Guild Wars 2

Sunflowers.1729:

One possible idea is to have only 3 enormous servers with a much higher population cap, and each of the existing worlds will be bundled into one of these 3. Of course there are problems with this idea, such as map queues and servers losing their community but this is just supposed to give an idea of what they could do. It might not even be possible to implement with the current way GW2 is programmed anyway.

This is kind of how I best see them resolving the problem. Measure weekly metrics like server performance based on a per-server basis (whenever a kill is scored with bloodlust, say, the points increase for that server, and all server scores of the same alliance are just pooled together for display. This isn’t anything too crazy, and pooling the populations together isn’t too crazy, either, since they already do this on EoTM.

Maybe this doesn’t even need to be merge into one huge server, but two or three smaller ones.

Keeping track of other metrics like points scored from objectives vs kills, guild sizes, average player population per server in WvW at a given time (coverage problems resolved), point value, etc., can all be done and thrown into a database each week, where an algorithm tries to create the best match scenarios for the week. And this gets run every week. What this means is opponents are constantly rotating and you’re constantly being paired with new people. It also reinforces server and guild pride: you get friendly competition between servers to be the most outstanding while working towards a common objective, but your only true permanent allies are your server and guild-mates. This also gets rid of the need to adjust tiers by wvw population, so PvE players can enjoy the fun every so often if they want to without being in a ghost town. It also helps keep servers honest by allowing other potential future enemies know if people are hacking, etc. The player counts can also be bumped up per map, and maybe even come HoT, they could give WvW seven maps – the alpine BL’s + Desert BL’s + EBG to help resolve the population issues.

Or perhaps have the base 100 members but with a dynamically-adjusting size limit based upon the number of people queued across each combined server; if red has 22 people queued, blue 19, and green 30, the first 19 for each color can get admitted. It might make things a little too hectic, but this is war, and just imagine the craziness of multiple large blobs covering ground all at the same time, or three or four titanic blobs smashing into each other with streams of reinforcements. A lag-fest, maybe, but totally awesome :P

Just some thoughts. I think it’d definitely be better than the issues we’re facing now, though.

Jana.6831:

(more snipping)

They’re taking SA now because CS is still weaker than DA and SA is still better than CS, and they can put the six points into SA now and get the very potent defensive benefits SA has such as [filter avoidance] SR. Typical PS was 6/0/2/0/6. They already don’t need the gains of CS since the build relies so heavily BP/HS -> stab -> spam 3/1 -> repeat. I admit D/P is less skillful than D/D, but D/D can and always has had better stealth uptime than D/P when played correctly. Getting CnD to land as soon as the stealth effect begins to end will re-trigger stealth before the phase-in animation triggers, allowing for D/D builds to have seamless chain-stealth. Before the removal of Infusion of Shadow, D/D could maintain permanent stealth/max initiative with no use of utilities through the use of CnD alone.

I don’t see how one button is a lot of work to avoid being nuked by conditions. Like really, I’m not understanding where you’re coming from here.

Boon stealing readily exists on S/D and from Bountiful Theft in the Trickery line, but I’m not really sure how it helps with conditions, since resistance will be stolen on the lower-mid end of priority per previous discussion with Karl, and Regeneration really doesn’t do much.

I had 25 might for the damage against an 80 guardian. With signets I engage with 16, so I was only getting an extra 9 off of support. I’m saying SA could provide similar damage to full signets innately without the need to blow utilities.

Again, nothing has really changed with my build. Mathematically, you’re looking at about a 10% increase when taking into account the baseline toughness being added, since I previously stacked almost all of the damage modifiers attainable now (the only differences are PT + LA). Based on a full-burst spec for what you’re seeing now coming from full signet builds, take off 9% and that’s pretty much what I did regularly. There are no other differences.

Not really sure how me being in a group (I wasn’t in the screenshot as I shared it with a friend of mine on facebook who is one of the people I would have been running with, but posting that would be a little weird) would affect things unless someone is playing support or that the 9 might really matters. I got the might from a pug guard next to me IIRC who was buffing up as we were fighting outnumbered.

But I’m not really sure how your build qualifies as a roaming one and mine does not (spawn camping with my build is an awful idea due to the cooldowns). Since my friends live in timezones well behind mine and work nights, most of my WvW play is solo or just alongside random people. Again, this is surviving encounters in what I believe is skilled play rather than depending on traits or mechanics to keep me afloat. Do recall I’ve mentioned multiple times the damage I deal does not come from skilled play – it’s the surviving that’s where I get my definition, and as a primarily solo player as well, I disagree with your claims that SA was in any way necessary to survive. That’s why I label the trait line poorly. Also recall that your initial complaint in the the thread was about burst damage being too high since the patch, and that it’s difficult to play against it, and that my initial response was that high-end burst largely hasn’t changed, and that those who have played builds using it are merely accustomed to different counter-play strategies. Those who didn’t are in a skill vacuum right now because they don’t know how to deal with this type of play. It’s not that SA players are inherently less-skilled or always will be, but it’s that without pushing the envelope, they’ll fall behind in the event something that allowed for mistakes to be made gets nerfed/changed, or the meta changes (as it has now), they’re in a situation where they are simply not up to par at handling the employed strategies in a skillful way like those who have learned to master countering said strategies out of necessity with a lot of time and effort.

If I’m coming across as gloating, my apologies, but I can only attempt to prove that what I’m saying has merit (so that you will believe me) by trying to identify facts (screenshots, community interest in my proven results) which have occurred and that I am not just some idiot pretending and wasting your time.

Jayne.9251:

DeceiverX.8361:

Realistically speaking a thief isn’t gonna stealth a blob, either. That’d take simultaneous blasts on a single BP across the entire blob while all standing on the same location every few seconds.

Even renowned guild groups like Agg and EP are not so tight and coordinated to make this work, otherwise they’d have done so for a really long time.

Lol you haven’t played vs Kodash

My second day on EU (two years ago), scouting Klovan, I see three Kodash appear and watch very, very closely. Suddenly a previously entirely invisible blob of 20 appeared at the front gate, with six golems. All thieves did it. Was jaw dropping. Knew then that I loved EU WvW, lol.

I should have specified: “Realistically speaking, a single thief isn’t gonna stealth a blob.”

A couple certainly can with good smaller-scale coordination and spread BP’s to cover everyone. Golems might actually make it easier due to their slower movespeed keeping everyone grouped better. But as mentioned, multiple mesmers can also do this.

Props to them, though. Don’t see plays like that much on NA. If EU wasn’t a lag-fest, I’d love to try playing there since their WvW community is a lot more solid than NA’s it seems.

I think it’s intended to be kind of low, though. While I agree PS missions should probably have better ways of handling brief disconnects, long timeout handlers can create a lot of issues:

Injected lag – A hack a lot of PvP players will use in other games with long-duration disconnect handlers as a means of getting their characters to jitter and teleport around the map, making it very difficult for others to read their movements or locate them.

sPvP/HotJoin – while perhaps a decent idea for tPvP, it’d be really frustrating in a close game of sPvP to lose a member and have to wait a full minute or two as a 4v5 before getting a replacement. It sucks for the person D/C’ing, but it’s unfair for the rest of the team.

So to really help adjust this, you’re looking at a lot of overhead to keep track of the different zones and generate different timers and whatnot. I feel like on a huge scale this could be technically difficult or cost-prohibitive.

Realistically speaking a thief isn’t gonna stealth a blob, either. That’d take simultaneous blasts on a single BP across the entire blob while all standing on the same location every few seconds.

