Guild Wars 2

In general, trap mechanics need to be redesigned to match Shadow Trap. Golden rule of traps in MMOs is: if you want traps to work, you must place them directly on top of your opponent. This is stupid, it is not how traps should work, and only trap that breaks this rule is Shadow Trap.
With this trap, you wait for a prey like a spider to fall into it. It feels epic when somebody wounded triggers it, resulting in instant death out of nowhere (although most of the time enemies wih full HP trigger it, but still you have the advantage of surprise).

The rest of traps aren’t only very weak or very situational, but worse- not fun to use.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Desperate_Decoy

-The stealth is granted even while revealed.

This skill is basically last refuge, but doesn’t give revealed debuff (different version of stealth). Also, it’s an adept trait, and you are not forced to pick it. Is it so hard to do the same with last refuge? Additionally, swap it with shadow’s embrace, cloaked in shadow or infusion of shadow.

There is a thread in which somebody rated in top viability tier not a class, but a healing signet. And this is true – healing signet, berserker stance and cleansing ire combined is what makes warriors so stupidly OP. Everything else about this class is fine and balanced.

Playing burst warrior hitting 12k kill shots and eviscerates feels awesome. Just like thief you have perfectly clear strong and weak sides, that can be exploited by your opponent. Bad warriors will do bad, good warriors will do fine, and pro warriors will carry a match.

Sadly, about 1% of warriors play like that, because why would you stress yourself with well-timed combos and withdraws, when you can become a ,,raid boss", forcing opponents to invent smart strategies to counter you, while putting no effort by yourself and being rewarded for it.

I know that noobs need some easy builds to stand a chance against better players, but when top tier gamers use them, it means something is wrong.

@Arganthium
One upon time I played LoL, and your post reminded me of idiots who cried about every single next champion in development, how they would be OP, without data of multipliers on skills, and pretty much half of the info about them.

Full CD thief wouldn’t be the best idea, but hybrid CD/energy, something like in WoW or Forge, would be a way to consider. This would buff weapon swap combos (which are almost non-existant), and allow to have more powerful abilities in place of junk like dancing dagger or LDB.

I am not against full initiative system, but this we have now is too taxing and lacks the promised depth. Pretty sure it could be fixed some other way around without making too drastic changes, but at the moment I have no idea how.

Grouch wrote devs are aware of it, and it will be fixed next patch.

@Gulesave
First of all, reread what I wrote in last paragraph.
Second, your tips regarding venoms don’t work in practice. They give almost no reward for high risk you must pay, making them not worth using.

Trickery thieves are considered very strong, because they are something new, and countering something new straight away is too difficult for most people. Their brains need some time to process data, but I’m afraid it won’t take long.

Yes, venoms are bad, but making them exactly like mantras doesn’t seem to be the best way either.

They should build up in stacks, and upon reaching a certain number of them, apply an effect to the enemy. It would be not only counterable (an enemy could see stacks), but also a buff to pistol auto attack.

A channeled active would give either a few seconds of application with every strike, without need of building up stacks, or a special ,,overcharged" effect with next strike.

It is widely known that DA traits are trash. But it gives huge passive damage boost with power (like 8 might stacks) and exposed weakness, which has almost 100% uptime in any fight.

Panic strike is a good option to have in PvP. It is extremly powerful in combitanion with unload and pistol whip glass builds.

Residual venom isn’t worth grandmaster tier as it is now. It could be worth it if it worked with basilisk venom as it should, but it doesn’t.

Easiest solution to make them better straight away is to change activation range into circular, so we can make reliable combos with shadowsteps; for example steal → tripwire knockdown. It is possible to do it now, but it’s extremly unreliable.

Buy runes of the traveler and never bother with any signets or traits.

Interesting idea, but venoms should be venoms. You coat your weapons with them before a fight to gain an advantage against a foe; similar to traps.

On the other hand, increased combo chance on projectiles is a very good idea, and I can see this implemented as a master trait, either for CS or DA, which have terrible master tiers.

I dare to say that I am the most agile thief in Tyria, what makes me a promising candidate. Just look at my Leaping Death Blossom style:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqaVlUm6N3eS6E95Ex2jeCUeyVwpaPc5LhJA-TsAg0CnIqRVjrGTNyas1MsYBxECA

Pros:
- Very high single target damage.
- Very high AoE damage.
- Full ranged combat – you don’t suffer from AoE, it’s easy to dodge things, and keep pressure all the time.
- Pretty strong 1vs1.
- Very good for cleaving downed enemes.
- Counters anything what doesn’t stack toughness and has lots of HP.
- Blind and aegis won’t stop you.
- You can kill them before they close range, or understand what is going on.
- It confuses enemies (hidden passive effect).

Cons:
- Very squishy.
- Pointless to play if you don’t know how to position properly (pillars, roofs, ledges).
- Very low mistake tolerance.
- Cooldown dependant.
- Pistol #2 hurts you more than your enemy in 99% cases.
- Vulnerable to confusion and retilation.
- Projectiles can be blocked by pets or reflected by ‘magic’ walls.
- It also sometimes confuses your teammates, making them think you are a troll.

