Guild Wars 2

I can’t really answer that in a yes or no.

Overall, the patch is amazing.

But if we’re just talking about the balance patch, I’m pretty disappointed.

Shovel Face.4512:

BlueDragon.7054:

MadRabbit.3179:

BlueDragon.7054:

Dahkeus.8243:

BlueDragon.7054:

Shovel Face.4512:

Update: Ran with all raid buffs plus food and best possible teef dps set. Was able to reach 30k. An Ele friend I brought was able to reach 33k but without food

Which golem were you using for the tests?, Do all the golems have the same thoughness?, I didn´t try them all.

I don´t know if this is good or bad but I was getting like 33k dps in the 1 million golem easily without tryharding the rotations. It can go higher with seaweed salad probably, I was using the +power+ferocity food.

What build?

@ MadRabbit: Yea, you’re right. With that rotation, I’m 31-32k.

The usual staff build, burst 38.7k, sustained like 33.1k. But as I said it can go higher with optimal food and adding full might infusions.

What is your sigil and rune setup?

Air, Force and scholar runes.

I did some more testing and you can get 35k sustained dps consistently with the 1million golem. This time I used seaweed salad. And 43.4k burst damage.

Wow that is impressive. What rotation are you using? And is it ok if you post a video or something? Lol, if not you think you can join me in the DPS room? Would love to see it for myself.

Yea, I’d like to know some more specifics as well. The highest I’ve seen from my personal testing is 33k sustained and that was with seaweed salad using a rotation of AA, bound, and fist flurry. Gear was he same as described.

Phineas…I have no idea what’s gotten you so riled up into your essay responses.

I’m not saying anyone should reroll. My guild would never force anyone to play anything they didn’t want to.

I don’t know how to get this through your head:

This is not about whether you can clear raids with an engi. This is about whether engi does anything better than other classes or has any niche that makes them worth bringing over other classes when all else is equal.

Believe it or not, but there are some people out there who have both a condi engi and another similar class that they like just about as much. There are also people who are trying to decide which of several classes they enjoy will be most worthwhile to invest into for a set of raiding gear.

Lead attacks does nothing for sustain. However, I think you’re talking about sustained damage which isn’t really the issue since thieves typically can’t survive in a fight long enough to do sustained damage anyways.

In the meantime, it’s just a hit to one of the few things thieves do well.

Yea, I’ve played the game since release and I think I can count on one hand how many times I’ve actually ever been hit by a Dragon’s Tooth, rofl!

zcpbwl.7056:

1. mesmer
2. ele
3. revenant
4. druid
5. thief

Thief will be the 5th spot not because thief is good, there is simply no other options.
Games will be decided by mesmers.

I haven’t tried S/D since the changes, but unless there’s something amazing there, I don’t think it’s actually looking that good for thieves.

The lead attack nerfed +1 burst quite a bit since you either miss out on the +15% damage at full ini or you burn ini travelling with inf arrow and then have low ini to use for anything after your initial burst.

And with the condi mesmer kings, it’s not looking for thieves either since the condis wreck thieves and they have a lot of evasion/blocks to avoid burst. It’s not a hard counter since you can still do ok with basi venom, but they’re not nearly as easy to burst as the prevalent necros from S2.

Jekkt.6045:

phokus.8934:

Where was the mass outcry about SoH during season 1? CS+Moa has been in the same state for the past four months but now it’s only talked about because people watch other people stream, take their word as absolute, and refuse to counter that class.

time warp was just way better in s1 because it denied stomps and res with slow/quickness. even if you killed something with moa, it would just get ressed and your moa was gone.

^ This. Moa was still broken back then, but Time Warp was actually more broken with the previous revive/stomp mechanics.

insanemaniac.2456:

Dahkeus.8243:

Ok, now you’re actually touching on some relevant issues…if going a bit into some tangents as well.