Even renowned guild groups like Agg and EP are not so tight and coordinated to make this work, otherwise they’d have done so for a really long time.

I don’t get it, either. It’s a really stupid place to duel. I interrupted one once where one of the guys on the opposite server was a member of one of the blobbing guilds, and they just proceeded to stop taking objectives and spawn-camp and zerg me for interrupting a fight. Apparently not apologizing and telling them to go somewhere else that isn’t as out in the open is so impolite it warrants stupid amounts of retaliation and a vendetta against the person who thought they were saving/helping a server ally.

For those who really like to duel and don’t want to be interrupted: Either go to OS, or if you absolutely must duel in EBG, do it behind Bravost, since nobody ever goes down there and it offers no strategic advantage for sieging.

For an 18k burst:

1.) You got hit by a full glass-cannon thief that runs no utility skills, no defense, extra might, and no condition cleansing which caught you off guard (nothing really new, I’ve been hitting 20k+ since even the ferocity nerf patch).

2.) You got hit by a glass cannon warrior or guardian using one of their major bombs (Eviscerate or Shield of Wrath explosion (18k is nothing new here, either).

3.) Burning shenanigans from multiple people (guards and eles can stack 10k AoE burning tickseach in under six seconds), which is overpowered as a whole but you stood in place (expect this to be nerfed soon enough as it’s known as an issue by ANet).

4.) You got hit by a glass cannon mesmer going all-in with some supported might stacks (same deal as above in that it’s really not anything new).

5.) A glass cannon Engineer is abusing the bugged grenade kit which currently deals double damage, which again, is a bug.

6.) A Necro hit you while under the effects of Lich Form with supported might stacks (again, nothing new, as LF autos have one of the highest damage coefficients of all skills in the game)

7.) A glass cannon ranger pulled out all the stops and used Rapid Fire on you with supported might stacks (again, nothing new).

Jana.6831:

You yourself said that SA was ridiculously overpowered and that everybody who uses it is a bad thief. And that not only once but everytime someone spoke about it.
SE is already nerfed.
The recent changes are to blame because your screenshot was from someone who was upleveled, had 25 stacks of vulnerability and wore no clothes. The usual backstab was 7,5 k before the patch, maybe 13k if the “victim” was upleveled/had vulnerability, was nearly downed or running an unfortunate build. So, try your backstab under the same conditions now again and then we can talk?
And I actually don’t care what you think makes a bad thief – all other lines had/have way more utility which mostly relied on steal, so all you needed to do and all you need to do right now is to “spam” steal – and I don’t know if that is more skillful.

Edit: Grammar/typos

I did. It’s nerfed, and now works as a trait line people are putting on equal terms with the rest of the trait lines (sans acro) as to its effectiveness, instead of being an instant-pick.

There are a few things wrong with your statement:

SE got nerfed as general cleansing and buffed as a DoT cleanse. I don’t endorse the 3s wait on cleanse on entering stealth; it might be a bug? Not sure. Now instead of cleansing 3 stacks of vuln instead of 14 stacks of bleeding, it’ll cleanse the bleeding. It doesn’t save you from an immob + bomb combo during your stealth, but that’s what withdraw, Shadow Shot, Infil Return, IS to another target, Shadowstep, and Shadow Return are for. Using HiS and/or any/all of those on cooldown? Welp, you just got successfully combo’d like how BV combos CnD/stab after you force a stunbreak from your opponent.

That screenshot was on an 80 guardian. I remember because that was my frst 20k+ stab after the changes to Assassin’s Signet. A glass cannon build, but a guardian nonetheless. Not sure if you’re seeing the damage log extending fairly far back (the fight went on for a bit more), but if I were able to have screened the target and not died, maybe I’d have better proof for you. And no, my damage has barely changed since the patch. I ran a 100% critical hit on stab build with executioner before the patch using a sigil of intelligence build. I had 25 might from an ally nearby stacking it and combined from the 16 I stack myself. The vuln would be at 3 stacks from CnD. I have my old build posted on the “Post your thief build” thread with the proof of concept spelled out exactly. With changes to toughness baseline, my damage has remained basically identical, if not gotten a little lower since glassier specs are now inherently tankier than before. You’re honestly talking out of your butt to make claims that everyone’ backstabs were 7k before the changes. I’m sorry you never got the chance to fight me in WvW; if you did, you’d understand that my damage actually was this high and that there’s a reason people ask me for help and with build advice because they have seen my damage firsthand. I’m not even sure by what you mean of trying “under the same conditions now.” I have. That’s how I’ve verified on a lot of targets my damage has gone down in most cases. Lead Attacks and PT have given some bonus modifiers only to pure glass targets not running defensive gear or some mitigation traits, which a lot of players are doing now to offset the loss of defensive stats and gains in offensive ones.

Okay.

DA yes does have more on-proc effects than SA. This has nothing to do with skilled or passive play, though, and is more punishing for failing a steal, no? I’m certainly not seeing thieves only apply pressure with steal (that’s actually done best by perma-stealth SA/Trickery condi builds, but is still an ineffective way to play). Again, it’s not about the damage as I mentioned, but the aftermath if your opponent is any good, or conversely, if you get jumped or caught off guard. SA allowed for mistakes to be made and go unpunished rather easily. That’s where I draw the basis of determining what defines skilled play. And now that we’re in situations where players are being punished harder for making mistakes, and the effectiveness of the forgiveness of the trait line has been reduced, we’re seeing who’s been getting carried by it and who hasn’t.

Which is why I told people not to use it to begin with, because come nerfs or changes, it will be very difficult to re-learn the basis again and break habits that will get you killed that used to not.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

… (snipped for length) …

1.) It’s a blessing and a curse. Some rather unpopular/weaker variants like D/D signet stab got buffed into potential viability (which I’m happy about), but for the most part, this only really helped the strongest builds stay the strongest ones and maintain effectiveness in relation to the rest of the classes. P/P got turned into a semi-condi build, but honestly, torment is way too weak with what burning is like at the moment to be worthwhile, and P/P lacks good control condition options aside from spamming 5 to blind, in which case it’s not doing any damage.

2.) Frankly, I don’t mind a lot of what happened to crit strikes. Some of the new traits are pretty interesting. My big gripe with the changes, however, was the change to Practiced Tolerance. That extra vitality is really needed at this point, especially since damage is up so much, and condi potency is absolutely crazy now. While not so much an issue in sPvP with Marauder being a very good amulet choice for CS builds, this was a hugely negative WvW change, especially with the removal of Applied Fortitude happening soon; the removal of AF and Practiced Tolerance will cut thief health pools down by around 40%, which is huge.

3.) S/D isn’t “dead.” The kit on the weapon set is still good. The problem is that acrobatics is just straight awful and doesn’t really support evasive play, and Flanking strike forces its way into Larcenous on connection, creating scenarios where a double dodge is really necessary but not possible from the terrible vigor changes/effective removal of Feline Grace, so actually getting those evades off is way more difficult to do than it should be. I agree with most of the other posters that the changes to Guarded Initiation were really bad in that it should apply resistance – nothing about Acrobatics really feels defensive or impactful – a lot of the gains are just simply worse alternatives to what other lines offer. I feel like P/D power builds running DA/SA/Trickery are better evasive builds by spamming 3 than most S/D builds. There really just aren’t enough evades or any damage to compensate.

