Guild Wars 2

ens.9854:

OP is confused I think.

crits still have a baseline of 150% damage with 0 ferocity.

the builds that stack the most ferocity obviously lose the most

It has been argued that gearing to 100% crit rate by mixing assassin/zerker is stronger than full zerker already; and will lose slightly less than full zerker itself.

I’m sorry, but how exactly does this information pertain to the subject, and what exactly are you arguing? Base critical damage likely isn’t changing. Ferocity is supplemental. You admit that crit damage/precision builds deal better DPS, yet then state they end up better than berserker builds after this change. Seeing as I just explained why they end up facing a bigger reduction, which you admit to, how do they continue to have better numbers afterwards?

Why is the target berserker armor in particular and why is this change actually useful aside from hindering speedrunning and downleveling (who cares?)? It’s just not logical.

Carpboy.7145:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/first

Math and everything. Enjoy

Beware the valk/zerker bads

Can’t tell if serious or trolling, or intention.

Seeing as the initiative change was called a “buff,” I do not want to know what’s coming next, honestly.

Escadin.9482:

DeceiverX.8361:

The opposite. I’ll be speccing zerker gear now more than before seeing as the nerfs affect it less than every other crit damage set.

The 10% applies to berserkers. For the rest, the damage reduction is an upwards of 20-30%.

I’m curious where did you get that number?

ANet stated the overall DPS decrease will be about 10%.

The problem is that key word overall

One can evaluate this change on two assumptions:
Assume Ferocity scales similarly like precision in that it has a 21 point/1% ratio. Based on the current calculation and how gearing works, you’ll be looking at something like 30% less critical damage per critical hit if it is treated like a minor stat.

Or, one can evaluate the approximate losses overall and the current crit damage multiplier based on crit rate from berserker gear, causing that difference to equate to approximately 15% on the minimum number.

This means that PRECISION/Assassin gearset builds get shafted, seeing as they lose the modifier and already suffer from already lower base power. This of course also applies to the common valkyrie stab thief and other classes running fury/precision/crit chance builds.

By reducing the damage throughput on critical strikes by such a large margin, the ONLY viable option now is to move to berserker gear due to its inherent power and subset precision/ferocity stats.

It’s why this nerf makes absolutely no sense; it doesn’t just decrease crit damage by 10% or hinder berserker builds by 10%. It hits precision builds by 15-30%+ and forces everyone into berserker or tank roles.

And of course, this also gives a ton of thieves no home to due the inherent problems they face when building tankier roles outside of condition damage/permastealth.

And of course the side effects will be even more exclusive parties and an overall more toxic pug/lfg environment across the board, while wiping a lot of builds from WvW due to the inherent gear and base hp discrepancies between classes suffocating a lot of diversity beyond condition builds.

Simply put, this change is outright negative across the entire board.

Whether or not some people believe berserker needs a nerf or not is irrelevant, though. The bottom line is that this nerf doesn’t make any sense.

While it’s possible, yes, and I’m aware they did it with MF, and the system exists 24/7 for legendaries, the DB updating can be strenuous on hardware, and from my knowledge there were plenty of players who experienced problems with the MF gear stat change. Additionally, we’re dealing with new code and systems, not just converting to existing ones. The amount of development effort is more than updating MF or adjusting the DB on mob toughness values, or allowing stacks of condis on a given mob. Moreover, dungeon minimum timers are also an extremely easy problem to solve and would require almost no effort or implementation aside from a check based on time differences before the final cutscene/chest may appear. Seeing as the events are scripted, throwing in an additional condition and an extra variable shouldn’t be difficult.

Yamsandjams.3267:

DeceiverX.8361:

Curious Yams, what class do you play?

I actually play multiple classes, but I was referring to an engg SD burst build in my post.

Mightymealworm.8409:

Actually because there will be no more ‘heavy weighted’ crit damage pieces, there will be less incentive to mix sets. ALL zerk or go home.

