Guild Wars 2

Have you played Arah? There have been snipers in the game for a long time.
And those mobs are so horridly OP and do nothing but stand back and nuke people that I can’t fathom playing a class or build like that. Especially because more QQ and more nerfs.

I haven’t removed it from my utility bar unless other utilities take extreme precedence since starting thief at release and have not had issues.
Unless you’re in competitive speed clear groups it really doesn’t matter.
If anything just swap into Signet of Agility for its passive precision to boost DPS when approaching a stackable boss.

You know there’s a problem when your class deficiencies are so invasive you depend on racial abilities designed to be outright weak.

Cleric’s/Dwayna P/P healing power leeching venoms shadow arts bunker is rather hilarious. I’ve been kicked from a few dueling arenas for just being too durable.

It’s only ever worth using if you’re using Signets of Power and only intend on needing 5 attacks to take your target down. Otherwise the power bonus it gives will net you similar numbers and for a longer period of time.

Simply, if I’m in PvE, I leave it passive, and just switch my signet traits to Side Strikes and Practiced Tolerance.

The universal answer is putting 2 points in Shadow Arts for passive cleansing while stealthed.

It’s awful, because you’re forced into Last Refuge, which is honestly what I think to be the worst trait in the game because it reveals you on activation if you’re in stealth already, and it’s really boring and passive.

That said, the SA line generally speaking is overpowered in terms of fighting potential. This trait line being OP has largely been the justification for various nerfs over the years, without making changes of course to the culprits themselves.

I have mixed feelings on Guarded Initiation. Seeing as it comes in the form of a boon, and it only lasts 5 seconds, I feel like this may leave us quite vulnerable still to boon rip effects from engis, mesmers, other thieves, and necros while not giving back much in return.

Maybe we can look towards the specialization to giving us better options, but I’m not holding my breath.

From a WvW perspective the matchup is even flipped on its head in terms of class advantage/disadvantage. I’m gonna have to say no on the principle it wouldn’t really do much in sPvP since D/P doesn’t really get affected by it a lot (Shadow Shot→Stab/IS→Stab/→Shadowstep→Stab. D/D gets hit like a truck with this, which is kind of unnecessary as you’re probably aware.

So just for the sake of it not really solving much and hurting the class I’d have to vote against this.

I see it more like giving mantras a 1/4s cast time in terms of how important the instant-cast/combo aspect of them is to the profession, except the mesmer doesn’t have mantras as their class mechanic as well.

thunderfall.8095:

And to DecieverX and Kash, please teach me how to use DD effectively. I rarely use it, though I know I should. If I need range, I just go to shortbow.

Mostly as a means to catch up to running foes. The cripple duration from DD is long, and if it gets a return bounce, can be devastating if not cleansed.

I play D/D + (now) S/D for WvW rather than using a shortbow, so I also often find myself throwing tons of daggers into the blob if I’m not able to get in/out well and seeing what happens.

You can also led in with a DD and during it’s flight time use steal/etc and the dagger will come in as a follow-up hit immediately after, or do so to get your opponents to burn dodges on DD and more reliably combo into them afterwards.

zinkz.7045:

Coronit.9432:

zinkz.7045:

For what is OP simply look at how a class is represented.

To take the only area they seem to balance the game on – tPvP, there are 5 slots in a team between 8 classes, for the entirety of the game thief has been an automatic choice for one of those slots for nearly every decent team, objectively it is OP in tPvP.

But having 2 thieves in team is far worse than 2 warris, 2 engis, 2 eles, 2 guards. So by your philosophy they are OP…

And? When it was not uncommon to see 2 hambows for example, yes they were OP, eventually they got nerfed and that stopped, obviously 5 slots, 8 classes if one build is taking two spots then that is OP, two ‘wrongs’ don’t make a ‘right’.

Difference is, that sort of thing is temporary, due to balance changes / meta changes, thief having a permanent slot is not, does not matter what the meta is or how much they nerf thief, it is still a default pick, which is objectively OP.

The problem with thief is aspects of the core design / mechanics are OP/broken, so is essentially unbalanceable, the class has had plenty of nerfs, more nerfs than most, which in part have just made it weaker in situations it did not need to be weaker in, and failed to change the basic issues of it being too strong at roaming/+1 to be left out and preventing most other classes from going glassy power builds.

But in typical Anet style, they try and paper over the cracks by endless nerfs, that don’t solve the issue at all, rather than address the core problems and redesigning certain things.

I’ll partially agree that ANet has done a poor job at managing the mechanics and balancing around them – especially with the Shadow Arts line – but I don’t think it’s safe to assume that thieves are locking other professions or builds out of sPvP, especially the competitive tiers.

