Guild Wars 2

I really hope the “rifle proof” on thief isn’t a thief and is just an engineer or something.

The animations and style are so unsuited for how the class plays.

Hylgeriak.8250:

Deaths.9165:

sry but features they promised 2 years ago for free. They are gonna sell it as an expansion now. Its good they bring thouse features finnaly (maybe in 1 year) out. But lol!!!!!

And Stronghold sounds more like a MOBA then GvG

dude…how can you know this is a B2P expansion? Don’t talk donkey manure and enjoy those awesome announcements anet made today and keep looking forwards to every bit of info we get in the next weeks

I would have to say the same thing to you, actually. It is and has been confirmed B2P since the announcement.

https://help.guildwars2.com/home

I was expecting a free release. We’ll see what the feature patch in April brings to see if it’s warranted, though.

Masteries were stated to be means of surviving in the jungle environment and had no other context of the rest of Tyria surrounding them. Since the expansion is also not required to play in the base game, it is expected they will only be used in expansion content zones.

They stated in the announcement they will be unique to the new map content.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

gliders in WvW anyone?

srsly if it could work there it would totaly break the system :P

Was my first reaction to their announcement, but they stated they will be unique to the new PvE maps.

And changes to the classes/specializations and the economic problems posed by those who do/don’t? I see it as problematic to not be able to utilize important new mechanics for classes which may cause discrepancies in the PvP formats. The same applies to new items, skins, etc.

If these are to be implemented into the base game, then what exactly are we paying for with the expansion aside from some new lore and precursor acquisition?

This thread again. I feel like I need to do a PSA on this topic because of how often it is raised and complained about and how much misinformation surrounds it.

Here is a segment taken from a previous post of mine about the subject and why the complaints about the berserker meta/gear/hate on DPS players in PvE are sadly unwarranted and do not contribute to solving the problem.

DeceiverX:8361

The problem still lies not in the stat allocation and distribution among equipment sets and their effects in combat but in why the optimization of certain strategies creates metagame strategies. Metagames are literally optimizations – abstract optimizations – or games within games – which define the “best” methodology of approaching a given situation based on a desired output yield; due to the fact this is an optimization within a confined environment, if variables change, that optimization at some threshold is guaranteed to also change.

And it can only change, not be removed altogether.

This is asserted in that in order to create a situation where there exists no metagame strategy, the ability to create an algorithmic solution to an associated problem must be removed. This implies one of two things:

Either there are infinitely many variables allowed to influence the problem (impossible due to programmatic limitations when examining computation theory and algorithms),

or

Two different algorithms perform exactly identical operations despite being differently constructed (a paradox; similar to 1 = 2).

So how are metagame strategies better removed? Well, by simply attempting to increase the pool of available variables to create the illusion that there are infinitely many, or try to approach infinitely many as best as possible.

Therefore in this kind of context, optimization adjustments to just raw numerical data will not affect much, for the variables are pretty much figured out.

So adding more – or simply changing – the number variables is what needs to occur.

So in TL;DR/simple speech, the dungeon design needs to change, since the algorithms of how to solve the problem have been figured out, and running some numbers is all it takes to tweak the dominant metagame strategy into a new one, merely moving the problem somewhere else, and we’re back at square one. By altering the dungeons to allow for the incorporation of more variables, the metagame requires much more effort to re-establish due to more complexity and dependencies on the differences between human interactions with the content.

The meta is entirely player-created. Full-DPS is always going to kill things faster than anything else. The game’s motto is in fact “play how you want,” and it is still holding that way, for any content can be beaten by say, a party of all glassy DPS, unlike most other games which outright require a dedicated tank, healer, etc.

So the problem lies in the content design, and has nothing to do with stat distributions on gear. Not to mention that berserker gear is often considered as ineffective, undesirable, and in many cases, strictly bad in both sPvP and WvW. It’s one combination that’s dominating the PvE scene on the sole basis that defensive trait lines are over-rewarding and offensive ones are underwhelming paired with the fact that people just want to optimize their time and get through their daily grinds for money, exp, whatever, and that because dungeon completion time is based upon kill speed, it makes running DPS the ultimate option.

No matter what happens, the game environment in regards to organized PvE and metagame strategies will ALWAYS be this way. Berserker gear, soldier’s, hell, even Nomad’s; it doesn’t matter. What matters is that people are going to want to optimize their time spent, and with dungeons just based on kill speed and draining hp bars, nothing in regards to the attitude of players will change unless the dungeons themselves are to reward those playing supportive/tank roles by allowing for them to reduce the time spent in the dungeons, and even then, it may possibly create an environment where certain other classes, builds, or gearing setups are desirable for one particular portion of the dungeon, excluding other players.

Ultimately the responsibility lies in the players and there is little to nothing ANet can do about it.

They could very well increase the level cap with little backlash.

The main thing with that though is in doing so they would be incapable of raising the gear tiers; no gear requires anything beyond 80.

That, or they’d have to make the current 80 ascended armor be the same or better in stats as the next-tier’s exotics to keep their use relevant. Just raising the level cap and inflating stats is the last thing they want to do if they’re serious about player retention, though.

If you build for burst, the reverted scaling and base damage would be enough. I’m currently able to stab for around 10k on celestial elementalists with my current build, and around 17k in WvW.

