Guild Wars 2

Arganthium.5638:

That’s not entirely true. Cruuk, if I remember correctly, used to run 30 in SA.

Cruuk’s build was to push far and keep at least 2 people on far point (their home) while he stealths up and backstabs people. This should create an advantage for your team at mid. It’s similar to what a PU mesmer would do. The biggest problem with the build, as with PU, is that it provides little team support.

Caed’s build can’t necessarily keep 2 people at far, but it is far more team-friendly.

When I want to troll nubs in hotjoin, I run this

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Additionally, to get you back on track – this post and thread was for specific suggestions on balance, not necessarily global perspectives. If you have anything specific to mention, I’d be more than likely to engage in that conversation.

The problem, bear, is that balance inherently involves “global perspectives”. Neglecting this is the very reason why we see such B.S. get played, or even certain classes simply unplayable. Leave the balancing to anet, and (more importantly) to the alpha testers.

I don’t know who the alpha testers are, but from what I’ve heard from people like Super, the pool is relatively low-skilled. I’d much rather have a better representative testing the proposed new changes over anyone on the forums writing a 1 full page “manifesto” balance thread.

In my mind, the best forum-goers can do to contribute constructively to balance is say stuff like “There is too much spam, do something about that.” Anything specific devolves into a cloudy mess.

Zodian, those tips, at best, will merit him hotjoin hero status.

Travlane.5948:

Chicago Jack.5647:

The biggest problem with traps (imo) is that they reveal you if triggered. If you’re out of stealth, people just dodge roll over them.

even i didnt know that. u sure? or only the poison trap bc that deals dmg right?

Tripwire and needle trap both do direct damage. They will reveal you if you’re in stealth. You can kind-of work around this by pre-emptively striking someone before they trigger the trap, but that’s highly circumstantial. Traps are also unblockable, btw, the biggest problem is the dodge rolls when the person sees you lay it down. In most cases, if you try to place it right in front of a point to catch people offguard, usually people dodge roll over it while approaching you.

The biggest problem with traps (imo) is that they reveal you if triggered. If you’re out of stealth, people just dodge roll over them.

Don’t play p/p – it’s bad. Don’t run 30 in shadow arts in spvp – they are usually terribly selfish builds.

OP, if you post your build, we can help you better.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

power creep
[…]
which is why my suggestions are 1) specific, 2) marginal, and/or 3) do not matter because some of the suggestions may change things that still won’t ever be considered in a decision making process.
[…]
those specific entities that are mathematically superior to nearly every option for respective cost(s)
[…]
To limit the potentialities of latent functions, an overwhelming majority of the suggestions are negative rebalances.
[…]
due to the extent and nature of power creep in this game, some players are afforded an unusually large number of incorrect decisions before a negative effect is seen. This should not happen.

Yes there is an underlying, subtle belief that power creep exists – I agree. However, how we deal with it is still very much up in the air. As an example, you ask anyone in the top spots what should be done with S/D thief and you will get vastly varying answers from: Make d offhand better to introduce better initiative managment, require that you must hit with flanking strike to trigger larcenous strike, the infamous reduce the number of dodges an S/D thief has, reduce the tracking ability of flanking strike so it isn’t so much of a gap closer, and I’m sure there are others out there. Anet has decided to go with a cast time on sword 2 mixed with initiative reduction and boon stripping reduction. Jumper has expressed his distaste with the change to sword 2 as it significantly reduces some of the more advanced plays you can make with S/D, however people like Helseth are overjoyed with the change because they want to see S/D die in a fire. Is there a better solution out there? I don’t know, and I suspect most people don’t.

Just because you’re perspective changes are 1, 2, and 3, doesn’t mean they will not have significant negative impacts on the game.

Just because certain builds/team compositions are dominant solutions does not mean that they need to be nerfed; D/P trickery + home defender is one of the best sources, and a great example, of solid teamwork in this game – something that should be encouraged. In GW1, Warrior, Ranger, Mesmer, Monk, and Ele were all considered very strong classes/team compositions, but they needed no changes to them. Do I think certain builds/team compositions need to be touched on in GW2? Certainly, but how we address these changes is a whole other matter and its simply not a case where you can just say, “well these builds are superior, so we need to reduce their impact in the game.”