It sounds like you’re mentioning burning as a reason to take an engi…and idk, maybe that’s reason enough, at least now that burnzerkers are out of the meta. =P

it is a reason, but is more epidemic dps worth someone else learning the most complicated kit build? its not like epidemic doesnt do its job without burning. epidemic is better yes, but encounters arent tuned to require it, especially because all the burning adds is dps.

without a clear unique role that cant be filled by another class, lfgs will gravitate towards whatever does the most dps once the required mechanics are satisfied.

ive pugged all of spirit vale already this week in < 30 min per boss, and the constant between each group is that they just lfg for eles (aka most dps) once they have other roles covered. but as an outsider, the lfg system wouldnt tell me anything about the group comp and just scares off any non-eles who could fit just fine because eles also have important roles to play.

im not complaining, because obviously ive found a way to clear this content somewhat reliably on my own terms, but i have had to adapt in order to do so. and every time i adapt, i play my engis a little less because theyre harder to fit in. and nerfing slick shoes is an even bigger blow to that.

Yea, I’m not really convinced on burning being that necessary for epidemic to work, but my guild’s just been stacking eles on gorse kills, so we haven’t really relied on epidemic anyways.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Dahkeus.8243:

D/P in PvP
This build heavily relies on jumping into a fight with heavy burst to +1. The longer a fight takes, the less likely you are to contribute much. The Lead Attack basically killed off 15% of the damage on your opening burst only to give it back when it doesn’t matter as much.

The main idea of +1 is the Thief is coming from one node to help out on the other node. So it is presumed that the Thief will use Inf. Arrow and HS to get from node to node, which builds up the Lead Attack buff as soon as the Thief arrives at the destination to +1 a fight. I find it unlikely that the Thief will not have any LA-buff when they arrived to +1 a fight.

Yea, but before, you could use dash to move and save up your ini so that you could do something after the initial burst. If you use Inf arrow up until you engage, you may get the same +15% damage, but then you’ll be struggling to get the ini you need to head shot, shadow shot, or even blinding powder on a downed enemy afterwards.

Either way it’s a nerf.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Lead Attack in PvE
After running dps tests, there doesn’t seem to be any build using the Trickery line that outdpses the current meta staff build. You can get really close to the dps using DA/CS/Tr on double dagger, but your damage drops off heavily in situations where your rotation is interrupted or when you can’t attack from behind and you also lose access to Fist Flurry/Impact Strike.

My PvE build is CS/Acro/DD and to make use of Trick, Acro has to go. Although the damage has improved, I’m more susceptible to CC and I can’t mitigate the damage well due to low endurance so while I’m busy staying alive, I’m not doing DPS.

Acro in PvE?

…yea, I’m not even going to bother replying to this, rofl.

I’ll admit, when I first read about the changes to Lead Attack, I was pretty happy. I mean, it makes sense to get this bonus for using initiative instead of sitting on unused initiative.

However, the change overall is a nerf to PvP D/P builds and it doesn’t lead to any superior PvE builds.

D/P in PvP
This build heavily relies on jumping into a fight with heavy burst to +1. The longer a fight takes, the less likely you are to contribute much. The Lead Attack basically killed off 15% of the damage on your opening burst only to give it back when it doesn’t matter as much.

Lead Attack in PvE
After running dps tests, there doesn’t seem to be any build using the Trickery line that outdpses the current meta staff build. You can get really close to the dps using DA/CS/Tr on double dagger, but your damage drops off heavily in situations where your rotation is interrupted or when you can’t attack from behind and you also lose access to Fist Flurry/Impact Strike.

So really, this change now feels like a nerf. Anyone else in this camp?

Razor.9872:

Just to clarify, is this 30k per second? Or is it based off of a single auto-chain with boosts added? Or is it something akin to 10 seconds?

Here’s how you 30k DPS:
Get a daredevil in decent zerk gear. Set up this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQFA2GVmiFOBOOhFaCbLPNc2TaBgJUEYuCuBHhA-ThRBABXt/o8DPdAmpEEgLAwDPAAKV/RUQZE-e
Use Seaweed Salad as food.

Go to DPS golem. Choose all boons, all profession buffs, and put 25 vuln on golem.

Walk up to golem and autoattack while walking back and forth (for seaweed salad bonus).