4.) Dagger Training is a cool concept, and while on paper, better than Mug for DPS on a D/D build, is a bit weak. Potent Poison is just too weak, especially with the nerfs to SB4 and already low duration on Dagger Training. Pressure striking is cool, and makes for what probably could have been a viable P/P build before the changes, but feels again a little too weak, and rewards spamming 4 on P/P rather than creating more engaging play. I think conceptually there are some good ideas to try and spread conditions to other sets beyond P/D, but those options feel a little bit weak right now, especially with everyone and their mother running mass cleanses due to the obvious overpoweredness of the burning condition.

5.) Seeing as I play a burst build, Executioner. If all of the stolen bundles were maybe as good as those from guard/ranger/mes, it might be a consideration, but when fighting an engi/ele/war, sometimes the trait feels like a liability, especially against their respective classes (gunk works reasonably against engineers, but not as well as say, CC or boons). I thought the initial description of incoming thief changes was that all stolen bundles were going to be changed, and hoped for some improvements on these.

6.) Dagger Storm is still going to be situational. It’s weak on power builds except maybe against pve zergs of trash mobs/groups of ranged enemies, and only provides useful utility against a few classes or builds, while maintaining a fairly long cooldown, and can be suicide if against say, a mesmer unloading tons of confusion on you. Thieves guild is just terrible and always will be unless used by some guy with a DPS venom build in a duel where his allied players won’t be there to get shared venoms (so basically, never). AI companions are pretty much always bad and for the most part not well-received (see ranger) by players outside of open-world PvE. This is especially apparent when it’s competing for an elite skill slot, and is further competing against what I believe is one of the best elites in the game: BV (which is obviously one of the most potent aspects of venom builds which competes for this skill slot). Even on a 60s base cooldown and made into a regular utility skill, I don’t see this getting played much. AI is too finnicky and in most cases just flat-out useless to warrant much use anywhere. The thief being as squishy as it is, and so setup-oriented for damage makes BV an obvious if not necessary choice to make a lot of builds functional or comparably functional to the rest of the classes.

Jana.6831:

I really don’t get what your mission is – destroying thieves, demanding that all defenses they have go down the drain because you redeem it “skilless play”?
It’s great if you were a one trick pony, but most of us weren’t but we can’t do anything else right now, no matter what we do.

And btw I didn’t ask anyone to stand around, eat my 25 stacks of vulnerability and then take a backstab. So I can make a screenshot to show the world how skilled I am.

If I wanted to destroy thieves, I would ask for the removal of traits like HK and SE, increased revealed debuff use throughout other classes, reduced damage, and wouldn’t be advocating for better general condition cleansing, better revealed mechanic use, and/or more base health as I have done for a very long time.

What I do disagree with is the notion that thieves are terrible without spamming stealth and playing passively with extremely high defensive mechanics and just resetting fights until they get it right. I am one for rewarding skilled play, which is why I continue to play signets and let myself get struck and engaged upon and still win fights which you claim you are losing due to inherent disadvantages. If this was a class or design problem, then people already adjusted to what’s being played a lot wouldn’t be doing fine. This is a change of pace that people aren’t used to because for the past three years they’ve gotten away with playing passively and letting mechanics cover up mistakes.

I said I’ve stabbed higher because people are making some kind of claims like the recent changes are to blame for such high damage; they’re not. The damage has always been there, it’s just that people now have the option to spec 6 deep into DA/CS/Trickery and as such they’re getting all of the utility benefits of PS/Trickery builds with the damage of DA/CS builds. SA perma-stealth might-stack builds got nerfed on the basis that it was unfun and made P/D a little bit too strong and the trait line too rewarding in terms of its damage dealt and overall defensive power for playing passively. So SA players are now thrown into either playing more aggressively for their damage, or are going to hit for less and still be squishy in full berserker gear because they’re down 300 toughness and probably haven’t compensated for it in their gear, not to mention the general nerfs to precision have caused an ultimatum among berserker-built players.

I’m still supportive of reverting PT back to precision -> vitality as a means of bolstering our durability (notably against conditions), especially come the removal of Applied Fortitude, but members of the thief community appear to defend the changes made here.

I want to re-iterate that my screenshot means nothing about my personal competence but is purely an indicator that crazy damage is nothing new, and that the players which have previously played builds which function to deal such damage are at no losses and are performing just as well or better relative to most of the other thieves out there which relied on SA for damage from stacking might or recovering health from making mistakes. I’ve always stood by my claims that SA builds lower the effective skill ceiling for the thief, and that most of the thieves I’ve mentored have agreed they’ve gotten better as thieves and players by dropping out of the trait line. With the reduced potency of the line and changes to how many builds are being played, we’re seeing my claims prove true. Claims of skill do not come from my damage logs. Those are stats doing the work. Surviving encounters, which is apparently what has become difficult, is what defines skilled play, which is where I make my claims about how letting opposing thieves engage first and them still dying is where this is a player skill discrepancy.

This isn’t anything new (notice the old trait system).

It’s the highest I’ve gotten recorded, however I’ve gone to 26k pre-patch. I’m not counting uplevels.

People seem to just be totally clueless that things like signet stab have always dealt crazy high damage. That video above is very far from all-in, either, and its stabs are far from optimized for damage. I think its just because so many other people are now roaming with glass cannon builds due to buffs to DPS setups, and have now innately lower toughness/hp from the loss from trait stat points, they’re finally realizing what it’s like to be playing a true glass cannon.

To put things into perspective on the flip side, I dueled a warrior which whirled me for 13k and arcing sliced me for another 10k.

Jana.6831:

Nate.3927:

Also full glass thieves have always been able nearly one shot even tankier builds if they can get the jump on them, so no real change there. I mean prior to the trait changes, I’ve had my full PVT guard get insta-downed by a full glass thief with max stacks and boons because he took me by surprise.

I am a full glass thief and I couldn’t insta down people. But I wasn’t specced to one shot anyway, so in theory it would’ve been possible, the reality was different- you had fights, now it’s just burst burst burst “saw first, hit first = win”.
I’m done with wvw for now.

And that’s why. This is my stab pre-patch.
With baseline toughness going up, it’s actually become more difficult to achieve these types of stabs. Most of mine are falling in the 15k zone, which is around average/low of what I did before the patch.

Frankly, this is a matter of learning skilled play and using better-optimized defenses. With the number of all-in thieves on the rise, I find myself letting them engage and blow cooldowns/initiative and just retaliating and killing them after they’ve burned everything. A lot of thieves appear to be not used to handling builds involving high levels of burst or being hit back without high toughness and SR recovering all of their health.

I find the condi changes much more difficult to deal with just because the pressure from burning is so obscene right now. Full dire guards playing extremely passively/defensively and getting huge constant burning stacks is imho over-difficult to deal with. Everyone should have seen OP engineer coming, and the bugs are not helping either.

phys.7689:

Vesuvius.9874:

phys.7689:

People need to stop talking about condition duration like its a comparable stat. Condition duration isnt available on armor or accesories. The game is not built with condi duration as a primary or secondary stat.

They have moved even further away from it being a stat.

Point is you cant run condi duration in armor/accesories even if you want to. Which means for a max condi build you have an almost Complete secondary stats worth of another stat.

Essentially you get more for less investment

Wrong. Just like you need more precision to land more crits, you need more condi duration to maintain the stacks of condis you apply. Working hard to add a stack of condis that don’t last long is as dumb as running a power build without precision.

It doesnt matter. Because you cant actually get gear with condi dur on it.
The highest condi dmg build does not have condi dur on any armor or accesories.

This means it has extra stats left over and is still high dps.

Someone finally gets it.

Conditions need lower base durations and scaling and need a three-stat system for DPS builds like power builds to be comparable. I have no issue with sinister gear dealing damage like berserker’s. It’s just that dire gear dealing such damage (and it does) is absurd and makes no sense.

