there are micro-transactions at all, that is kind of worth freaking out about if you’re an older gamer with a history and all this new market stuff rubs you the wrong way. But hey, at least there’s no monthly fees.

Source:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/23920-gw2-cash-shop-info-changes/page__st__240

Chris Whiteside already admitted in the last AMA that the current grind for Ascended items will be being reduced.

I’m not sure where the problem is here?

Mackdose.6504:

Bluebird.1890:

This is not becoming World of Warcraft. It is becoming a nice niche in between World of Warcraft, and GW1, where vertical progression exists for those who want to experience it, and can be safely ignored by those of us who just want to play around in all portions of the game.

This. A thousand times.

This is the MMO I wanted, the fantasy game I wanted, I co-op game I wanted, the PvP game I wanted, the siege warfare I wanted.

I like knowing that there’s another 1% increase in character power just around the corner for me to achieve if i want it and if i don’t, then the 1% increase won’t keep me from participating in all of the content available.

Thank you for better articulating what I was failing to say

This is exactly how I feel. +1 to this man!

I hardly think telling the developers that you’ve set a month deadline for them to implement something that one of the lead developers already admitted should be in the game is going to assist in expediting the process any more than he already has.

facepalm

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

The power difference between current ascended items and exotic items is incredibly slight.

The advantage it affords is minimal, and currently has little to no impact on the outcome of a fight.

Based on what we currently have in the game, I’m pretty sure my argument states a valid and a clear window into the mindset of the people that are so angry about this.

This is not becoming World of Warcraft. It is becoming a nice niche in between World of Warcraft, and GW1, where vertical progression exists for those who want to experience it, and can be safely ignored by those of us who just want to play around in all portions of the game.

I am at FOTM 2. I W3 constantly.

No problems here.

Narkosys.5173:

If that were the case then legendaries should have just been skins and not stats.
They should have clearly stated that they will go wow lite and add a huge grind and say that lengendaries are mandatory because they will always be BiS. That way you never have to grind weapons again.
This game was marketed to the casuals because of the low grind availability of top tier gear.As of right now there is 1 way to get that gear and is 1 hell of a grind.

Now if you go back and see the material you will notice that most people got the impression of no stat increase because the devs directly inferred it and that the gear grind was minimal. This was a major selling point for them and many fan sites touted this.

At the very least this is disingenuous not to state that VertProg will always be a persistent factor.
Also they should have changed the name as this game goes against the fundamental principles of the original and should have not been used as a marketing tool so that no misconceptions could be made.

As of right now they are trying to appeal to everyone and in the end appeal to no one. Clear vision and road map would help with any further miscommunications.

They appeal to me, and plenty of other people, who like the presence of both sides of the coin, in more moderation than is typically presented in modern triple A MMOs.

Please do not speak for us.

Avatar.1923:

indeed, if you feel like grinding the fractals for 60 hours for the shinny; so be it, have fun.

thing is, most people goal in pve in this (lets say it) simplistic in its way game, is to explore, kill badies and find gear.

eventually (maybe around 300h) you have explored a lot of the map/dungeon and you have the best gear.
so whats left ? new gears and new maps.

thats the game, and its fine. and i dont feel that threatened by a player who played 10times as much as me… really… i just play and its fine.
but it kind of scks that its almost impossible to do story dungeons anymore..

Congratulations. You are the customer that Arenanet is building for (And in my personal opinion, a relatively sane gamer.)

The game is meant for fun.

Also, your inability to do story dungeons is being addressed based on Chris Whiteside’s replies in the AMA thread, where he indicated that they are attempting to keep all content valid for top of the line drops.

We don’t know how yet, but they do acknowledge it as a problem.

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

Dog kind.7314:

PolarApe.9351:

Doggie.3184:

A lot of peepz. Servers are breaking.