To boost that to 32-33k dps, use fist flurry and steal on cooldown while also dodging into the golem.

And yes, this is 30k per second.

insanemaniac.2456:

Phineas Poe.3018:

insanemaniac.2456:

Phineas Poe.3018:

If I’m forming a raid group and someone wants to play engi, and I knew they were competent with it, I’d let then play engi.

When discussing raid roles it should come down to whatever class people feel most comfortable with, and not just what is top tier. That’s what makes smooth fights.

i dont think thats the issue here. i think the issue is that there isnt much point in creating an engi just to have it to fit into a group on the chance that some group is looking for an engi, because a group wont be looking for an engi, theyll be looking unspecifically for a condi or maybe a dps. and the other ones are easier to learn.

multiclassing is a thing. but for multiclassers to play the class, the class has to bring something unique that other classes cant cover. without slick shoes, its slim pickins.

Are you seriously implying that Slick Shoes was really the contributing factor of whether or not someone would roll engineer? Jfc LOL

First of all, there’s far more to this game than raids. Second of all, the engineer is a viable class in every aspect of the game, including PvP and WvW. If that isn’t motivation enough to make one then nothing will be.

My guild has eight-manned raid bosses and has defeated raid bosses with every single profession in attendance. Stop complaining about who does maximum DPS and just get good.

No one wipes on Gorseval because you took an engineer over an elementalist or a thief. You’re wiping on Gorseval because your raid group sucks.

yeah i am.

ive been pugging raids for the last month because i dont have a group. i ask, which do you guys prefer for condi, reaper or engi? when there wasnt an engi already in a gors group, they asked for engi. when there was already a reaper, people fairly often asked for engi because burning. when they said “play what youre better at”, i just played reaper because its easier and does about the same thing, even though im most likely a better engi than reaper.

if i were to strictly lfg as engi all the time and be super inflexible, yes, i could always find a group and play as only engi. but the thing is, i would wait longer and the groups that would ask me to join them arent necessarily great groups, theyre groups looking for an engi.

when i play with flexibility in mind, i invariably find excellent pug groups where everyone knows their roles and is a good player.

so yes, i would not be surprised if some people rolled an engi up just to have it around for when some gors run is looking for an engi.

however, i am most certainly not talking about guild runs or the experience youve had. maybe if your guild was looking to fill up your group every run with just another dps you might feel choosy about who you take. but obviously you arent looking to have an easier time than you already have. i am. im looking for the easiest possible time, because i dont have a big guild or particularly want to deal with the type of people that often get associated with hardcoring content. and that means i need to diversify in order to have a better chance at joining a group that knows what theyre doing and are just missing 1-2 roles.

Ok, now you’re actually touching on some relevant issues…if going a bit into some tangents as well.

It sounds like you’re mentioning burning as a reason to take an engi…and idk, maybe that’s reason enough, at least now that burnzerkers are out of the meta. =P

Loboling.5293:

Dahkeus.8243:

Loboling.5293:

Right now thieves are bringing in close to 30k dps. So the difference is about 10k between ranger and thief, while the thief doesn’t bring any utility (outside stealth), and the ranger is boosting everyone’s damage by about 20%. That is about 5k dps boost for each party member, so I think Ranger damage is fine, so long as they maintain so much support.

Yea, I can hit 30k dps on my thief by just autoattacking with the staff and nothing else, lol.

But a thief won’t bring all the group buffs like spotter, spirits, GotL, etc. and they certainly can’t heal.

However, I’m curious what ranger DPS would be like if pets were able to receive boons too…

No, thief 30k dps includes using weakening charge. I haven’t done the test myself yet, but I will soon, I just saw someone else post it. I think it was like 26k dps with just auto attack.

No, I ran the 30k numbers without weakening charge. You can 100% autoattack for about 30k and it jumps to about 32-33k if you use Fist Flurry, steal, and dodges.

