Guild Wars 2

Basically replaces BV with no specified cooldown or cast time, and no number on the health to really know if it’d be worth taking. maybe useful in PvE for the heals, but SoM already does that effect. Higher cooldown than BV or a cast time and it’s junk, lower/same cooldown and no cast time and I see little reason to use BV.

I don’t really know what ANet wants signets to do, so suggesting anything is quite difficult, because especially now the changes to them are extremely disjoint from their original design and don’t have much of a given focus or design. Quad signets is and has been awful, and giving the thief something that has synergy with SoP while not breaking the thief as a whole or not making it totally worthless seems insurmountable without a better definition of what a signet build should be doing.

Zoltreez.6435:

DeceiverX.8361:

mesmer, thief, necro – which have a solid number of active defenses to keep them alive

DeceiverX.8361:

necro – which have a solid number of active defenses to keep them alive

DeceiverX.8361:

necro – solid number of active defenses

Shroud is a potent defensive tool when paired with high toughness and vitality as incoming damage to shroud health is halved and it scales on vitality. It also lacks a cast which means you can activate it even while CC-locked, which most other builds can’t do.

You also have on-demand protection/DR and big defensive gains from Plague Form. I’m sorry but necro/reaper has some great defensive tools.

Shroud is weak because the damage is terrible for power builds/core and it can’t sustain it long enough as a form of damage when building around it. This is mostly an issue with VP/SoS and the decay rate.

I played a ton of glass cannon berserker reaper until last patch and coming from a thief the durability is absolutely insane. I could regularly hold off four or five glass cannon builds for several seconds at a time and usually dive blobs and not die so long as I didn’t dive alone/get focused by all 30 people.

The necro community saying necro doesn’t have good defense are either:
Bad,

and/or

Using Plague Signet into a small-scale condi meta and dying from other peoples’ conditions whilst not cleansing them or before they can generate LF,

and/or

Getting CC-locked by most meta builds while not running stability and calling it a weakness of their sustain instead of rightfully just asking for better stability access,

and/or

Are not running any LF generation/burst LF generation in their builds and wonder why they can’t stay in shroud for a while or why it’s so hard to generate LF when all they have is staff auto and Soul Marks.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

DeceiverX.8361:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Serophous.9085:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Serophous.9085:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Waypoints are faster.
Waypoints might be faster but unless you’re not planning to move away from the waypoints then you’ll need to run from there to where you’re going, or use a mount. And mounts are faster than running. A lot faster.

Mounts make you move twice as fast!

Btw we doubled the distance between locations…

Faster mounts accomplish nothing?

Not really. Those mounts are so fast that crossing from the bottom of the map to the northernmost point we can reach was a very short time. In fact, I was thinking they make that large map seem too small because they cover ground so quickly.

Then they only re-did a problem they were having before. Remember WHY waypoints were becoming more scarce? So dying had impact in a fight. So you couldnt just bull rush a boss with death after death.

So even with the few waypoints in the area, with the mounts, its better to just die, WP, run back with mount than worry bout surviving or rezzing people.

Back to square one

And remember, it’s not just the new expansion maps that will have mounts. It’s all the maps, including all the vanilla maps with their many waypoints.

Goody. That makes the content even more trivial. Any new players wont be able to make it to events in time unless they too buy the expansion.

That’s possible.

Remember I said that I was thinking the mounts are so fast that they make that large map appear small. It could be a problem, for example, with daily events where all the riders can move at super speed to event location and all those without PoF struggle along behind. It’s also a problem if maps now seem too small no matter how big ANet can make them.

I’m not sure what a good solution would be at this time though. They are in game. They can’t be removed, but maybe a nerf to speed is something ANet should consider.

I don’t understand why they couldn’t just give them a static 25% speed boost and call it a day.

No need to constantly stack swiftness on builds which don’t have it (as the new elites probably won’t since HoT’s did) accomplishes easier transportation and the most-demanded part of it all: just the aesthetic of a mount.

I still am not fond of mounts because I think it’s unnecessary clutter and prefer enjoying the scale of the maps rather than just getting past some arbitrary gate to go superspeed.

I’m beginning to think that you’re right. That they should have had the max of +25%

Don’t get me wrong. I love superspeed on the mounts. Watch me race across the map! Watch me speed past all the mobs who don’t have a prayer of catching me! Fun fun fun!

Flying is great for one person but bad for the game as a whole and I’m thinking that superspeed is the same. Great fun for the individual player. But it makes the biggest map tiny and the mobs even more irrelevant since you can sprint past them. Even the Hydra which was trying to firebomb me on my mount couldn’t touch my speed as I went past.

This was (originally) one of the big arguments as to why people, including CJ, were against implementing these kinds of speed boosts; the GW2 team put forth a massive effort to make Tyria have so much detail in its map layout that they didn’t want to trivialize the map content by giving people what roughly equated to non-loading-screen waypoints/fast travel.

And I assure you that I’m not an explorer at all, either – my highest map completion character has less than 50% (I’ve roughly done map completion over all of my characters together) – it’s just that I don’t really see why anything aside from some cool views needs to get gated behind means of transportation. For those who enjoy doing it, we climb mountains on our own feet, often in conditions no vehicle or creature which could do the work for us otherwise can.

Mechanically it also doesn’t set a precedent for map design, either. Expansion 3’s maps are going to need to be big to account for mounts, tall to account for gliders, and so on. That’s a lot of extra work, and the core game ends up feeling dated and too small.