Yeah and it’s weird as this isn’t even close to a busy time of day for most NA servers. Usually server stress would be the cause of a bug like this, but I don’t think that could be possible now.

yer they need to fix this fast, or a sht storm is gonna erupt, if it hasn’t already

It’s a subscription free game where you are not losing any time per hour on your monetary investment.

You don’t really have any choice but to wait patiently.

Chamone.6890:

If they didn’t want people getting refunds after buying the game, they shouldn’t have pulled the biggest bait-and-switch in gaming since Fable 2 / Fable 3.

Except you didn’t get a refund on Fable 2/3 after playing the game for 100’s of hours.

In fact, if I remember the Fable series as accurately as I think I do, you beat most of hte game in under 8 hours anyway.

So, yeah. This comparison doesn’t really hold water. Probably just trolling anyway.

Ebon.7641:

Bluebird.1890:

Or, to make it even simpler? Life is meaningless because death is inevitable. Nothing I ever do can be enjoyed because at some point, well, jeez, it will stop existing, for one reason or another.

That’s the mentality of these refund supporters. It’s disgusting.

Sounds about right.

And I love how these people think they’re ENTITLED to a refund. I can’t tell you how many posts I’ve seen on various forums of people demanding refunds with hundreds of hours played. They literally can’t grasp the massive favour ANet is doing for them. Instead, they whine about how the forum mods are being unfair and rude by commenting in and locking their ‘return’ threads (no joke).

I believe it. The unfortunate part is that there are apologists for this kind of behavior who leverage the argument of, “Their refund doesn’t impact you, so why do you care so much?”

It’s a larger concept than an immediate return of money to someone who has, quite literally, already spent that money on hours of entertainment that they will now devalue artificially as an excuse to get it back.

It’s the fact that we, as a society, are actively encouraging this kind of entitlement by buckling under their demands.

Seriously. I’m not trying to sound hyperbolic or be all doom and gloom, but we are ENCOURAGING people to be self entitled jerks, and continue to float through life thinking that they are owed everything by everybody.

I don’t get it.

Or, to make it even simpler? Life is meaningless because death is inevitable. Nothing I ever do can be enjoyed because at some point, well, jeez, it will stop existing, for one reason or another.

That’s the mentality of these refund supporters. It’s disgusting.

Amonde Daneren.2380:

You are missing the point here a bit. The recent changes are in no way insignificant. I for one will no longer play this game, do you think the $60 or whatever are in any way compensation for the hours I now consider to have WASTED on this game?

If you’re in your 30s and start out a relationship by clearly stating that you want to have children, and the other person says that’s amazing that they love children so much, and that hearing this makes them happy; only to ultimately let you know 3 months down the line that they will not have children because they don’t want any… the $60 you spent on dinner are insignificant to the three months of wasted relationship that was never going to go anywhere.

Nobody has any issue with you abandoning the game. We take issue with the sense of entitlement that you somehow deserve to have the time and money you spent compensated somehow.

You don’t. You bought the game. You played it. The game headed in a decision you didn’t like, so you step away from the game. Those hours weren’t wasted; you had fun playing the game. The inability to have fun in the future with the game due to changes you don’t agree with doesn’t automatically negate all the fun you already had in the game.

This is the same kind of mentality, using your analogy, that leads to people trying to bankrupt/ruin eachothers lives when a relationship ends. It’s petty, and frankly, disgusting to everyone who is on the outside looking in.

Reasonable folk just think, “Oh, hey. I had some good times.” Then they move on.

Self entitlement knows absolutely no bounds. The concept that you can get a refund for a source of entertainment after having spent hours upon hours already playing the game is total insanity to me. I literally don’t even have words to accurately describe the disgust in my fellow video gamers it evokes.

I occassionally go and see a movie that ends up sucking. Thats $12 for 2 hours (Give or take 30 minutes.) That works out to roughly $6 an hour, on average.

There are people getting refunds who have put HUNDREDS of hours in. At 100 hours, thats $0.60 an hour.