Just because they are negative rebalances does not mean that it will reduce the impact of unintended consequences. That’s silly pants.

The biggest problem in this game is the significant lack of teamwork needed to pull off a win. There are some major exceptions to this rule, but the core locus of the problem is the lack of teamwork needed to win. In other words, “cheese mode” is prevalent. But again, how we introduce more of this important playstyle is still very much up in the air, and I’m sorry but I don’t think your suggestions should be taken very seriously.

makiface.3286:

The biggest downfall is that you need line of sight for it to work. Imagine my sadness when I dropped one by the bank, ran to the Trading Post, and went to teleport back like some sort of sorcerer, only to be stopped by the chairs

Actually the reason why you ported to the chairs, instead of the bank, is because there is a max range to it. I can’t tell you offhand what that range actually is (Ive heard 1200 to 10,000), but there is one. I sometimes use it to move from trading post to crafting stations. LoS is clearly broken there and Im able to port fine.

I would hope people would recognize the more important part of the trait: the clutch plays. I guess I’m just a terrible writer.

Reesha.7901:

Currently, the easy ones counter many of the harder to play builds.

Just because it’s harder to play, doesn’t mean that it “should be” better. Most of the time, if a build is harder to play, then it’s just a bad build. You’re not going to see a killshot warrior mixed with a thief (with shadow refuge) on a point in tournament play, for example.

What “shouldn’t be” acceptable, is certain team compositions that require little teamwork to pull off well, and outperform, in comparison to those that do require that teamwork.

Qaelyn.7612:

Rarnark.5623:

Qaelyn.7612:

Oh, and while we’re at it – balancing a game around the needs of the top 0.1% of the playerbase is an incredibly stupid way to run a business.

I disagree. A pvp game should be balanced around the highest levels of competitive play.

Why?

Because we are only interested in nash equilibrium, or something closest to it.

Bear,
Your math will mean absolutely nothing if its fueled by an overly biased stance. I’m curious why you passively insist in not showing your “maths”. Just because someone was able to create a linear equation doesn’t mean that it is any more viable than another joe-blow who posts his “feelings”. At the very least, post the math and give us reasoning behind why you chose certain calculations.

I have very little patience for people who propose actual balance changes in this game, since so many people (and I would suspect you too) have no conceptual understanding on dynamic equilibriums – the law of unintended consequences seems to escape so many people. It’s the very reason why I don’t post such things. For most people who do choose to post such threads, I give little attention.

Beyond the pulls, knockbacks, and launches near the cap points on skyhammer, the biggest problem is the secondary mechanic – the cannon. It is so powerful, that it immediately mandates at least one to two people push it when it gets taken by the other team. On top of this, it is FAR too easy to push people off of the hammer platform. It’s especially frustrating when playing solo que because certain classes just preform better in confined areas. In a random environment like solo que, you just can’t rely on your teammates to do anything productive (since most players are absolutely dumb and know very little about rotations), so you end up pushing hammer on a class that needs room to breath – thus losing the match because of trollhammer.

Asking who is the best thief who commonly visits the forums is like asking who is the smartest moron – absolutely pointless. Most people go to forums to complain and whine about classes and stuff while the good players are actually playing the game. Hence we get crap design solutions because, if the devs are listening to anyone, they are listening to people on the forums – and we are all morons.

makiface.3286:

I’m on the fence about the talent. I’d rather take dagger training or sundering strikes.

I say this to everyone. If I was forced to bring 25 into deadly arts, i would automatically choose improv over all other master traits. So many clutch plays with it. It also makes you rip through things using ele greatsword:

PU Mesmer is trash. Run confounding suggestions greatsword/staff shatter build. You can deal with S/D teefs and the stun on chaos storm is broken.

Lopez.7369:

I think it’s funny every time I see Death Blossom.

Lol me too. Brings me back to the old days.

Mug+heartseeker in ranger tree water field is about 4.5k heal. mug is great.

Ideally, team compositions that are cheese will be easy to play, but have easy counters to them. Whereas balanced builds should be able to deal with anything, but require skill to pull off well. Somehow anet missed the mark on this. The game is better now, but its still not where it should be.