Burning as it stands is factually overpowered. A huge reduction in application and scaling is necessary and would probably solve a lot of issues, though.

Kendra Nightwind.8734:

Of all the things promised to be in Guild Wars 2 when it shipped; an x64 client was not one of them. What was promised, but we still don’t have nor will ANet even acknowledge, is DX10 support.
I was there when she (Gaile Gray) was asked about both DX 10 and a 64 bit client. She confirmed that Guild Wars 2 would support DX10, but she did not know anything about if there was going to be a 64 bit client.
It irks me no end that we are stuck with DX9c and even worse that we are stuck with a 32 bit (x86) client that won’t even distribute itself (some what) evenly across all available cores.. Shoot, even Guild Wars would take advantage of multi-core systems better than Guild Wars 2 does.

The original post itself was necroed recently by by Gaile when called out: No promise was made. What ANet did promise early on was an attempt to create a DX10 client. It was made, but it was extremely buggy and unfamiliar to most of the developers working with it, and had several major issues, so they stopped supporting development.

They fulfilled their end of the bargain, but I believe it’s something that should really be considered. They could do a lot more with the game by opening these doors up and ultimately just improve performance across the board. The game itself is already very well-optimized for the platform it runs on. Imagine the glory of it on a DX12 64-bit client O.O

14C? That’s spring/summer weather lol.

Where I’m from, -22C is proper scarf weather.

I don’t get the scarf thing, either, though. But I do like my hoods and face masks.

Conditions ignore armor and most immunity effects, so it’s very likely due to some condition builds having better DPS against low-armor targets than even full-might berserker builds. A lot of damage overall has just increased and more people are playing more aggressively.

I’d say the biggest thing you’re probably doing wrong is trying to fight them because they’re going to win with access to dire gear.

Silverkey.2078:

@Phantom I don’t understand your point.

Hhe’s saying condi builds as a whole are extremely safe and really easy to play with very high reward. This goes along with the whole defensive stat thing, though.

Which is pretty much true. I played P/D dire once with my face (literally, head on keyboard) and still won a large number of the fights I participated in, including some re-matches which Iost initially playing D/D stab which I’ve got a few thousand hours dumped into mastering.

I’m not sure what the stat combination should be, but it definitely shouldn’t be huge damage + two defensive stats.

owlslovetrees.4051:

Snipped for length

True, and you raise some really good points. But then one has to question what “good timing” is. With such a matter, is there really such a thing. Does waiting to implement such characters after such cultural shifts imply any more organic implementations versus them just existing as they are? One could argue that the cultural shift occurring now has got a lot of people thinking, informed, and generally more supportive, whereas presenting this too early in such a “revolutionary” period (so to call it) creates a lot of conflict, and doing so too late gets a lot of “..and?” emotions, where players may feel as though it’s forced and not relevant or making to big of a deal of something that’s seen everyday. I think that’s why the reaction to the Sylvari love-cluster-thing and KasJory are kind of negative – we’ve hit the point socially where that relationship isn’t really unique but there’s a lot of emphasis in the writing on trying to make it feel kind of foreign and culturally different (in a largely positive way).

The use of ‘brave’ (if it’s a corny token from the media, I don’t really read much about Caitlyn to know), may be heavy-handed, but it is a fitting and more touching word when coming from the hands of great dragon-slayers.

I give ANet a thumbs-up, though. I’m not going to go marching in a pride parade because that pride isn’t mine to be had (it belongs to the LGBTQ community), but I support the notions. What I support from ANet largely though is the implementation of hot topics in the real world. Getting people to think and relate is something I think is really good writing from a thematic standpoint and more intriguing than English-professor-“good”-writing-dialogue. I try to do this as much as possible in D&D groups I run, by forcing the players to deal with an awkwardly real world with stark parallels to thought-provoking topics in history and the current day. They seem to be tortured by it in that the universe isn’t happy-unicorns-fantasy-land and they as people are constantly challenged, but they keep coming back for more. The way I see it, the more profound the world, the more interesting it’s lore is. The same old fantasy wars and kingdoms get fairly old fairly quick, in my book.

Ithilwen.1529:

I think a lot of this is sour grapes. The zerk gravy train has been running for a long time. It’s refreshing as hell to finally be a factor as a condi Mesmer after years of struggling with being over nerfed.

This is something I’ve waited a very long time to say to the zerk warriors and rangers; LEARN TO PLAY.

I say the same exact thing to most dire condition builds who claim they’re weak when they’re statistically the strongest builds in the game and have been in WvW, with similarly-durable setups achieving similar damage : durability : ease of use measures in the past.

I’m sorry that scepter AA PU stealth mesmer in dire gear wasn’t a tier 1 PvE boss kill build. I’m sorry the mesmer’s weakness has come from inherent design flaws with the formats it’s weak in and bugs which have created a lot of problematic issues.

But there’s zero justification behind this ridiculous condi build damage coming out of builds that are quite literally face-roll easy. I have played and won fights using my face on the keyboard with a variety of dire condi builds even before the patch. For the damage to be so absurd as it is now is cringe-worthy, and anyone claiming that the damage is justified “because berserker gear was ‘meta’ for too long” is frankly clueless and only looking at the game through a competition-level PvE dungeon speed clear scope, which only a small minority of active players participate in. Those trying to justify the current state of conditions are strictly a terrible and selfish players with no knowledge or willingness to look at the rest of the game or consider any other players’ perspectives or the absolutely game-breaking issues caused by the changes.

Ithilwen.1529:

It absolutely disgusts me that ANET targeted Mesmer for an insta nerf. Finally I start to have some success and the first thing you do is crush it.

I fully expected that ANET will nerf Mesmer back to uselessness within days and destroy confusion. STOP NERFING MESMER.

I have have heard devs repeatedly complain about the zerk meta. The strong condi is an excellent solution. Let it ride.

Please stop hounding Mesmer, I’m finally having some fun with it after waiting for years.

This post is all sorts of misinformed I don’t even know how to respond except for

LOL.

Rezzet.3614:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Zerk takes 3 stats, Power, Precision and Ferocity to do damage, Condi takes only 1 and it ignores armor.

why do ppl that blindly scream for condi buffs ignore that part?

this

Yup.

Want condition damage buffs? Ask for a three-stat split. There’s zero reason 3k armor and 26k hp should deal better DPS, burst damage, and CC than a build with 2k armor and 14k with none of that.

It depends on how you’re playing and how you’re building. With some kind of Shadow Arts/general stealth build, or panic strike, valkyrie is seen more as a hindrance. On a D/D backstab build, it can be optimal.

Just recall that you cannot wear two of the same named ascended accessories, so no wearing two Rings of Red Death unles one of them is infused via the infusion process (not just socketed with infusions).

I run a full valkyrie build with a berserker helmet as a signet D/D stab build, but I also often put myself in risky situations where the bonus HP is pretty much necessary. I’d say zerk/valk mix on accessories and just make whatever armor you want for now. You’ll be able to change the stats on ascended weapons/armor starting the next patch at the cost of removing infusions and runes, so if it really doesn’t work out or you don’t like a full valkyrie setup, you can switch later to whatever mix you want.

Ascended accessories are basically free, though. 10 days of fractals and a few runs of guild missions will get you there, or via laurels + badges of honor from the WvW merchant at a discounted rate. They’re definitely worth it as a goal to achieve at least since it’s basically free with some minor daily schedule adjustments.

