Guild Wars 2

I’m sure people will be complaining about OP match ups within the first week of its release. It will be the GW1 Hero Battles all over again.

This is the mesmer forum. Who cares about thief?

You’re paying for stealth. Stealth is one of the best abilities in the game. Stealth attacks are a bonus.

Ryou.2398:

DaShi.1368:

If the leaks are true, mounts are the biggest disappointment so far from the next expansion. Gliding was a great addition. It’s fun and enjoyable. I don’t find mounts to be fun, just screen clutter. Others like the idea. I’m just surprised that Anet may be adding something so divisive to a possible make-or-break expansion.

Maybe they will be really fast mounts with mounted combat?

Ugh. That’s even worse.

Sly.9518:

In a sense yes, but their reasoning is flawed since Stealth Attacks do have a cost and they have Conditions to be met to even have max effectiveness unlike the majority of every other attack.

The condition is stealth. That’s not a cost. That’s one of the best abilities in the game. Free attacks and stealth together is admittedly a bit much.

I tried killing the destroyers first. Only to get hit on the ground because I fell a short distance. Eventually, I just gave up on that strategy and did it normally and finished. I did clear the destroyers in one zone so that I’d have a safe place to land.

If the leaks are true, mounts are the biggest disappointment so far from the next expansion. Gliding was a great addition. It’s fun and enjoyable. I don’t find mounts to be fun, just screen clutter. Others like the idea. I’m just surprised that Anet may be adding something so divisive to a possible make-or-break expansion.

Azukas.1426:

Crinn.7864:

The only way to make 1v1 work is to ban thieves or at least limit their trait and weapon choices. Otherwise a thief could infinitely drag out (and invariably win) any match not against other thieves.

You shouldn’t be automatically losing to thieves 1v1 playing 6/8 of the other professions in this game.

And so it begins. This is why we can’t have 1v1 arenas.

jihm.2315:

they could do it for fun and some rewards
game could focus on one vs one the aoe damage is insane in this game
and 5v5 balance wasnt successful either

They could do it for fun, but people would still complain.

Did she get a growth spurt? She used to be so tiny.

Doam.8305:

OriOri.8724:

DaShi.1368:

That’s if those leaks are real. I don’t know if anyone else noticed the dual wielding pistol mesmers in the last LS episode.

A lot of work was put into those images if they weren’t real. A lot of work. I can’t imagine what someone would stand to gain from making them look so GW2-ish. No market manipulation was in that leak at all, so they stand to gain nothing at all from putting in a lot of work if that leak was fabricated.

Plus, this isn’t the first leak that mentioned mesmer getting Axe either

In addition if they were fake leaks they would’ve been more detailed we really didn’t get much. Aerial of maps, a mechanic, masteries, and elite names and weapons however nothing regarding story, characters, or enemies. Even the title name of the expansion would have been a bigger leak and easily faked. Whoever leaked wasn’t out to damage the game or fool anyone and I wouldn’t be too surprised if it wasn’t Anet themselves who leaked since it would build hype and remove any responsibility from them if things change down the line. It also gives people something to talk about while not directly comparing GW2 to the other expansions coming out this year Stormblood and Morrowind.

On the topic of axes though I think Mesmer needs another melee option so I’m alright with it however in terms of an offhand I don’t think anything pairs well with an axe. Other than a shield but that’s locked behind Chrono or another axe which I highly doubt will be the case.

I don’t really care if its axe or pistol. The leaks could have been designed to mislead. I don’t know. Only Anet does. One nice thought is that they could do what they should have done with HoT: release two new elite specs. The dearth of elite specs for so long has really been a strain on this game. Having three could really open up build options and help resolve the purity of purpose problem for elite specs.

Blude.6812:

Of course they will make the people that have been here from day one and bought gems with real money pay full price again.

Yep, I could forgive HoT not living up to its hype or having as much content as expected and promised. But that price was a real sore spot. I lost a lot of respect for them for doing that while delivering something rushed and incomplete.