Michael.7382:

Jack – yes U r right, but U dont have cooldown so even if U fail U can take risk and try again imediately

no you really can’t. you spam headshot, you don’t have enough to gap-close with shadow shot. your damage goes to kitten. anything that touches you will have an easy time getting you to peel off of the person who you spammed headshot on.

I’m so tired of fighting keyboard-turner mm necros, completely oblivious to what is going on in the match. Skynet has taken over gw2.

Qaelyn.7612:

Team queue, solo queue, doesn’t matter. People either don’t make plans or they make them and don’t follow them. Last game we agree I’m going far point, some other guy follows me anyway. So I leave so he can deal with it, and he abandons it. I go back when I notice this, and again he follows me and we lose the other 2 points.

Every bloody game is like this. I’m getting ready to just give up on it, because I don’t see any way to get out of this mire when I lose my matches all the time over things I cannot control.

^ This. When people just blindly follow you around, sit on points when they should be moving around, afk’ing on points (Im looking at you spirit rangers), staff eles, guardians pushing far, the list goes on and on. It’s so defeating when you see a party wipe where you see all the green bars turn into red bars in an instant. It’s like you say to yourself, “okay, 3v3 on mid. everyone looks healthy. mid is fine.” Then the next second you see all red bars and facepalm.

I only had ONE game, ONE, today where a necro knew how to watch home point. Bravo, sir.

Michael.7382:

u can just recast it 1sec later…

Which is a huge sign of a terrible thief. It’s equivalent of heartseeker spam. The thief becomes dead in the water, a sitting duck, if they spam these skills.

EverythingEnds.4261:

A lot of CC skills with the potential to interrupt have their own casttimes, which makes it more difficult to interrupt.

Which is why you have to read your target.

I have a mixture of zerkers, assassins, and valk weapons with vitality runes. I have about 15k health and can stab a target for about 7k backstab.

To be honest, you really don’t need to min/max too much in wvw since so many people are terrible. Keep in mind, the typical wvw player will completely eat a killshot, charging the warrior seeing the gun glowing and the knee down.

Aberrant.6749:

Chicago Jack.5647:

d/d is terrible.

Uhhh, why?

First and most importantly, the aftercast of CnD against any good player will make you not land your backstabs. In comparison to d/p, the aftercast of heartseeker is so short that you can condense your damage into something similar to an S/D ele.

Second, the stealth mechanic of d/d requires you to hit a target (and in melee range), whereas with d/p the stealth mechanic does not require you to hit a target. Moreover, the stealth mechanic on d/p is a gap closer.

Third, the damage has been neutered on d offhand, so it doesn’t even compare to the amount of team support that p offhand gives you.

Fourth, death blossom is trash, whereas shadowshot is a staple skill in d/p. The pistol shot is unblockable, blinds the target, the dagger attack does about the same damage as a heartseeker to a target with less than 66% health, can be linked with a backstab, has a 900 range limit, can port you across things like fear walls… should I continue?

The Holy Advenger.1758:

“Die from XX build and ur bad”

In this case, this is a serious l2p issue. There are so many counters to HS spam, it’s ridiculous. Instead, we still get posts from keyboard turners about how they still die to HS spam. It’s the equivalent of getting killed by 6 pool zerg rush.

A while ago, to get better with shortbow as a thief (and to provide SOME type of a challenge in this game), i decided to only kill people with my shortbow. After I got done playing, i racked up at least 3 people i killed using only shortbow calling me cheap. I didn’t even backstab them once – lol.

Well from my perspective as a thief, the key to taking down warriors is to have a constant source of poison on them, dodge their melee burst, and interrupt the longbow combustive shot like you would any other heal. Of course they still have drool-on-keyboard mode via zerker stance and defy pain, which is the real issue here.

You could play absolutely perfectly against a warrior, outplay him by a mile, and still get kittened over because of the stances he brings.

So if something were to be done with zerker stand an defy pain (though i don’t know what) that would be nice. Also, if they could make the cast time of combustive shot to at least 1 second, that would be great.

sinject.4607:

In WvW as a thief you’re practically forced into your average d/p 0/30/30/10/0 build.

This is FAR from the truth. d/p trickery is still very viable in wvw.

sinject.4607:

s/p is also similarly useless as it only serves as a good PvE weaponset because of the fact the primary damage skill of the set (pistolwhip) is easily avoidable even if you manage to stun them.