Ah right, forgot about the change where Haste is getting fury. Yea, ToTC probably not necessary, then. Could have sworn ANet mentioned giving No Quarter an ICD equal to the fury duration, though, but if it can really be stacked for such a long period, then yea, there’s no need for ToTC.

Yea, Shadow Trap is actually really strong on activation. It can even be used as the same thing as Infiltrator’s Return but with an added stunbreak (just no might/fury) to where the trap was put down if it’s not triggered. It’s just most PvP scenarios favor Shadowstep/signet and the might is really hard to get when most targets are smart enough not to try and rush you, or you need to rush them first instead.

Sorry to say you brought it on yourselves. I don’t mean to sound vindictive, but even some of the most diehard/company-sponsored fans out there gave fair warning about pre-purchasing and how it’s often not a good idea.

https://youtu.be/aUtMGS3ezLI?t=720

That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to see the other packages given a few more goodies, though. Just recognize this as not a first and that pre-purchasing is almost always a bad idea for reasons such as this.

And as per the warnings of even company-sponsored fans (to 12:07):

https://youtu.be/aUtMGS3ezLI?t=720

Sorry to say those who pre-purchased really brought it on themselves.

A OK.8276:

DeceiverX.8361:

It’s pretty devastating to get stuff re-introduced, though. I’ve been waiting on selling tormented weapon skins since they were released on the premise that over a long period of time they would increase in value, like the fused ones. I took my hard-earned gold and dumped it into some rather cool looking weapon skins that I guessed would rise in price in time.

And they just about started to, but their re-introduction as being available for 1 scrap decimated the value I was about to redeem after spending god knows how long waiting.

Exclusive skins are tough markets because making them recur removes their value/exclusivity and general uniqueness. I think some of the whacky expensive skins like the greatsaw are hilarious and justify their prices and exclusivity, and let’s be honest, when was the last time you saw a Twilight and got all dreary-eyed like you did the first time you saw it near release of the game? That whole “awesome” factor kind of diminishes when they become more or less commodities, and it being very difficult to obtain is what’s going to keep it in that position.

That said, I’m all for equal opportunity at event/old items. Sucks when the skin that would look awesome for a character concept is locked behind a huge paywall or inaccessible challenge from an event that happened years ago.

Tough debate.

Why do you want so much gold? Is it to buy skins that are no longer available and resell them for more gold? Buying things with in game currency seems counterintuitive to playing a fantasy roleplaying game. How about being able to play and earn the items that were a part of the game as an alternative to the false economy game people play.

I’m not saying this for black lion weapon skins. Those are not something earned in game. Those are just a way for anet to keep the lights on. Let them put them back on sale every now and then and let them make some money. I don’t feel bad for people loosing out on fake money so anet can earn real money.

I play a lot of WvW. Good food in there costs around 3g/hour. Siege is almost 1g per keep/40s per tower attempt, and around 2-5g for a ninja flip with havoc.

I’ve also needed to transfer servers nine times, and have funded three friends to transfer servers, due to my guild moving around a few times, RL friends joining the game on others from me servers earlier on, and finding a good, stable WVW community. Spending $240 to enjoy a game mode is pretty absurd, so I simply don’t do so. I continue to buy things from the gem store with RL money, but I don’t think I should be paying so much out of pocket, no?

As you can see, it’s very easy to spend an upward of 100g-200g per day on just being in WvW. Without maintaining an aggressive stance on working the TP, the game becomes difficult to afford/enjoy playing. Skins are where I started, and I’d like to continue selling them. I have no rush for the profits, as long as I keep my coffers full enough to maintain myself. And you’d be surprised at what people pay gems for. I know of a few people personally who have dumped hundreds of dollars into gem → gold conversion to buy legendaries. A few hundred gold for a really cool gem store skin isn’t unreasonable. Yes, once it starts hitting the 1k mark it’s pretty unreasonable, but to claim that people don’t spend money on gold for these skins is entirely untrue.

You also neglect to consider the number of people who just farm keys on low level characters and buy the 1 scrap items. A lot of people do this. It’s why on release the new skins are so cheap; people aren’t buying them with gems and selling them on the TP for 60-80g. Those are free players trying to cash in by powerleveling alts through the human commoner personal story and getting free black lion keys several times per hour. If you buy the keys with gems and try to get those skins, you’re spending a lot of money. I’ve tried the game a few times before, and I can say confidently $100 netted me one weapon at 1 scrap. That’s pretty bad.

So unless you’d like to make suggestions to reduce the astronomical cost of WvW be covered by the mode itself (such as a 99% reduction in food and siege costs) and somehow not influence the economy at all, I can’t agree we should be aiming to reduce the price on such items as much as possible. Every attempt to reduce the price of WvW has made regular players/crafters and TP flippers retaliate, too, due to the impact on the economy.

Hope that clarifies my need for gold and my stance on why this problem is not an easy one to fix.

Would really rather see a port to DX12, first, more than anything else, just because this game has absolutely ridiculous graphics and sprite optimization and potential but is being bottlenecked so hard by the single-core utilization from being on DX9. Porting to openGL would take what is probably a lot more effort too, and doesn’t really guarantee much in regards for return on investment, especially since the engine would need to be developed again for multi-core utilization, anyways.

xarallei.4279:

Calm down. Believe me I hated that data mined info too, but Colin confirmed that it’s not going to happen. Plus they are giving us a way to swap stats so anyone with boxes of useless stat ascended gear can finally change them to something useful.

Indeed. Which I’m absolutely stoked about. I’ve been saving all my useless garbage stat gear boxes and I’m looking at a full light amor set now without needing to touch tailoring

It’s pretty devastating to get stuff re-introduced, though. I’ve been waiting on selling tormented weapon skins since they were released on the premise that over a long period of time they would increase in value, like the fused ones. I took my hard-earned gold and dumped it into some rather cool looking weapon skins that I guessed would rise in price in time.

And they just about started to, but their re-introduction as being available for 1 scrap decimated the value I was about to redeem after spending god knows how long waiting.

Exclusive skins are tough markets because making them recur removes their value/exclusivity and general uniqueness. I think some of the whacky expensive skins like the greatsaw are hilarious and justify their prices and exclusivity, and let’s be honest, when was the last time you saw a Twilight and got all dreary-eyed like you did the first time you saw it near release of the game? That whole “awesome” factor kind of diminishes when they become more or less commodities, and it being very difficult to obtain is what’s going to keep it in that position.

That said, I’m all for equal opportunity at event/old items. Sucks when the skin that would look awesome for a character concept is locked behind a huge paywall or inaccessible challenge from an event that happened years ago.

Tough debate.

Terra.8571:

DeceiverX.8361:

Watson.6492:

The new meta D/D build is going to be D/D in the garbage can where it has been for months upon months.

This thread’s about PvE, which D/D is the best possible thief weapon set combination for in regards to bosses, and one of the best in the game in general.

If I were into speed runs enough to care to change my build, I’d probably try something like this:

Skills and Gear:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY8al0MpvpFOx7J0PJBAAsN0GA-TVCBABVcQAqZ/hKV/5MlgYp8DgHAQe6HY4IAEwJAAA-w

Traits:
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgcB3ALkBeg~

Huge might and permanent fury access through the trapping traits with Shadow Pursuit off of Shadow Trap for 15 stacks of might with permanent fury from NQ, reset trap cd’s through steal/thrill and maintenance of high might from Sigil of Strength maintaining what is likely to be around 12 from itself.

The build should be maintaining permanent 12-25 stacks of might and permanent fury uptime.