If you look at my WvW build, I suffer few problems even while standing in blobs or against multiple foes when properly evading major hits and dispatching enemies in one or two hits. Yes, dire condition builds give me a hard time, but every build has a weak spot (aside from some engi builds).

Not saying it’s the only fix or that the thief should be able to two-shot bunker builds with ease, just that the class under-performs currently due to the limitations imposed on it from repeated sPvP nerfs with the game mode type in mind. BP will not solve the class-wide problems the profession faces as much as skill performance nudges and tweaks to other more generic aspects of the class.

Don’t really care if new race or new weapons/skills as much as it includes new ways to play.

The game’s been figured out too much and the limited skill sets have made it kind of stale for a lot of people. Throwing something into the mix (or many things) would definitely be a breath of fresh air and would possibly very much change the state of the game.

Not to mention it is much easier for the 3D modelers, and I’d rather see more options made for existing races first as well as some of the awful clipping issues fixed.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

ChoChoBo.6503:

evilapprentice.6379:

ChoChoBo.6503:

Wow, this thread kind of blew up.

BP is very op. Spamming it is hard, yes, but not impossible, especially on point with targets around you. This made it so you could keep a point contested almost indefinitely. So its not about targets/enemies being in the BP circle, but about the thief being able to stay on point.

So…you exclusively fought DPS Guardians? Because as far as I can tell, any War Engi Necro Ele Ranger Mes Thief would have simply switched to their ranged weapon and completely ignored the 12-18 init you dumped into a tiny melee resistant circle; if they were feeling too lazy to move around your little circle that is.

Contesting a point doesn’t mean bunkering. If a point is about to be flipped, BP is a great option for thief’s to keep it contested. I’m afraid you might not comprehend how valuable it is to be able to keep a point contested. If you want to range and fight off point, when you don’t own the point, go for it. I don’t mind fighting you off point in that situation.

I’m afraid you misunderstand some very basic concepts in this game.

1. Literally every other class in the game is better at contesting a point than Thief.

2. Your opponents can stand on point And fire their ranged weapons at you while standing outside BP’s effect, All at the same time! They do not need to stand off point to turn your melee resistant circle into a complete waste of init with their ranged weapons.

3. Dancing around inside of a BP effect on a contested point is probably the absolute least effective thing you can do for your team as a Thief (outside of very rare, specific, niche situations). Nobody wants their squishy, highly mobile, burst roamer to be sitting in place and doing 0 damage just so they can avoid some melee damage.

Do you drop BP when your opponent is using ranged? Seriously? Come on.

We all know that BP is anti-melee and if they use ranged weapon we get into their face with Shadow Shot.

Or BP+Steal->HS->BS.

Chocho was specifically mentioning dropping BP then just dancing around in it as a way to contest points, and cited it as a reason BP was so OP. I was simply pointing out how silly that scenario was because “they will just switch to their ranged weapons and ignore your little melee resistant circle”.

Ah, I see. That’s just silly then.

Sure other profession are better than Thieves at contesting a point but this is not due to BP. The main problem is that Thief’s damage has been nerfed while other profession’s defenses are buffed. ArenaNet needs to give us our burst back.

I agree completely – until the give us our burst back, the BP nerf should be reverted.

It’s like you’re saying that it’s ok for ArenaNet to nerf our burst as long as they rollback BP. :/

IMO, they can nerf BP all they want because that doesn’t define Thief. I just want our burst back and the removal on Revealed completely. I don’t mind being a thin glass as long as I can cut them really really deep.

Thank you for recognizing the problems at hand. Reverting BP does nothing to solve the actual class problems except make troll bunker P/P a semi-viable-but-still-bad build and inhibit the class from succeeding where it needs to by allowing for lower burst damage due to the sustain BP offers on points.

BP shouldn’t be used at range to protect one’s self from range, but I can’t seem to get that through to people any other way. Stealing alone should be able to act as evasion from range from engineer grenades, cut off a ranger RF short through proper evasion techniques, and ultimately remove that gap to either force melee into BP or force them off point after taking burst damage and needing to range to kill you.

Otherwise you just stealth and force them to get on point to cap and you’re back in a favorable position.

P/P condi funtions better as a perplexity/interrupt build over on-crit effects simply because headshot stacking perplexity constantly offers a lot more damage than a bleed or torment every few seconds with a skill that doesn’t skill.

That said, I believe the most usable P/P build in WvW is an initiative regeneration/dodge thief. It draws out fights but makes them a lot more favorable to win. For blobbing, your ranger is going to end up better off; each auto-attack will probably end up hitting similar to half of an unload.

I’m assuming you’re referring to effects like Shadow’s Embrace, which does allow for good condition removal, but I think putting that kind of dependency on the Shadow Arts line is kind of absurd. Shadowstep and signet of agility active are the only utility skills which can remove conditions, and those are on substantial cooldowns and are used primarily for their other effects and are fairly mediocre cleanses, anyways, and HiS only removes burning/bleeding/poison; confusion, torment, immobilize, cripple, weakness – all of those stay on the thief without traiting into shadow’s embrace.