A major issue isn’t so much mounts themselves (visual clutter annoys me personally but of the remaining players, I know this is a minority viewpoint given the anime-style art direction the game has gone in since just before HoT), but rather the effects on their implementation; how they can affect the scale of existing content and make future developments lack the depth and detail that made core GW2 so immersive and excellent. If content is designed to be sped through, it’s going to be designed to allow for lots of skip-ability.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Serophous.9085:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Serophous.9085:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Waypoints are faster.
Waypoints might be faster but unless you’re not planning to move away from the waypoints then you’ll need to run from there to where you’re going, or use a mount. And mounts are faster than running. A lot faster.

Mounts make you move twice as fast!

Btw we doubled the distance between locations…

Faster mounts accomplish nothing?

Not really. Those mounts are so fast that crossing from the bottom of the map to the northernmost point we can reach was a very short time. In fact, I was thinking they make that large map seem too small because they cover ground so quickly.

Then they only re-did a problem they were having before. Remember WHY waypoints were becoming more scarce? So dying had impact in a fight. So you couldnt just bull rush a boss with death after death.

So even with the few waypoints in the area, with the mounts, its better to just die, WP, run back with mount than worry bout surviving or rezzing people.

Back to square one

And remember, it’s not just the new expansion maps that will have mounts. It’s all the maps, including all the vanilla maps with their many waypoints.

Goody. That makes the content even more trivial. Any new players wont be able to make it to events in time unless they too buy the expansion.

That’s possible.

Remember I said that I was thinking the mounts are so fast that they make that large map appear small. It could be a problem, for example, with daily events where all the riders can move at super speed to event location and all those without PoF struggle along behind. It’s also a problem if maps now seem too small no matter how big ANet can make them.

I’m not sure what a good solution would be at this time though. They are in game. They can’t be removed, but maybe a nerf to speed is something ANet should consider.

I don’t understand why they couldn’t just give them a static 25% speed boost and call it a day.

No need to constantly stack swiftness on builds which don’t have it (as the new elites probably won’t since HoT’s did) accomplishes easier transportation and the most-demanded part of it all: just the aesthetic of a mount.

I still am not fond of mounts because I think it’s unnecessary clutter and prefer enjoying the scale of the maps rather than just getting past some arbitrary gate to go superspeed.

Speaking on behalf of others since I know they do not post:

- The vertigo/nausea on mounts needs some kind of tweak or mounts need to not be a gate for progress and exploration. People dry heaving/vomiting over discord in a game they otherwise would really enjoy is NOT good. Really has the potential to destroy communities as it is. This shouldn’t compromise mount controls as they are supposedly spot on otherwise. Non-required for traversing maps (even if they help speed things up a lot) seems like the ideal compromise if a solution isn’t found.

- UID gear is not fun and is quite cost-prohibitive. Cheaper/free or break down by rarity would help fix this. If it doesn’t even come close to breaking even, people just won’t do it, and if the loot as a result is worse, they won’t play the maps in general.

- Major favoring condition builds from mobs with extremely high toughness or power damage resistance. This was bad enough with HoT. If the elite specs are killing these at the same speed across power/conditions, it means your new power builds are OP.

By PvP I refer to all player-versus-player game modes. sPvP is its own thing.

DA can generate fury by using Haste just like you described a CS build would, Baba. I don’t really see how you’re saying DA doesn’t have access to Fury by using an example of a fury-giving utility; it doesn’t make sense to use that argument. You can take Lesser Haste but the fury is shorter and it procs on a back-attack versus on-demand with steal; depending on how and who you fight and where that can mean a lot, and I like to make no assumptions about engage angles for things to work (what if someone else gets the jump on you?), but I digress.

Don’t get me wrong, CS is strong with pistols, and it has been for a while given its damage modifiers and NQ having great synergy with multi-hit channels in midrange fights. I just think the utility is still much more worthwhile on DA than the small potential damage bump in CS on these builds. Mug makes the burst a hell of a lot cleaner, and improv does absolute work in a lot of fights.

Choppy.4183:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

The same could be said of the giant purple beam coming from Mesmer scepter or the scepter block. Both of which are major sources of their damage but people seem to constantly fail to avoid.

I agree on Warrior/Gunflame however, that’s why I said gimmick.

Perhaps I didn’t choose the best example, but what I was trying to illustrate, is that there are a number of power builds that require far less skill management, or even brain power, to be highly rewarded. I’m a terrible Warrior and I murder people all the time with Gunflame because if I catch them with their pants down it’s a 1 shot deal. Count those dodges and bait their defences (cancelling the burst helps) and RIP them. Also works in zergs where as condition Mesmer/Thief, not so much.

At the end of the day it all comes down to the fact that WvW isn’t/isn’t going to be balanced around small scale. Everyone has the power of choice and if they choose to sentence themselves to death by fighting what they’re not prepared to, that’s on them. If they get caught off guard, so be it, it happens to all of us and it shouldn’t be the fault of the skill(s) that caused the fatality. Roaming is about the experience, not about who’s better than who in a game where your opponent can draw scissors when all you have is paper.

I promise I’m not trying to avoid the topic, I just want to clarify how I view this.

You’re not going to get any argument from me on gunflame, at least in group fights where it absolutely allows for a low risk:high reward style of play that I detest. As a warrior main, I often seek out anyone using that build in large fights to punish them for that reason.

Gunflame while roaming or in small scale (or dueling) is fair game though, imo.