I think the opposite is actually true. Since there won’t be any more “heavy weighted” crit damage pieces, the overall crit damage benefit from those pieces will go down, and thus it might be more beneficial for some to slot other stats (i.e. toughness or vitality). The “all zerk or go home” mentality would actually lessen after the change because the marginal benefit of slotting more berserker gear will be diminished.

It depends on the context though, of course. If you want max damage output, you slot full berserker now and will still slot full berserker in the future… although people might have to redo the math to see if assassin’s or any new ferocity based stat combo would potentially be more beneficial.

Interesting. Even despite the QQ I rarely find myself easily killing mediums/heavies or good light armor players on my D/D stab thief. Of course, thieves also have immense dependency on critical strikes for success, so the nerf will hit home harder than most other classes.

Regarding the latter segment of your post, I disagree here. The berserker audience isn’t about min-maxing for PvE as much as it is people simply wanting to play DPS. I readily admit I’m a DPS junkie – I do not play anything but that role, and despise playing anything other than it, but simply forcing people into other roles is exactly the opposite of ANet’s vision, and certainly inflicts injuries on players who really want to be effective at what they want to do. As it stands – even right now – builds which have diverse stat sets are strictly MORE efficient than any other build variety in regards to DPS/effective HP. Simply nerfing crit builds is illogical, and as I stated, anyone who wants to retain even remotely competitive builds will simply alter the meta to either berserker from other set combinations or will play condis as they will become strictly better. Dungeon spammers are going to go with whatever builds deal the most DPS. Dungeon speedrunners are selfish. Do you really think they’ll idly use tankier builds? No. if condis prove to have better DPS, they’ll even move to those knowing that their condis may conflict with other peoples’. As long as they believe their build is the best for DPS, it is what they’ll use.

And of course, that’s not counting the extremely angry players, like myself, who would be more than happy to get up and leave the game altogether due to the total resignation of our desired playstyle. I am a DPS junkie. If I’m forced to play a tank, or cannot capitalize on superior DPS values to the point where i can reach equilibrium with the players who build more diverse builds, the game is not worth playing. I like a challenge, and don’t mind losing or dying fast, but to be simply out-performed is no excuse to spend my time here or play in a way I do not wish to play.

It just bothers me that these people are in charge of a game with worldwide renown and yet they fail to recognize such obvious side effects of major gameplay changes, nor do they consider the outcome for WvW players. Consequently, there are likely easier implementations from a developer/IT perspective due to the immense amount of effort it will take to convert the values and of course, assume that they allow players to refund the stat on the berserker/crit items they currently possess.

The 30-40% number exists on the basis of the combination of both lower skill coefficients and the loss of utility. As it stands, there ARE builds which allow for rangers to maximize their potential without using a pet, and often these come at the cost of a lot of “desirable” or “required” skills. I personally play a signet/ power/crit longbow ranger, and find the damage I deal quite lackluster. For a 3 minute cooldown cycle, I can secure one kill, and even then, I find my pet dealing an upwards of 40% or more (I use a raven) of the inflicted damage I deal. I recently had an instance where I comboed for 14k damage, and my pet swooped in for the double attack dealing 11k-11k. The fact I only did 2/5 of the damage from a given combo on a 3 minute cooldown building almost exclusively to avoid utilizing a pet shows a lot about just how significant the pet is on overall performance.

Seeing as that combo took the entire QZ duration to gt off, I don’t see a reason why increasing the figure to around 20k would be an issue. The intent is to sacrifice the utility for DPS. It even makes sense flavor-wise, as a ranger should be more careful as to what he shoots so that he does not kill his own pet. Taking the pet out of the equation would get rid of the 2v1 utility but allow him to be more relentless in the assault.

That, and rapid shot needs to be changed to deal more damage than the auto-attack sequence with longbow.

Curious Yams, what class do you play?

The opposite. I’ll be speccing zerker gear now more than before seeing as the nerfs affect it less than every other crit damage set.

The 10% applies to berserkers. For the rest, the damage reduction is an upwards of 20-30%.