S/x offers condition cleansing, but even then, that ties it to one specific main hand weapon, and does not provide enough mass cleansing for what’s often the most effective means of dispatching thieves: mass condition application. Not to further mention the trait emphasizes resetting fights and promotes passive play as it requires the thief to remain stealthed. Conditions are also more potent to thieves than other classes due to the low-tier health pool paired with the limited condition removal; elementalists don’t have said problems for obvious reasons, as they arguably have some of the best cleansing effects and heals in the game.

Definitely a tough act to balance – I’ll give you that – for a tanky thief running deep into Shadow Arts and also running additional cleansing with S/D would be downright dangerous to try and take down as a condition player due to all the removal, but I think some of those cleanses – even trace amounts – could be implemented elsewhere for better accessibility.

I do support the notion for removing all “get out of jail free” traits which occur when dipping below a certain health threshold. It creates a really awkward dynamic overall and makes instances like this occur.

It’s only other use really lies in a bunker healing power spec which focuses on keeping constant blind pressure, securing stomps, and interrupting big skills with head shot repeatedly, and using a combination of venoms and brief stealths for better sustain while not losing the point while reinforcements come in.

It works surprisingly well, though I think its success also stems from the lack of knowledge on how to deal with it as someone mentioned above. I’d not recommend using P/P as a DPS set in any format on any build outside of as an alternate swap during some higher level pug fracals. Medi guard usually just holds points better and is overall more useful to the team.

official.7362:

everything deviever says points to him being a pver (p/p spec, the want for buffs to d/d, the constant misunderstanding of how players fight other players)

id infact put money that he doesnt even play thief in pvp

yep pver written all over him

No, actually. I’m a relatively renowned WvW thief main.

And frankly, no PvE’er would ask for D/D buffs; D/D is the most powerful set in PvE and provides the highest single-target DPS in the game in terms of sustained throughputs over every other class and build. Records are only held by other builds through either exploits or party-wide might stacking.

Using P/P is only viable in sPvP. It’s the worst spec in WvW and the second-least effective in PvE. Yet my defense, and as others have stated, is that P/P with the old blinding powder was absolutely ridiculous due to the finishers offered by the pistol mainhand which led to constant blinds at range.

But whatever. If those who can’t use the skill properly are going to insist it’s under-powered, so be it.

Condi thieves don’t really need any traits except uncatchable anyways, though. Beyond that everything else is just extra.

We could just get another trait, say like, Patience, as the 1pt Shadow Arts minor and switch the two.

Although more condition cleansing across all of the builds is really what needs to happen, as that’s the biggest and in most cases only reason to trait into Shadow Arts, and even then, there’s a huge dependency there due to the lack of lower/mid cooldown cleansing on the class elsewhere.

evilapprentice.6379:

In what world did BP protect you while you were waiting for reveal to go away? It’s radius was smaller than melee range – it is possible to melee someone standing in BP from outside the circle no matter where they stood inside BP’s effect. On top of that nearly every meta spec has ranged options, which BP is worthless against.

BP wasn’t changed to have “less utility” in D/P – it was changed into garbage. Prior to the nerf, you could use BP to force an opponent to reposition, and maybe buy yourself 1-2 seconds. Now it’s a giant telegraph that tells your opponents to ready their interrupts, you’re going into stealth because 19 times out 20, shadow shot is the superior ability if you want to blind your opponent. 1 blind every 2 seconds isn’t good enough to keep a thief up against any meta spec, so your opponent can just wade right through it and still win the fight. How is that worth 6 init?

BP either needs to return 2 Init when the projectile hits (making it cheaper to use in combat but not cheaper to use just to gain stealth outside of combat), or it needs better damage. 6 init is far to much initiative to just tell your opponents you’re going to try and go into stealth. Or they could just revert it back to how it was – if your opponent cant move around a small circle in PvP, they’ve got bigger problems than D/P thieves.

Take a 10 radius step backward from your attacker while inside. Problem solved. Basic geometry dictates the amount of movement needed to attack you by rotating around the outside of the circle will always be more than what’s needed to re-position inside/in a tighter radius. If you can’t kite inside of BP and avoid damage, that itself is a L2P problem; your enemies are totally irrelevant because skilled use of the skill actually prevents any counter-play at all in a 1v1 scenario, and if you’re outnumbered, why are you revealed, and why are you not running away from the fight? The ability for melee attacks to barely reach into the field is barely a bad excuse to say the skill was fair. It’s extremely easy to do and is and should always be faster than your opponent’s movements. Use proper angles. Stack effects with a 10 radius offset. Standing in the center or closer to your foe would have gotten you killed before the nerf. It helped punish heartseeker scrubs just spamming 2 on top of a BP’ed enemy as well.

I wouldn’t call BP a giant telegraph. It’s less telegraphed than backstab itself even while stealthed, and it provides extreme amounts of utility. Everyone seems to forget it blinds twice on cast, the first on the ranged projectile and the second on the first pulse. You can punish hambow warrior hard with the skill by using it while they’re in the air during earthshaker (BP has a faster full animation and the projectile is instant) and proper use of evade timing and keeping track of the enemy’s blinds and your pulses lets you know when you need to evade or not.