Maybe you did this without food or less than ideal gear?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Dahkeus.8243:

Krag.6210:

Dahkeus.8243:

The engi will have to nail a strong rotation with an enemy that doesn’t walk out of fire fields to get around 26k, whereas the thief just autoattacks and dodges a bit to hit 31k, you’re talking about a 16+% difference in damage that only gets greater when mechanics or user error cause the engi dps to suffer a lot more.

I hope you’re not basing your entire observation on unrealistic numbers.

I’m basing my observations on the relative difference that can be seen through unrealistic numbers. Sure, you won’t hit 30k due to lack of buffs, boss movement, etc., but that doesn’t really matter since DPS is lowered for both engi and thief when those boons are missing.

And as I stated, the less ideal your encounter is, the farther engi falls from the thief’s numbers since they rely a lot more on pulling off an actual rotation.

You say this like people weren’t easily finishing the raid wings with engineers prior to thief buffs.

Just run whatever class you want to. This thread is nonsense.

Dude…you seriously don’t get it, do you?

Yes, you can clear VG with 5 people, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

You don’t need a PS war, but groups will always take one over taking something else if they have the choice.

I don’t know how to get this through your head:
This isn’t about what is needed to clear content. This is about what is best to clear content

I know that the engi class is very near and dear to you. I know you’ve refreshed engi forum threads until your fingers bled ever since the early days of GuildWars2Guru being the big serious community.

That doesn’t change the facts. Groups will make the best choices for a smooth run if they have a choice unless they’re trying to prove something or make a video for something.

I’m sorry the reality is not painting engis in a glowing light right now, but that doesn’t make the point of this discussion irrelevant.

Krag.6210:

Dahkeus.8243:

The engi will have to nail a strong rotation with an enemy that doesn’t walk out of fire fields to get around 26k, whereas the thief just autoattacks and dodges a bit to hit 31k, you’re talking about a 16+% difference in damage that only gets greater when mechanics or user error cause the engi dps to suffer a lot more.

I hope you’re not basing your entire observation on unrealistic numbers.

I’m basing my observations on the relative difference that can be seen through unrealistic numbers. Sure, you won’t hit 30k due to lack of buffs, boss movement, etc., but that doesn’t really matter since DPS is lowered for both engi and thief when those boons are missing.

And as I stated, the less ideal your encounter is, the farther engi falls from the thief’s numbers since they rely a lot more on pulling off an actual rotation.

Furajir.3815:

Nice Try, but we know you work for Anet.

How 2 forum:
1) Be angry.
2) Call anyone you disagree with a fan boy, white knight, or claim they’re secretly working for the company.
3) ???
4) Profit.

=P

Phineas Poe.3018:

People are eight-manning raid content. If anyone thinks a few Ks in DPS makes engi no longer worth bringing you need to polish your mechanics.

It’s not a question of “What class do I need to ensure that the boss dies?”

It’s a question of “What’s the most efficient composition that I can bring to make the fight as smooth as possible?”

If you don’t have a large pool of raiders in your guild or if you’re choosing between one guy who’s great at engi vs someone who’s mediocre on condi necro, then yea, you still want the good player.

But when you have the option of bringing someone who can play multiple classes well or if you have several skilled players as options who play different classes, then this definitely matters.

Also, consider that if you’re looking between a condi engi and a thief, it’s more than just a couple k dps. The engi will have to nail a strong rotation with an enemy that doesn’t walk out of fire fields to get around 26k, whereas the thief just autoattacks and dodges a bit to hit 31k, you’re talking about a 16+% difference in damage that only gets greater when mechanics or user error cause the engi dps to suffer a lot more.

Coconut.7082:

Dahkeus.8243:

Yea, if you’re testing to see how one build/spec compares to another, you should run the following setup:

All boons
All profession buffs
25 vuln on golem
Pop food buffs

If you want to see how a build performs in a less ideal setting compared to how it performs in a perfect setting, then test with the above and test without all the profession buffs or whatever else you want to drop.