Options
- If you play Skyhammer, ALWAYS use scorpion wire.
- You can also use runes of ogre or scholar (when using signet of malice to counter retailation and confusion – it works).

How to play:
- Place shadow trap on close node to instagib incomming enemy if they come, preferably with thieves guild for instant kill without wasting time.
- Support your team all the time at mid and close.
- Take advantage of your trebuchet and Skyhammer cannon.
- Turn on auto attack if you haven’t already. Bind ‘sheathe weapon’ to ‘z’ or some other accessible button, and smash it a few times when an enemy reflects bullets. Also, use it after entering shadow refuge, because sometimes it’s bugged and #1 makes you break stealth.

If I remember correctly, Tol Barad match was just zerg vs zerg fighting (even worse than WvW now), like two snakes eating each other tails, with some smart people breaking out doing side objectives (destroying towers).

Outside of match, it was just open world PvP. If we could have some events encouraging playing outside of zerg, then yes, it would be awesome. We have already some bosses on map (“quests”), but they reward nothing, and nobody bothers going there.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Haha, Frenchies are the best.

http://i.imgur.com/ykKjy.jpg

PS: thief’s spear #5 spear spam under water.

You can produce children to play for you (use your wife for production), or adopt some for faster acquisition.

Throw Gunk is very good when you immobilize your enemy and use pistol in main hand, for either unload or sneak attack. Thieves have better ways of cleaving downed enemies than throwing it on top of them, but sometimes it is a good move aswell.

Just remember to have your enemy immobilized or stunned first!

Today, my backpack was full during ganking in WvW. I had no more space for new items. Then, I noticed my old Pirate Peg Legs… I threw them away.
Now, I feel terrible, the guilt is overwhelming…

Devs, why?!

You can steal a skull from necro for 3-4 second fear, or ectoplasm from a mesmer for stability. I haven’t seen this map yet, but I hope you could also play with scorpion wire to pull people into some pits.

If you really care about your position in leaderboard, play warrior or guardian (mainly guard). With these two classes you can carry games. Team with better guards and warriors wins.

You can beat a warrior as a thief. Of course, you have to put x10 more effort than the warrior, make no mistakes while they can faceroll without many consequences, but it’s still possible.

The only “impossible” class for me is a dps guardian, who can do literally nothing and win. They can stand in black powder for the entire fight, and still destroy you. Maybe some troll condition build might work against them, but condi thief is in general weak.

Dee Jay.2460:

Then you picked Cloaked in Shadows which makes absolutely no sense for a D/P build as the blind is completely redundant.

Cloaked in Shadows is awesome for D/P, because it triggers after you close gap with HS. That means, if your enemy walks away from black powder, because they are smart, you can still jump to them and blind.

@ahuba
As a D/D thief you can deliver a huge burst out of nowhere. If there is another glass cannon on enemy team, and you know how to play, they are going to rage quit. All you need is patience and making good decisions when to jump in. But if your team sucks and don’t provide enough pressure on enemy, you can aswell afk at spawn. This is why this build is so frustrating to play in hot join – you can’t do anything alone, but are very useful to well-organized team.

@Acros.9437
This is anything but exploit. Smart play =/= exploit. We need more things like this in game to separate noobs from good players.

In general we have a lot of trash traits. Half of them could be removed, and nobody would even notice.

Try playing oldschool D/D glass cannon thief. It is still possible to play this build successfully, but you have to really put attention which target to pick. If you pick wrong- you are dead, correctly – instant kill.

You can also finish downed enemies with backstab+heartseeker combo, what is extremly valuable in tournaments, where normal stomping is hard.

You are not supposed to use sword in PvP since 10 dec. Please use another main hand weapon, so we can enter the paradise of build diversity.

PS: Tbh, I don’t know if IR can be nerfed any further. The only possible next nerf would be removing this ability, but some people would consider it a buff.

There is no good explanation why I wouldn’t be able to damage or interrupt with ranged (sometimes even melee) skills a necromancer/ranger/mesmer standing in a cloud of AI. I’ve lost count in how many fights a random pet standing on my way absorbing damage/interrupts cost me a victory.

Thief in Mists has infinite energy, spamming unload and projectiles which have 100% chance to trigger combo field (black powder), what is impossible for a player.

Darnis.4056:

Yes. AoE prioritizes players over AI.. Buffs work the same way..

I remember using pistol whip against a necro surrounded by a cloud of minions. This attack hits up to 3 targets. I had necro selected.

First half of attack, which is a stun, hit necro and stunned him.
Second half, which is a blade flurry, hit 3 minions, leaving him without any harm.

This can be easly repeated in Mists with these crowded training golems standing next to each other.

Remove AoE cap and make all bullets pierce minions/clones. Make traps trigger under minions/clones, but let them recharge on the ground after a few seconds instead of being removed.