Frankly if the results are as they appear to be, I will not switch my playstyle and will just move to another game until ANet finally gets its kitten together and understands the intricacies of its own game.

I hope this thread gets more attention. I also want to point out the crit damage nerfs affect precision more than berserker builds.

Should also be noted how bogus this change is for WvW, and that there are tons of alternatives as mentioned above which could actually SOLVE the problem instead of just nerfing an entire style of play, or in some cases, particular builds, classes, gear sets, pet viability, and the likes.

I do hope ANet actually sees this. As we’re all aware, the upcoming change to crit damage -> ferocity is slated to decrease the damage dealt by berserker characters by about 10%.

This includes non-critical hits and is extremely problematic not for berserker builds, but for precision builds.

A character running high precision for 100% crit chance, or pretty much any given thief ever, will suffer immensely from this patch. When one calculates the damage loss by berserker builds and accounts for expected ferocity scaling, the expected crit damage reduction on any given critical hit will range from 20 to 30%.

A 20 to 30 percent damage reduction on critical strikes.

So berserkers actually benefit the most of all armor/stat combinations running crit damage. Assassin’s on the other hand, the already-underwhelming set for crit strikes, proves to be made absolutely worthless. An assassin-gear player will see a minimum 18% damage reduction whereas the berserker will expect 10%.

And of course this also means any class reliant on crits will also be negatively affected. Notably, the backstab thief. The reduction in critical damage now strips a stab thief of 20% of his damage due to the instant-critical effect. What does this mean? It means thieves running stab builds will now be FORCED from running valkyrie/celestial sets for survivability into… you guessed it, berserker, with the executioner trait, as there’s almost no point in stabbing for significantly less damage.

I do not understand the implementation of this patch. As it stands, the PvP and WvW scenes are flooded with condi players. Why is this patch reaching WvW when the problem solely resides in PvE? Why were different measures, such as buffing the base toughness of mobs, implementing new buffs to reduce critical damage, putting in a minimum dungeon completion timer, or giving individual players their own condition stack on monsters and bosses not taken?

The intention is good in regards to trying to get rid of the berserker speedrun, but ultimately this implementation solves nothing except makes berserker sets the ONLY viable option for damage classes to use, while simply placing any non-condition builds into “useless” tier in WvW.

ANet, PLEASE do not implement this change, or do so with immense refinement that does not screw over anyone running precision or critical-damage-based builds.

Going to have to disagree with you folks about toughness.

If you stack enough of it, you WILL mitigate stab damage by a lot.

And I don’t think it has so much to do with damage as it does with the discrepancies between base HP pools for some of the classes which cannot deal with thieves as well in conjunction with the fact that backstab damage IS NOT BY FAR the biggest burst in the game (see attached screenshot). Warriors, rangers, and mesmers, and even necromancers all have options which can net more damage than a thief stab can, while providing superior utility elsewhere. This is even taking into account signet use on a non-stealth build.

A friend of mine plays a guardian, yes, a guardian, with 4k toughness and 53k hp. Can a thief kill him? Absolutely not. My stab damage does something like 50% of my normal stab damage on other berserker classes.

If you’re playing a defensive/tanky bunker build and you’re dying to thieves, that’s definitely a l2p problem, seeing as stab builds are effectively one-trick ponies, and the ones which actually do substantial burst (signet builds) have literally one escape stealth skill, which is the heal.

Even letting a “good thief” chain CnD/stabs is a l2p problem. Know the timer on CnD. Examine positioning, play one to learn how you would act to predict a course of action.

I really would like to know how people are taking such high backstab values with incredible toughness. Personally, I rarely hit over 8k on a tank warrior or guard, and often times those are in the 6k range due to the fact toughness has better scaling for damage reduction overall than vitality, but vitality offers condi mitigation.