I’m really curious to see if anything new comes up for ranger PvE metas. I think it would be awesome if rangers were worth taking outside of healing as druids, but so far, they seem really lackluster. I mean, I can hit 18-19k dps as a PS war or 32k as a staff daredevil, so I would expect that a ranger build should either be bringing lots of support while being competitive with PS dps or closer to the 30k range if some of that support is dropped.

edit – As an example, the person above me cited just shy of 25k dps, but the build doesn’t seem like it would bring any utility to a raid. There’s no spotter, SnR, druid healing, spirits, etc. And in comparison, even a thief can at least bring some strong utility for breakbars.

True, my build doesn’t bring any utility, I just wanted to see how far on DPS I can get with my Ranger/Druid (obviously for that cause I had to remove druid line) and the number is pretty impressive (also, with a small improvement to my setup and if they ever fix the pet not getting buffs bug, I can probably squeeze like 26-27K)

Using a normal condi Druid raid setup you can achieve around 18K+~ (in a perfect environment) ,also if you have another Druid in the squad you don’t have to take Spotter / 2 Spirits, and SnR is only useful in SP (not sure how much though, after nerf).
condi Druid was already very useful for the raids, its just nice to see this small addition on DPS

edit for the person above me: some groups run two condi Druids, and it works better than having one dedicated healer (but only for exp groups)

Yea, it’s definitely not bad for DPS. I’m still not sure on whether you’d want to bring something like this to a raid if you have the option of a condi engi or necro. Between the short range of short bow and the strafing requirement for the bleeds, the practical dps will be pretty heavily hit if the group wants you to cover green circles.

It’d see it as at least a viable option though.

So Pra Mim.2506:

I don’t really get why you are trying to compare numbers on a class whose primary function is ofensive support. If you want to know the true value of the ranger/druid in terms of dps, it would be better to test the dps on a full squad (no ranger boons except those applied during the rotation as they are not 100% uptime for the whole squad) and subtract the dps in the absence of the ranger/druid.

Same principle goes for other classes.

Well, I admit that comparing dps of a support-focused druid to a PS warrior probably doesn’t matter much since the gain from unique buffs will easily justify the spot, no matter how terrible the dps.

However, it’s worth looking at dps to consider whether it’s worthwhile to ever bring more than 1 ranger in a group.

Could a condi ranger be competitive with something like a condi necro or engi on VG? Could there be a high dps ranger build that brings some support to provide a bit more coverage to cover any gaps from just running 1 druid in a raid?

Weren’t slick shoes already nerfed? I thought the change from this patch would make them pretty weak on break bars.

After this last patch, I’m a bit worried about the use of engis in raids. With the nerf to slick shoes, engis lost some of their best utility for fights and I’m left wondering:

Why would a raid want an engi?

I don’t mean this as some melodramatic, sky-is-falling rhetorically charged question. I’m honestly trying to grasp where engis fit in the raid dynamics now and if there’s any build changes that would make them a better choice.

So, here’s my thoughts.

DPS
Engis seem to still do pretty decent dps and the blowtorch change definitely helped. From the basic testing I did, I was able to hit about 26k. I’m sure it’s possible to hit a bit higher with a perfect rotation, but I wouldn’t expect there to be anything massively better. In comparison, the highest dps builds I’ve seen are thieves and eles, who can break 30k.

While engis aren’t at the top, they’re still definitely not at the bottom and they seem to be relatively competitive and above support oriented builds, such as revs and PS wars.

Also, when I tested power builds, they seem to still be well below what a condi build can do. If anyone can break 26k on a power build, I’d be interested to see what was used and how.

Utility
This one is tough, but here’s the utility I see overall:

Condi damage. Since there’s the VG fight that requires condi damage, I’ll consider this utility.

CC. The knockback from FT is definitely handy for the green circle group in VG and engis can also lock down spirits on gorseval pretty well. However, it’s pretty much just average for breakbars now.

Healing. Healing turret is still a nice thing to have for the water field, if nothing major.

The problem I see with utility is that it’s all relatively average and my big concern is that you can just get all the utility you need from filling your raid with higher dps builds.

Anyways, what does everyone else think? Am I missing anything? Anyone found any builds that fare better?