Most of what is being played at the high tiers is simply played because it’s the strongest option for the given game mode. Hell, I’d even go as far as arguing that it’s not thieves keeping glass builds out of the format but fire/air procs on 3s cooldowns effectively doubling damage outputs since they don’t go on cooldown on out-going attacks that miss/block/are evaded but on successful strikes themselves. These give people way too much burst damage on even the least choreographed skills. I know my mesmer can use mantra of pain, crit with it, and end up dealing 5-6k damage from 1200 range with no animation. And then by the time the enemy reaches me, the cooldown on fire/air will be refreshed.

While thieves do/can counter some builds and players (but this is based largely on what is being played in high-tier sPvP), a lot of their use in the format comes from their mobility/map traversal speed to contest vacant enemy points and +1 a fight from far away very quickly. Their actual combat skills are almost not factored at all into the decision to bring one into a match. So while they might see much more frequent picks than rangers and necros (again, these come from weaknesses in their class mechanics as well), it’s not at all about their skirmishing capability but the ability to get and maintain a point lead from slippery captures.

The only issue I really see with it is the protection paired with the new Shadow Arts line, as that implies a pretty constant 83% reduction in damage while maintaining the most overpowered regen abilities in the game. That said, I think that’s more an issue with Shadow Arts than anything. Otherwise, it’s not unreasonable for a thief to have permanent uptime or close to permanent uptime on most of the boons except stability and aegis with existing builds and runes.

All this change actually does is allow for steal to be used instead of the item altogether and keep the bundle in a situation where it’s more useful.

I almost always drop the Axe Whirl from warriors. I’ve never found a use for the Ele stolen item. Only in larger scale fights will I consider using the whirl as a means to reflect projectiles. However, an Axe whirl works great against rangers, so maybe I can save these effects for later when I need them instead of just wasting them before a fight. The whole F2 + F1 combo thing doesn’t change with this implementaton. Steal has no animation and can be used at any time, even while stunned, knocked down, knocked back, sinking, or floating (except daze). Because of this, it can already be activated during the cast time of an in-use stolen bundle.

Depending on the build, IS’s cooldown is lower than steal. The only time the cooldown on steal is definitively lower than IS’s is when the thief plays 6 deep in trickery to get the steal cooldown reduction and uses Sleight of Hand. Otherwise IS has the lower cooldown.

GS and sword strip boons, they can trait to strip boons, and they possess multiple utilities to strip boons, and one to re-apply all of them back to the mesmer. Arcane Thievery is a fantastic skill no matter how you look at it seeing it has a solid condition cleanse attached to it and is unblockable gaining versatility against engineers, too. Null field is one of the best utilities in the game, and if a mesmer refuses to consider playing with a utility weapon, counter-play boon builds which are already dominant across all classes and extremely powerful on some in particular (celestial ele), or consider cleansing conditions, the mesmer honestly deserves to fight at a deficiency for failing to try and deal with any reasonable opponent rather than hoping PU passive playing will carry them in duels.

apharma.3741:

Karl McLain.5604:

apharma.3741:

Any idea on how much of a rework stolen bundles are getting?

In the 3 hour AMA when we got to thief there was mention of changes to the stolen items.

Can we expect the same items just rebalanced a bit to be more fair or are we talking almost completely different things in some cases?

Great question!

There will be a couple of changes to items stolen mainly from players (though these do exist in PvE as well). This is mostly out of necessity due to the changes with Improvisation and in how you’re able to use a stolen item multiple times. Some examples:
The necro fear skull is going from 3 seconds maximum, to 2 seconds maximum. The guardian mace daze will be reduced from 4 to 3 seconds for daze. The ranger’s Healing Seed will have a reduced duration (10s -> 5s), but pulse twice as fast (2s pulse -> 1s pulse).

Needless to say, it’s not the goal to remove viability of using a stolen item once. There’s just a few cases in which using the stolen bundle twice does just a little too much.

Thanks for the feedback and for keeping things civil, everyone.

-Karl

Thanks for the response, a lot of mesmers in particular were getting in a tizzy about 20s of (nearly) all boons for thieves if ecto is stolen.

The actually change is a good QoL improvement for thieves, thanks for the heads up and the improvement.

The base durations on Ectoplasm are rather low but look so long because boon duration effects are overly-used and overpowered in general. Mesmers have the capacity to strip and steal these boons back as well.

I don’t find myself overly-worried with the nerfs, because I feel that stolen bundles are already very weak in PvP environments to the point where I almost always dump them, even while steal is on cooldown, due to the fact I’d rather see the timer and not be able to do anything than try and use a bad skill in a sub-optimal way. The only exception is the ranger’s spring because it’s basically the only way to deal with large amounts of conditions, which the incoming baseline change to spring looks like a buff IMHO, so I don’t see it as very damaging and it won’t really change much for me as I’ll most likely continue dropping the bundles until I steal off of a ranger, and then hang onto it as a means of a cleanse since our alternate options are just so bad.