I don’t mean to be insulting, but the thief hate regarding damage/burst is undeserved. It’s more of people’s incapability of dealing with stealth, which is super easy to counter in this game (play some other MMO’s which have cheesy stealth mechanics and then come and cry here), expecting to be able to facetank a given assassin/burst character, and/or over-exaggeration of the truth of what happens in-game.

I run a very similar build as you yski, and I completely agree. Like I said, it’s not the damage on stab that’s the problem.

If the problem lies in pistol offhand permastealth and blind, why is the OP asking for a stab damage nerf?

Stab isn’t even the biggest nuke skill in the game lol.

As a D/D ele and a D/D backstab thief player, I can assure you this is l2p. While I openly admit D/D ele is not exactly in the best place at the moment mostly due to conflicting concept design on ANet’s part, backstab is NOT the problem, seeing as Eviscerate, Headshot, and even a longbow ranger playing properly hit for better burst.

And as an ele, the amount of AOE you have, on top of mist form, should be able to effectively counterplay anything the thief throws at you.

Wouldn’t mind the bonus HP for capping at two stacks of stealth. Actually, with the new change coming that will nerf most thieves’ damage by 10%, I don’t see much harm. That bonus could really help us seeing as that will drastically affect viability and force us into staying in fights longer.

A previous suggestion I had was to simply increase stealth duration for all of the skills, but have revealed be an override regardless of whether or not you enter stealth – a pre-revealed debuff times out which lasts the duration of the stealth skill and then applies revealed at the end of the skill, meaning permastealth no longer exists and there could only be a fixed ratio of stealth time : revealed time, while also making the stealth skills in themselves a little more useful with proper situational use instead of just a permanent solution to being unseen.

Pitiful.

So we’re all just going condi now, seeing as crit damage is the only way to actually deal with toughness.

And all of the squishy classes that run berserker get shafted because now they’ll pack less of a punch, as if tank hammertrain wasn’t bad enough.

If I can’t maintain my current values, I’m done. 10% is absolutely massive, especially when you play burst damage. Not only was the GW2 team pathetically unprofessional in the livestream, but they’re showing to be totally removed from the actual game every patch they release.

The PvE reduction is fine, but come on, separate this bull crit damage removal/rework from WvW.

Seeing as I personally run burst damage builds, none on my s/p thief, and for my D/D stab, I get toughness solely from 10 points in the Shadow Arts line as to get Infusion of Shadow.

It genuinely depends on your build, your surroundings, and identifying your weaknesses as a player.

I find vit more useful overall due to the inherent benefits it has in PvE content as well. As base health is reduced, the effectiveness of toughness goes down in almost every situation.

Hence why I mentioned permastealth. The out-of-stealth attack is effectively a hasted unload in itself and applies bleeding.

It’s not so much particularly overpowered damage-wise as it is simply difficult to deal with. They force torment on you and apply constant pressure from movement and stealth with high attack rate and overall extremely solid condition application.

As I said, it’s not so much an issue with the build or class as it is sigil of torment leading to just a little bit too much condition application in the form of torment, for running away becomes dangerous and tricky as they can apply ranged pressure, and running towards them is often hopeless due to the ease of combined dodges, blinds, and applications of stealth.

Like I said, I could see complaints about decent players running that build. I’m not calling it OP or totally unfair as simply the understanding of its annoyance factor. Otherwise, I don’t see why anyone should be complaining about thieves.

Travlane.5948:

Incurafy.6329:

Splatter Paw.7238:

If i recall shortbow was NEVER nerfed so i dont know how we would nerf it “more”. Second why should it be nerfed? Cause some people abuse its evade? Other class’s can maintain 100% vigor without trying and dodge to there happiest desires and its a issue that was can spam a backward evade 3 maybe 4 times (at what point were out of ini and sitting ducks) So i disagree, besides haven’t we eatin the bat of nerfs enough the last 6 months?

Trickshot is no longer heatseeking and clusterbomb damage was reduced and it’s range was reduced to 900 from 1200.