As for the mesmer beam of confusion, I’ve never heard anyone complain about it and it’s obviously well telegraphed. But what people typically complain about with condi mesmer is the iterative applications from a seemingly endless supply of clones and phantasms that has, at least in the past, completely overwhelmed clears and dodges, for which power really has no equivalent.

Like I said before though, I’ve not come across particularly overpowered condi mesmers in a while, so maybe that’s not an issue anymore. I find power mesmers way more dangerous now, but still balanced, imo. Coordinating those bursts requires skill, and, conversely, skilled use of defenses can mitigate them. The condi builds most people complain about, not so much.

This is really the big issue with the most problematic of condition builds; not only are they extremely durable in dire/tb, but their sources of damage are seemingly endless. I can play one cleanse per second and still melt in seconds from things like condi thief/mes/reaper just from the sheer volume of different/cover conditions applied. Unlike power shatter mesmer, for example, the condi one just keeps its clones AA’ing for damage, versus the needed timing on the shatter burst during frames of weakness to really seal the deal.

You look at the biggest perpetrators and quickly realize most of the complaints just stem from being unable to beat them out at what should be their counter – ending fights quickly. The condi bomb from a few builds is insane in terms of damage, and given dire/tb they cant be out-paced when weapons, traits and utils are chosen for sustain. Most of these builds come from really squishy base classes – mesmer, thief, necro – which have a solid number of active defenses to keep them alive when being fragile. The dire/tb afterthought sets make them hard to take down from both the stats perspective and skills perspective (invulns, stealth, mobility, shroud).

In power play, skill should be derived from knowing when to apply a lot of very intense pressure and when to alleviate it. In condi play, pressure should be constant and lesser but build over time, and skill should come from knowing when to negate incoming damage and when not to while maintaining that pressure. At the moment, a number of condition builds can constantly apply pressure (and a lot of it) while needing to not pay much attention to their defensive resources nearly as much as they should.

I’m really mixed on it. It’s downright infuriating to corner a group in their own territory when outplaying the heck out of them for them to just jump and reset. It’s basically giving everyone thief mobility potential depending on simply where the fighting takes place. Long-term, I could see this as being an issue where people would only be willing to fight in certain objectives/angles, kind of pseudo-pirate-ship style as a deadlock will be reached for attackers and defenders trying to have each give their advantageous positions. We already see this to a degree on some elevations, but I imagine it’ll get worse over time.

That said, the freedom is nice – being able to quickly move across the spawn areas – particularly in places like hills and red keep – helps people get to the action faster and reduces camping.

It definitely needs a substantial amount of work to cover up the exploits. The timeout for gliding into enemy territory needs to be made a LOT smaller to prevent these issues.

I’d probably say at the very least gliding should not be allowed if within a certain proximity to another enemy player. This prevents major ZvZ issues where defenders just have infinite resets and melee-only kits struggle to maintain pressure in enemy-held territory when fighting other players, but still lets people who do manage a quick disengage to further their escape, while still giving gliding to defenders who manage to open the gap from their attackers a better escape plan than just being hunted down or TP’ing.

I think you’re confusing “cool” with “well-designed.”

Gameplay patterns like what the DE features (long range 1HKO stealth camping) aren’t exactly good for the general health of the game in terms of the competitive scene. It might be cool, but it’s not exactly healthy for what the game should have to make the experience more enjoyable for everyone.

Wolfheart.7483:

DeceiverX.8361:

They clearly only read the unimportant parts of what I wrote.

They catered to the masses instead of looking into good design for balanced and fun gameplay for everyone.

Most of the specs are more of the same.

A lot of the elites just look downright frustrating to play against, as if the PvP wasn’t already getting bad enough…

Your accusation is they catered to the masses instead of designing it for everyone?

First, there is no amount of tweaking and balancing that will make it fun for everyone.

Second, obviously many big additions to the game will attempt to please the “masses” since, by definition, that is the largest part of their player base.

So your complaint is that the are making changes to please a majority of players rather than the niche of players you belong to.

I should have specified they catered to the demands of the masses of the thief community which made elite spec suggestions rather than instead of looking into good design for balanced and fun gameplay for all GW2 players including those not in the thief community to preserve fun and balanced gameplay.

The overall game-state is better off without this kind of design, which is a superset of the thief community, which is also a further superset of the community which thinks the idea is a good idea.

As important as it is to take player feedback into account, just because players want something doesn’t make that something a good idea for the general well-being of the game. This includes in scope what I proposed, but I can say with absolute certainty it’s healthier for the game overall than what the PoF DE will bring.

Whether or not my idea is better or which group I belong in regards to game’s health is irrelevant – I could be just as wrong in my proposal as the sniper concept – it’s that ANet’s choice isn’t aligned with what’s good for the game, and I’m not the only person to voice this concern or have voiced it before the concept was announced.

All it needs is better shroud management and in-combat mobility, particularly the latter of the two. Unfortunately, they nerfed both last patch.

The DPS is low because its access to modifiers is poor. It otherwise does plenty of damage in the PvP formats. I played A/D + GS since reaper was released and never had a problem with the damage in the PvP environments. It’s just you can’t actually kill anyone if they’re all out-running you and spamming invulns in the few cases you finally catch up.

Okay, so you’re operating under the assumption that the weakness uptime is only 9% if the target is constantly attacking you for 21s straight, and yet you criticize my argument on the basis that a target would never attack you for 21s straight.

Those [four] seconds after stealing into melee range to engage in a fight are often what defines if a thief lives or dies in combat. It doesn’t matter what build they play. That weakness enables an engage and a turn-and-burn while leaving your enemy largely incapable of killing you unless they either get lucky on a huge nuke or the thief is downright bad.