I don’t see how this build reaches 25 stacks of might. You state 15 stacks from traps but you do realize resourceful trapper does not reset traps to 0cd but reduces traps, probably by a few seconds from its cd. Also, I think trappers respite will only trigger on use, hence when you activate shadow pursuit. Nothing in the tooltip suggests it will trigger twice. As such I can’t see more than 5 stacks of might for 12 or so seconds from traps and 5 stacks from pistol sigil (but most players don;t have s/p and d/d at same time, it’s usually one or the other because shortbow’s 2 is too good to give up for mobility and most importantly the blast finisher for stealth/might stacking). The might and fury are also personal and provide no support to a pve group. Furthermore, you have given up assassins signet (180 power) which is an awful lot. Not forgetting warriors and ele’s can keep more stacks of might up easier than thieves and they can do it for the group.

@ OP – if the meta remains zerker the build will be similar to the current i.e. full zerker with scholars. Core specializations traits are likely to be this: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgcBfALkBag~

Utilities likely to be assasins signet, agility signet and haste.

Trickery is the only other line with a dps boost (lead attacks – upto 15%) and it appears flanking strike gives haste (the ability = 6s quickness + fury) and can be traited with trickster (20% reduced cd on tricks + tricks remove 1 condi) so that’s 12s every 48s or 25% quickness uptime.

There is no reason to take shadow arts or acro for dps focused builds because they offer little to no significant dps boost. I’m more curious to see the dps output of a full sinister thief with caltrops and death blossom spam. I think that build could be highly effective but we’ll see.

Didn’t know it wasn’t a full reset, though I suppose that would make it quite a bit more balanced. We’ll just have to look at the numbers once they’re revealed. Depending on what they are, and what can be done with boon duration food, it might be viable.

25 comes from the trap and the sigil. The sigil will provide reasonably around 10-12 stacks of might as long as the thief remains attacking. Respite gives 5 stacks when the trap triggers, and Shadow Pursuit, the second half of Shadow Trap, teleports you to your target and provides 10 stacks of might and 5 seconds of fury baseline. So one use of Shadow Trap = 15 stacks of might and fury which gets extended from No Quarter.

If the fight lasts longer than just a few seconds, the sigil has more of a benefit than force, night, or air. It isn’t group might, no, but that’s not what the thief does. A spec with DT and RT doesn’t provide any more group damage bonuses.

As far as group might-stacking, you’re very much right, and your build reflects the optimal DPS possible under the assumption other people are stacking and maintaining the permanent might for you. I didn’t build on that assumption.

Either way, the build is definitely 6/6/0/0/6, and if PT provides ferocity instead of vitality as it does now, it will be the choice made for most DPS builds. Otherwise the choice is obvious to move to Sundering Strikes unless the vitality is really called for, but that’s situational. I do wonder the benefits of using Uncatchable versus ToTC or Flanking Strikes as a bonus to damage dealt. I saw Thrill being a more reliable way to maintain the crit chance throughout the dungeon or in scenarios where CC or other non-attack sequences might cause it to start running low. That’s just me, though.

Crit strikes got huge buffs. It’s gone from a trait line that saw next to zero recognition to one which is seeing a lot of support, and the ability to spec into three lines fully to get some of the high-impact traits from trickery and SA without making many sacrifices are what really buffed the thief. You compare the strengths of some of the masters/grandmasters from the thief to those of other professions, and I think we have some of the most potent out there.

Acro and the damage aspects of SA got nerfed pretty hard, and I think acro could use some more love, but SA’s traits are very balanced; the traits themselves are extremely strong for the class and bring crazy amounts of defensive utility per their design, not 12 stacks of might on engage with passive healing better than war’s healing signet.

Matman.6927:

So yeah, this just happened. I had no idea that it was gonna happen this early. Thoughts?

Clones confirmed as new thief spec mechanic.

I already refuse to because it’s unfun and corny, so with it having an appropriate power distribution, and my other favorite lines getting buffed, no.

I see it as almost entirely buffs.

But I don’t play Shadow Arts.

Group support.

Otherwise I think the ranger has it in regards to ranged DPS. I doubt the DH damage will be comparable.

You don’t need two longbows for quickdraw.

Ranged mechanics, folks, you only need one for the swap.

Tarkan.5609:

DeceiverX.8361:

The trait was really OP though, and absolutely had to get nerfed. I was hoping for some kind of fun revealed mechanics though instead as to punish stealth spammers.

Because Stealth Trap, Lock On, Sick ’Em and Analyze are so skillful and fun counters to stealth thieves.

No no I mean benefits for being revealed, like RT, except for some mitigation, so stealth spammers get punished for not revealing themselves.

Clearer?

Let’s see the fight then between you and him. And since you’re so confident, why not let him use his weapons? I’d like to see the outcome.

I said this problem was amplified by dire perplexity, not because condi thief is overpowered. The issue is that the condi thief gets more out of this mixture than pretty much every other build in the game. While I’m supportive of nerfing the mixture instead of the condition application of thieves, I sincerely doubt ANet would be.

P/D can utilize DT off of SS, DD, and CnD. Dual wield skills count, and frankly, a lot of P/D condi thieves spam 3 for torment damage.

DT isn’t worth taking unless you’re playing a condition build. It gives absolutely no benefit to burst builds, because it doesn’t give 5% damage any more, and mug is just way better for DPS, seeing as in a given combo rotation, it accounts for somewhere around 13 – 25% of one’s damage dealt. But since it no longer gives 5% dagger damage, there is literally zero benefit to taking DT over mug as a burst build. DT is exclusively made for condition builds, seeing as Steal and Lotus Strike yields permanent poison uptime for the heal cut from D/D, anyways. You’re not making sense claiming DT has any purpose or serves burst builds in any way shape or form more than condition builds. You’re claiming blind favoritism with no real justification aside from the fact a pure damage kit doesn’t play optimally for condition builds.

I keep demonstrating how DT has very real potential to be more useful than mug as it is already for condition builds, and how the trait offers literally nothing to burst damage builds.

I played tanky healing power P/P interrupt once as a troll spec and I went undefeated in a guild tournament because it was too risilient. One of the later matches was a 54 minute duel between a celestial elementalist and my build, and I locked it out of every channel it had the entire match. With the stability nerfs, half a bar initiative takes out people with stab. Mind you, this was in sPvP where perplexity doesn’t even exist. I imagine stacking tons of confusion and now torment on this type of build will be absolutely stupid in skirmishes. P/P forgoes kiting, but gets interrupts and ranged blinds/blind fields. I find P/P much better than the rest of the thief’s options for surviving against pretty much everything but longbow rangers and mesmers.

Sorry, but P/D shadow arts is overpowered for any kind of fighting. It’s not used in sPvP matches because it uses stealth which prevents caps/decap efforts and throws itself off points. That said, any serious WvW player or fights sPvP server player will pretty much blatantly call SA P/D unskilled, low-risk/high-reward, and in many cases, ban them or refuse to fight. During the aforementioned tournament, I was required to remove P/D as a secondary set or otherwise get DQ’ed because it was banned from being an available choice in the tourney for it being too overpowered and too unfun to play against. Most sPvP servers will just ban players using Shadow Arts as a trait line because it’s corny and a crutch for bad players, and most skilled thieves will state that SA is a crutch trait line that dumbs the thief down – meaning our cleansing options, especially starting wednesday, are of course going to be limited as opposed to say, a guardian, warrior or elementalist.

DT causes condi builds to get some extra damage (yes, more than mug) at the cost of a small heal. I see no argument that can be made which supports burst damage getting more favoritism over condition builds because of this trait, or how having to make difficult decisions is a bad thing. That just implies the choices are balanced relative to each other. I’d have to experiment heavily with both once they go live to make a definitive statement.