MAJOR nerfs on a VERY mediocre weapon. it was balanced. mediocre dmg. mediocre flight speed. high dmg on cluster 4500-5k but 2-4 sec flight time. skills 3 4 5 have no dmg or extremely low dmg but offer cripple/evade/poison/blind. not a very flashy weapon but gives utitlity options in combat. gap creater, poison field, gap closer, CC with cripple and bleeds.

its best thing was heat seeking auto and 1200 range. losing both of those almost make SB not worth taking at all. if dagger or pistol or sword were betting in zergs(problem isthief not being able to get in melee range while so many aoe/people around) then SB would never be used ever.

Precisely this.

@OP:
Thing about SB #3 is that dodges in skills are required. Simply, the thief’s only defense is dodging. What about stealth? That’s not defense. That’s a positioning advantage. It’s fight resetting. Understand how to counterplay a thief and you’ll be fine.

Thieves also have the same number of dodges as everyone else, and without running acrobatics or putting 20 in Trickery, have no exposure to endurance refunding, and the vigor from trickery also has a 67% downtime. Without the shortbow #3, it’s arguable that the class actually has the least amount of evades without consuming Signet of Agility.

So the #3 skill is essential because it provides repositioning, a short-duration cripple to compensate for the cast time on the back movement, and the evade. Without the evade, the thief simply would get downed too easily and lack a skill-based in-combat escape. Spamming deals no damage and also helps reset the fight for the opponent. Don’t like the fact the thief just gained 1800 range on you, or you just gained full health? You might be upset then to find out that the thief only blew his initiative to have his skills come off cooldowns so that he can blow you up if you run at him.

The invuln frames are essential. In some dungeons, there are unblockable, unavoidable sources of damage, such as the aetherblade boss in fractals. That dodge when timed properly can be the only thing which prevents a thief from downing instantly in one hit.

The weapon has medium range, medium damage, is predictable, and accounts for the utility that thieves need to sacrifice in their utility slots due to the countless nerfs they have faced in the past to compensate for it.

I think the only justifiable nerf request would be p/p condi/torment sigil +venoms permastealth that I see running around so frequently now. But I think that has much less to do with the build being overpowered than the fact that torment is overpowered in PvP scenarios, and the sigil is far from helping balance out the condi meta.

I don’t understand why D/D is “bad” in dungeons.

I don’t recall ever not killing a trash mob in more than two hits, or needing that spike for elites.

I don’t recall ever fighting in a party where I haven’t definitively dealt the most damage or downed overly-frequently (aside from other thieves)

I think you’re mistaking D/D with heartspam noobs, which also includes D/P. In which case you should simply give people real advice and tell them not to bother with HS spamming if the mob is over 25% health.

Actually, real advice is to tell people never to HS spam for DPS. You can achieve better numbers with other weapon sets and different builds, or simply just autoing from behind maximizing stabs, and conserving initiative is critical for survival, seeing as one should require an instant fight reset (stealth) if they’re actually doing real damage to the point where they are the top damage dealer in the party, thus increasing aggro threat.

The only support thief I know is venomshare or x/d blind spam. Otherwise, you’re not doing much support work. To declare D/D as not being useful for a party is saying anyone not building support isn’t being useful. Frankly, I think the ability to clear non-elite trash within one second, and supplying over 40% of the overall damage dealt to a given boss alone is quite beneficial for a lot of groups, especially when dungeoning, for so many people demand speed runs.

I think you’re blaming a weapon set as an excuse for either being called useless as d/d by some other people, or seeing a bad d/d thief. I’ve never been declined a party because someone assumed I would HS spam trash mobs lol. The only time I’ve been denied was joining/filling AC when there was no ele.

Trahearne’s sword. It’s name Caladbolg.

Caladbolg.

Saladbolg.

Saladbowl.

I’m going to offer some really good insight.

First off, this pertains to D/D which I believe is what is assumed regarding the question.

It also depends on how you play, and how you build.