Sebrent.3625:

I dunno, Dub. I also see most high level fractal groups range the Shaman in the Grawl instance. It drastically helps with dodging those burning arrows and prevents one arrow from applying burning to everyone. We generally clump and melee the elements at 75%, 50%, and 25% though.

This exact boss came to my mind as well. Going pure melee on this guy is honestly more suicidal than anything at scales 40+.

That said, regarding this topic, the longbow is much more preferable here for the AOE/cleansing and using signet of strength on 5 during his shield to lock him down and prevent him from reaching the NPC’s.

I prefer to take the rifle with me as a reliable knockback for repositioning enemies/bosses. There’s no OOC fire field, and the ele will cover the might-stacking with that, anyways. The immob and blind are okay, but won’t really do anything unless your group is getting stomped, in which case, there’s a skill deficiency problem at hand and not a build one.

They are fairly easy to accumulate from time spent in sPvP and as daily login reward chests. They are also given from AP rewards, and can drop from various loot bags.

I understand I’m in the minority here, but…

I love Dancing Dagger.

DB is shaky, and I’d rather see an upped evade and a blood nerf (condi 3spam criers will fight to the ends of the earth to allow this, though), but please do leave my Dancing Dagger, unless all that is meant to change is the projectile reliability. That cripple allows for an incredible amount of lockdown on high-movespeed targets such as war/engi/ele, it can pop Guard Aegis without going into combat, and the bounce damage is fairly high when trying to defend a keep wall without a ranged option at the time (I primarily use D/D + S/D).

I really do like the premise of DB operating like warrior’s Whirlwind Attack (fixed damage/linear gap closer with decent range), even if the evade duration isn’t improved, just to allow the skill to be used as a better evasion tool/relocation tool..

Thanks for the notification, and no matter what way this is looked at, it is an improvement, and it’s much appreciated. Glad we at least got a little info today about what’s coming next! The communication means a lot.

That said, I must ask: Does the F2 ability take on the most recent stolen item after each steal is used, over-writing any previous stolen bundles in the F2 slot, or does the initially-stolen F2 bundle carry over from multiple targets/multiple steal attempts?

Belzebu.3912:

Amineo.8951:

Zerk is kinda useless against world bosses right?

Kinda.
Most world bosses can’t be crit, so the precision and ferocity isn’t used, but still have the highest DPS possible.

This is blatantly untrue. Soldier’s gear always offers better DPS no matter what build you play against crit-immune targets, especially if food is considered, so much so to the point where the soldier’s gear can garner an upwards of 20% more damage.

Berserker-stat gear is not the be-all-end-all DPS set. With the condition cap changes, I would largely expect sinister gear to replace it in dungeon runs because it will strictly offer better DPS values from some classes if the stacks are not competed for by players.

Better hope those a placeholders lol. I had little intention on spending any more than the equivalent of 10 Euro for what honestly looks like QoL improvements in a money-grab attempt to please all of the QQ’ers who demanded a paid expansion for no other reason than spending their money for what they hoped was a high quality product.

Ezeriel.9574:

He who zerks the fastest wins the mostest.

I was in a match with a scepter ele on the opposing team. He had more than enough burst to nearly one-shot everyone on my team; we didn’t have anywhere near enough to hurt him…

he literally spawn camped us by himself….

…..lesson learned.

A full zerker can kill the adds, a full zerker can take out the other team’s bunkers, a full zerker can kill the lord. The team with the most zerkers wins.

If you’re not going in there with a full zerker burst damage spec, then you’re doing it wrong.

…if anet wanted to end the zerker meta they failed miserably.

Legit lol’d.

Your entire team got stomped by what is genuinely a terrible build that should have been pathetically easy to kill.

Scepter eles are border-line free kills. Actually, almost anything with the berserker armulet in sPvP is a free kill because it’s such a bad set.

Sein.5160:

@Sthenith.5196: 2. dodging, evading….. sound familiar ?
Khahahaha..! Man…

@Sthenith.5196: Rangers can do melee
Yeah.. go to play with a Ranger melee and Good Game ^^

@DeceiverX.8361: […]
condition cleansing? Mmh Signet of Agility or traits Shadow embrance, etc… remember :?
But Good answer.. becouse the Assassin or Thief hasn’t the Perma-steath and the Signet of Agility remove 1 condition.