That’s if those leaks are real. I don’t know if anyone else noticed the dual wielding pistol mesmers in the last LS episode.

Does anyone know if Charr get unique dialogue for this episode?

I’d like to say, watching all the little Asura run for the door and gate was really cute.

Me too.

Now we either get the story moving or a series of mind bending contortions to explain it. I’m really hoping for the former. Let’s just move along.

My prediction is that Larazus will be…a disappointment.

Looking over the list of predictions also makes it clear that there are no good choices. There are major flaws with every one. The biggest problem being how ham-fisted the story has been so far regarding Lazarus. A good reveal must be both surprising and expected in the sense that it feels natural to what we’ve seen thus far. Since the little we’ve seen of Lazarus is just poorly written dialogue in a sad attempt to obfuscate him rather than make him a character, there’s no way his reveal will be satisfying. This is another instance of Anet putting “mystery” above good storytelling.

The game isn’t balanced around 1v1. Certain classes and builds are going to dominate. Threads like this are why there can’t be open world pvp. People will just complain about how their class/build isn’t competitive around 1v1.

If you want to roam, play a roaming class/build. If you want to tank, play a tank class/build. If you want to zerg from range, play a ranged class/build. There are plenty of options for you.

Lazarus is a dragon minion.

Mozed.7510:

OMG if Lazarus is actually a human god… It would be sooooooooo cool

A human god would never take so much interest in humans.

I could support that. I really don’t like that they tie weapons to the elite trait lines.

PyrateSilly.4710:

I listen to my own opinion from playing the game myself. Does not matter what anyone else decides they like to not. I like what I play and no one can tell me something is wrong or terrible or bad about it if I enjoy it. So nope sorry not gonna listen to someone’s opinion, it’s theirs and theirs alone.

That’s your choice. But why tell us?

Aeolus.3615:

Part 5, he is really on spot about almost everything, the guardian shooting potatoes with bow and drop trapplets was really horrible choice.
DH started to be “balanced” and well designed to player when they tweaked it to be easy to carry with that spec against alot of players, i felt super carried while playing that…

Still next expansion will have new spec traitline will be mandatory for any kind of mode, and will outclass the older stuff.
Anet made the choice to players not progressing through armor crafting but progress from mandatory gimmicks and traits, so players buy the expansion that is wxeactly what they did with guardian reason nowadays everything resumes to meditraps builds.

The new specializations and the atual elite specializations need to sacrifice more for what they do and will do, Anet gives the classes to much perfomance and some dont sacrifice much since they need that to bahave in a certain way for pve reasons… well its a wrong concept that Anet needs to stop.
Anet need to nerf and boost some stuff on the actuall ones, but i dont think they are that good to see and understand what is needed.

I think he highlights well the reason that the elite specs were overpowered and why they needed to be. The problem is, as he describes, some don’t have purity of purpose and all allow players to be just stronger versions of the builds they were playing before HoT.

They could have avoided this by either releasing a second elite spec with HoT (which they should have done). Then they could have really focused each elite spec on a role/purpose while giving players an option to choose among the two. The alternative would have been to release the next expac sooner (or an elite spec booster) with new elite specs and have done the same thing over just a little longer bit of time.

Instead they balanced the elite specs to fit any role and gave the players no choice. I believe most people want elite specs brought in line with the other trait lines just so that have more choices of builds. Releasing new elite specs sooner would have significantly solved this problem.

In fact, I would be surprised if Anet doesn’t release two need elite specs for each class in the next expansion. Making the same mistakes as HoT will truly kill this game, if it doesn’t die before the next expac gets here.

In solo/duo queue, thief close is a good choice because it’s not a team fighter and has the most mobility. If you’re afraid of 1v1ing, then leave and support your team by +1ing. You can do it quickly with your mobility. Then swing back for the recap or decap far. If not engaged at close, then the thief is setup with its best options after capping: go +1 somewhere or decap. This is a far better scenario for a thief to be in than any other class.