The poison application on weapon skills is irrelevant because you’re not trying to trait into permanent weakness.

The weakness on sword AA while permanent is caused via the third hit in the chain. Ask any good S/D thief how often they can manage to keep applying three-hit chains especially when engaging for the first time. Big surprise, but the applied weakness from DA enables the subsequent sword weakness application by cutting enemy dodges and enabling the thief to play more aggressive after a steal application because they’ll be taking less damage if they end up on the receiving end of an attack. You’re not looking at this big-picture. The only kit that doesn’t really benefit from it is P/P because it probably doesn’t want to use steal as a melee engage for any other reason than desperation or for some kind of proc/interrupt. Either way, it still enables a safer disengage into range via taking less damage if struck, and further, PS is a free Body Shot except better which allows better initiative management for further Unloads for more damage while your opponent can’t dodge.

Regarding Mug, go fight a DH or FA ele or M/S Warrior with double Ep/DP or D/x thief utilizing stealth and tell me how much damage you generate in 21s. 15k will nearly kill a Marauder build of three of those, but odds are they’re not going to be within your ability to attack for a majority of that time, either via invulns, blocks, or stealth. You also gain no healing off the warrior while hitting for 0, and you’d need that much damage in a single hit at instant speed to generate the health as quickly as Mug does. Why do I need to keep reiterating to people that PvP is not a DPS race? The heals only end up good if your target stands idle for half the fight or is running a build with a weakness to what you’re running, which isn’t a good basis for comparison because if we’re going to argue that I could justify that the old signet thief was the best build in the game. PvP is not about how much damage you can do but how much damage your target can receive at a given point in time, and how well you can do to manage to budget out your time to cover your frames of weakness.

You’re going to want ToTC for fury unless you run NQ, in which case you’re not taking IP to make US last more than kitten which GM trait are you picking?

I’ve played almost every thief build conceivable, including P/P cleric’s healing on-hit SA venoms which I went undefeated for several weeks in 1v1 tourneys because it could literally facetank anything. I don’t even play shortbow because I played S/D as signet DA/CS/Tr as a primary set. My D/D experience was literally limited to backstab bursts to end fights and killing thieves when I needed the higher attack speed to counter blind; I used S/D for everything else because the rest of D/D is and has been garbage. I talk about D/D a lot because it’s more fun to play and because it’s the worst of every kit due to its inherent design flaws. I’d like to see that changed because flavorful and fun kits shouldn’t be put on the backburner and because I care about the thief as a whole.

CS is in a better place as a standalone damage trait line (as opposed to DA) than it was prior, but there is no contest between it and the utility and burst capability DA offers. It’s extremely strong now in PvE because it works so well in sustained attacking/combat environments, but it’s not as good as DA for PvP unless your opponent doesn’t know how to play.

Druid was completely and totally overpowered and broken, and still can be a a strong pick. It needed those nerfs, not that other specs arent undeserving, either.

Even if they cut the unblockable in half that’s still insane. With the amount of synergy in MMS and the kiting potential on birds the kit still looks bonkers strong.

They clearly only read the unimportant parts of what I wrote.

They catered to the masses instead of looking into good design for balanced and fun gameplay for everyone.

Most of the specs are more of the same.

A lot of the elites just look downright frustrating to play against, as if the PvP wasn’t already getting bad enough…

14 straight seconds of unblockable attacks lol.

I’m sorry but this spec is absolutely insane.

Baba you’re just factually wrong in nearly every single point you just made. So far off in fact it’s a waste to even try and pick apart your post content.

Particularly on the weakness mechanic of “only working 5% of the time.”

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakness

I’m sorry but no, DA has synergy with all power builds and 20s cooldowns are lower than what almost every other profession has and the effects for what they are are almost like having a second set of utilities, while also letting other kits outside of D/X to get some setup time while boasting a huge tactical advantage. Honestly, you shouldn’t even need more than one proc.

Even for IP to heal as much as Mug you’d be needing to push 15k damage which depending on the matchup favors Mug in terms of heals per time. IP might heal more if and when your damage lands, but a power thief shouldn’t be engaged long enough for it to be of much use.

Havoc Mastery offsets the gains from CS if you really want the damage, or take the physical skills trait foe better heals/endurance regen.

There’s a reason every recent power build runs DA for PvP. I’ve been playing DA+CS for five years and know most of my success comes from DA of the two.

Trej, I should clarify I run 20k hp on a thief.

Equivalent build is nearly 30k on a warrior.

Both classes are OP on their condi builds because they can run very durable in terms of stats and have a lotbof defense in their kits, from mobility to stealth to immunities and dodges. The associated risks of the professions are negated by dire/tb. The damage is also high, but comes down to them having a lot of cover condition options or diverse condition damage unlike say burn guard which is easily-cleansed.

It’s funny because “hit and stealth” builds are the ones which are the best options to counter condition builds.

It’ll be gimmicky.
Sniper kits can’t be balanced fairly. It’ll either be overpowered and stupid or just outright weak.

Unless they change the concept it’s a lose-lose for gw2 as a whole imho.

Wargameur.6950:

DeceiverX.8361:

Ping or Instant Reflexes on someone running Acro which is now being played a ton given the buffs to sword. The evade frames on baseline dodge are otherwise identical lol.

Really ? I always thought the tooltip “3/4 sec” dodge indicated a shorter dodge frame….Or it might be because the dodges are longer than the core ones^^ As I was saying before, it’s just an impression. I’m not in the conspirational train here.