Pretty much the primary reason I don’t play sPvP at all unless with friends such that we don’t care if we lose.

I’ve never had an issue with this community outside of sPvP. Ranked game tryhards are disgusting with their general attitudes and sense of superiority while following instructions of what some website tells them to do exactly. I find sPvP extremely boring at the mid/high levels of play because everything is exactly the same and the pace of combat is absolutely terribly slow. Yoloqueue unranked with experimental builds with some friends is a total blast, though, like healing power thief and physical utility nuke warrior.

This thread is absolutely unbelievable. The developers didn’t set the price. They also don’t deserve the hate, and in most cases, they haven’t. This is done by marketing and is done completely over their head. They likely have absolutely no say whatsoever in what the pricing is like.

Vocalizing our complaints is better for the developers than not saying anything and just not buying the expansion. We’re complaining because we want to buy the expansion, but feel as though we’re not getting our money’s worth if we do. By staying silent and not purchasing, all this looks like to management is that the expansion conceptually failed, and the developers did a sub-par job at it. This likely leaves the people who actually built the expansion at a loss – possibly even losing their jobs – and it doesn’t improve the situation for anyone. It also keeps management who made these stupid decisions unaccountable in their minds, and does nothing to change the business approach that led them to get backlash to begin with.

Vocalizing our concerns gets communications teams involved and the issue looked into further, and the blame is only traced back to management and marketing for failing on the pricing and business logic. You can’t accuse a dev of doing their job poorly by low sales on a game that hasn’t been released yet. That lies solely on management and marketing.

So if the OP actually gives a kitten and wants to treat ANet’s employees with respect as human beings, he should encourage civil criticism and support the vocalization as a mean of protecting the developers who bring us high-quality content. If there are complaints on the content itself, like bugs, bad design decisions, etc., then it’s also the responsibility of the developers to accept the fact they made mistakes (we all do, especially in programming and development), be thankful for the feedback, and fix it.

Yes, there’s no sense in just insulting random employees, but the people who actually worked kitten this content have nothing to do with the bullcat attitude from ANet’s marketing and management teams regarding the pricing and communications policies pertaining to HoT.

Jesiah.2457:

But I’m getting at the builds are catered towards burst and they skimp out on anything condi related.

If you’re referring to thief in general, its primary condition options need nerfs more than anything. I think this video speaks volumes. The opponents aren’t amazing, but they make reasonable enough plays for this video to have merit. Burst needs more love because it’s intrinsically weaker. Damage per defense, conditions are the best, and given time to ramp, sinister will out-damage even berserker on some builds/classes. Burst also requires more attentive tuning and is easier to tune since damage modifiers are easy to adjust, whereas conditions can only be changed through base durations and cooldowns without affecting all condition builds. And a 1s shave (one tick) off of a condition could imply huge nerfs of unintended scale.

Let’s not even go into the monstrosity that P/D itself is, or how P/P interrupt will be shelling out more condition damage than most sets in the game after the changes Wednesday.

Dire perplexity is the big culprit here, but to make claims that condi thief isn’t being given enough support is simply something I absolutely cannot agree with.

Tarkan.5609:

Coronit.9432:

No just there my friend, not just there…
And yes, that was necessary.
[Good bye being completely invincible while using rams with ram-mastery :´<]

50% former RoS + 50% ram mastery = 75% damage reduction, they dont add up directly

Goes to 83% with protection lol.

Full mastery superior AC’s start hitting for far less damage than SR regenerates, too. Unless a blob jumps down and starts swinging at the door, the thief would be basically invincible while ramming, unless there were like… 10 AC’s all concentrating fire, and then the thief starts slowly draining.

The trait was really OP though, and absolutely had to get nerfed. I was hoping for some kind of fun revealed mechanics though instead as to punish stealth spammers.

Watson.6492:

The new meta D/D build is going to be D/D in the garbage can where it has been for months upon months.

This thread’s about PvE, which D/D is the best possible thief weapon set combination for in regards to bosses, and one of the best in the game in general.

If I were into speed runs enough to care to change my build, I’d probably try something like this:

Skills and Gear:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY8al0MpvpFOx7J0PJBAAsN0GA-TVCBABVcQAqZ/hKV/5MlgYp8DgHAQe6HY4IAEwJAAA-w

Traits:
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgcB3ALkBeg~

Huge might and permanent fury access through the trapping traits with Shadow Pursuit off of Shadow Trap for 15 stacks of might with permanent fury from NQ, reset trap cd’s through steal/thrill and maintenance of high might from Sigil of Strength maintaining what is likely to be around 12 from itself.

The build should be maintaining permanent 12-25 stacks of might and permanent fury uptime.

EnderzShadow.2506:

lol he’s going to spec for all those reflects and then comes across condi ranger..lol

Not even, just melee DPS. Then an 11k maul will happen and we’ll get complaints greatsword is OP.

Looking forward to the bear-spammage that will happen with maul on swap going into a 2s cooldown. Friend of mine plays an all-melee power ranger with intelligence sigils. The double maul under QZ will be quite silly.

I’m gonna say something that you’re not gonna like:

Curtain operates differently from most reflect walls in that it only blocks up to the height of its visual which is fairly low to the ground, as the trait only indicates the skills themselves reflect projectiles.

This has nothing to do with the ranger but is a problem with the mesmer. A rifle warrior has the same potential to kill you.

You need to utilize distortion and evade frames like Blurred Frenzy, and use blink to teleport behind them to cancel their attacks as arrows cannot be shot beyond 180 degrees and will not hone. Also recall you have a boon steal on GS and 1200 range interrupts with no cast time on mantras. You can steal stability from Rampage as One or Signet of the Wild and during the theft while they’re beginning their RF snag an interrupt on them and force a cooldown.

The sad reality is that you’re likely taking almost as much damage from fire/air sigils as you are from RF itself if you’re dodging correctly. Those are what is more OP than anything within the class.

LB ranger is weird in that it’s kind of difficult to learn to counter, but once you do, it’s extremely easy to deal with them unless they’re particularly good players, in which case they probably deserve the win for… playing well. I find most of my encounters against LB rangers very binary, either the fight is over in under five seconds and they’re dead on the ground, or it’s an all-out frenzy with both of us trying our absolute hardest not to die and out-play each other in positioning and conservation of resources.

Just coming in here screaming “OP,” though, is a really bad place to start to getting good advice.

Cyhann.2609:

Fun fact (iirc):
The change was actually brought in for WvW as a counter measure of culling problems the game had with stealth in there, which resulted in fewinvisible frames for thieves even after reveal.

I guess it stayed in spvp because the devs didn’t like to redo their current change in balance that quickly since the culling problem was solved soon after that.
You know pride ’n stuff.

It was never 4s in WvW, or if it was, it didn’t last beyond a patch cycle. I do believe it was done as a balance change for sPvP as the meta back when it was implemented was focused heavily on hyper-aggressive DPS from all classes, and stealth-based builds were just too strong with too few windows to attack them. At release, the revealed condition didn’t even exist, so stealth classes could repeatedly attack from stealth or re-gain it before it expired. This early change was just experimental I believe.

I’d argue at this point the duration could absolutely be changed to 3s, but it’d need some monitoring and might need revisiting with future changes to the sPvP meta.

Jesiah.2457:

Dagger Training – 5% increased damage to daggers, definitely a bigger buff to burst builds than anything, check. Better uptime for poison / healing reduction on burst builds while doing something other than 1 spamming, check.