The another option is to send the thief far, but this is a guaranteed 1v1 at best. If your thief can handle it, great. But it’s riskier than taking close. And if you’re afraid of 1v1ing on close, then far isn’t necessarily a better option. Plus, you risk your team being outnumbered on mid. So going far at start and dying…yes, the loss of the match is your fault.

Sending your thief to mid at the opening is the worst choice. It will die to the AoE fest that mid becomes. It’s also risks the thief not doing the two things it is best at: decapping and +1ing. DH, Druid, Necro, ect. all contribute more to the initial mid fight than a thief could.

The only exceptions are if you have multiple thieves or mesmers. Mesmers can fill in the thief’s role, but I’d still rather have a Mesmer at initial mid than a thief any day.

Finally, unfortunately, there’s a real risk of when letting other classes take close, they will never leave it. Necros, DHs, and Druids for some reason get obsessed with camping close the whole match.

I’m operating under the rule that classes that got one handed weapons last xp,
will get two handed this xp and vice versa (even if it turns out not to be true).

Elementalist: Longbow
I see this as a more single target, limited AoE weapon compared to the staff.

Revenant: Greatsword
I’d like to see this as a mid-ranged weapon. Generating fields and auras and such.

Engineer: Mace
We already have a hammer skin for it.

Thief: Offhand sword/torch/axe
Any of these could be cool.

Ranger: Mainhand dagger
Ranger could use more melee choices.

Warrior: Staff
Either this or shortbow.

Guardian: Warhorn
Would probably be everything the ele warhorn isn’t

Necromancer: Torch
Not sure why they don’t already have this.

Mesmer: Rifle
I’ve wanted rifle on mesmer since shortly after release. The last living story episode kind of hinted at this as a possibility. This will be the mesmer’s power-based projectile weapon.

I would rather see more things to do that support your world than more unbalanced buffs. I don’t like this idea at all.

I guess PvP wasn’t dead enough.

Seems like this is happening to a lot of people.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Focus has an invulnerability skill on Earth, a condition clear on Earth, projectile destruction on Air, and a nice CC (and blast finisher) on Water. Overall it’s just better for what the auramancer build is trying to do.

Yup, also don’t forget to use your blast finishers to stack swiftness for the your team at the beginning. 1. Overload lightning field. 2. Swap to earth and hit magnetic wave. 3. Swap to water and hit frozen burst.

Everyone should learn what their build can proc at the beginning of the match to help your team.

I remember when RPGs were all text and numbers and didn’t require an animation.

I still don’t believe in it and I’ve had some terrible matches.

I’m seeing the absolute dregs of pvp players this season. It’s truly amazing the people who join ranked matches.

I have to agree with the other posters. You are doing your teammates a disservice entering unranked or rank pvp when you are clearly aware of your internet stability. Your internet stability is not Anet’s or your teammates’ responsibility. Your penalties are not only deserved, but should be sending you a clear warning sign that you are doing something wrong.

Cynz.9437:

You completely missed the point of the thread. Thief heavily depends on his team doing ok BECAUSE they were forced in decap pet role for years now but when the said team doesn’t do well and/or also prevents thief from doing his job (e.g. roaming ele) they also flame/blame the thief. This is very common. This is like chopping of hands from the surgeon and then complaining that he didn’t fix your broken leg.

Yes, they were forced into that role because they are the most effective at it. What some players here seem to want a thief to be is covered by other classes. However, I agree that other players undercut thieves by not letting them effectively play that role. This is because many players don’t know the roles in this game.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m getting at. Having a few traits associated with being a Mary Sue doesn’t immediately make that character a Mary Sue. In fact, many traits of a Mary Sue are those that make a character interesting. If you exclude all Mary Sue traits, you end up with a rather dull and ineffective character. Queen Jenna has more Mary Sue traits than Scarlet, but you don’t see such widespread criticism of her. She’s an uber powerful mesmer beyond the scale of any other we’ve seen in the game. She’s able to predict the actions of every one of her opponents and defeat them easily. Her bad actions are immediately justified. And, of all things, she’s given a cute affectation (no shoes). But I’d be reluctant to call her a Mary Sue as well. But Scarlet is not a Mary Sue, by definition, she just doesn’t have enough traits, or any of the truly critical ones. Being really, really clever does not make a Mary Sue. However, a lot of players simply don’t like her and have latched on to the Mary Sue argument. That argument is wrong, but it is not wrong to dislike Scarlet. There are plenty of reasons to not like her. Some valid, some personal, some ridiculous.