I meant between weapon sets, not between core and DrD.

Depends on what you’re trying to do. I’m assuming this is for PvP/WvW as otherwise CS has been meta.

CS has the potential for higher damage per hit, but the question asked is “at what cost?”

The utility from DA is really what makes the kit fantastic. In a PvP setting, Lotus is basically a 50% drop in incoming power damage, you get a heal cut on steal, a passive immob with no cast, a chunky burst and decent heal on steal, and improv allowing cooldown resets on utils and some mean interactions like chaining the stolen necro fear or double-stacking all boons from mesmer.

It’s for that reason CS isn’t really utilized for competitive; you gain some damage which is nice, but ultimately the huge lack of utility and the extra burst from Mug make DA better at everything a thief needs to win a fight in PvP.

Deadeye will be the most annoying if it packs strong burst. I’m not too sure it’ll be the strongest, however. I just see it as an extreme gimmick more than anything.

Otherwise the PoF condi mesmer given its damage, and soulbeast as it’s basically a mobile version of Deadeye if you decide to build it that way.

That’s seriously doubtful. They likely nerfed conditions this patch because most of the PoF elites have huge synergy with conditions; the mesmer’s, ranger’s, necro’s, rev’s, and guard’s new specs all feature condition weapons.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

DeceiverX.8361:

Except for the fact vitality also helps negate the efficacy of power damage based on the same argument about relative health.

you should really try once facing power warrior in all vita, no toughtness build
[point in case – increment on health points means nothing against power builds if there is not enougth toughness to back it up, due to how power-armor ineraction goes]

DeceiverX.8361:

That said, I don’t think the answer is in new stats or build-based counters. Condition damage application, just like boons bust needs to drop down on a number of builds, and in those builds/classes/sets, needs to be consolidated into fewer types of conditions to give cleanses more usability while not affecting much of the outgoing potential damage.

well I agree that there is a need to do something about condis, but it would be as I mentioned not adding new stat that basically duplicates what other one was meant to be doing by design, but by working with conditions themselves – their amounts, amounts of stacks you can apply etc.

what I think should be done would be aimed at going back to the roots of what conditions were meant for – they were supposed to be – as far as I know – sustained damage over time – not a spikey thing that kills you within seconds when setup right with you not having enought purges to deal wit heall of it – spikes should be the domain of crit-based power builds.

DeceiverX.8361:

Or, just remove Dire/TB and the problems largely vanish because people won’t be running tank builds with maximized damage per tick.

And this is totally doable, given ANet’s recent history for making major changes to gear, and how they’ve done the exact same thing when adding in Dire to begin with.

well from what I have seen I’d say problem is not of dire/trailblazer sets on their own – but the problem is that within current situation condi damage is all you need to get your damage efficiency topped on many builds – so you can pull off full condi based spike potential without sacrificing your tankiness while you cannot hope for anything like that when running PTV, be it power, toughtness, vita or precision, toughness vita [does the second one even exist atm in game? would be lovely if it did ]

so the potential “fix” in my opinion should involve bringing back the need of condi duration [expertise?] to condition based builds to top their damage efficiency, while lowering their spike.. it could also require several nerfs to availability of condi cleanses to not ruing viability of condi builds as well.

Needless to say is that I run vit because it works against both sets. Toughness only works on half. 20k hp is 20k hp and it saves me from both power warrior and condi warrior about equally.

Dire/TB is mostly the issue because these builds just don’t die. They’re effectively full-tank.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

DeceiverX.8361:

And this is totally doable, given ANet’s recent history for making major changes to gear, and how they’ve done the exact same thing when adding in Dire to begin with.

That was literally the only time, and only because they removed Magic Find from gear altogether.

Which is what I propose they do. There’s no reason for the sets to exist outside of WvW. PvE optimizes for Viper’s gear and the loadout is deemed too overpowered for sPvP and neither were thus introduced.

Sorry OP, but you can’t be serious if you think the population will increase after the initial hump of people trying out the mode.

Most people buying PoF will be PvE players. Most serious WvW players have zero reason to come back and purchase the next expansion given how obvious the power creep is.

Except for the fact vitality also helps negate the efficacy of power damage based on the same argument about relative health.

That said, I don’t think the answer is in new stats or build-based counters. Condition damage application, just like boons bust needs to drop down on a number of builds, and in those builds/classes/sets, needs to be consolidated into fewer types of conditions to give cleanses more usability while not affecting much of the outgoing potential damage.

Or, just remove Dire/TB and the problems largely vanish because people won’t be running tank builds with maximized damage per tick.

And this is totally doable, given ANet’s recent history for making major changes to gear, and how they’ve done the exact same thing when adding in Dire to begin with.

I’d like to ask how many people have had similar issues with the Bobblehead mode, if they have. Sounds like it might be similar; not motion sickness, but something else that’s kind of odd.

I know the bobblehead april fool’s patch made the game literally unplayable for me – I don’t really get motion sickness and have some some acrobatics in real life to be quite familiar with quick rotations without much issue – but with the bobbleheads I was dry heaving within around two minutes of playing.

I haven’t played any of the PoF content as I don’t have much desire to play the expansion, but this is a huge deal that should be narrowed down for a fix.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

DeceiverX.8361:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

DeceiverX.8361:

Seems like it’ll easily be the most busted spec in the PvP formats lol. The utility and stat power on bears/birds is insane. 12s recharge 1200 dash on birds is better than what thief can do.

