Point made. However, currently there is no reason to pick rifle over GS. I want range to be on equal footing with melee. How you achieve that is what I’m trying to get at with this thread.
And that’s where you go wrong. Range is not supposed to be on equal footing with melee.
You’re misunderstanding me.
I don’t mean in terms of damage, but in terms of usefulness. Right now, a rifle spec can’t provide the same value as a GS one in a PvP match. I want to see the rifle become a viable opton in tPvP.
That can be achieved without neccessarily buffing damage, although I still believe that a small damage buff is neccessary.
It’s pretty hilarious seeing the ranger, the most UP class in the game, continue to get nerfed patch after patch. I remember when rangers were actually viable options back in the betas. That was a long time ago.
Some people really don’t get what the OP is trying to say.
Why be good at Axe/Mace when being good at GS is more rewarding?
Why even pick anything over GS builds when GS is mandatory to every build except “Tank Warrior?”
GS is just too forgiving and too rewarding compared to all other weapons to the point where it becomes “mandatory” for both casuals and competitive players alike.
@OP
I get how you feel. I would be more attached to other builds if the Discipline’s Burst Damage wasn’t nerfed and if they gave Thick Skin and Tactic’s minor traits something better.
I find it funny that people are actually anointing themselves “top players” in a game that doesn’t even have a proper ladder and that hardly anyone plays, and then talking trash.
Not every spec is going to be spvp viable. This isn’t just a issue with warriors. You play a warrior, you people need to stop whining like a mage.
It really should be though as PvP is the only competitive aspect of the game. If not, then they need to split balance between the game modes like they did in GW1.
Another obvious issue is the lack of damage from rifle attacks. The rifle just doesn’t hit hard enough to justify taking it over a melee weapon.
Hmm, can melee weapons effectively kill things at 1200 range now?
Melee weapons can effectively kill things. Period. rifle is inefficient in that regard right now.
Anyway, another possible fix would be turning the auto-attack into a chained attack like melee weapons, with the third having a short cast time but hitting like a truck.
Don’t get me wrong. Rifle is the only reason I play warrior, which is why I’d like to see it become more effective in tPvP. Right now, the only viable warrior in tPvP is the GS variety.
Look up the kill shot videos where a guy hits a target for 30k, yeah really weak there. Granted ideal conditions do make a huge difference, still the riffle is a very deadly weapon on its own. Also I can already tell that your experience is limited by you listing GS as the best weapon for PvP. Most people who know the class know that GS while high in mobility is a very one trick pony and not great for PvP just because how predictable it is and how it most be set up to be of any real use.
The warrior really only has one role in the metagame right now, and that’s melee DPSer with GS. As much as I enjoy playing rifle, it doesn’t provide as much value to the team as swapping to GS.
Ranged weapons should never match or even come close to melee weapon damage. Adding a chain attack to rifle auto attack would be imbalanced.
Melee is all about the risk of putting yourself in greater danger balanced by the fact that you deal considerably more damage.
Upsetting this balance should never happen.
Point made. However, currently there is no reason to pick rifle over GS. I want range to be on equal footing with melee. How you achieve that is what I’m trying to get at with this thread.
The swap bug has been fixed. I only wish that all of its weapons were buffed to the level of GS in terms of usefulness. I’m not a fan of melee combat so being pigeon-holed into that role on tPvP teams sucks.
Another obvious issue is the lack of damage from rifle attacks. The rifle just doesn’t hit hard enough to justify taking it over a melee weapon.
Hmm, can melee weapons effectively kill things at 1200 range now?
Melee weapons can effectively kill things. Period. rifle is inefficient in that regard right now.
Anyway, another possible fix would be turning the auto-attack into a chained attack like melee weapons, with the third having a short cast time but hitting like a truck.
Don’t get me wrong. Rifle is the only reason I play warrior, which is why I’d like to see it become more effective in tPvP. Right now, the only viable warrior in tPvP is the GS variety.
Discuss ideas here on how to make the rifle viable in PvP. I love the ranged playstyle (easily my favourite) but it needs some tweaks to make it more viable.
RenderBlender.8592 had a terrific idea in another thread: make brutal shot daze instead of applying vulnerability. I would also get rid of the cast time in this case.
