Guild Wars 2

Since a Charr without a warband is not seen as somebody trustworthy, I’d say they have warbands. However, they can work as solo unit without need of constantly visiting their bandmates.

Shadow trap is very good in sPvP. Not overpowered like it used to be, but still very powerful for node defending, especially when combined with thieves’ guild.

If you are lucky with ‘improvisation’ trait, you can drop 2x caltrops on one spot, resulting in 20 bleed stacks and very long cripple.

No, don’t play condi thief unless it’s dire gear p/d for WvW (but that’s really boring). Thieves have too good mobility, burst and active defences to waste their potential on sustained condi combat. Also, your damage is going to be really low; too low.

Eventually, you could go p/d shadow arts for evil stomping and rezzing people in stealth, but this is very team composition dependant. Good fast stomps can turn the tables during a fast-paced match.

LS should be activated when a thief successfully evaded something, not just hit with FS, but it’s still way better than nothing. S/D is so easy and forgiving combined with feline grace that makes me wonder why people ever protect it. 1 out of 10 thieves I encounter actually try to time the evade, the rest just uses it to upkeep high evade uptime, hoping their enemy is clumsy.

It’s absolutely fine to make S/D the ultimate dueling set, but let’s make it a bit_challengeing to play with risk/reward factor, not only reward all along the way.

Sometimes I have my evade interrupted by a stun or fear, but that’s just ping issue. The animation is played, but no endurance is consumed.

When you enter a long lasting stealth by shadow’s refuge (example), enemies kittenpawn afterwards will see you.

Example:
- Killed a guy at 1:00.
- Entered stealth at 1:01.
- The guy respawns at 1:05, and can see you while you are still in stealth.

This happened to me recently twice on Skyhammer map. However, it seems like you can’t stomp the stealthed thief through that bug, but maybe the guy self-interrupted the animation.

@edit
kittenpawn: who (stupid censor) respawn

Chaos is what is needed in a fight

Chaos is good – are you kidding? For you it is good when your strategy has no meaningful impact on a fight’s result? A little bit of randomness isn’t bad (a lucky/unlucky crit or dodge here and there, sometimes even turning the tables), but once it influences combat too much, it becomes tiresome.

@Sagat
Fighting against an evade spammer is surely not fun, when your attacks totally randomly fail to connect because of a blind evade. These random things make people annoyed and create unwanted chaos.

Also, understand, that you can still invest into endurance regeneration and not be harshly penalized by this mechanic, since you are a skilled player who doesn’t spam… right?

Additional suggestion: give some abilities an effect of applying said debuff, just like some of them apply revealed, but obviously for no longer than 2-3 seconds and on long cooldown.

@up
It is not only thieves who widely abuse it.

May apply to PvE aswell, but not necessarily.

After first evade, be it weapon skill or normal dodge, applies a stack of a debuff for 2 seconds – no penalties here.

After reaching 2 stacks, evades do not apply to the player for the next 3 seconds, giving a fine gap for countering them. Still, all animations are on place, abilities work, just no invulnerability. Might be giving a red trail, graphically symbolizing the ,,exhaustion".

Reasoning: some people just try to keep high uptime of invulnarability, not even actually trying to precisely evade important attacks. They succeed, because the spam is not penalized at all if specced for endurance returns from vigor and sort of traits. This is simply not fun to play against.

Charr farmers do raise cubs together; this is certain, although there are a little of proofs. It is impossible to send all cubs to fahrars to form warbands, because it would be too complicated to maintain ranches.

Also, I don’t think the partens would be too fond of giving away their cubs, especially if they are rather neutral about the Legions, so they would try to keep them by themselves.

Strong sides aren’t a problem, weak sides are, and if you want to survive you have to deal with them. These can be overcame with some effort.

Even though this set isn’t the best for 1vs1, where S/D and D/P shines, it is still possible to win duels, securing a node all by yourself. Still, you can spec for 1vs1 if you really want, and it can work, but I don’t think it is worth it.

People fail to understand, that P/P is best utilized in teamplay, where your allies take on themselves focus of your enemies, allowing the glassy thief to be safe at range.