LOL as if. It’s good, for sure, but come on.

15s of straight damage immunity and 1200 range disengage + second heal + resist isn’t strong enough for you?

Might not be amazing on a tank build due to a lack of damage but that kind of utility on berserker longbow or hard damage condi is absolutely insane.

You didn’t mention that in your post, you said that a…

12s recharge 1200 dash on birds is better than what thief can do.

…and I was replying to that.

In combat while dealing damage it absolutely is better, though. Thief gets it twice on 50s assuming double shadowstep works both times at a max disengage, and they’ll not have a ranged option with that.

DE can beat this but you’ll kill a DE instantly if you utilize the longbows longer range and RF’s big burst that they won’t really be able to deal with.

The amount of mobility on SB birds is really kitten ed good.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

DeceiverX.8361:

Seems like it’ll easily be the most busted spec in the PvP formats lol. The utility and stat power on bears/birds is insane. 12s recharge 1200 dash on birds is better than what thief can do.

LOL as if. It’s good, for sure, but come on.

15s of straight damage immunity and 1200 range disengage + second heal + resist isn’t strong enough for you?

Might not be amazing on a tank build due to a lack of damage but that kind of utility on berserker longbow or hard damage condi is absolutely insane.

Aside from hard-stop projectiles like pistols and rifle attacks, all projectiles, including mesmer GS auto, surpass their range indicators via physics. In the case of the ranger, when traited with LtW, this usually means roughly 1800.

For example, if you cast Dancing Dagger from a thief (900 range), straight down at a target in a situation where the thief has a huge difference in elevation above its target (say in garrison in WvW) it can travel almost 1700 range before it eventually de-spawns if it doesn’t hit a target sooner.

Any “thrown” attacks that aren’t ground-targeted for example can see range increases by also having your character simply jump while casting the skill, as the arc angle stays the same thus enabling a tad bit further range of the attack as well. Depending on the projectile (I’ll use DDagger again since I’m most familiar with it), you can get an additional 100-200 extra range this way. Ranger lb auto with LtW does despawn very near the 1800 mark, however, so usually the gains are nearly negligible in this regard.

Ping or Instant Reflexes on someone running Acro which is now being played a ton given the buffs to sword. The evade frames on baseline dodge are otherwise identical lol.

Seems like it’ll easily be the most busted spec in the PvP formats lol. The utility and stat power on bears/birds is insane. 12s recharge 1200 dash on birds is better than what thief can do.

Maybe, just maybe, they shouldn’t have gated essential content behind it, so this way they wouldn’t need to break mount mechanics as a fix, and for those who get sick by the organic motion of the mount itself, they could simply opt out of using the mount when taking turns (as seem to be the biggest trigger to the effect).

I can only assume dismounting on NPC is to cull mounts to make NPC’s visible so they can be clicked when a large mass of players is next to one and using the location. Otherwise one could wall off NPC’s entirely with interactive items on the ground like feasts etc. and covering the area with mounts.

GrackFields.7805:

Skills are only split for spvp. Everything else falls under one category.

There was recently a reddit post with over 500 post about how necros suck, basically. I never read much of it because I couldn’t comprehend the arguments being made. A necro catches you off guard in WvW and you can be near insta dead if you don’t have big condi removal at your disposal. Not even your resistance is safe. I think necros have been very strong for a while.

It was about power reaper. They absolutely gutted the shroud-based power build. It’s still easier to shut down than ever and it wasn’t overpowered/was fair strength to begin with. The condi build is untouched regarding WvW for the most part, though it did get hit by the VP nerf in sPvP since dire/tb gear doesn’t exist and they lose shroud just as quick as power. The patch was supposed to make power a lot better since it was already under-performing. Instead they took away its durability, corruption, mobility, consistency, utility options, and nerfed its damage by like 12% lol. That’s why people complained, and it’s still not very good.

babazhook.6805:

DeceiverX.8361:

Base init regen is 1 per second. If you cut the cost to five and extend it baseline to 4s, a thief in SA will gain 5s of base stealth from Meld with Shadows and then regen an additional 1 initiative for being in stealth after 3s.

I find chaining CnD far from impossible against most targets that I’d need to do so with. It’s really just FA eles, thieves from mobility, and DHs from chain block which are tough to chain stealth indefinitely on. Add a stealth utility skill to the mix and it’s not that difficult to do.

So land one and miss the next and you still are down only 4 init.

If it were really so difficult to land CnD, why vouch for a less-consistent and still-costly cost to stealth?

Base INI regen happens whether you are stealthed or not. You do not increase that base regen in stealth. You can not use CND to park stealth as you are still burning off any faster then it coming in and doing little real damage with that CnD.

if you come out of stealth early you get a revealed meaning you can not chain stealth right away in any case. Your camping stealth is a non issue.

The proposal I made does NOT increase ini regen given it does not hit 6 seconds. Whther thief is stealthed or not at range or dodging he will still get base regen.

The reason it harder to land CnD is not so much blocks and dodges, it because you need a target to Ini from and they can drop AOE, This is unlike d/p which can be done at range and stacked consecutively.

I don’t think you are understanding the math behind Meld, base initiative regen, and Rejuv with what you proposed.

I also don’t think you understand how OH dagger works to enable permanent stealth uptime. It can be done without being revealed.

You can also dodge during a good portion of the CnD cast animation and still get the stealth, and as mentioned, you’re going to be hit by the AoE’s regardless, to which if it’s a condi bomb SE will cleanse, or you can just Shadowstep/return into a dodge animation and not get ticked by the AoE even if it’s persistent.