Another obvious issue is the lack of damage from rifle attacks. The rifle just doesn’t hit hard enough to justify taking it over a melee weapon. Perhaps the bleed from the auto-attack can be replaced with higher direct damage. The rifle currently has an identity crisis as it’s caught between being a direct damage weapon and a condition weapon, and it falls short at being a viable at either.
I believe viability could be improved by altering the Brutal Shot to a ranged daze instead of vulnerability stack.
I LOVE this idea. Just get rid of the cast time on brutal shot.
Another suggestion might be to buff damage output in some way. Perhaps get rid of bleed on the auto-attack and just increase direct damage. Right now, you aren’t really doing any damage while volley is on CD.
Rifle spec is my favourite in PvP. It’s a great cc/harassment weapon when traited properly. I’d like to see damage buffed a bit though. Right now, the auto-attack hardly does any damage. I would rather see the bleed removed and have it replaced with higher direct damage (since warrior condition specs aren’t viable anyway). Volley should also pack some more punch.
The only thing stopping new players from joining PvP is fun factor. Getting Heartseeker Spammed to death over and over again is not fun. (Semantics are for weak minds its symbolic like kittenwaffle)
Until all classes are competitively “difficult” to play there will be a massive disparity between even Rank 1 players who choose to play a class they feel is Fun only to learn that they have to relearn the entire class to play PvP while others like Thief and Warrior just continue on smashing their face on the keyboard well into higher levels of competitive play. They get monkey stomped by synergy at the highest levels of competitive play but the path up is what fuels growth and long term player retention.
Increase the complexity of the tardeasy classes or decrease the complexity of everything else. Those are the only positive choices availible. Every class needs the same value both in complexity and usefulness (together as a single value you cannot seperate them). Until this happens Thief Wars 2 is just another Dragon Hunter w/ Pretty Hats.
Thief OPness isn’t as pronounced in tournament play where voice chat would be used. Casuals have several choices right now:
1. Play hot-join (basically just mindless zerging/thieves running around)
2. Play tournaments with pick-up teams (but get steam rolled because you have no means of coordination)
3. Join a PvP-oriented guild (which people with a full-time job, family, school, kids, etc. don’t have time for)
4. Join a pick-up “team-finder” guild (few people know about these)
5. Stop playing PvP (this seems to be the most popular choice at the moment)
I’m in the same boat as the OP. I played this game during the betas, then gave up soon after launch. I’ve only clocked about 100 hours so far.
I love the gameplay in GW2. I generally don’t like MMOs/MOBAs but GW2’s action-oriented gameplay is exciting without being stupidly complicated. I’d really like it to succeed so we get similar games in the future.
However, Anet really needs to step up their game. Many of the things people are asking for are very basic and shouldn’t take long to implement.
I’ve never heard of any of these guys. Are there any videos of these “pro” teams playing? I can’t find anything recent on youtube (I haven’t been keeping up with this game for a while).
I mean in GW2 it works, you just write down the strat in the beginning. Everyone focusses on their job and voila.
It doesn’t work at all. Try playing with voice once and then tell me it works without. The need to communicate instructions to roamers is critical in this game.
It’s the main reason why pick-up teams get stomped so hard in tournaments.
because turning voip chat OFF in options is too mainstream???
come on guys, be serious sometimes
Because harassment and griefing players who refuse to join the voip cesspool clique of narcissism running rampant NEVER happens right?
So you’d rather play without strategy than have to deal with the occasional griefer? Like I said, they could have an option to mute individual players like most games these days do. How many people are going to waste time finding a pick-up tournament group only to grief?
I’m not sure if any of you guys play Natural Selection 2 on Steam. It’s the pinnacle of team-based strategy and it only works because of built-in chat.
How can you say that there is no negatives just because you can turn it off?