BP is a better blind than shadow show when timed properly due to the multiple application. It can blatantly prevent you from dying to certain combo attempts. BP isn’t supposed to be a refuge during revealed. You play the thief and deal with revealed as a repercussion of being able to attack from stealth/stealth skills. There is no such thing as a safe haven for a thief and there shouldn’t be. Play well or die. That’s what the game and this profession in general are supposed to be about. Use the profession mechanics to your advantage and play in a way conducive to its design.

The reality of the matter is that the thief as a profession does simply not play well in sPvP. And it never will with its dependencies on stealth for its most important utility. BP was overpowered because it allowed for too much staying power despite the fact the class wasn’t meant to have any.

It’s worth 6 initiative because it’s a ranged blind with a smoke field which allows for stealth off of HS (D/P’s strongest asset) and to punish point/targeted location fighting. If you’re sitting in BP planning on taking hits, you’re doing thief wrong, just saying. If BP isn’t worth six initiative, do tell me, why is Cloak and Dagger, seeing as it’s strictly worse in regards to what it does in the format?

This thread shouldn’t be about BP. It should be about thieves in general. Undoing the BP nerf is not a solution to make the class more viable in sPvP but a side-step to the problem by re-implementing an overpowered skill (clearly only so in the right hands).

They could perhaps start by buffing the condition cleansing of the class overall and undoing some of the damage nerfs to skills which did not deserve them, like CnD, and undoing some of the other more general utility effects the class had in the past to help deal with aggressors’ incoming strikes.

official.7362:

LOL OMG TOTAL IMMUNITY HOW EVER DID WE DIE

u realize it you were able to hit the thief even while standing inside it before right? it was every 3 hits instead of every other hit perfectly fine imo not to mention you can kittenign stand outside the ring and still hit the thief so plz tell me more p/p thief lol

the whole nerf of revealed was because ppl were running d/d in wvw spamming c/d over and over again not to mention pvp is a completely different stealth game where no rules apply of stealthing as much as you want but in pvp if your sitting in stealth over and over your punished for it and so is your team

pw is totally not fine thats why no one kittenign runs it in pvp cause it doesnt do enough dmg

i can totally see why it was nerfd in pve cause of pve mobs being kittening kittened but for you to be kittened and come in here making a fool of your self well that doesnt fly with me

You didn’t if you knew how to use the field properly. Stacking two between their pulses made it literally impossible to get an attack through. Finishers further enforced this.

To be disagreeing with me of all people with clearly no understanding of the mechanics at hand is not me making a fool of myself but the total contrary.

All I can read from your post history is that you genuinely do not know how to play the the class properly and are not willing to make adjustments and take the appropriate risks to make the build perform how you seem to want it to.

I’m sorry… but… what?

Good use of BP before the nerf allowed for total immunity of incoming damage. Spoken as a P/P thief by a P/P thief. Proper kiting within it prevented any melee attacks from landing. It only sucked for those who didn’t understand you can move inside of the field.

6 init is pretty spammable with the standard meta trickery build so commonly found.

Makes more sense to have revealed on a 4s timer in sPvP than in WvW. Not sure why you think it should be 4 in WvW. Not saying it should be 4s, just the comment about WvW makes no sense.

PW is fine; 3 spam stun with evade frames and burst damage shouldn’t be one/two-shotting people.

For one, the stats are totally messed up, creating a very restrictive selection of builds and styles of play which can be considered as even remotely effective. The balancing efforts have only contributed to such strictness; often a nerf or buff will define entire builds or remove them from the scope of extensive viability. The fact that it’s gotten to the point where I can claim who will win by class selection with over 90% accuracy emphasizes this.

The next being that the game is too fast-paced and the action is too slow. Movement is basically a frenzy of getting on/off points and constantly dying and quickly respawning/getting back in the fight before it ends and combat between players with intermittent objectives, due to nerfed skill coefficients, blatantly higher defense values over WvW and PvE, alternative stat nerfs, and inherently lower offensive stats make combat just take too long (which is both a cause and byproduct of the tight scheme of build viability). In sPvP, I feel like everyone’s given a pillow to kill each other while wearing plate-mail. People just don’t die when they rightfully should.

The toxicity is unbelievable. Most players I encounter in sPvP seems to pretend that they’re some kind of pro player and that if they die it’s because of luck or their teammate’s failure to act correctly. The fact teammates frequently spew insults because “you only got top player because you didn’t help fight” (or the opposite), certainly seems to demonstrate that most of the folks in there are in there for their own benefit/egos and have no respect for anyone who does something better than them, be it getting out-played by the enemy or outlasted/outdone by their allies.

u.u

All the great things happen so far from the Northeast.

I’d hope that those who get the chance to go would be so kind as to maybe create topics, polls, or whatever may be about what to perhaps ask the GW2 team about while attending. I know I definitely would have a few questions to ask, but would certainly want a big list of things I maybe haven’t thought of/did not know of.

Good luck to participants, and Gaile, you’re great and even if not perhaps as interesting, you mean more to us than some of those developers; don’t sell yourself short like that

My reasoning for not using shadow arts is solely because of this trait.

That said, I’m one who believes it would be more appropriate to allow for better condition cleansing on the class and other classes overall to negate the dependency for use of this trait/shadow arts in general.

I think the entire line is a crutch, except for the border-line mandatory Shadow’s Embrace.