It’s interesting that you got hung up on the one sentence discussing the woman aspect of my argument. As I said, it is a problem for some people, but obviously not for everyone. There’s a good argument for it, but it’s really not that important to this discussion. However, this does demonstrate how some people are so quick to point to one small thing and draw a single conclusion from it. In Scarlet’s case it was one throw away line of dialogue. Some read that and immediately went, “Ha! Mary Sue!” This is noncritical thinking. It’s obvious that they were just unhappy because they didn’t get the villain they wanted, remembered something they read on TVtropes, and made a poor judgement. But I’d rather read about why they really don’t like Scarlet than poorly made arguments about why she is a Mary Sue.

This brings up an important weakness in Scarlet’s story and a writing trap that Anet falls into to often. Scarlet’s backstory is actually interesting. She had a promising intellect destroyed by the unfortunate combination of factors she both could and couldn’t control: her hubris and her race. Told correctly, this would have been an amazing story. Anet could have introduced the character earlier. Or at least introduced a more detailed backstory between one of her other storylines. One throw away line of dialogue was not enough. Had we seen this young, promising sylvari as she was before Omad’s device, we could have developed empathy for her. But they waited too long to tell that story. And by then the damage was irreversible. We should have known much more about who we were fighting before the final battle with her. But they did it this way because they wanted “mystery.” They drowned us in mystery at the expense of good storytelling. They could have told that backstory without revealing Mordy or sylvari minions. Instead we got a character we didn’t understand and didn’t really care to, while Anet writers giggled to themselves about how clever they thought they were for keeping so much story a secret.

In PvE open world, I usually use GS/Sw/Sw with Zerk/Sin gear. The reason I don’t use the shield is because the phantasm is dismal in solo play, and you don’t do enough damage yourself to make up for the loss of hard hitting ones. Most common mobs can be cleared with GS and wells. Tougher bosses just require getting out at least two iSwordsmen and an iZerker. I run Ins/Ill/Chro. Inspiration for the condy clear, because cripple is annoying. Illusions for the increased speed of phantasms, and Chro for alacrity and chronophatasma.

Since the update, I’ve trying out pistol more instead of the off-hand sword.

No, Scarlet is not a Mary Sue. The only reason some people call her that is because they read about the term on TVtrope and sites about fan fiction and feel smart and smug using it. However, blindly calling a character a Mary Sue remains the lowest form of criticism, and often says more about the critic than the character. The justification for Scarlet’s Mary Sue is that she’s a genius that graduated from all the Asuran schools. However, the only real difference from her and any other GW villain is that Anet actually gave an explanation and backstory for her abilities/powers that makes her a threatening villain. The Mary Sue critique of Scarlet is ignorant and absurd. A more valid critique is that her character is a Harley Quinn clone in personality, which makes her unoriginal (again not the first villain in this game to be that way) and, depending on your preferences, annoying. Then there’s the fact that she’s an intelligent, confident woman, which rubs some sad people the wrong way. Anyway, she may not be a popular character or an original one, but she was a an interesting and fairly well-written one, which gives her a unique status in GW lore.