Yea, if you’re testing to see how one build/spec compares to another, you should run the following setup:

All boons
All profession buffs
25 vuln on golem
Pop food buffs

If you want to see how a build performs in a less ideal setting compared to how it performs in a perfect setting, then test with the above and test without all the profession buffs or whatever else you want to drop.

I’m really curious to see if anything new comes up for ranger PvE metas. I think it would be awesome if rangers were worth taking outside of healing as druids, but so far, they seem really lackluster. I mean, I can hit 18-19k dps as a PS war or 32k as a staff daredevil, so I would expect that a ranger build should either be bringing lots of support while being competitive with PS dps or closer to the 30k range if some of that support is dropped.

edit – As an example, the person above me cited just shy of 25k dps, but the build doesn’t seem like it would bring any utility to a raid. There’s no spotter, SnR, druid healing, spirits, etc. And in comparison, even a thief can at least bring some strong utility for breakbars.

Yea, mesmers were probably the easiest class to carry to legendary through solo Q in S2. There’s so much utility and mobility to adapt to whatever matchmaking throws your way and Moas allow your team to get kills, even if your team lacks damage.

It blows me away that there were no nerfs to this build. Hell, even WP admitted that this build was OP after he used it to hit legend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Z3HdvebS4

Loboling.5293:

Right now thieves are bringing in close to 30k dps. So the difference is about 10k between ranger and thief, while the thief doesn’t bring any utility (outside stealth), and the ranger is boosting everyone’s damage by about 20%. That is about 5k dps boost for each party member, so I think Ranger damage is fine, so long as they maintain so much support.

Yea, I can hit 30k dps on my thief by just autoattacking with the staff and nothing else, lol.

But a thief won’t bring all the group buffs like spotter, spirits, GotL, etc. and they certainly can’t heal.

However, I’m curious what ranger DPS would be like if pets were able to receive boons too…

Amaranthe.3578:

Like a rev but much worse

There’s really not much similarity to revs in PvE, even if they share a similar role in PvP.

In PvP, revs are low dps boon-bots. Thieves are some of the highest pure DPS. The biggest thing they have in common is that they both can do a lot to a breakbar, but a thief won’t have to hurt their dps by weapon swapping for that.

BlueDragon.7054:

Shovel Face.4512:

Update: Ran with all raid buffs plus food and best possible teef dps set. Was able to reach 30k. An Ele friend I brought was able to reach 33k but without food

Which golem were you using for the tests?, Do all the golems have the same thoughness?, I didn´t try them all.

I don´t know if this is good or bad but I was getting like 33k dps in the 1 million golem easily without tryharding the rotations. It can go higher with seaweed salad probably, I was using the +power+ferocity food.

What build?

@ MadRabbit: Yea, you’re right. With that rotation, I’m 31-32k.

Honestly, most premades are pretty weak since you’ll generally get matched against teams with 1 or 2 people of your skill level along with their lesser skilled friends.

From a PvE perspective, the biggest buff was the nerf to Slick Shoes on engis. This will probably mean that raids will find break bar utility on other players a lot more useful and this is an area that thieves can perform well on.

Ok, so people need to be a lot clearer with their settings when they post their DPS as a few options can make massive differences.

Anyways, here’s my findings.
Settings:
All boons
All profession buffs
25 vuln on golem
golem <50% hp

Two builds for about 30k on average:

Daredevil Staff
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQFAmEFOxGnYhmw2yTDn9kWAYCFBmrgbwRIA-TxAXgAPKB7V/BY/R5nogyI-e
Rotation: Autoattack and steal on cd

D/D Thief
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAooEFOxGn4gmo255wtneGCdAMhRAA-TBBXgAPKBB2fU+1r+ToeASBMqyI-e
One dagger should be on each weapon set so that you can use weapon swap to fuel initiative through Trickery trait.
Rotation: CnD-Backstab as much as possible, steal on cooldown, weapon swap on cd. Spam HS at low HP.

• Note – Food was seaweed salad. Also, thieves guild would be max dps, but I tested without, assuming that I’d have Impact Strike or Basilisk Venom for break bars. 3rd utility would also be for break bars.