I know great thieves who swear by s/p. It’s tessa avery’s favorite spec right now. the trick to getting the most out of s/p is to know how to use a shortbow well.

sinject.4607:

p/p was really never viable at all

This is definitely true, but personally i don’t care because there are a lot of other options out there.

sinject.4607:

you can argue for d/d

d/d is terrible.

sinject.4607:

d/p recently received a nerf so you can now no longer get 4 heartseakers off in a bp field- now you can only get 3

You don’t need to play cheese to play d/p.

The only thing that is a pain for me is Guardian. All other classes can be annoying, but dealt with.

PlagueParade.7942:

[…]but I also like how short bow works on thieves. […] I guess I would want a build that would synergize really well with sb where I would use it quite frequently in pve/wvw.

Well first off, don’t listen to all the bads that think shortbow is lacking. You can kill people perfectly well JUST with shortbow, but it takes a bit of skill to pull it off. If you can muster it, and become ambidextrous with shortbow and d/p, then you will upgrade your unpredictability factor tenfold – which is absolutely critical as a thief. Every time a thief goes into stealth, everyone prepares for a backstab – hoho, I say to that.

The trick to shortbow, like the trick to d/p, is to land your stealth hit (thank god its a lot easier to hit with shortbow). The stealth shot allows you to do so much with shortbow, but mainly it allows you to clusterbomb their face. It’s absolutely critical to have poison via choking gas on your target. It also helps tremendously to have sleight of hand as you will be using steal + clusterbomb a lot, and it helps to interrupt critical skills and throw off your opponent – that 1 second daze timer gives you some breathing room in melee range as well. Not only will you be using clusterbomb, but you will have your steal items as the center-of-attention. This is why I LOVE shortbow. It offers a bit of a different playstyle because (if things go right) you can easily land those pesky but great steal items. The playstyle is a lot like an improvisor, where they pick out the steals that they want the most at any given time. In any case, it’s great fun.

Clusterbomb is such a great skill. Its damage is substantial, it hits like a truck (about 5k reliable damage each hit in spvp). It’s aoe, so it hits stuff like stealthed characters. It’s 3 individual attacks (detonate), so it overloads things like aegis or blinds. It’s a blast finisher, spammable at that.

I recommend bringing at least 2 stealth utilities (i wouldn’t go more than 2) for this to work and basilisk venom for pvp. The typical 2 stealth utilities are hide in shadows and shadow refuge, but some thieves choose to bring withdraw, shadow refuge, and blinding powder. I recommend basilisk venom because it’s like the big brother of surprise shot. The trick is to hide it from your foes. This can be tricky because you have limited access to stealth in a shortbow setup, so you don’t want to blow all of your immobilizations in one go. In the downtime between stealth recharge and revealed debuff, you will be auto-attacking or using debilitating shot when needed. Also shadowstep is great with shortbow to confuse your foes and give you time to setup your bassi.

As far as gear, just run your typical burst setup of power precision and critical. Flavor survivability of vitality or toughness to your taste.

Oh and one more side note: when fighting other thieves using shortbow, their steal is absolutely critical to maintain an edge on them – just keep this in mind. In fact, it’s pretty critical that you land all of your steal attempts when using shortbow.

Oh and one more, one more note: Shortbow wrecks PU mesmers. If you can nab their steal, the protection and aegis help tremendously with mitigating the residual damage after dodging their phantasms – just remember to apply it when you’re in stealth. The only thing that hits hard is scepter 2. Keep in mind shortbow stealth attack tracks people even when they are going into stealth, so if you get revealed after a surprise shot, feel free to clusterbomb away. Also remember to try and interrupt their mass invis via slight of hand. The better PU mesmers will distort before mas invising, but that kills their clones so yeah.

Hope this helps!

Here’s the bitter truth: If anyone dies to heartseeker spam, they are not a decent player.

To OP,

Assuming the thief hit you with bassi before backstab, hit your stunbreak, then activate death shroud and preferably fear them. Once feared, chill/cripple/immob them and range them for the rest of the fight. If you don’t have death shroud up, then manage your death shroud health better. Or even better, if you see the thief coming, just chill them and range them and watch as they pathetically flail themselves in the air in front of you.