So, in modern society, it is acceptable to waste $6 an hour on a movie that you don’t enjoy, and leave the theater simply wishing that you hadn’t seen the movie.

But when you spend $0.60 every hour for the course of 100 hours, if at the end of this experience you are not happy (For whatever reason. I don’t care what it is) you are entitled to a refund now?

Oh man. Again, no words.

I’d very much love to see modern game companies just laugh and give people the finger when they request refunds after a certain playtime limit has been hit.

It does work, but to what extent I couldn’t says.

Easiest way to find out? Go to the mists, grab signet of malice, grab a Steady Weapon from the vendor, go beat on a dummy. Switch gear out to +HP gear. Beat on dummy again.

TheAmpca.1753:

If you are running d/d or d/p or d/anything then you probably want to stay pretty much a glass cannon since you have stealth as your survival mechanic. If you want to be tanky so you can fight in the zerg, no build will really make you very useful, you need to just fight on the edges of the zerg and pick off stragglers. We have no 1200 range weapon so we are pretty much screwed in those long range zerg fights.
If you want a tankier build I suggest valkryie and going s/d with flanking strike/auto atacks being your main damage output.

Pistol whip spam with signet of malice combined with the signet traits in the crit line, haste, and init regen from acrobatics/init regen on steal trait from trickery + additional 3 init in trickery = invulnerable for quite some time.

It’s a lot of fun.

Lol. Had to add an * in between as and S/P, because it was “kittening” out. Neat.

I’ve found best results as* S/P traiting mostly into crit, and gearing towards power/crit dmg % increase.

You will want a good balance of both, in most builds. I don’t think condition damage builds really need much crit, but they definitely need power.

Thanos.2970:

I know what culling is, but if you wait till you reapear till you attack you can just autoattack, CnD and be gone again without any debuff that prevents you from stealthing for 3 seconds. Even without any culling it would be incredibly hard to retaliate. Even more so if there are NPCs close that might prevent you from immediately targetting the thief.
I will test this with my thief tonight.

This is intended. You can’t do any damage with just auto attack on pistol. If this is killing anyone, they’ve got some serious issues.

If you don’t do an attack out of stealth, you don’t get the Revealed debuff.

Thanos:

The culling issue is what causes him to appear to be in stealth for so long anyway.

I can’t comment too accurately on the efficacy of a more survivable backstab thief, but I can say there are a lot of builds designed to be able to survive much longer that are plenty of fun to play in W3.

S/P is amazing with shadowstep/infiltrator’s strike. You basically play as an assassin; find someone on the edges of the fight or at low HP, shadowstep or infil strike in, down him, shadow refuge for stomp, then teleport out.

You can do this in full zerker gear if you like, or toss in some VIT pieces. You’ll want mostly power/crit % though.

Another alternative is the currently totally broken and overpowered P/D condition damage/vit bunker spec, that relies heavily on stealth spam from shadow arts and c&d spam to abuse the culling mechanics in WvWvW. Most enemies won’t be able to see you for seconds after you come out of stealth, and you can literally fight 4-5 people with it no problem.

It kinda makes me feel like a jerk playing it though, knowing its a blatant abuse of the culling mechanic.

I should note that above was applicable to WvWvW (W3), not sPvP, as the culling issue is much better there now.

It is JUST the culling portion that makes this spec infuriating to fight against/cheap to play as.

Thanos: Honestly, without a ton of aoe it is simply not possible to beat this spec right now.

I’ve had a P/D bunkerfest against other thieves that never ends myself.

This is not because the class is broken or unbalanced. There is one simple reason that this is overpowered right now:

Culling.

For a large number of people, including those with high end machines and stable internet connections, players do not appear out of stealth for 1 or 2 seconds after stealth wears off.

This lends stealth heavy bunker builds like this an extreme edge, because you have literally one-three seconds to damage the thief before he’s just back in stealth again.

TL;DR version: Nice playing, man, but this build really is broken right now, in every sense of the word.

Agreed. This had to go.