It looks like a Dagger/Dagger build without the Daredevil elite spec can be competitive in an ideal situation, but it’s a bit harder to pull off since you actually have to manage initiative. Both should be roughly equal in break bar utility (Tripwire and Basilisk on thief, Fist Flurry and Impact Strike on DD), but DD is a bit ahead there too.

Ok…but there were changes to skills too. Are you sure the builds you tested are still the max dps builds? You sure that the buffs to short bow/axe don’t change these results?

If there’s anyone that can pull off thief in pro leagues, it’s Sindrener.

Yea, I think this is why the last part of Diamond was so tough to get through. But to be honest…I haven’t played as seriously in ranked games since hitting legendary myself either. Part of that is because I really wanted to try out some different builds in a competitive environment and post-legendary was the chance to do this without losing progress. =/

brannigan.9831:

Much needed changes I could kill it solo on a necro in about 10-20 seconds if I had some life force built up going in.

Yea, I was messing around on condi war and found that I could burst down the lord solo really quickly even with all other guards up. However, I don’t know that I would be able to survive for the stomp afterwards. Depending how the balance patch goes, it may be possible if warriors get some decent sustain buffs…

Yea, it’ll definitely be good for thieves with Impact Strike, especially since you don’t have to really worry about the lord blocking or dodging the hit.

I have a feeling that we’ll see some lord stomps in the plays of the week with this change. Maybe something like a thief starting a shadow step stomp, lord getting ported with SnR by other team, then thief using steal instead of second part of shadow step to complete the stomp before SnR finishes.

Results aren’t surprising at all. There’s still problems with the season, but it was definitely better than S1.

godsie.2864:

Rap Tiger.1257:

Losing division is essential in a competition.

reaper it is very strong and needs nerf, the classes must be better balanced, we see that although it has lost division will only help to know which actually have skills or not to help the team climb division.

Another thing is to lose tier division in all, this is a competitive game and not to do charity for new players, if new players want to play RANKED, you must first learn how to play in unranked.

The S2 problem is the lack of balance with classes, people only need to play all the time to climb division since it can not lose it, and is there tying a few times to climb if that division is not for it is really there .

As has been mentioned already in the thread queue times will escalate to the point that there wont be any matches in the higher divisions people who get there who should not be there just will not play for fear of losing their division so you wont have any “competition”

Dahkeus.8243:

If people can lose divisions, I guarantee you Legendary queue times will be through the roof from people who don’t want to risk losing their division quitting PvP for the season or moving to unranked.

Beat ya to it. =P

But yea, I don’t think people are really considering this impact seriously enough.

You can’t just make changes based on fixing problems of today. You also have to make sure you aren’t creating problems for tomorrow.

Asrat.2645:

Guys…there is no discussion here. Playing multiple thieves is a selfish decision, but telling players what they can and can not play is far worse.
Just because you are right doenst mean you cant be wrong.

False pretenses. Not everyone has a non-thief character to switch to and even if they do, they may not be experienced enough at playing it to outweigh the disadvantage of 2 thieves.

Regardless of how selfish someone is or isn’t it still doesn’t justify raging like a angry rich kid who didn’t get the ipad they wanted for xmas and it doesn’t justify AFKing the game either.

Whether you think someone is selfish or not, just put on your big boy pants and play the game as well as you can.

Varezenem.2813:

Dahkeus.8243:

My advice: Wait and see what the Spring patch next Tuesday does for balance.

The aim is to tone down the power creep from elite specs, so there may be some decent non-HoT builds.

When did they say that?

I don’t have a specific quote, but they’ve acknowledged the problems with HoT’s power creep for a while without specifically calling it that.

Thoth Divine.8642:

What I got from this story: typical average player goes from Ruby to Legendary by switching to Revenant. Duly noted.

/facepalm

Thanks for sharing the story and congrats on Legendary. Lots of good wisdom here.

I don’t think anyone wants to lose a division, but clearly people who got stuck in a higher division than where they should be shouldn’t be forced into games above what they’re skilled for.