Heartseeker spam is incredibly easy to counter.

Its actually a pretty good trait. It allows you to pull off some pretty clutch plays. I would never run it because I don’t use 25 in deadly arts, but if I did, I would take this trait over all other traits. It also does incredibly good damage with conjure greatsword.

Travlane.5948:

yes…it does end b4 cluster bomb hits.

No it doesn’t. People like Tessa Avery use this simple combo – all the time. This is short bow 101 here. By the time it reaches the target where you want to detonate, there is about a remaining 0.25 second immob on them.

Just try it. No hypothetical here. Just – try – it.

panicbutton.1053:

Other builds with different weapon sets can hold their ground in this situation. A short bow currently cannot.

Most good thieves use shortbow more than their other weapon spec. It isn’t just a random weapon they occasionally switch to to get away, move across the map, or something. There are legitimate/intentional uses for it. Just like there are legitimate/intentional uses for their other weapon set.

anything that does direct damage to a target, i.e. it has a hard damage number tacked to it, it will reveal you. if it just applies conditions, then it will not reveal you. caltrops on dodge just applies cripple and bleeding to a target, choking gas only applies poison to the target. no direct damage in ether case.

Travlane.5948:

by the time you use cluster bomb…. the suprise shot has already worn off :P

No it actually doesnt. Try it out for yourself.

Travlane.5948:

talking about? short bow is good for poison field and 3 spam. sometimes cluster bomb at close range but nothing special.

You need to experiment more with shortbow.

Travlane.5948:

stealth attack (function)
auto attack (speed or dmg)
infil arrow (function or range)

all need to be beefed up…but just a tad…..

No they don’t. Auto attack is terrible in a 1 on 1 fight against anyone not dumb enough to not strafe, true, but it still doesn’t need to be buffed – it gets about 1.2k hits on criticals. Ultimately though shortbow shines as a team support weapon.

Some of the best thieves know how to use their shortbow for more than just pressing 5. Steal + clusterbomb is strong. Choking gas is just butter on a downed target or anyone else who has insane health regen. One of the most critical aspects of fighting a warrior is to apply a constant source of poison, when he is not in his kitten mode berserker stance, by making sure you interrupt his combustive shot and signet of rage (if it already hasnt been popped) and avoiding his other burst skill.

Immobilization on surprise attack is really strong. For example allows for a free clusterbomb shot on a thief who just used blackpowder. Its main purpose, at least for me, is for a free steal item hit (basilisk venom does this too when applied to a target via backstab – lets face it, nearly all the times you should be using bassi is when invis due to the long cast time and the reveal below your health bar). Simply hit the target with immob, port to him with preferably shadow shot, but infiltrator arrow can be used as well to blind the target, then use your steal item (just the ele steal alone hits for about 4.5k – not to mention ridiculously good the guardian and necro steal). Finally, with the added initiative gain, 3 spam gives you an extra disabling shot use.

Shortbow is a great team support weapon and it’s fine.

Rafahil.2857:

[…]the whole weapon set doesn’t even have access to stealth.

The blast finisher on 2 can be used with blackpowder. Not used often, but just saying. Most of the time, Im in shortbow when Im low on health. I also bring hide in shadows.

Arganthium.5638:

[…]then your ideas[…]

You seem to keep avoiding the underlying answer to this: These are not my ideas, and quite frankly, no offense, I place more stalk with people like Caith than you. Quite frankly, it’s more than Caith and Helseth who have commented on the ridiculousness of S/D thief. All of the top players have different ways they’d like to solve the issue (I’m partial for jumper’s idea of actually making the whole skillset usable instead of just two buttons), but there is a rather wide consensus that S/D thief is pretty ridiculous as it is now and falls in the same league as any other noob-friendly build.

Arganthium.5638:

You’re completely delusional.

Apparently Caith is completely delusional too.

Arganthium.5638:

[…]spam marks slightly more carefully.

Lol

Qaelyn,

Then play one of the myriad of broken builds out there and have fun for about 2 weeks. You’ll get bored of it eventually, we all have.

Arganthium.5638:

S/D is in no way meta.

Lol, sure

S/D has single-handedly removed two professions from commonly being played in upper-level play.