Now considering condi and even hybrid builds, they are going to have substantially less power, crit and crit damage … so that 5% does not scale nearly as well for condi / hybrid compared to burst, check. And considering condi builds rely on condi damage, which is what we would hope for from Dagger Training, that 2 seconds baseline is going to be negligible in terms of trying to stack poison for damage, check.

Totally seems catered to condi instead of burst. /sarcasm

Is this really so hard to grasp? I really don’t see why you are so against seeing Dagger Training go to 3 seconds so it’s actually worth something in more than one build type. I don’t see anyone arguing about SB#4’s incoming nerf (which makes no sense other than Anet mentality of here’s a new crappy GM trait, better nerf Shortbow, again!)

I’m willing to put money on it that DT will be shafted by Mug at this rate.

Are you reading the new DT? The 5% damage is removed and the new DT gives a chance to apply poison on all dagger attacks. The 5% damage modifier has just been rolled in as baseline.

I think you’re in the minority in terms of wanting dagger to be a condition weapon. I play D/D for its hyper-aggressive burst and no other reason. If it moved to hybrid/condi, I would quit the thief because D/P and P/D are overpowered and cheesy, and I don’t enjoy S/D or S/P very much.

Let me state I’m not against putting the poison on a 3 second cooldown, but am saying I understand the short duration because it’s meant to act as healing disruption over DoT which I think is what you’re really failing to grasp, and is likely designed to act as a means of giving P/D a little bit of extra access to poison. Granted, mug is still better as a trait IMHO because of the heal, and yes, DT could see improvements, but I would not discount the intent of the trait. The 5% damage got rolled into baseline because every dagger mainhand thief and their mother ran the trait as a master, and frankly, with the reduction on traits, and it only providing 5% damage, it’s too weak and too specific to be made into a trait, and nobody complains about the damage coming out of the thief but the stealth and blinds.

Just because the thief is getting a bit more access to poison does not mean it is intended to be stacked for damage – it still has the heal cut, and smaller bursts of poison = designed for heal cutting with the change to how the heal cut is working, whereas long-duration poison is meant for DoT effects.

Dagger mainhand does not really have anything to do with conditions, so acting like it’s a surprise that it’s not being made into a condi weapon is kind of silly. It was designed as a power weapon just like the staff on the mesmer is primarily a condition weapon. Yes, it has a skill which deals with the opposite-type scaling, and that skill can be huge, but it does not mean that every trait and benefit should primarily focus on bolstering the effectiveness of one skill. You have MH pistol as a condi weapon for the thief. D/D has some hybrid potential, but only through Death Blossom, due to its multiple stacks of long-lasting bleeds + evade on a fairly low initiative cost.

EDIT: As mentioned by babazhook above, it still does provide a solid source of damage (more than 5% for most condi builds in general), and it is also important to consider that under repeated AA chains with no interruptions, the dagger already has permanent poison uptime, implying that it will be very reasonable to maintain 3-6 stacks of poison at all times while attacking with duration food.

And frankly, the removal of condi duration food (both + and -) and baseline changes to condition durations would probably help condition builds more than hurt them, as well as saving everyone a ton of money with -40% being so expensive and +40% being so ridiculously overpowered in WvW. The effects are cancelled by each other and yet condi builds still run rampant in everything in except organized blobs where light and water fields are too common to make condi builds effective… because the blobs have structured themselves that way to avoid conditions, as condis were the meta near release and were stupidly overpowered in large-scale fights without dedicated mitigation efforts.

Jesiah.2457:

DeceiverX.8361:

I can understand the reasoning behind the CD on poison, though, as then there would be no reason not to only spam 3 since it’s a multi-hit that has the highest chance of appyling it in a short period, applies very strong bleeding, and acts as an evade.

I just don’t think baseline weapon skills can be altered much without specializations changing them. The hybrid weapon concept just doesn’t really work for the thief because the initiative mechanic just allows for the spamming of one ability without using the rest (which is boring), since odds are some of the other skills will be for the other build portion of the hybrid – A condi D/D thief will rarely ever prioritize HS for damage over DB, and a power D/D build will really never find use for DB except maybe as a desperate evade.

Wait, what … how does the hybrid mechanic not work due to initiative letting you use the same skill over and over … … wat?

IMO, that’s the only reason it can even work. I don’t understand your logic with that. Also, the reasoning they made poison duration so low is because they catered Dagger Training towards burst thieves without really considering condi thieves and their need for multiple applications of poisons come next patch.

It doesn’t work because it creates forced optimization by spamming individual skills per each build in the power/condi divide rather than using all of the skills of a kit together. It’s not about it not working for hybrids but not working for hybrids on the basis it breaks distinct power/condition builds and creates an environment that is unfun.

And no, Dagger Training has absolutely nothing to do with burst builds. The reworked DT only provides a chance to poison enemies for 2s on any dagger attacks, not just crits. Dagger Training at the moment gives 5% damage output. I do believe the short-duration poisons we’re looking at are meant for the heal cuts as they are removing the effect of poison cutting healing effectiveness for its duration and are splitting it into the heal cut will go into effect for a short period of time after each new time the target has been poisoned. Frequent re-applications of poison are meant to cut heals rather than deal DoT effects, just like how the condition functions now.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I’d just like to see fire & air sigils to take one way ticket to oblivion, because they’re 0 skill, insta damage.

This has been one of my biggest issues with any kind of PvP in Gw2.

In fact, aside from HB warrior in PvE, these sigils provide the best DPS boost in the game to all builds with decent precision, both in burst and overall, unless Force/Night is used, and the sheer amount of damage that comes out of them in an unavoidable way is totally absurd. It makes playing a low-tier health class almost a joke because you can lose 1/4 of your max HP at any given time with no way of prevention from randomness within randomness.

Zanshin.5379:

What kittenes me off the most is people who haven’t spent a dime on the gem store calling veterans who have spent hundreds/thousands of dollars “entitled” and saying they shouldn’t complain because the game is free.

Exactly this. I’ve spent more money on this game than 3 years subscription to WoW at the highest possible rate and all of the expansions ever released for the game at full retail price, because I think the game we got at release was good enough to warrant those purchases, and what I got in exchange for the gems was also worth the money spent.

Yet from what I’ve seen so far in HoT, I do not think $50 is a reasonable price. Not to mention the additional $10 needed to even play the new class, one of the features of the expansion.

The need for a character slot is different from releasing the game with fewer slots than classes. This meant a player on a budget would have to try and then decide to keep their characters by what was most fun to play and what they liked, maintaining at least one free spot as testing. They knew all of the class info and how the classes played before spending an immense amount of time maintaining that character.

With the revenent release locked behind HoT and without an extra character slot, there is no definitive way to even experiment if you like the class without either sacrificing an established character and all of its progress, which is rather stupid, or having content locked behind a paywall be locked behind another paywall, which at $50/$10, is a lot of money just for what is basically a trial.

I’m not entitled to anything being released with HoT because I’m a “veteran.” I am entitled to getting my money’s worth as a consumer by the company selling me their product, just as much as I’m entitled having the option stop giving them my business altogether (and thus getting nothing in return) if I do not think I am getting reasonable value for the product I’m buying.

From what we know about HoT so far, I do not deem this expansion as providing me reasonable value, and as such, without more information on further expansion content, I will not purchase it.

I’d gladly spend more money on GW2. I want to support GW2, because so far the experience has been worthwhile. That said, ANet’s good decisions they’ve made in the past only cover the content they released in the past. If they want me to continue being their customer, I expect them to maintain said business model. I’m fine with spending money on the game. The problem is I don’t want to waste my money on it.