Because of this, I think a better solution would be:
Allow players early into a division who are on a losing streak to have their matchmaking treat them as someone in the previous division

Otherwise, you’ll have too many people discouraged from PvPing after attaining their new division.

If people can lose divisions, I guarantee you Legendary queue times will be through the roof from people who don’t want to risk losing their division quitting PvP for the season or moving to unranked.

My advice: Wait and see what the Spring patch next Tuesday does for balance.

The aim is to tone down the power creep from elite specs, so there may be some decent non-HoT builds.

…but it may also do nothing.

But if the cost is a concern, it’s worth waiting to see what happens.

Agreed with OP’s results for the most part. I’d say that there’s a few more that fluctuate a bit.

For example, as D/P thief, I counter invoc revs, but if they run ret, then I’m pretty much at the disadvantage.

And really overall, it felt like this season had the most hard counters for builds I’ve seen in a while. I found that having good characters to swap to made a big difference in success with later division games.

Kageseigi.2150:

Politely

If people could just take a step back and be decent human beings overall, not only would PvP be a lot more pleasant, but games would be much more competitive.

If people could request things without making personal attacks:
– Compromises could be reached instead of rage quits.
– People would be willing to take constructive feedback.
– Players would actually work with each other.

And really…games would be a lot more competitive/rewarding.

Wouldn’t that be a dream…

TIME TO DUST OFF MY RANGER! WOO!

I will miss the leap, but I’ll take the ability to dodge during AA over that any day. This was my #1 complaint about ranger since day 1 and was one of the biggest reasons I quit ranger, even though it was my first character and former main.

Thank you ANet for not giving up on this!

Totally disagree.

If you shorten the seasons, then your legendaries are just the good players that have enough free time to grind out the games before the season ends.

Long seasons allow for good players that can’t play every day to still get the rank they still deserve.

Yea…but if we’re talking about things from the past, you gotta take the bad as well as the good. Don’t let your rosy colored glasses distort reality. Remember:

- Turret engis
– Pistol whip spam
– Afk minion builds

=P

But yea, I do miss some of those things. However, I’d say that D/F eles are really just the new and improved bunker guards. Sorry guardians!

Totally agreed that there’s too much hate. Scrappers are probably the best example due to just how good Defense Shield is, but there’s plenty of other projectile hate and a LOT of it came from HoT.

Rising Dusk.2408:

ButterPeanut.9746:

Vale guardian is another fight where condi thief shines, unless you absolutely need a ranged DPS. It can very easily break his bar every time in the rotation phase which can keep other classes in their max DPS state (Rev not going to staff for example)

One downside is that condition classes generally end in the range group, where the Thief underperforms. Furthermore, venoms can be wasted on seekers if you’re not careful, essentially gutting the class’s DPS. I’ve tried it, though, and I can still get really good phase times on kill runs, so it definitely isn’t bad.

Yea, that’s true. DPS can also fluctuate a lot, depending on the combo field on the boss. If you have staff eles, it’s great for the whirl finishers over a fire field….but if you have a hammer DH, they can bork all that up with their light field, lol.

@ Asrat: The role of +1 is in the pro leagues. It’s just done by revs because they can also contribute more to team fights and can bring unblockable CC.

@ Jana: Sorry for getting the pronouns wrong. Previous post corrected. Also, I think you’re actually agreeing with me. When I said it’s not about whether you can 1 v 1, I was speaking with regards to the OP who said they could 1 v 1 and my argument is that getting caught up in a 1 v 1 that will take a while to win generally isn’t a good idea since thieves don’t have the sustain to sit on a point and keep it contested when an enemy will generally rotate in and turn the 1 v 1 to a 2 v 1 or 2 v 2 at best. Instead, it’s better to let someone else 1 v 1, then utilize thief’s superior mobility to be able to assist and leave without leaving another fight at much of a handicap.

However, I do agree that the thief class should be balanced to be able to handle actual deep combat better since the +1 and decap role isn’t enough right now.