@DeceiverX.8361: your defenses?
Defenses of the Thief d/d :? lol

The thief as a whole lacks good condition cleansing options due to its low base health compared to all other low health classes. Most notably, it lacks this for builds which do not have access to stealth, such as shortbow, P/P or S/P. Signet of agility is a joke as a cleanse and otherwise the only useful for the endurance, and even then is comparatively bad because signets are an aggressive build and acrobatics already gets good evades and uses other utilities better.

D/D offers intermitent stealth and an evade with heartseeker as a gap opener. Use those and another weapon to get your defenses taken care of. The set is designed with only damage in mind.

D/D, or the thief as a whole, needs no other changes than some small non-stealth condition cleansing that isn’t tied to one specific trait line that makes the class too easy and too passive.

Menadena.7482:

Automaton.4926:

Zaoda.1653:

Elementalists are getting sword. And I for one am not happy about it. To me, elementalists should blast their enemies from afar, not be up-close in combat. To me, that’s more like guardian or warrior sort of playstyle.

I would have liked to have seen greatsword or longbow for ele, but that’s not going to happen, so I just won’t use the ele specialisation, that’s all.

Argghh! Man I hate people who say this crap! Elite specs so far change the core profession and take it on a slight diff path then they stereotyped to be. Swords are fine. Battle wizard style would be really cool!

Fun trivia! Gandalf uses a sword!

Eek! Eles are light armor and are glass cannons. There is a good reason everyone keeps them far from the battle when they can. It is also why myself and a friend cover our elementals in anything that will give a speed boost.

Make them at least a medium armor and I would think about a melee weapon. If not …

You do realize d/d cele is melee and is currently the most overpowered build in the entire game, right?

That is entirely against the core principles of GW2 which allows all builds to complete all content.

Berelious.3290:

Dondarrion.2748:

Anet, just acknowledge the bug and give all those with a portal stone who didn’t get access to the last Closed Beta access to the NEXT Closed Beta.

Problem solved, apart from a lot of hurt player feelings, but at least they’ll then rest assured they DO get to play a closed beta without doing anything else for it.

Source please?

He’s asking for them to do this, not stating that they did.

I’d be obligated to make a rat just for this to name it Bumbling Fool.

Not Logan’s fault Francis was inept at getting people out of a building, seeing as the PC always succeeds at their part and confronts the bads while they’re still inside. Clearly there was proper mobilization to allow an expected success, but Francis just fails on all fronts.

Logan almost single-handedly carries the destruction of Zhaitan throughout the entire story via saving Rytlock’s life, saving the pact’s life and then soloing his way back to a reunion, and one of the DE members died when he wasn’t there. How does he still have a job? Maybe not the brightest tool in the shed, but this guy probably deserves more recognition for his importance to pretty much everything in Tyria than any other character in the game, frankly. Boohoo Snaff died. Maybe rats shouldn’t be so overconfident and spiteful and the rest of DE needs to git gud :p

A 5/6/0/0/3 signets or slower stab variant using 6/6/2/0/0 will deal 50% to 100% more damage. With my current build, anything below 12k on a heavy implies soldiers gear or protection. I do not use fire/air because they detract from player skill and cannot be considered as reliable enough damage despite being clearly the best sigils in the game by a very large margain.

I think it’s funny.

I got kicked from my “hardcore” WvW guild which transferred to T1 during hammertrain/pre-RF buff for suggesting the ranger changes might allow for strategic commander sniping. I was kicked on the grounds that it wasn’t part of “the meta and rangers are trash.”

Now it seems it has made its way into the mainstream and is now a problem? My suggestion to commanders is to deal with it. If your blob cannot function without a dorito your blob has problems and your commander clearly has issues making orders while dead. His corpse is still on the battlefield to make calls if totally necessary while a secondary takes over or your members after training know how to play and what to do independently.

The achievement is there pretty much to prevent anyone from fully completing GW2.

It’s mocking the current completionist mindset of most players in many games, as this is an MMO. It should never be able to be completed, due to its player-based dynamics which constantly change and the overall social environment that exists in MMO’s, and Achievement Points are only really supposed to represent the overall dedication of exploring and playing the game, not a measure of completion (as there is no such thing as an AP cap due to dailies).

I always try to be as thankful as possible in the messages themselves. ANet’s team is fantastic. You’re right that additional thank-you messages within the ticket system is not a good idea, though. I worked in support for another game, and while the gesture is appreciated, it ultimately does flood the ticket system if a lot of people start doing it, wasting time, and ultimately slowing down the speed at which players get help, causing an increased need to work faster to process more tickets which ends up more stressful in the end.

A stickied “Testimonials” thread for the support staff might be a good idea, though. The work can be absolutely grueling and some people are really impolite if their issue isn’t fixed for them (I.E., removing bans on guilty accounts, etc.). Being able to go through and look at the appreciation for a job well done can help on bad days.