I would if I could have fury elsewhere. That is the sole reason I use the trait and it is too good of a boon to pass up and not easy enough to get on the class in general.

Regarding thief burst damage/claims by OP and general complaints about thief/demands for thief nerfs, either you were not geared to take any damage whatsoever and one snuck up behind you/you were not paying full attention to your surroundings, or you were taken down by someone using something like my build.

I would suggest you look at the thief sub-forum or do some digging through my posts for my build. Yes, it hits hard. Actually, it’s the second hardest hitting build on the game (aside from burst damage ele which doesn’t really work in PvP environments though), but I’m going to state a fact in that the build is harder to play effectively than any other class or build in pretty much every scenario outside of getting the jump on a glassy opponent. This build also should be facing a 75%-90% stealth downtime; so it’s not like there isn’t a way to fight back/know where or when the next is attack is coming from.

Dire condition roaming generally speaking is far more low-risk : high reward than anything playing for burst damage. I’ve had a lot of people ask me in-game and on the boards about my build, many of which moving from P/D conditions, and most of them either do not succeed and revert back to P/D conditions because it’s too hard, or change their class altogether because of the sheer difficulty and lack of durability in anything but assassinations.

I’ve had help requests ranging in probably the hundreds of people now, and I can safely say I can count those who have stuck with the build/play it well on my fingers alone.

The only real way to solve the problem is to turn WvW teams be created like EoTM color schemes; not individual servers but collections of servers, and simply create larger maps and have dynamic queue scaling to accommodate for more players.

Then on the back end, keep track of things like kills and claims by guilds based upon server, and use the data to create new team compositions for the next week to be more balanced. This creates a constantly-shifting experience and prevents bandwagoning to mid or lower-tier servers while emphasizing server loyalty – the bottom of the bottom will be raiding alongside the best there is, keeping things interesting for pretty much everyone involved.

Farzo.8410:

Always a good way to mail people salt when they start to whisper you bad things.

I’m now going to carry around a stack of salt.

Why did I not think of this earlier ._.

thefantasticg.3984:

Thaddeus.4891:

The big controversy will be the Might nerf. In PvE, this will change about nothing. Everybody will do a bit less dmg in organized group, but most pugs group will never see any different. But it won’t change a thing is how we play.

Won’t change how you play. Will change how I play and change who I play with. Maybe you aren’t good enough to notice the lack of DPS in parties that aren’t full zerk (which makes you bad), but plenty of us are. It will make PuG runs last that much longer. If you think it won’t you’re being purposefully ignorant.

It’s these nerfing DPS changes that make me really really really want the ability to gear check other players.

Glad to know I won’t be playing with condescending cat-holes like you

Purple Miku.7032:

Narkodx.1472:

They don’t care about your solo dungeon runs taking 15 seconds longer

I don’t care about that either.

Now, would you mind not posting unless you actually have anything relevant to contribute to the discussion?

Thanks in advance.

Seeing as that’s the only real reason to be dealing more damage and stacking 25 might in PvE… how is that not relevant?

It shouldn’t really matter in all honesty. Nothing about the meta changes, and dungeons were/are being cleared too quickly. It may also just be about general PvE allowing for might to be too rewarding. It certainly is in the open world.

Yea, they could have not nerfed might, but they could have also just increased boss HP by say, 25% to compensate.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Mistress of Trade.8746:

Chasind.3128:

Anet doesn’t know what to do with eles, it’s not THAT bad tbh- eles aren’t supposed to be front runners anyways, atleast thats what anet seems to make clear

Then what are eles supposed to be? They’re the most squishy, but they’re not allowed to even be among the top damage dealers (let alone the best)?

What do you mean exactly? Ele’s current have the highest dps by about a 10% margin. Thieves can do slightly higher burst, but they don’t have the sustain.

Plus the might nerf effects all classes, it probably hurts warriors the most.

Actually, no. Elementalists hold the highest burst damage by a fair margin as well as DPS. It’s just on two different builds, where the thief DPS/burst comes from one build with a utility skill swap, and played slightly differently.

I’m not fond of the huge confusion duration increases, though. I actively don’t like the way confusion currently works in PvP environments and believe it was already too strong as a condition. We’ll see where it goes, though.

It’s easier to solo than fight in a group. This is especially apparent against the Archdiviner, as he will aggro switch and do 180-degree turns while in mid-air of his leap. A clusterkitten of particles and heavies which often maximize player size doesn’t help, either. The boss stats also get down-scaled in the process, making the fight even easier in terms of situations when you do actually get hit.

If you’re not in super-maxed runs with top-tier PvE players, there’s zero purpose in running D/D on boss encounters. Traiting for P/P usually yields more damage in the end due to the constant pressure applied from repeated uses of unload.

I’m almost certain that on fights like Mai or the Archdiviner, when pugs are involved, P/P nets pretty incredible sustained damage and a lot more safety. The fact that per unit of time I can deal equivalent DPS to a full-offense HB war while in valk emphasizes this further.

Vayne.8563:

aspirine.6852:

Vayne.8563:

aspirine.6852:

DeceiverX.8361:

And subsequently any kind of release of major content would result in more players and thus more profits. People seem to very readily forget the gem store as a source of income, and believe that the vanilla game is the only thing that profits. I’ll guarantee you this; ANet has made a minimum of 2x its base game revenue from the gem store alone.