Every single time I’ve played these wonderful fps games there’s always ATLEAST one guy ruining voip by being a belligerent kitten
If you turn your voip off you’re hurting your team you have to either mute or kick the kitten and then hope the next guy is normal, people rage way too much in pickup games already, just check out map chat, I don’t want to hear scrub player x telling scrub player z why his build is kitten and 4 signets is a terrible idea or raging after someone fails to stomp and then I have to listen to him for the rest of the game.
public voip opens up a can of worms for the company; do we Moderate voip? if so how; who’s going to pay for massive voip servers; New security problems etc etc
I don’t want to be singled out for not using terrible services, but I pug a lot, and I’m sure people would start singling me and others like me out for not using public Voip.
I’ve been playing counter-strike and other FPSs since 2001 and I’ve never encountered public VOIP problems. When kids decide to be annoying, I just mute them.
GW1 and 2 are probably the first team based games I’ve ever played without voice chat and it really hurts the experience.
Just because you’re a PUGer doesn’t mean you don’t want to play the game with some level of strategy.
This is not true, skills have a cast time and after cast based on the animation they use. To ease any thief worries we are not limiting back to back skill use on purpose. This is in fact the point of initiative and why thieves feel different than other professions.
just curious, are you happy with and is it your intention for moves with no cast time to be able to be used in the middle of a move with a cast time? For instance lightning flash during churning earth and steal during cloak and dagger.
Yes this is part of the design of the combat.
The biggest issue with initiative is that it forces you to spam. As a thief, what incentive is there to use any skill other than heartseaker on dagger? I don’t even know what the other skills on my bar do. There is no trade-off involved in choosing which skill to use. When I play other professions, I’m forced to use different skills due to cooldowns and therefore I’m forced to manage which skills I use and when.
The initiative system is poorly designed IMO. It doesn’t give the thief a more “thief-y” feel. In fact, I’d argue the exact opposite. Thieves/assassins are supposed to be highly coordinated and conscious of their actions.
Despite the naysayers, I think PvP population has actually managed to increase a bit recently even with all the problems. Tourney queues are pretty quick and I think hotjoin population may be rising a bit as well. Of course, we’re talking anecdotal evidence—I’d be interested to see some numbers from Anet on how things are doing PvP-wise.
Did you guys play in the betas/first month? Tournament queues were like 1-2 minutes back then.
Hot-join barely has 10 filled servers these days. Back in the day half the server list would be full.
Skype it’s free, there’s no setup and there’s no kitten check like in mumble.
public voip is terrible, I don’t want to deal with that when pugging.
What is a pain is setting up skype for a pick-up game. The whole point of pick-up games is to be fast.
There are no negatives to having built-in voice chat. Nobody forces you to use it, but it’s there for people that want to. There would obviously have to be a disable feature for those that don’t want to use it.
Counter-Strike is the world’s premier e-sport and it has built-in voice chat.
Why would they make the PvP aspect of this game F2P?
E-Sports don’t bring enough money to justify making your game free. The only way to profit off of a F2P is if you sell items/gear that make you better (i.e. P2W).
Just sell PvP game as a standalone game, like you did with GW1. Make it $20 or something.
browser pvp have 5v5 hotjoin. if you need to test stuff with random or just play with pugs, you should go there. finding premade in tourney, even if free, is just the “normality”
That’s why nobody plays tournaments anymore.
Hot-join is designed for glory farming. Tournaments should support both organized and pick-up play (via built-in voice chat). You’re never going to have enough organized teams for a thriving PvP population.
One maxed out guild group in vent fighting 7 groups of randoms who have no purpose to be there other then getting steam rolled, or have I just had bad luck with my first few matches?
I’m kinda “play testing” this for some friends for another game, and based on my limited experience so far this is my reason to tell them not to bother. Any one who’s been here longer have any insight?
Yes. A major problem is a lack of voice chat in this game. Pick-up teams have no way of communicating.
I know that hardcore wannabe e-athletes are against this (I have no idea why), but hear me out.
Voice chat has been a feature in every FPS game released over the last 12 years. It allows players to enjoy casual matches without having to join a professional guild hosting their own teamspeak/mumble server. Voice chat would allow casual players to strategize in PvP matches, thus resulting in a more enjoyable experience. It’s no fun to join a pick-up tournament team only to get steam rolled because you don’t have a voice chat server.
The e-athletes can still use their professional servers, but built-in voice chat would open this game up to new players (low population is the biggest issue facing PvP right now, partly because there is no real pick-up mode).