CreedOfGod.9764:

I do like your suggestion of added a second or two of resistance, since that could help with being in the fight, but that would still require the skill to land in the first place of course.

It just seems rather unnecessary. That’s a crazy strong boon to have on what’s effectively no cooldown, or when looking at the Deadeye, revealed could be cleansed twice over, so you could gain multiple seconds of revealed even without boon duration consecutively.

bluri.2653:

What do you think about DB adding aoe blind similar to the one of revenant staff #3 instead of bleeds?

I’m not entirely sure how much this really helps, and again, it gets into the counterplay argument. You end up with no punish frames at the end for CC’ing from a melee combatant, yet the kit ends up still being just as bad if engaged on from a distance where the blind can’t reach and the kit lacks engage save for steal, which depending on the foe may already be on cooldown (fighting staff druid and the likes for example which easily kites out D/D).

I’d be down for it basically being Death’s Charge, though I’d much rather have the evade than the blind :P

Base init regen is 1 per second. If you cut the cost to five and extend it baseline to 4s, a thief in SA will gain 5s of base stealth from Meld with Shadows and then regen an additional 1 initiative for being in stealth after 3s.

I find chaining CnD far from impossible against most targets that I’d need to do so with. It’s really just FA eles, thieves from mobility, and DHs from chain block which are tough to chain stealth indefinitely on. Add a stealth utility skill to the mix and it’s not that difficult to do.

So land one and miss the next and you still are down only 4 init.

If it were really so difficult to land CnD, why vouch for a less-consistent and still-costly cost to stealth?

If you increase the duration of stealth on CnD and decrease the init cost you end up being able to gain initiative camping stealth. That’s not healthy design for the greater part of GW2.

Jana, if your problem is getting hit and needing to “wade through all kinds of AoE and have to get back and forth without having anything but utility skills and steal as a port,” then my suggestion about DB above effectively fixes this and nullifies your claimed need for CiS. SE is already one of the best DoT cleanses in the game because it ignores cover conditions. If you’re having issues there there’s nothing else to say, because most major condi bombs come from multi-hit targeted abilities or a prolonged period of time. Or you’re getting massively zerged down and lack guardians, in which case yeah, you’ll die. So will anything else that isn’t a guardian or running mass resistance that managed to not get stripped or corrupted.

CiS wasn’t a good trait and to be totally honest all it ever did was perpetuate the problems that SA promoted at the time: it was overly-punishing for no apparent reason when you were already in a favorable position and it was basically useless when it wasn’t saving your life. Given the nature of D/D at the start of the fight for most builds, it by default puts you in a favorable position 90% of the time. Quite frankly, I feel kitten ed accomplished when I backstab a stealthed thief, and respect other thieves who are able to do the same back to me. That’s counterplay.

D/D is very obviously less powerful than D/P due to its skills just not having the necessary utility the thief demands to function well while not really gaining anything in respects to damage. It’s not about traits or damage or CiS or anything, but simply that unless the kit has more to offer via mobility and the likes, it just won’t compete.

I’d say SA needs a conceptual overhaul to get it in line with that the profession does, but DE is going to have fantastic synergy with it to really abuse its promoted passive playstyle of camping stealth.

Just saying, if you play correctly, signets wasn’t a one-trick build for WvW (nobody wants the fight presence in sPvP and the damage isn’t worth the investment mathematically there given the inherent need to +1 ss often as possible). It runs a stunbreak, extra init regen, and a 1200 range no cast unblockable AoE blind with one offensive utility. Get rid of shortbow and run S/D as secondary and it can go toe-to-toe with nearly anything but thr cheesiest of cheese. The weak link of the build is and was the OH dagger. D/D as a kit isn’t useful enough to stand on its own.

People who popped four signets for 20 might and dove as glass cannons while making YouTube montages for huge numbers are playing the build stupidly and give it a stigma. It’s why I don’t have videos, Jana. I don’t record every second of my play, and I don’t go trying to make plays to get them on film just to boast about numbers. The real gameplay is reactionary and in the longer fights which you can’t pause to start recording.

D/D needs utility. I don’t think tying it to traits or just making CnD unblockable is the answer, and there’s no good way of adjusting CnD without breaking it unless you either rework the whole skill entirely, or nerf SA more (bad idea) to prevent abuse cases of matchups that do not have counterplay.

Ehhh. SA has been used mostly by P/D since Rending Shade got added since Sneak Attack pretty much guarantees the boon rip, and since the initial acro shakeup, the small pool of players using D/D have primarily gone DA/Acro/DrD as it works nicely for staying alive since most of the weapon skills weren’t exactly heavily-used. It’s also going back to tying specific answers and fixes to weapon sets to traits and trait lines rather than improving core functionality of the weapon itself, which I’m not too keen on, nor are many others.

Persistent unblockable is also devoid of a lot of counterplay. Could pretty much kill power DH by pressing 5 a few times depending on your stats which is kinda silly imho.

It’s a DPS loss. The bonus power is insignificant as CtD offers way more damage than the signet passive when stacked with might etc.

Unless this patch in particular broke D/D hotboxes I’ve only ever heard of you having an issue. Aside from it being my own fault mis-judging distances, I’ve not had CnD fail for no reason in my several thousand hours on the kit.

The enemy may not be standing idle but you will be in stealth. If they cast aegis, pop it with DDagger. If they’re comboing, disengage. There are so many ways to respond which already need to be utilized when playing D/D and always have.