If I was forced to bring a 25 deadly arts build, I would run improv over anything else. You can get so many clutch plays with it. In dubvdub, firey greatsword does ridiculous damage with this trait.

Silentshoes.1805:

There is a place for easy, powerful builds. Let people play how they like. Some people don’t have twitch skill, or fast reaction time, but they are good at overall team strategy.

They should have a build that gives them reasonable ability.

All of these “cheese buildds” can be countered, if you think about it longer and look for the weakeness. All builds have one.

I hope you realize that nearly all of these cheese builds require absolutely no thought to team strategy right? They are called noob friendly for a reason. In fact, it’s one of the biggest problems with these builds.

S/D teef does not need to worry about positioning because it’s virtually impossible to get them to peel. Warrior need absolutely no team co-ordination to stunlock someone. Ranger just has to show up to a fight and press 1 to be effective. Necro just sits on a ledge, spams skills, and aoe bombs a point. No thought necessary or team co-ordination to the order of skills used, just spam skills.

I’m sorry Iron, but not really. The game really isn’t competitive anymore.

Definitely not impressed. Anet dun goofed again.

Anet,

I’m all for the aesthetic and structural changes you are proposing in PvP – they are good steps in the right direction. However none of this will matter if your game is not balanced. Don’t let these changes pull your team away from the core of what they should be doing – balancing the game.

Your first game had very good balance (it got rocky at the end of its life, but regardless). This underlying tone of balance bled into the community and formed a lot of respect for those who could achieve high ranks in the game.

The ranking system will be meaningless if you do not have a balanced game.

I’m looking forward to this. Finishers will actually have meaning now. A lot of PvE’ers complain that PvE skins are too easy to get, and so it devalues the skins – they are right. The same can be said for finishers. Not everyone got a gold trim cape in Guild Wars 1. If you saw someone who had it, there was a tremendous amount of respect in the pvp community for those who did.

Hammerguard.9834:

Where are we suppose to get our sense of pride and progression?

By working at actually being good at pvp? If I understand it correctly, the higher-up finishers will now be linked to those who are in the top tier of the ladder system.

In GW1, not everyone had a gold trim cape. Only the best did, and everyone respected it – there was major respect for guilds like Last Pride and War Machine. Rank and the finishers are so devalued right now, it’s ridiculous. Simply because ANYONE can get them by simply farming enough times in hotjoin.

Walker.3056:

If you really think s/D thief is High level Tpvp and that a duel shows whos better or more experiented in a TPVP you really shouldnt discuss anymore.

What are you talking about? First, when did I ever say dueling shows who’s better? That was Travelane. I ignored it, like a decent human being, because I too think dueling is ridiculous. Secondly, S/D is rare in Tpvp, but its not fully extinct, and its one of the two builds that we see in existence for thieves in upper-level tpvp. Do you know of any other builds that thieves are willing to bring to the team? I’m not sure why you even wrote this, tbh.

Anyway, not sure what the point of complaining about mesmers is. Not like it’s going to accomplish anything.

That’s obvious, someone ether got beat in a duel by a ridiculous mesmer spec that wouldn’t see the light of day in team play, or they are trying to do the equivalent of drinking a gallon of milk within less than an hour with their build. Now they are on the forums complaining about it. Thieves get it all the time from other classes.

A while ago, we had a person who advocates power ranger spec come on here complaining that thief backstab was too op.

Travlane.5948:

actually i am never invis more than a second at a time.

And that is why I’m saying this is the reason why you’re having trouble – you are tying to fit a square block into a circle hole. The fundamental problem with running P/D as a roamer spec is that it involves sitting on a target for a longer amount of time than a typical thief build (S/D or D/P; to a lesser extent with S/D, but S/D can contest cap points) you would see in upper level play. You need to be able to bop in, take out a target, then bop out as a roamer. If it is attempted to be used as a type of team-fighter, then a necro can do the job better. This is why we don’t see P/D in tournies.

Travlane.5948:

they can invis 50-60% of a 1 v 1 and we can 75%+ but the difference is dmg. they can we cant.

If you used your stealth duration for more than 1 second, your endurance bars will will up and you will have more dodges to use while out of stealth thereby mitigating most of their phantasm damage. This situation is, in fact, about how you use stealth.