It is fully possible to play P/P in sPvP with 6-6-x-x-x traits plus zerker amulet and not dying more often than a bunker. A thief which is geared like that, raining down unloads on the enemies in the middle of a node is very valuable. You can always steal+black powder to secure a stomp (can do that without steal from range if timed well), or save your allies by interrupting enemies with headshot.
For a squishy zerker it’s a nightmare to be focused by a such thief in a teamfight, because damage from chained unloads is exhausting, and offensive combos can be easly interrupted.

Any unreasonable buffs like stealth on #5 or extra damage on unload will overbuff this set. Right now, I could only change body shot, because it’s way too situational and useless in 99% cases.

Alternatively, you could pick axe off hand instead of shield, and use whirling axe on a stunned enemy. This way, you don’t have to swap weapons for hundred blades, and maybe pick another secondary weapon set.

It still works perfectly against scrubs.

@ASP
This is why I am against this kind of boon stripping. You are more likely to choose sigil of battle, force or intelligence above nullification to boost damage.

Conditions should be cleared the same manner as I explained above. There should be no random single condi removal, but removing groups of conditions. This way, condi bombing would be nerfed, while stacking a single damaging/CC condi buffed (like bleed and cripple), because all condi clears would have overall longer cooldowns while having wider range.

Cygnus.6903:

it seems incredibly overpowered

Thinking this way, dealing damage is also overpowered, because it allows you to kill an enemy.

What if cooldown for the stability strip sigil was 1 minute? Would you still see it as overpowered? Or suddenly it isn’t?

Sigil of nullification is problematic, because it pretty much does nothing. It is random and unreliable. Random and unreliable mechanics should be reduced to absolute minimum in this game.

@phys
You don’t understand that people who play on market earning lots of money do a lot of good for the community. They move money around trading post, giving needed items to people, and buying items that are not needed at the moment.

Although they store lots of gold in bank, they are still customers, giving money to sort of small crafters and farmers.
Rich people buy lots of expensive alcohol and fastest cars, but guess who picks grapes and mines iron. A single purchase of a luxury good might give jobs for hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

@phys
In real life, you can be a very good doctor, mechanic, scientist, and still earn moderate salary, because you either don’t care about making money, or you don’t know how to utilize your skills to do it. Have you ever heard about a mathematician from Russia who refused award for solving one of Millennium Prize Problems?

People who play on Trading Post want to make money and know how to do it – therefore they have it, and it is 100% fair. But honestly, it’s not a rocket science, it just takes a little discipline and time investment. Nothing is wrong here.

Asuras are a fine example of natural selection. Soon, they will evolve, creating a new race, which will be even smaller, as nature dictates.

Death to capitalism! Death to bourgeoisie!

Dungeon farmers, orichalcum miners, dynamic event labourers, WvW zergers… comrades! Let us unite under the red banner of Tyrian Communist Party! Together, we shall send a petition to Arena Net, banning everyone who have more than 300 gold, dividing their money between its rightful owners – the working class!

New class will be featured – the worker! Every worker will be equal, and have gold cap set at 300 gold. If you don’t want to start your character from scrap, you can receive class conversion scroll for free. All other classes will be removed soon, so make haste before you are removed with them!

Trading Post will be removed aswell, because it’s a capitalist device of oppression!

Soviet Tyria – equality and happiness!

I am strongly against random boon or condition removal. Let’s be honest, you can’t control this sigil anyhow. In 99% cases a removed boon is a suprise both for you and your enemy, and the situation is not utilized at all.

There should be sigils that strip certain boons, for example only stability, have reliable cooldown and on-hit chance (not crit). It would be used for stun warriors to have more reliable stunlock attempts, but right now nobody bothers with it, because you are more likely to remove some ‘trash’ boon instead of the one you want to strip.

Another example: there could be a sigil that removes vigor and swiftness (2 in 1), so you are capable of chasing down some annoying bunker engineer or thief.

There are many examples, another might be might+fury removal for people who don’t like being hit too hard, anti-bunker protection removal, and cherry on top – retailation removal. The last would make a couple of builds suddenly viable.