Now it is also put into skill queue. It has 0,25 sec cast when you are idle, but if you auto attack or use any other casting skill, it might be increased to 1 sec.

,,Nerfed to oblivion" is a right term here.

jimmyimo.2089:

Could you not simply add a class property “pk” of type boolean into the player struct that would enable any player with the value “true” to attack each other?

Also, since C++ is not a whitespace based language you can theoretically write every thing in one line.

int main( void ) { std::cout << “Yes you can!” << std::endl; std::cin.get( ); return 0; }

If you would be kind enough to turn off address space layout randomization I might actually take the effort to write it for you. :-)

Do you even know how complicated writing code in big corporations is? You can’t just casually write some things here and there, unless you want to be fired.

Also, this would be rather a class, not a struct…

PvP community here is normal, or slightly above averange.

Healing comes from perma regeneration with water fields and blast finishers landed on them, and damage comes from fury with might on demand some other classes possess.

These 45 sec cooldown venoms gives almost no damage (you want to stack 3 minute poison on some random trash mob?), utility (including healing) is laughable, and you have no ways to protect yourself from taking damage.

Also, you waste an utility slot for an ability giving you 3 sec chilled (assuming it hits with all charges, it could be also totally wasted if enemy farts) on 36 sec cooldown, giving you literally nothing – are you serious?

@aLovedhater.4096
Support build would give tons of boons and combo fields to allies, CC, or shields to protect them from taking damage. Venom share is not a support build, it just gives nothing. You contribute your team much better by going full glass for damage, and shadow refuge for some support.

Really, I would love to see some venom build working, but it doesn’t even work on paper…

Venom builds will remain subpar till Devs become serious and do something with them, for example remove venom share and buff all venoms.

But they give no signs of becoming serious about this matter…

Low hp? No problem, press invulnerability button and heal 80% of base hp. Problems again? Just press another uncounterable shield, then deal bullkitten amount of PBAoE. Not to mention the attacker is going to kill themselves on passive retailation boon (80-100% uptime) – sometimes it’s even half of their total damage output.

There is no difference between good and bad DPS guardian… well, maybe bad guardian won’t do map objectives and just run for frags, but that’s all.

This cannot be true. Devs must be playing this game after all.

Number 42 is the answer for all questions.
*
I’ve read a discussion about berserker (power) vs assassin (crit) gear, and people concluded assassin (crit) scales better with food, boons, and traits, resulting in a few % of more dps, but I haven’t tested it, so can’t confirm.

I thought people would go grind their titles now, as they will be no longer obtainable in future. These ranks will be very valuable in next years.

If it’s true, then it will be the only venom which cannot be pre-casted before combat (doesn’t make sense to heal when you are full already).
And probably the only healing spell interrupted by aegis, blind and evades… I hope this venom has some extremly low cooldown, or unique healing effects I don’t know.

Wanze.8410:

Wouldnt everybody do it then?

There should be always cheaper ways than buying items straight from auction house; at least it worked for me in other MMOs.

I have lots of karma and laurels, maybe I could do something with these?

Some dev once posted they have logs who used this exploit, so maybe they would reward fair players in future.

Is there a way to buy some expensive runes (for example divinity or traveler) much cheaper, let’s say for half price or less?

I have similar problems with crashes. Rencently it crashed right after defeating final boss in fractals, what resulted in losing main reward chest…

Another time it crashed 5 minutes after enjoying WvW, where I was waiting half an hour in queue to join…

These things happen frequently after recent patch.

Right now rank gain in solo que is rather about luck than skill, but after a few weeks it will settle down.

However, there are some ways you can play to increase your win/lose ratio.
First of all, play full glass cannon ranged build, and simply snipe people. Noobs won’t even know what hit them till it’s too late. Such fire support is extremly effective.
Second, take advantage of map architecture:
Khylo – go for your team’s trebuchet,
Skyhammer – support mid and cannon, eventually bunker far node if you are good at pushing people into holes,
Spirit watch – ignore orb, cap all possible nodes (noobs usually totally ignore them, it should be easy),
Foefire – move between close and mid,
Forest of Niflhel – camp mid at platform, where melee can’t reach you, and support close when needed.

And remember to ping on map.

This happens when you have auto cast on #1, and use an ability while being already in stealth (signet, shadow refuge, etc.). Not all abilities trigger it like that, but most of them.

Straigth math doesn’t win in PvP, because this is not sustain war. If you have a strategy to hit your target hard with multiple crits, then back off and do it again, you will find ‘assassin’ stats much better than berserker DESPITE FACT that math tells you otherwise.

Why? Because if you are smart, you would notice your ,,pesky heartseeker" failed to crit, and you can react to it by withdrawing to regenerate energy and repeat it. ‘Assassin’ stats gives you much lower chance of failure than ‘berserker’, even if they produce less total damage output. If it wasn’t true, nobody would ever spec into ‘hidden killer’ instead of ‘executioner’, but some people do this.

Just tooltips weren’t affected by this trait, but applied poison duration was extended for sure.