No i dont see how a gemstore can give enough money to pay for 300+ employees. Do you think the gemstore gives around 1.5 to 2 million a month?

I believe Guild Wars 2 is taking in about 8 million dollars a month, or seems to be if I remember the NcSoft quarterly report. I’m sure most of that is gem store sales. There just aren’t that many new sales, and more to the point, most of those new sales will likely be at $20.

I must say that is a lot more money that I thought they made with just gems.
Still I prefer the expansion to cost money, because in my eyes it sounds wrong not to ask money for such a big part of the game. It kinda makes the company look like amateurs not being able to ask money for a huge new part of the game.
And I have no problem paying the same as any of the gw1 stand alones/expansion.

Actually, there are big corporations that do give away content for free. It doesn’t make them amateurs.

The point is, the company is structured with the idea that the cash shop will be profitable enough to run the game.

Charging for an expansion creates a rift in the player base. If people aren’t willing or can’t afford to buy the expansion they can no longer play with their friends and guild mates.

It creates haves and have nots.

If everyone gets the new content free, it means the game loses no one on that one particular matter anyway.

One of the things that Anet found with Guild Wars 1 was that releasing Factions and Nightfall (admittedly stand alone games) divided the player base. They’re desperate not to do that.

That’s at least in part why the mega server was created. There were already empty zones. Anet directly said they didn’t want to create too many new zones before the megaserver technology was in place. They didn’t want to have what happened in just about every other MMO to happen here.

They didn’t want everyone crowding around in the new zones and the rest of the world feeling abandoned.

I don’t know why it would be considered amateur to make a decision based on good business. One would assume if they didn’t charge, it would be because it benefited them not to.

Exactly. If the company was strapped for cash due to an already-low but loyal player-base, then the paid expansion would probably be worthwhile to raise profits to cover development and maintenance costs of the game. If anything, free releases demonstrate faith in quality when it’s on the high end; Google could have decide to sell their search engine as paid software from day 1 like some of its competitors early on. Do you think they’d be doing as well if they did?

That said, doing so will reduce the number of long-term players. It’s a trend that has been seen in WoW and most other games which offer paid boxed expansion content. Because of their current success on a monthly basis with no new content, however, it makes no sense to try and money-grab a unified player-base with a paid, boxed expansion which will ultimately have the negative outcome seen as undesirable by the company in the past, will reduce long-term profits (which matter more as demonstrated), and is also very difficult to implement in an MMO environment without making the expansion purchase mandatory for playing the game at all; new items/gear, skills, classes, race, whatever it may be, heavily impact the game and its metagame strategies as well as the market. Shutting off players from these extremely important aspects of the game due to a pay wall is obscene and possibly game-breaking.

Nobody should feel the need to pay again for a shiny cardboard box. ANet is making a killing on this game and should and does have the support to release the best content. If they’re unable to do so, free or not, it demonstrates a fundamental flaw in the designers’ points of view and as such nothing will change that or verify incoming content as high quality.

Not to mention the press’s stance on a huge, high-quality free expansion. I’d say that in itself would sell a lot of copies of the game to new players, as then it really portrays the business model of the game in a very positive light.

But of course, that’s under the impression we’re facing an expansion; I still would not get my hopes up for anything except knowing something involving dragons and Sylvari.

I found this to work fairly well as a P/P set. Lots of initiative regeneration and mobility to keep unloading and applying headshot/BP. The alternate weapons are whatever; I swap in and out of SB and S/P. Quite a lot of fun to have so much mobility. I just wish I could make something this mobile hit from substantial range, for it doesn’t really deal as much damage as desired.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQJAqal0Mp3plOxzJ8PNBQBt5qDg3J5IDpzcUWA-T1BFwACOBAI3fAl6PJV+lRPAflgAeAAkCYUlRA-w

P/P is also a good way to go for the power-based builds with leeching, as proper casting can let a thief chain venoms on all eight shots of unload, interrupt on headshot, and sustain with the blinds, while reserving additional venom casts when needed. A friend of mine runs this and does remarkably good damage with quite a surprising amount of durability.

Maugetarr.6823:

Cynz.9437:

look at pvp forums, the qq is massive there… apprently thieves define meta lol

Yeah, I’ve run across those, and they have some weird logic to them. Something along the lines of thieves (and mesmers to some extent) caused the celestial meta.

Lolwut. The reason why thieves are even in the current meta is because of the fact we’re in the boon-based celestial meta.

Without boon theft, there’s really no point in using them for anything in sPvP.

P/P or S/D Shadow Arts on most of the aforementioned fights. Aside from Mai, I’ll usually just swap out the shortbow for P/P as a ranged set and D/D when my health is full and I know I can manage a hit or two in. With Mai, I just run S/D + SB Shadow Arts with as much stealth as I can for healing, reviving people, etc., as normally someone goes down and shadow arts can let you just sit there and tank incoming damage to revive someone.

That said, I play with Valkyrie armor, so I natively have around 15k health and can often survive a given hit (albeit just barely in some cases).