Seems to me like adding counterplay, like they did with infiltrator’s strike.

I would watch some sPvP videos if there were 2vs2 or 3vs3 arenas with interesting strategies and synergies between team members, but I have no reason to watch 5vs5 conquest mess on a 3 node map, with sumo wrestlers pushing people off rings.

Even duels are more enjoyable to watch.

Adding random, unnecessary things here and there usually breaks the game.

Stand on a wall or roof and then unload. Melee fighters won’t touch you = 100% evade.

Music is absolutely terrible, had to mute the video to watch it.

I try to sell some stuff, but after clicking ,,sell" there is big red sign “Error attempting to sell”. I have to reopen trading post like 10 times and pray it works next time. Please, fix this.

PS: this problem is very common since last update, which made TC working faster.

There is no reason why retailation shouldn’t be normalized, so you don’t lose 1/2 hp pool per flamethrower #1 attack. Some builds are unviable mainly because of this boon combined with multihit abilities.

“I want to be able to spam abilities without a care in the world and have absolutely no negative consequences.”
This is exactly what retailation spammers do.

We can increase initiative pool and decrease initiative regen, so blindly spamming would be heavily punished, but then thief’s sustained damage would be terrible. That would require increasing damage output – the more initiative you have, the more damage you deal (like trickery’s 5th trait).

Your suggestion of tightening the window of initiative would be a mistake, because it would make this class even more faceroll. Better idea would be removing initiative and giving cooldowns, but it will never happen.

I think the best solution would be slightly increasing initiative cost of some skills, and returning initiative when they successfully land. For example, pistol whip could cost 1 ini more, but if you manage to interrupt a foe, it gives you back 1 ini and has increased damage by 15%.
Black powder costs 1 ini more, returns 1 ini if its shot connects and has longer smoke field duration by 1 sec.
Larcenous strike would be available only if you actually evade an attack with flanking strike, and could steal 2 boons instead of 1.

These are good anti-spam mechanics.

Bombarded to death 4 enemies at Khylo’s clock tower in last minute of match. That pretty much secured my team’s victory.

Dee Jay.2460:

why

The exactly same thing is with shadow refuge.
1. Check if player is within radius. If true, give effect <stealth>.
2. Check if player was previously within radius, and now is outside of radius. If true, give effect <revealed>.

If revealed was given after crossing radius line, you could shadowstep out of it after 1 sec and keep stealth, or even simply jump over the line if you dropped SR on an uneven terrain.

It seems to be simpler and more safe than checking ,,passing" condition. Yet, still needs fixing.

It doesn’t apply to backstab unless you quickly precast it with mug, so you are revealed before backstab lands. 8% dmg increase for so short time and excluding backstab isn’t worth it. I could consider picking it if it was 20% dmg increase (like executioner), but right now it’s another trash trait.

I think “elite” skills should do something worth calling them as elite, and assassin’s signet surely doesn’t meet the requirements. To be honest, so does basilisk venom, but hopefully venom rework will arrive shortly (within 10 years), making them viable options.

I agree, this is stupid how it works in this game. There should be reliable traits/sigils that remove retailation from enemies (not a random boon, only retailation), and retailation should have 1 sec cooldown per unique attacker.

Bad thieves (players): think that game developers are their worst enemies, because they nerf their favourite class.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

+1, this has to be gone. Still see too many players multi-capping etc.

And after that players will still multicap anyway, because many of them enter just for daily achievement, which requires you to (multi)cap nodes.

There should be an option to duel anywhere outside cities, but disabled by default, and without finishing off.

When I migrated from WoW I didn’t like lack of proper dueling either. There are so many beautiful places in Tyria to set up a duel or even a tournament, why make it impossible? Honestly, no need for any rewards or achievements, just give it to players and I guarantee there will be plenty of videos on youtube about epic duels.

@Tachii
Just because you have always seen PW as another hundred blades or blurred frenzy doesn’t mean it cannot be changed. Besides, devs mentioned some time ago splitting this skill into two parts, like flanking strike.

Also, PW’s stun has to be channeled, while headshot doesn’t.