Next up: Culling issue, to do away with the flavor of the month stealth spammin’.

Einlazer, that was a fantastic and succinct description of what I think the OP was trying to say before we got sidetracked by semantics.

Have you put it in the thief feedback thread? It definitely belongs there too.

Whoa, Scoot/Babel. You guys need to chill. You both make awesome contributions to the thief community, and outlandish statements attempting to ostracize each other are uncalled for.

Scoot, there are fights where having no vit/tough relegate you to doing nothing but range.

Babel, there are fights where being glass cannon and knowing the attacks of the enemies you are fighting can keep you alive with 15 points in acrobatics and glass cannon gear.

You’re both right. Chill.

Asum.4960:

Malicious.6742:

I usually win far point races against warris on foefire. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Thieves’ mobility is by far the very best in the game. Infiltrator’s Arrow is way too strong in terms of mobility even though it’s expensive.

Last time i checked mobility in a game based around combat isn’t measured in “who gets the fastest from point A to point B”, but overall (combat) performance.

What use is getting to point B very quickly, but not being able to do anything once you reach it (except in a racing game, where the goal IS in fact to reach point B, but again, GW 2 isn’t a racing game, it’s a combat based RPG)?

You are arguing with people who will literally change the point they are trying to make mid-discussion in order to continue arguing with you.

It’s a waste of time. Everything you said is 100% accurate, and the people who entered this topic with an objective mindset are inclined to agree with you.

Do yourself a favor and just close it now.

This has become an exercise in futility. When people start throwing out their opinion on the matter juxtaposed with a clear assertion of objectivity on their account, it’s probably time to just step away from the discussion and let them think they’ve won.

Probably will make their day.

Tulisin.6945:

Bluebird.1890:

Sorrow:

Whirlwind attack has about the range of an Infil arrow. Bladetrail has a double cripple on it, and it can hit a ridiculous amount of targets. Rush is basically the distance of a shadowstep.

And with Mobile Strikes, the movement abilities remove all movement impairment.

So, yes, they have some ridiculous mobility.

They do have excellent mobility, and I don’t think another profession having good mobility weapons is any threat to thief mobility. People always talk about Infiltrator’s Arrow, which is an awesome mobility skill, but they forget:

1. Infiltrator’s Strike, spammable back-and-forth shadowstep that not only allows you to close, but allows you to return to your original location instantly. This is amazing in the right hands, both as a means of escape and deception.

2. Heartseeker…as a movement ability. Relatively cheap at 3 initiative and will transport you straight-line a very solid distance under Swiftness. Again, spammable.

3. Spammable evades including Death Blossom and Disabling Shot, which basically function as extra dodges if you’re good on the timing.

Completely ignoring the excellent mobility-based traits and utilities thieves have, there are some weapon skills that are quite good for it. I would also submit that as nice as the warrior trait is that removes mobility-affecting conditions when they use movement skills, the thief trait that removes cripple on dodge is a good parity. My only complaint is that it should also remove chilled.

Not sure where you think I forgot about any of this.

I said nothing about thief mobility being lacking; I play S/D + SB with shadowstep utility, so I mean… mobility isn’t exactly an issue.

I was simply agreeing with Babel that, yes, greatsword warriors have some ridiculous mobility.

Sorrow:

Whirlwind attack has about the range of an Infil arrow. Bladetrail has a double cripple on it, and it can hit a ridiculous amount of targets. Rush is basically the distance of a shadowstep.

And with Mobile Strikes, the movement abilities remove all movement impairment.

So, yes, they have some ridiculous mobility.

Greatsword warriors are pretty mobile, especially with the trait that removes all movement impairment in the Tactics line.

Huh? The guardian greatsword has one mobility move (Leap of Faith). On a 15 second cooldown/12 second cooldown traited.

Or, if you want the idiot proof way to level against anything besides dredge:

Equip S/P. Run up, hit black powder, and auto attack mob down. When the last blind from your previous black powder wears off, drop another one. Keep all mobs within the black powder.