I’d use BV over daggerstorm unless you can see the reflection and stability as being necessary or very helpful against a target, such as a necromancer or ranger (and even against rangers, BV is incredibly nice).

I can’t recommend Executioner on D/D unless you plan on playing a swap-based sigil of intelligence build to secure backstab crits (I have this build posted on the “Show your build” thread somewhere, but I don’t recommend new players or even most players using this). Use HK on D/D because you’re going to need to land those crits and know you’re going to land those crits. Executioner only really helps against squishies where CnD can bring them to half, in which case a stab from HK without the bonus damage would be enough to easily kill them, anyways. The HK bonus helps you take down heavies and more durable targets both easier and more reliably.

I’d drop Signet Use for Practiced Tolerance. The extra vitality will help you a lot more than a 6 second cooldown reduction/1 initiative bonus.

The reason you’re not easily melting tankier builds simply is because in order to do so, you need to commit more into the Deadly Arts line. With Mug, a Steal + CnD will net you similar damage to the backstab crit. Additionally, there are plenty of other damage modifiers in the Deadly Arts trait line paired with the additional power it grants to help make your hits substantially more impactful. You’re losing about 27% damage from not using the Deadly Arts line.

Thieves with an excessive amount of damage usually play signets and don’t use Shadow Arts. The cost to get huge numbers pretty much means you cannot enter a fight with utility skills available and have very limited to no access to defensive boons, condition cleansing, etc.

Valkyrie armor parts will help a little further, as that also bolsters damage coming from food buffs, as vitality gets converted into power, and Valkyrie doesn’t drop your ferocity and HK can accommodate for the lower crit chance.

Generally speaking, unless you’re playing signets, you’re not killing warriors/guards (unless they have no CD’s/are unprepared) before they get the chance to react. The trade-off for playing signets, as mentioned, however, is enormous in that you do not have access to condition cleansing, any extra defenses, stunbreaks, or general utility effects and (until the trait rework) will have strictly less health from being largely unable to use Practiced Tolerance.

As a small side note, if you’re playing sPvP, do not bother with D/D. It is arguably the weakest set of skills currently available in sPvP, and yes, that includes things like A/F necromancer or P/P engineer. D/D is strictly bad in sPvP due to the current status of the dominant play strategies and severe nerfs to the damage from CnD, while also offering no support or utility aside from the cripple, which is nothing compared to spammable ranged dazes and blindfields, gap closers, etc. offered in D/P).

It doesn’t need extra mitigtion except for some potentially better condition cleansing.
It definitely doesn’t need extra backstab modifiers.

The thief is one of those classes that is important to utilize its mechanics and learn its nuances. You cannot charge into battle head-first and not utilize your defenses and expect any other outcome than death.

P/P thief does so little damage though for what it’s worth.

Cyninja.2954:

While I agree with most you are saying, and don’t view zerker as a problem due to many factors.

Your analysis of berserker for pve is way off.

Yes, wvw zerg it’s very weak (roaming it sees some use).
Yes, spvp sees a lot of different sets getting played (also who cares, you can mix and match stats on the fly for no cost).

WvW roaming is actually dominated largely by condition classes in dire gear. Berserker gear has almost totally fallen off the face of the WvW scene, even on thieves. Valkyrie armor is better-optimized for pretty much all crit builds, and soldier’s equipment can deal extremely close numbers. Berserker-gear roamers tend to be unskilled and uninformed players who believe the optimal DPS set is the same thing as the optimal burst set, which in many instances, it has been proven over and over is not true.

Cyninja.2954:

No, it has almos no drawbacks in pve. The ONLY fight ingame currently is Tequatle due to his crit immunity where (since essentially you lose 2 stats from the set) other sets are more desirable.

There is no hard game content be it world boss or otherwise that a skilled player can’t complete in full berserker. Any subpar results seen here are simply weak player performance.

This is the entire purpose of GW2, however; no dependencies. This was declared in their initial manifesto before releasing the game and is an absolute cornerstone of the game as a whole. People who bring this up either do not know the founding principles of this game or have no respect for the people who do and subsequently joined the game on this sheer principle. It can never be expected for anything about this to change.

There are plenty of fights where Soldier’s gear is actually preferable to berserker due to critical immunity and the simple fact that soldier’s gear does more damage to crit-immune targets, let alone the increased defenses. It’s just people neglect to consider this and the losses to berserker gear are outweighed by its gains in every other respect, ultimately speeding up the dungeon runs as a whole per theorycrafters who run the numbers.

If a dungeon consisted entirely of crit-immune objects, either the optimization strategies would be Soldier’s gear, or conditions, depending if they were applicable.