But you’re right in moving to P/P while running glassy. You also get the benefit of a spammable ranged interrupt to wear down the boss’s Defiance stacks and allow for a party member to use a long-lasting CC effect, which can let everyone unleash their full damage with no need whatsoever to focus on defense.

aspirine.6852:

DeceiverX.8361:

And subsequently any kind of release of major content would result in more players and thus more profits. People seem to very readily forget the gem store as a source of income, and believe that the vanilla game is the only thing that profits. I’ll guarantee you this; ANet has made a minimum of 2x its base game revenue from the gem store alone.

No i dont see how a gemstore can give enough money to pay for 300+ employees. Do you think the gemstore gives around 1.5 to 2 million a month?

Yes, actually. Quarterly they’ve earned between $20 to $30 million each year, demonstrating that since launch from gem profits alone, a good $250 million alone has been from gem sales, whereas only about $200 million has been from actual game sales. What this means is that more money is spent on gem store purchases than game purchases, causing the gem store to become ANet’s primary source of revenue. While a paid expansion may cause a surge in income, so would any major additions, even free ones, just due to the sheer number of returning players catching up and subsequently spending money on gems.

Paid expansions can lead to fragmented player groups and ultimately cost more money over time, for as mentioned, retaining players leads to causing higher revenue versus an influx of new short-term purchases over the scope of a few years.

Ultimately, due to ANet’s ongoing economic success, I would as a business leader actually prefer to keep the expansion content free, as a surge in profits is almost guaranteed no matter the price of the release due to a resurgence of lost player activity, and the long-terms risks of fragmentation and negative publicity would possibly be cost-prohibitive and not worth the risk of a higher surge in profits.

Those with money to spend on the game are going to spend it, regardless of the magnitude of necessity.

And subsequently any kind of release of major content would result in more players and thus more profits. People seem to very readily forget the gem store as a source of income, and believe that the vanilla game is the only thing that profits. I’ll guarantee you this; ANet has made a minimum of 2x its base game revenue from the gem store alone.

I don’t want to be expected to shell out a lump of money for a typical boxed expansion. I’ve contributed enough to the gem store as it is, seeing as the game was sold as B2P with a gem store for sustaining revenue.

I don’t want to see new gear tiers/better equipment. I have few issues with a level raise for new traits, skills, whatever it may be as long as they’re not blatantly overpowered or clearly define a gap between 80 and [new max] and as long as it doesn’t affect equipment.

aspirine.6852:

Some people think that Anet is sponsored by Santa or something. Things cost money, games cost money. Dont expect them to give games away?!

They do, but by their current expected revenue they can afford to pay every single one of their employees over a $100k annual salary, including bottom-tier customer support workers while still maintaining their infrastructure, building expenses, etc.

The money has already been spent if the content is complete, anyways, seeing as ANet has repeatedly stated they will make no announcements until the content is guaranteed to be released, due to the outrage from lack of delivery of certain WIP items which could not be finished before.

ANet fully paid for all development costs of the game and way more before the game even released. Gem store users account for revenue likely in the hundreds of millions annually. I get that games cost money, but it’s not like they’re hurting for cash, and the cost has already been paid for.

Basically. I still have zero expectations of any kind of expansion-like content, and firmly believe that the presentation at PAX will be no more than a slightly-modified LS approach and a lot of trailers and hype-building for season 3.

JLHiggs.6258:

DeceiverX.8361:

Not sure how you implement a paid expansion in an MMO while allowing for the base game to remain as a valid means of playing. Do recall the model the game was marketed upon was pay once and done. Going against that would raise a lot of criticism and possibly cause them to lose players not heavily invested in the game.

The game marketing never precluded an expansion, and it was similar to how the original Guild Wars was marketed. They advertised that it has no monthly subscription, not that more content wouldn’t come out that required investment.

In Guild Wars, you could play the base game still or play the separate campaigns (essentially linked-in new games). The one true “expansion” was Eye of the North, and it did not change the ability to play the base game one bit (and plenty of folks still did play GW without EoTN).

Finally, the idea that an expansion will cause bad press or loss of players just isn’t the case. Every single MMO tends to gain players when they release an expansion because of the press, hype, and veteran players becoming re-energized and selling the game to their friends.

Long story short, if this amazing game is going to continue expanding and have a viable content development team behind it for the long haul, we need a paid expansion, and I will be more than happy to throw money at it.

It doesn’t, though. I don’t think you realize how much ANet monetizes from aesthetic releases in the gem store over game sales. By forcing a paid expansion, ANet may sacrifice part of their inactive/recessive customer base and subsequently lose profits long-term. MMO’s outside of the subscription model frequently release expansions for free and find they have huge spikes in income from players returning from breaks/quitting the game wanting a new experience. WoW and subscription models that ship out paid boxed expansions only see profit spikes during releases because of people buying said expansions to do the new content. Subsequently, many people who play for the expansion content drop out after a month or so again rather than keeping their subscription going as they do not see the price as worth paying. As such, there’s a slow degradation in profits and active subscribers over time. The number of expansion purchases GW2’s audience is a lot more casual as well.

- Company based in the western market = good communication and understanding of western-market players.

- World versus World/Large battlefields with none of that open-world PK garbage seen in a lot of Eastern MMO’s (inspires drama, creates grieving environments, promotes aggressive/tense play, etc.)