D/P would still play fundamentally differently, and you’re thinking of only using it aggressively like SS and not having the benefit of the evade. Making DB cover a distance would let the kit have access to gap-opening tools as well. Such a skill could be potent as a source of disengage and in-combat mobility which D/D lacks, and is why it’s not used much in anything but PvE. D/P stays a control-oriented, OOC stealth kit with good engage while D/D ends up able to skirmish and move around the fight a lot more in general with intermittent and more frequent access to shorter stealth and untargetability windows with less init costs to need less reasons to reset.

It would finally give D/D a unique style and identity rather than just being a worse version of D/P.

Yeah but CnD could just be re-cast by the end with the whole ordeal costing less than what it does now. Whiffed Stab? Re-cast CnD and the downtime of just sitting in stealth waiting to avoid being revealed is also now lower, too. Two attempts would be a total of four init on a failed stab.

With SA/Rejuv it nets 0 to cast and would last long enough. Anything more than 2s duration and you end up gaining initiative in permastealth with OH dagger if traited for SA, which is obviously busted.

With extra mobility on D/D you’d have a very simple but very initiative-efficient setup with a lot more utility and capacity for consistency without just adding more unblockable damage power creep.

Ramoth.9064:

Sarrs.4831:

Tiresias.6473:

I mean, Reaper Shroud is a build that received ZERO attention, despite all its flaws and middling damage, until it was heavily nerfed two days ago. I struggled to find even a single recent thread about it.

I don’t understand why ANet should stress about keeping a build that isn’t very good intact.

THIS. Camping shroud does less DPS than dagger auto iirc. People are deluding themselves that you should be staying in shroud for as long as possible aside from the fact that it is aesthetically pleasing. Practicality wise its a stupid crutch.

For just DPS, yes. For PvP purposes, “camping” RS was border-line necessary.

The thing is the build wasn’t weak. It was extremely fair and balanced and had the capacity to perform well. It just wasn’t overpowered to be deemed worthy of most optimized play for PvE or facerolly enough for WvW like its condi variant.

Edit: As mentioned below, the VP adjustment still massively cuts durability more than people recognize as well.

D/D power needs DB and CnD changes to be any good.
DB needs its condi moved to other skills and made into a proper gap close/open, and CnD needs its init dropped to 3 and stealth duration dropped to 2s.
Unblockable is sketchy because CnD still has a pretty high coefficient and could pose major issues in respects to not having counterplay.

naturesoul.3578:

DeceiverX.8361:

S/D won’t out-damage dagger or staff and thus won’t be taken for raids. I don’t think people do dungeons anymore. At least not nearly as much as before.

The changes didn’t really change anything for the thief in PvE aside from solo open-world, in which case the profession really never struggled to begin with. CS/DrD/Tr with most things going into stacking might and bonus damage would work fine. There’s not a big precedent for the other lines for open world PvE.

I hate elitist jerk responses like this. Let people play the way they want and stop telling people how they need to gear/spec for a raid. Its meant to be fun not an occupation

This isn’t an elitist response. I don’t even do raids, but I’m simply stating what people are going to say if one tries on S/D. It does less damage with no gain elsewhere in respects to what raid groups want.

Don’t kill the messenger.

Anything works in open world PvE and always has. ANYTHING. If the OP left because S/D wasn’t good enough in open world PvE then he’s going to be no more satisfied now.

mistsim.2748:

sword daredevil just got buffed. it absolutely WRECKS LB builds. and you cant run from them. so imo, this isnt the best for skirmishing.

S/x is easier to run from than D/P. Sword can only chase to 1200 and then it needs to disengage for 1200. LR + GS/Staff and you’re out of there and curing the conditions whereas D/P can just keep re-engaging with Shadow Shot and avoid the longbow damage via stealth.

It’s probably more to do with the removal of Bark Skin that makes the matchup feel worse than it was + unfamiliarity with the kit. Having played aggressive S/D thief for the past four years or so, I find this matchup on the lesser-troubling sides.

You need to time PBS to land it and utilize your own stealth, since IS needs a target. Ancient Seeds is bad because they’ll UC from the immob and most people don’t realize to save the RF because they will dodge as soon as they’re immob’ed just to cleanse it out, so PBS+RF gets negated entirely by not waiting. Wait for them to start trying to close the gap and they just melt.

Krystal.5429:

Everything is about PPT would be great to focus more on PPK.

Well yeah, you win WvW by scoring the points, however method that may come from. Killing usually implies objective-taking.

S/D won’t out-damage dagger or staff and thus won’t be taken for raids. I don’t think people do dungeons anymore. At least not nearly as much as before.

The changes didn’t really change anything for the thief in PvE aside from solo open-world, in which case the profession really never struggled to begin with. CS/DrD/Tr with most things going into stacking might and bonus damage would work fine. There’s not a big precedent for the other lines for open world PvE.

Glider range should be reduced to less than just territory boundaries and they should prevent gliding while in combat. It’s a cute thing to glide out of the DBL keep or out of garri to help leave a well-controlled and elevated zone quickly, but it favors defense way too much and really makes it impossible to safely “trespass” like under/behind enemy hills without getting jumped on by a ton of enemy players.

Really, without a complete and total redesign of the elevations of all of the maps into flat surfaces (which I don’t think is a great idea), gliding isn’t meant for WvW.

I haven’t had many issues dueling with it. Only warriors have really given me issues, but I also picked up my ranger for the first time in close to three years since quitting my thief and reaper from this last patch, so I don’t exactly have a ton of experience with the kit.