Cyninja.2954:

I’m not going to repeat every reason why berserker gear is fine since that has been done a bazillion times. Just wanted to correct this point since some zerker haters will definately pick up on this.

And that’s exactly the thing. People who hate on this gear combination are pretty much complaining blindly about the fact that this combination is only truly viable in dungeon speed runs. Otherwise it has no dominance in any other aspect of the game.

Frankly, asking to make ways to make other builds more viable in PvE is justified by the same means of asking for condition damage and support build nerfs in sPvP/WvW and buffing berserker-gear’s DPS bonuses in PvP-based modes.

Gulesave.5073:

-Snipped for length-

You fail to back up your claim about optimization creating these issues as a fallacy.

You’ve identified the results of an optimal strategy. That’s all. If sinister gear dealt more damage than berserker gear on every class (and for some it does), everyone would just be using that, and berserker-geared players would feel exactly the same way.

Every single other gear and build combination in this game is just as valid if not more so as a means of completing content. The only real difference, aside from a few select encounters, is that it takes longer.

Your analogy to the fishing contest is flawed; you cannot attribute your lack of speed to hit the mob in time to the way players are playing. Unless you wish to make the claim that the entire concept of building for DPS/burst is a bad idea and nobody should be allowed to do it. In which case, there’s just a forced optimization strategy because it becomes the only option for optimization. You could be full DPS/berserker/whatever and would still get the same number of tags against mobs.

The majority of the complaints also stem from the attitude of speed clear groups excluding anything but players of a certain build/gear situation. And there are very few individuals in the game who don’t want smooth, fast dungeon runs to maximize their gold gain and get more out of their time spent playing. We’ve all had that terrible AC P1 run before. The one that goes on for a ridiculous amount of time because people cannot kill the burrows and maintain aggro off Hodgins. As such, people find optimization in the berserker stat combination, and start only allowing said gear combination in their parties. With GW2’s encounter design, this largely means that success is typically driven by kill speed, and thus players who do not partake are unwelcomed and may feel less useful.

And that’s it: your claim about optimization being a fallacy has no merit. I’d also like to point out that the beserker stat combination is ONLY optimized for PvE speed runs. In every single other game mode, the stat combination is considered sub-par and is rarely used in optimized play – in most cases, you’ll be told to change your build or not play with other people because it’s too much of a liability, especially in PvP environments.

So there’s nothing that can be changed about the set in terms of raw numbers. We’re seeing new mechanics that counter berserker gear in HoT, but if those become too restrictive, a new optimized gear set will emerge and people will just be as exclusive with that combination.

There is no way to prevent what is ultimately going to be an optimization in a given scenario given the time.

If the game feels too easy for some players, they should group with like-minded individuals to complete the game perhaps with no armor at all. And perhaps those same players should stop playing the zergfest that the WBT is which only rewards pressing 1 and offers no risk.

Dinks.2478:

So everybody would pick Brawn, Agility, and Ferocity. Giving them super zerker? It doesn’t work. People will always pick the one stat set that is king. Going healing or anything else in this game just isn’t profitable. It may be “viable” by definition, but it certainly isn’t advisable.

Meta is Meta because it is the best option, its not an arbitrary decision. No matter what anet does a Meta will emerge.

And this is something that a lot of people fail to understand.

Optimal strategy =/= overpowered.

If Berserker stat gear was overpowered, or the other gear sets underpowered, fine, some numbers need tweaks and the issue could be resolved.

The problem is that the sets are balanced, and all people are doing is optimizing their dungeon clear speeds by enforcing an arbitrary set of rules to maximize DPS. It’s human nature to pursue the most efficient known option.

Just making another gear set more useful for content doesn’t change anything but the gear that’s currently defined as being part of the “metagame.” All it does it move the problem to another place. It does NOT get rid of the problem, and no implementation like this ever will.

There will ALWAYS be an optimal way of doing things. For most PvE content except dungeons, these optimizations are not enforced because nobody cares. It’s the same reason why soldier’s/sentinel/dire gear is the optimal set to use in WvW/GvG – people care about it and thus created an optimized way of playing in terms of damage dealt per damage taken.

Katalos.5038:

SNIP
I am casual from a time spent perspective, but not casual from the gameplay perspective.

What you mentioned in your initial post as desirable attributes from a game have absolutely no correlation to “casual” atmosphere. A game can have all of those features and be “casual”-friendly through other systems which force players to be both aggressive but also play on varying schedules/time allotments.

The selling points of this game were announced in the manifesto even before this game launched in 2012. It is meant to be a game where players can achieve the same goals and do so in any way they please and not hit obstructions brought on my mechanics which allow for griefing, harassment, etc. The game is meant to be purely fun with no specified model all players need to go through to succeed.