Lazarus, on the other hand, is a trainwreck. He’s been given far more Mary Sue traits, including coming back from the kittening dead. But he’s basically fan service. An unnecessary character shoe-horned into the plot to trigger feelings of nostalgia from GW1 players. His greatest sin, however, is that he is just terribly written. The other characters are helpless around him, not because he’s so powerful, but because he’s so important to the writer that all other characters must drop their personalities in service of the Lazarus “plot.” Poor Marjorie went from one the most popular characters to being lumped with Braham and requested to be killed off because she was forced by plot to join him. Even the PC lost all agency to Lazarus. It didn’t matter if the PC agreed or disagreed with Lazarus, he was going to get his way. In fact, they even had the PC weakly disagree to try to show some semblance of agency, but all it did was reveal the seams of the plot. I’m sure all this made sense in the writer’s head, but that didn’t translate in the actual story and turned a lot of players, including myself, off. Then there’s Lazarus himself. He’s simply uninteresting as character. He’s only interesting as a unique race. He’s fan service, and poorly written fan service at that. I’m sure they’ll try to find some post hoc way to make his presence relevant to the main story, but…bleh.

Anyway, he’s not even the closest to a Mary Sue in GW. Because, let’s be honest, that role is solely reserved for the PC. Look up the traits that people associate with Mary Sues and you’ll find that the PC meet most, if not all, of them. So before you go casting aspersions on characters that are actually given clear backgrounds and motivations for their actions, take a close look at how well your own character is written in the game. And maybe you’ll understand why I die a little every time the PC opens its mouth.

This critique may seem a little harsh. In honesty, for an MMO, GW doesn’t do too bad in the story department. The lore is interesting. There are many other interesting characters that I’m not highlighting here. Yes, much of the writing is objectively bad, especially since HOT for some reason, but overall GW story is enjoyable and has enough truly inspired moments to make it worth going through.

Asur.9178:

Cynz.9437:

Mirrodin.8729:

Ghorman.1368:

Why is there so much thief hate??? I’m not a great thief but I’m not bad either but getting blamed before the match starts is really stupid.

And this is how you spot a bad thief, like others said before, a good thief can carry a game, a good one is dead weight, the special snowflake mentality

And this is how you spot a bad player. Even best thief in game is only as good as his team. If your team is incapable of holding a point, then you can’t do much. Let’s take Sind – he is probably best active thief on EU atm (fangirl mode on!!!) but i have seen him lose matches when he had a bad team.

What OP mentions is true. If Sind would be playing on some no-name account for example and his team would lose, chances are he would als get flamed and blamed. This has been normality for years now.

I am not denying there are bad thieves, but often teams resort to blaming the thief instead of looking at own mistakes. It has been done to me, i also have seen decent thieves getting flamed by their teammates way too many times.

My biggest issue is that teams often don’t know how to play with a thief on team. There is always that moron that keeps charging far and pulling enemies there so you can’t really go for decaps (but still getting yelled at that you don’t decap). Since this one guy is missing from the team fights, you are forced (as a thief!!) to take his spot in those fights and thief is like worst team fighter in game. Then we have people that farm animal 24/7 and let enemy steal it when it should be thieves job. Or people forcing thief to defend the point because they would rather chase some guy on the beach. Etc etc.
Bottom line, they force thief in situations that thief is not meant for and then flame and blame that thief for not “carrying” them.

You know what would solve majority of that problem? If thief wasn’t shoehorned into such a garbage role where it had literally zero versatility.

‘+1’ and ‘decap’ is a joke of a role. 95% of the time you’re better of taking a mesmer or a revenant instead of a thief.

This guy…I think he nailed thief’s description perfectly: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5ykcc6/pvp_condi_counters/deqxlk0/

If you don’t like the role of the thief, then why not play a different class? That’s like complaining about healing other players while playing a healing class. And thief is still the king of +1 and decapping. If mesmers or revenants are doing a better job, then you’re not playing thief well.

R O C.6574:

Cynz.9437:

Mirrodin.8729:

Ghorman.1368:

Why is there so much thief hate??? I’m not a great thief but I’m not bad either but getting blamed before the match starts is really stupid.