- Relatively painless leveling process (as of release; trait rework/NPE level gating made this bad).

-B2P just once so I can get up and take a hiatus whenever.

- Action/skill-based gameplay success over T1 loot/guild loot/min-max success.

- Removal of RNG elements from endgame gear (dungeon tokens; pre-ascended) and a fast gearing process.

I’ll support hero-menu dyes on hair accessories. The engine would support it as part of the wardrobe without too many issues; all that would really need to be done is copy-paste some code snippets and create a new icon in the wardrobe UI.

Not sure how you implement a paid expansion in an MMO while allowing for the base game to remain as a valid means of playing. Do recall the model the game was marketed upon was pay once and done. Going against that would raise a lot of criticism and possibly cause them to lose players not heavily invested in the game. It may bolster revenue, but it gains bad press – and while the content may even be good or worth it – going against the founding principles as to why this game succeeded will raise suspicions from a lot of critics. I’d argue it as a worse money-grab than the complaints regarding the focus on gem store item releases.

I would expect profit increase predictions to be made on the pretense that a vast number of players will be returning and/or signing up thus causing more gem store and game sales. With a new trademark, the base game can also be sold under that new name, and also at an increased/release-value price.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

Quaggon is a Jedi Master, Quaggan is a GW 2 amphibious animal.

Qui Gon.

I’m not sure what this elusive “Quaggon” is.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

but taking condition buffing food for roaming in wvw tends to be very unwise in theory, you -could- negate some condition reduction, by making yourself overly vulnerable vs condition users… then again, you will find it works vs ppl running towards the zerk, and all other condi specs will use it, AFAIK, making condi vs condi a game of clears & heals….

It is part of the game and 40%? When running carrion or sinister 50% is more common, using toxic stones or crystals…

Condition duration food is always preferable to condition damage modifier food. It helps clear camps faster and allows for utility conditions like cripple and immobilize to extend far beyond their intended durations and thus have an even greater impact on the small scale due to limited cleansing.

Condition duration bonus/negation food shouldn’t honestly exist. They counter each other perfectly such that condition users would in most cases be better off just having better +condi damage foods which would increase DPT and remove some of the ridiculousness behind condition application in WvW. 40% increase in damage on the high end is pretty nutty.

I’m not complaining about conditions being overpowered in PvP formats with the bias of my thief lol. Being the inventor of the build I am aware of its counters and readily admit to them. That said, there should not be a one-button one-shot with no risk. That was my reasoning behind why impale alone was overpowered before it was nerfed. 14k off what is a lower-priority condition on one skill was total BS and was something nobody could adequately defend as “fair.” Even now, S/S warrior is extremely potent. My S/S war build which I use in sPvP runs nine cleanses. There are still problems with getting bombed too easily by teams of all-condition players.

S/S war is fairly effective at maintaining the distance and does reasonable damage at range via the longbow. This is especially notable through the use of Carrion gear, allowing good scaling from the power-based attacks and very high condition ticks from longbow F1, 2, 5, utility on 4, and a power-based burst on 3.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

But also the nerfs and the fact condition duration hasn’t apppeared on amors is a shame. I used a rampagers S/S warrior at launch, and it had 16+ sec bleeds on auto…. Those have been nerfed, the bleeds on skill 4 and 5 (skill 4 was later convested to much shorter duration torment) lasted 24 secs base. now we have 10 and 15 seconds…if I’m correct, The firefan could just permaburn people its 3x 1 sec now….

All those nerfs were made with PvP in mind and the fact all modes of ply should be similar, showing A-net didn’t unhinge PvE from PvP (mostly due to concerns about WvW, where conditions didn’t matter too much in the first place due to runes and food)

Currently, a s/s war can get 24s bleeds without needing to use any condition duration traits or giver’s weapons. This comes from the food, and is why conditions are so ridiculous in WvW. It still has a 17s base duration with Krait runes, agony sigil, and properly traited with Deep Cuts. Duration is not the answer as I described above.

Impale was blatantly overpowered before the nerf. There’s literally no way to possibly and properly defend the skill before the nerf as being balanced. The fact someone could press 4 and deal 14k damage at range that ignored armor and bypassed a lot of traditional DoT cleanses while already sporting 25s bleeds on autoattack and an instant 11 stacks on a sub-10 second cooldown + immobilize was just way too strong as it forcefully baited huge cleansing and then just allowed the war to press one button and win a given fight. I want to point out that hits harder than most glass cannon thieves using 20-might signet builds that run close to zero condition cleansing in their entire build, anywhere. It’s not like these nerfs weren’t unjustified in the slightest.

Favorite depends on the mood :s

If I were to put it in two, I’d say thief and ranger. I love high mobility classes/styles of play.

So unsurprisingly, guard is my least favorite to play despite liking the flavor and looks.
That said, I dislike the engineer most as a class; extremely boring and easy to play and total immersion-killers.

Classes would have to be free, per the PvP problems, as that could effectively allow for people to pay for the new class and thus have an advantage over all non-paying players as they would not have the experience to learn the class and counter it properly.

In which case all you’re really left with is races, which if you’re gonna put everything else out there for free, you may as well avoid the PR nightmare and just release it all for free.