I’ve GM’ed for a F2P open-PvP player-run MMO for several years, a once-wildly popular Korean import which satisfies the criteria you mentioned above in almost every regard.
While I was a player for the game (later inducted as staff for my community contributions), I clocked in around ten thousand hours playing over almost a decade. I participated in the beta events and have seen that game deteriorate from its own systems since. You may like some of those features, but it is simple fact that those types of systems fail in the western market. I was able to watch user statistics internally for the global and Korean versions of the game, and I can confidently say that such systems are substantially less lucrative and much more poorly received in the west versus Asian markets.

In fact, what has made GW2 so successful is its exact detachment from the more traditional MMO approach; it’s not grindy, it’s not extremely complicated, it’s not at all a treadmill for power that breaks under power creep, and it’s not a full-time job to be the best player.

Your observations are contradictory. sPvP is meant to be as competitive as possible. That’s why there are tournaments, and it’s why everything is to “fair.” It’s intended to be. Thus, it raises the difficulty of PvP. There is no obliteration of your enemies from gear discrepancies (unless you’re playing an uplevel in WvW, but that’s part of WvW). In aforementioned Korean title, gear dictated the success of the player almost entirely. Some players had such ridiculous stats that auto attacks could one-shot full tanks in reasonable/end-game gear tiers. PvP’ing against those guilds is unfun and frankly, near impossible to catch up to.

PvE is as easy as you want it to be. Video games are becoming more mainstream and as such accessibility needs to be considered. There are players with illnesses and physical disabilities that can overcome the PvE content in the game. If you want hard mode because you feel the game is too easy, I’ll make the same suggestion to you as I did to someone else:

Equip a Level 1 white weapon, remove all armor and trinkets, remove all traits, utility skills, and heals. Have fun. Ordinary mobs are now the epic encounters you desire.

HoT plans on releasing level 80-only content with the intent of being more challenging. It’s still open-world, making it accessible, as other players can step in and help, but that’s about all the support it’ll offer for being easy.

And it’s those systems that promote that kind of behavior and ultimately make said games go under. There is a niche market, as people are entitled to have different preferences, but GW2 is in for the big consumer base and to make the big bucks. Sorry, but your open-PvP/PK games aren’t going to ever get that.

The only thing in your posts that I have seen as being agreeable is that this game does lack GvG. While this is partially coming in HoT with the Stronghold mode, I would like to see a free-form arena copying the WvW model (this way characters are the members as they are and represent the successes/monetary power/influence of their guilds and not copies of what builds are in the meta necessarily).

ANet isn’t being so protective so much as they are being smart. I once believed that open-PK and totally-player-driven systems were the future of MMO’s, but since working on projects that use these systems, unless extremely well-monitored, like CCP’s EVE, they set the game up for catastrophic failure, and even then, EVE has many countermeasures to prevent truly open-PK and griefing for those who just want to fly around and enjoy the game to whatever level of safety they wish.

A torch could focus on using the revealed mechanic to stack bonuses while not in stealth, such as using extended-duration Revealed Training.

TyPin.9860:

DeceiverX.8361:

Depends on the necro, but I find it much harder fighting lich form in WvW, especially if the necro knows how to play against a thief. Fully stacked with food, a friend of mine deals around 14k damage autos in lich form, and has tons of health. Not playing perfectly against that just leaves you dead on the ground.

Whoa, I never played lich in WvW, but only in sPvP. 14k damage is quite impressive! How often does this happen, or this the once in a day super critical hit with all sigil procs?

They are crits, but with the right gear it’s not too difficult.
No, nothing particularly spectacular. Actually the skill has a higher damage coefficient than a backstab from behind. Lich form offers an absolutely absurd amount of damage that people just don’t really give it credit for.

The code is done correctly, though. Actually, I’d argue GW2’s code base is probably one of the most optimized I’ve seen in recent games.

The problem is we’re seeing only partial utilization of hardware: only one cpu core can be utilized, and offloading the tasks to the gpu is just not feasible since most of the processing is logical and not just number crunching formulae.

Given the support for multiple cpu cores, almost all graphical issues pertaining to performance would cease.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Jana.6831:

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

WvW is still required in order to make a legendary.

No, EotM is

But you won’t get my point anyway.

No i get your point, I just don’t understand the reasoning for it.

Why can’t you utilize an hour a week doing dungeons to get the gold required to purchase the food you desire?

Even under the assumption that you get a decent party to do these paths at 15 minutes each, and the loot is good (10g is high for four paths), that’s only enough money for roughly six hours of play with food. Unless you’re playing WvW for only an hour a day, you need to do this repeatedly throughout the week. On a given weekend of more intense WvW sessions, I’d have to do almost every dungeon each day just to break even for the cost of food buffs.