And this is how you spot a bad thief, like others said before, a good thief can carry a game, a good one is dead weight, the special snowflake mentality

And this is how you spot a bad player. Even best thief in game is only as good as his team. If your team is incapable of holding a point, then you can’t do much. Let’s take Sind – he is probably best active thief on EU atm (fangirl mode on!!!) but i have seen him lose matches when he had a bad team.

What OP mentions is true. If Sind would be playing on some no-name account for example and his team would lose, chances are he would als get flamed and blamed. This has been normality for years now.

I am not denying there are bad thieves, but often teams resort to blaming the thief instead of looking at own mistakes. It has been done to me, i also have seen decent thieves getting flamed by their teammates way too many times.

My biggest issue is that teams often don’t know how to play with a thief on team. There is always that moron that keeps charging far and pulling enemies there so you can’t really go for decaps (but still getting yelled at that you don’t decap). Since this one guy is missing from the team fights, you are forced (as a thief!!) to take his spot in those fights and thief is like worst team fighter in game. Then we have people that farm animal 24/7 and let enemy steal it when it should be thieves job. Or people forcing thief to defend the point because they would rather chase some guy on the beach. Etc etc.
Bottom line, they force thief in situations that thief is not meant for and then flame and blame that thief for not “carrying” them.

I was playing as thief last night. The only matches I lost were the ones where the support classes were pushing far. Why would a support Ele keep going far by himself??? That’s the thief/mesmer’s job, plus the rest of the team could be benefiting from auras and everything else the Ele spits out. Know your role. If you are a support build, you should be chasing team fights.

Yes. This is something a lot of players don’t understand. It greatly reduces the effectiveness of the roamer (and the entire team) when non-roaming classes try to roam. So many times, I’m forced to fight in mid, where I’m less effective, while a slow, team fighter heads to far to die.

That said, I’ve won many matches by keeping an opponent ele fighting uselessly on our capped home.

One of the many things that a tutorial in this game needs is roles. People should know what the main roles are, and which professions are superior for each role (yes, an ele can roam, but no where near as effectively as a thief or mesmer). Also, there could be an indicator at the beginning of the match, where people can indicate their roles.

I agree that the lack of a tutorial is a real problem. Having the community teach players is ineffective. The game has a lot of opportunities for cognitive dissonance, which leads players to disbelieve or resent others for trying to correct them. People don’t know that having multiple people on a point doesn’t make it cap faster. People don’t know when to get side objectives. People don’t know how to rotate. People don’t know pvp roles and which classes/builds should be prioritized for them. Most of all people don’t know where to find authoritative sources for this information.

charchar.2149:

WHY DOES MATCH READY HAVE TO TAKE OVER YOUR SCREEN ??

I agree. Once you select accept, they should make it into a smaller, less intrusive box off to the side.

Actually, you do deserve to be punished for missing the queue. 32 minutes is generous. If you have to leave your computer, just leave queue and return when you can play. What you want is to punish other players for your own issues.

Yes, that will show them!

It doesn’t, and I wholly disagree with you.

Amaimon.7823:

Since they pertain dialogue and story, being able to choose characters would mean they have to write 1*n^y stories
where n is the party size and y is the individuals you recruit
are you going to pay for that resource?

I feel like I did with the price of HoT.

While there are definitely people abusing it, I can believe that this is happening too. Actually, it’s probably the reason they took away the dishonor; because people were getting it unfairly due to the system kicking them out.

This queue problem is getting out of hand. Some people are now doing it deliberately to troll.

Please put in serious consequences. At least 4 hours dishonor. If someone needs to step away, they should leave queue rather than trouble everyone else who is using it honestly.

You can use your laurels from the dailies to get some too.

I’m going to get ahead of everyone else and start complaining about matchmaking now!

Every game I will win is because of my skill.
Every game I will lose is because of my teammates.
If it won’t be for bad luck, I’ll have no luck at all.

Increase the dishonor to 4 hours for the first missed queue.

Seriously, more time is spent in the Match Ready screen than in an actual match.