I have found, generally speaking, the closer I come to attaining a balanced build that can win or compete in most 1v1 situations, the weaker I contribute to my team in tPvP because supporting each other’s strengths and having a specific role tends to win out over the former, because as someone said earlier, good tPvP teams will never allow you the time to have any sort of decent 1v1 with anyone before help arrives.
However for general pick up play… just hanging out in sPvP pick up groups… yes, the game can be quite balanced. Most professions have at least a build or two that can competetively 1v1 another.
I remember there was lots of debating going on during the betas on guru about whether balanced specs or extreme specs would define the metagame. Looks like we’ve found our answer (the overwhelming majority believed that balanced specs would dominate).
To tell you the truth, even though I argued that extreme specs would take over, I find the balanced playstyle more fulfilling to play.
I was disappointed that I couldn’t jump off the starting platform. :P
As for the map, I only played it twice (right as it was ending) so I can’t really comment on it. The layout is cool with all the floors (reminds me of Quake maps)..
Kill shot is by far the easiest skill to dodge/interrupt in the game. Also, if you are taking 15k damage, it means that:
a) You’re a glass cannon, meaning you need to respec
b) The warrior is a glass cannon, meaning he should go down very easily after you dodge/interrupt the kill shot
You do know that the only reason to use Shadow Refuge is to stay in it so you get extended stealth right? If you leave it early you lose stealth immediately. And I am not assuming every non thief is bad. I am saying that when players have equal skill, the burst damage of thieves will be easier to avoid than it is now (players should become more aware of thieves overall), which is why nerfing them now will only make them weaker as time goes on and people get used to countering them.
How long does it take to “get used to them”?
People cried about HB warriors, but by release, most people had learned to dodge and the complaints died down somewhat.
There isn’t much to learn when it comes to countering thieves. All you can do is spec for more toughness vitality in order to be able to eat up their burst.
So thieves should have to “set up their burst” like the other professions? How viable do you think that would make them? The fact that they can get in, do damage and escape is what makes a thief a thief. So do not try to take away a thief’s uniqueness because you haven’t learned to anticipate and deal with it yet.
That’s the problem. The thief is founded on broken/inherently OP class mechanics.
The initiative system makes no sense. All it does is encourage spamming of a few skills while limiting skill diversity. It’s also incredibly difficult to balance around.
Likewise, stealth is a totally broken mechanic. Because it’s there, thieves have no incentive to go any build but a glass cannon one. It doesn’t matter if you’re a glass cannon or not when you can just disappear out of every encounter. And just the same, stealth is also a nightmare to balance around.
The red flags were here from the beginning. The best solution would be to completely re-design the thief for PvP. Clearly, that isn’t going to happen at this point.
Any warrior or dps ele could do same thing to you. Situation you describe is your own fault. Accept it and get better.
Not true. Warriors cannot teleport or ambush out of stealth (you will always see a warrior charging you). DPS eles are not a threat because of their extremely high vulnerability and the difficulty associated with orchestrating their attacks.
Initiative and stealth have no place in PvP. They’re impossible to balance around. There is no reason for a thief to spec for toughness (because of stealth) or to use more than a handful of skills (because there is no CD on skills, and therefore no risk/reward in using particular skills, you can just spam your strongest skills endlessly).
Which one of you is paying off anet devs? patch after patch of nerfs to other, weaker classes (even engies now) and warriors always walk away unscathed. I want to know what the going rate for a complete class is.
Great post. This trait drives me nuts. It’s crazy to think that it hasn’t been fixed yet (it’s been broken since BWE 1)!
This trait is central to my build as a rifle warrior. Warhorn (specifically quick breathing) is my primary source of condition removal (along with mending). Thus it’s extremely frustrating when I switch to axe/warhorn for condition removal/finishing someone and then being stuck with that set for 10 seconds. The rest of my build revolves around maintaining range so it doesn’t synergize with the axe.
However, I still keep it around because when it works, it’s awesome. Fast hands is pretty much the quintessential “warrior” trait (we’re the weapon master after all, like you said!) which is why it needs to be fixed asap!
The need to communicate instructions to roamers is critical in this game.