I’d probably suggest playing what you think looks coolest/most interesting from the way it looks. It’s pretty strange to say, but the mechanics of the game are pretty close to the aesthetics that represent them.

I personally think that my thief is the most fun of all of my professions, and note-worthy advice with the thief is to always keep pushing to do different from the meta, because the meta is boring. I don’t think there’s anything more thrilling than diving into a blob head-first as a glass cannon and escaping at just the perfect time to make your foes blow important cooldowns on thin air

So just follow with what interests you.

Healix.5819:

atheria.2837:

Just one question – did any woman do any of the armor art?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kristen_Perry

This is something that I see way too often posted often insisting that the revealing nature of female armor in video games and media comes from the perversion of male artists and designers.

While this definitely exists in some franchises, and mostly in Asian ones -> (Soul Calibur), most of the games released from western markets have substantial female influences in the design of what is worn by female characters.

Now, is this a tactic used to sell copies of a game due to sex appeal? That’s uncertain for some – we definitely know it exists – I mean look at the slew of low-quality mobile/browser games marketing naked/half-naked female models as protagonists in their advertisements, but ultimately many of the designs come from female artists. To make claims that women have no voice in the production of these aesthetics, though, is totally false and is complete misinformation bordering on subtly pushing an anti-male agenda.

I’m all for diversity, though, especially for what is the medium armor in GW2; it’s pretty much either all trench coats, or totally impractical/ridiculous.

Depends on the necro, but I find it much harder fighting lich form in WvW, especially if the necro knows how to play against a thief. Fully stacked with food, a friend of mine deals around 14k damage autos in lich form, and has tons of health. Not playing perfectly against that just leaves you dead on the ground.

moloko.4123:

I main thief and I will agree that immob venom + venom share is beyond broken. In fact, I think any build that uses full Shadow Arts is completely broken. These are my opinions: a good thief won’t use a full SA trait line, and SA should be completely reworked.

As a fellow thief, I’m totally cool with this, again, because I don’t use it (it is a scrub trait line). The brokenness that is SA has caused nerfs to the rest of the class for what is basically no apparent reason than to not nerf SA.

caveman.5840:

they tried to push us in to a venom share build for what felt like a decade

the last thing i want is for them to keep trying to make the thief a support class

And it’s getting nerfed because people are slowly learning it’s actually overpowered as all hell in its current state.

I’m hoping for something focused around revealed bonuses versus passive stealth defenses that are seemingly always-necessary due to the dependency on SE.

Bhawb.7408:

NeXeD.3042:

So with all the new dmg reduction and the possibility of pseudo condition immunity… can you potentially have both?

Yep. The damage reduction is entirely within Death Magic, Reaper, and skill use, it doesn’t even take up a third tree, and the condition immunity is from Reaper, runes, and food in PvE/WvW. They are completely compatible, and you have room left over. Say DM/SR/R with the relevant traits, make sure you have good sources of poison/chill, bring spectrals for the protection uptime, and you are set up to be a strong bruiser build.

This was a friend of mine’s immediate response to the Reaper; he plans on doing nothing with spite or curses despite the craziness that can happen and is just instead focusing on an unstoppable truck with way more base power than it should have from the 14% conversion.

The reaper dimply does its damage via Reaper Shroud. Most of the builds right now are focused on using GS/Staff or GS/Dagger+Focus or GS/Axe + Focus to generate life force and be able to deal with ranged targets better from the ranged potential, life force regen, and control effects.

I think the build that only will really have relative ease against the reaper is S/x thief due to the immobilization, IR’s teleport + cleansing/evades/boon steal pulling the stability from the Reaper. Otherwise I see the reaper being able to confront most classes and do well given the life force.

I’m glad the shouts aren’t just blatantly superior to the rest of the utilities; it gives some reason to mix up old ones/unused ones with new mechanics for interesting play, rather than just building full synergy into whatever the specialization focuses on introducing. That would just make everyone the same and builds boring.

A lot of the traits that worked well together and spanned multiple lines are being moved all into one line now.

Like my GS warrior build is 4/4/4/0/2 but with the new traits I actually end up getting everything I wanted and more despite only having access to 3 lines, for the worthwhile traits for the greatsword are all being pushed into the power line rather than split power/precision.

This system won’t hurt diversity much at all. I don’t know if it’ll improve it, but it won’t hurt it. I’ve yet to find someone upset by the arrangement of existing traits in terms of builds (some were nerfed/modified, but I mean totally unplayable) – ANet did a good job making everything fit nicely together.