You can use this method to solo most veterans and even some low level champions once you have some initiative regen traits/utility skills.

A few tips for you, based on the info in your post:

When more than one mob is present, and you are running D/D, Caltrops and Death Blossom are your best friends. Don’t forget that DB is an evade too.

When caltrops are downed or the mobs are crippled from dancing dagger, you can pull off a CnD + BS combo much more easily.

Never, ever open up on a mob with hearseeker; heartseeker before the mob is below 50% is a waste of initiative, IMO.

It gets much easier on a thief as you get into the 40s or so and can afford to put some more points in Shadow Arts or Acrobatics to stay alive.

Also, if you are fighting an AOE pack and plan on using DB a lot, Signet of Malice for your heal is great.

Logun: I’ve been considering doing exactly what you are, but I have to muster up the capital to make the initial investment on a market first…

Which means sitting here playing with sigils for hours, and hours :P

Also, probably best to ignore that guy; he doesn’t really seem to understand the concept of how a market works at all.

I’ve found two ways to be incredibly effective in WvW.

1) Full glass cannon build, 100% zerker gear. You do this with Sword + Dagger. You are basically a nuke waiting to go off in this build, using Shadowstep / Infiltrator’s Strike to drop yourself on a group of people, dagger storm, and basically unleash hell with INSANE aoe damage from your sword #1 attack. Then, when you’re at half hp, you just teleport back to safety, switch to Shortbow and infiltrator arrow even further away. Combine this with the utility of CnD, and you don’t need points in acrobatics/shadow arts because you spend very little time engaged anyway. Trait/sigil for quickness on crit, and watch the chaos.

It’s a gimmick build, but you are incredibly effective. I’ve turned medium sized groups on their heel with it.

2) Condition thief works fine in WvW, you just have to spec for it. Scootabus has a great build in another thread on these forums that involves valk accessories/rampager gear, and a 0/20/30/30/0 build. You have on demand burst from signets, and you are INCREDIBLY survivable. This build is much more designed for small group combat than fighting a zerg. In a zerg, you will live quite long, but you won’t be taking many people with you.

As people said, thief works great in all situations. You just have to be creative with how you accomplish what you are doing. Shadowstep is an ABSOLUTE MUST for any build.

Nope.

Not gonna happen.

The ice one has some places where you’d have trouble keeping a fire lit for warmth without at least 2 players

Everyone can be mad at the companies all they want, but the fact of the matter is that the market shifts to where the money is if the company is competent.

So, if the money is in appeasing the demographic that WoW players inhabit, then the games will continue to be more like WoW.

The only 100% sure fire way to ensure that this stops is simple: Stop giving companies your money.

Seriously. It is quite literally the only way it will happen.

Guess I didn’t include enough anger at Arenanet for this to stay on the front page. Oh well. Back to the game :[

Hey Guild Wars devs!

I’ve noticed a silly trend as I explore more and more of the world map. Now, I can’t recall exactly where each location has been, but I can tell you that there are at least one in Bloodtide Coast and Sparkfly Fen:

Which one of you guys loves siamoths too much? :P

There have been multiple occasions where I have found a little cave offshoot somewhere in the corner of a map and thought, “Ooo! Something to explore” only to get in there and realize its just a one room half open cavern with a bunch of siamoth grazing.

The first time I was disappointed. The second and third and fourth times, I just started laughing like I was experiencing some sort of inside joke with one of the developers.

I can’t help but imagine someone sitting in a dark corner of the Arenanet studio just creating siamoth habitats in little tucked away corners of Tyria, very happy and content with their life. When they go home and their wife or husband asks how their day was, they just smile and say “Great! I made another new home for siamoths.”

Anyway, who is responsible for this? :P

It’s really neither here nor there what appears to be happening.

You can’t claim you have the highest DPS in a group unless you have hard proof that you are doing the highest DPS in the group.

That was my point.