I agree, it would be better if pistol whip was separated into two parts, like flanking strike:

- First part, stun a foe with pistol.
- Second part <optional>, channel a single powerful slash (you can move), that cleaves. If the initial stun interrupted the foe, damage of this slash is increased and also applies some condition, like vulnerability or cripple.

OR

If the initial stun didn’t interrupt the foe, the slash deals the same damage, but doesn’t cleave, and doesn’t apply a condition.

Flanking strike should be also changed, that if no attack is evaded, then larcenous strike deals less damage and does not steal a boon. Then, we could even buff larcenous strike to steal 2 boons if succeeded.

It has a visible animation, long cast time, needs the thief to be in melee (or else duration is laughable), can be blocked by aegis, stability or blind.

Yes, as a support thief you pickup full berserker gear and instagib your targets as fast as possible. This is how you support your team as a thief, plenty of such builds are on this website.

I’ve played thief since headstart, and recently after switching to (power) engineer I understood how limited and faceroll this class is. I used to see many hate whispers addressed to me, but I couldn’t fully understand them till now.

A class which main design theme should be “high risk- high reward” is anything but it, I can always break stun and teleport away, or stealth. It is too forgiving, and pretty much every setup is easy and straightforward to play compared to engineer or elementalist.

I hope stealth and evades will be redesigned, so it takes some actual skill to effectively use them.

Pollution.8703:

Until Anet implements a way for me to save builds and switch at the click of a button I shouldn’t have to change builds just for one specific map. It’s a pain in the kitten going back and forth all the time.

In 90% cases modifying your build to be ‘ok’ on Skyhammer is about switching one utility skill, and in extreme cases secondary weapon set.

You don’t need to change your build entirely.

@Freeelancer
And yet, people are still going to play there cookie cutter hambow warrior, stealthless thief, condi necro, and sort of mismatching builds. Afterwards, complaining on forums how bad the map is, because adapation is above their capabilities.

There was already smaller decay in GW2, and it resulted in people camping top 100 (or even more), blocking progress for people below this rating, what forced devs to change it. This wouldn’t be a problem with ladder, because there still could be a small decay, but not such extreme like in GW2.

Let me repeat – if something is ,,easy come, easy go" people won’t sacrifice their time to upkeep it. It might be good for a short time, but for longer play its discouraging.

And yes, it doesn’t matter if it is ladder or leaderboard – it all means nothing if community is small, but I think ladder is better for building it, because it’s easier to determine player’s skill.

@Temariah
Yes, this leaderboard system is poor because of (extreme) decay. If there was a normal ladder, people could stay at, let’s say, 2k rating (starting at 1k, max 3k) even though they don’t play regularly. Now, you have to keep playing frequently to be visible at top 1000 – easy come, easy go.

Pro players would hover at 2,5k, and noobs around 1,5k. Of course, this still means nothing as long as population is low, but I think ladder system would be more appealing to people, because their entire progress wouldn’t be wiped like rain from windscreen after a couple of days.

Rezz.8019:

I suggest taking advantage of this before Europe falls into financial crisis and has to increase tax drastically, just like America.

Or you can just believe what Josh said…

Since when bigger taxes equal better economy? It is exactly the opposite – in times of crisis, the taxes should be greatly decreased, so people can produce more goods to cover government’s debts.

If there is no crisis, then you -potentially- could allow yourself to increase taxes and let the money go to waste, because more taxes equals more money wasted.

The only solution to it is increasing PvP population, so players who play to win are higher in rating that these who just skirmish.

It is visible quiet well in counter strike, where population is large, and the higher you climb, the more teamplay and tactical gameplay you see. People invest their own money in you by buying you good weapons if you are unlucky and slightly behind, because it leads them to victory. If they refuse to help you and play as a team – they go down the ladder and are replaced automatically by these who know how to win.

Arena Net doesn’t ban these players, because many of them are veterans, and banning veterans means decrease in population which is already too low.

This is of course not fair, especially for people who worked hard to achieve dragon, and they have right to feel cheated, but well… it’s devs’ own decision that highest PvP rank in this game means nothing.