Pure stab/Hidden Killer PvP should be building a combination of both. Moreso valkyrie if you run scholar runes. The condi meta makes toughness kind of pointless, and subsequently DoT’s easily can get you down below the 90% mark very easily if running full berserker.

If you’re not stealth-stabbing in PvP/WvW, then berserker is going to be more worthwhile and will have a severe impact on your DPS. The increased crit chance will perform better, especially when combined with executioner.

I’m also assuming you’re running a non-vitality build, or something along the lines of 20+/30/10+/0/10+

A tankier build in terms of traits will have less use for valk.

I usually recommend a combination of both, though. Precision hits diminishing returns, so a mixture will yield very similar crit chance with simply increased health. And health is not a commodity for thieves, so getting more is a huge bonus.

If you can afford to go without that health, then the question answers itself: go berserker; but if you find yourself dying a lot and questioning your hp pool, then investigate valk until you feel happy and leave the rest at berserker.

Just let me get a silver moonshank and I’m happy.

DancinPuppeh.8421:

Titanimite.2534:

Benjamin.8237:

Full Glass Longbow Ranger is the glassiest build in the game, you will need to have somewhere to run or hide to. However the damage is amazing, over 1000 range expect 3k autos and rapid fire should hit a hefty 8-18k depending on how glassy you go. Signet of the Hunt 150% proc with maul can hit 12k also.

Wrong wrong wrong, ele is far glassier than ranger. 3k auto on longbow? haha I want to see that nice troll nice troll.

If you want a power ranger build go GS + Sword/* be better damage than you could ever hope for on bow plus you’ve have some nice evades (survivability)

I don’t want to lose my bow, I do archery in real life and I’m very enthusiastic about it

I’m in the same boat and have a seemingly very similar taste for what I’d desire the ranger to be.

The class isn’t for me, and I don’t think it’ll be for you, either. There’s no really good archer role in GW2, so my ultimate recommendation is to simply pick another style instead.

It sucks, because much like you, I’ve also played/mained ranged DPS as my build in games for over a decade, and also do some archery, but ANet refuses to acknowledge this style of play.

I play a thief because I don’t mind assassins, either. That said, the lack of archery options as viable main weapon builds for this style really keeps me away from playing more classes (I now have three thieves), and frankly the execution of the thief was so well-done for me that it in itself justifies playing the game.

If you can’t find something else stylistically that you like, then frankly I’d be recommending you find another game.

Likely stacking health. IIRC, bleeding is not affected by toughness.

Healing signet with such high base defense and health pool makes warriors tough targets. Sadly, eles don’t have much to offer in regards to killing warriors.

Reducing healing potency through effects like poison help substantially. You’re also going to need a lot more than six stack of bleed to take anyone down, sadly.

I believe the issue did indeed rely heavily on damage. CC is fine, and the purpose of the weapon – even ANet stated this in the patch notes. The issue was that you’d have hammer warriors killing targets before the CC’s even ended.

I’ve encountered multiple fights of hammer warrior vs squishy class, and the squishy class gets no chance to even get up before dying. I recall three-hitting my friend who was playing his thief using purely CC skills.

The weapon’s utility still is incredibly potent – more so than pretty much every other class’s setup can be, and it simply did too much damage. We get two weapon slots, so if you need CC/utility, hammer it up, for DPS, you need another weapon.

I hope more tweaking ensues, actually. It’s complaints about nerfs like these that give warriors really bad stigma for being a class which requires no skill but excels at everything. Obviously nobody wants unncessary nerfs, but it’s been long due for the warrior, and I’d rather be recognized as being a skilled player and winning a fair fight than need to simply accept complaints from other people about winning due to inherent class design/advantage (denying the latter is a fallacy, whether or not skilled play was a factor).

Better: R.O.H.AN. Online (Vanilla client/release).
By far and beyond the best ranged class implementation I have ever seen in a fantasy MMO. Ever. More games should see this style and roll with it. Both ranged options (ranger and scout) are absolutely stellar in play.
It was undoubtedly the most intense, skill-based, raw-power adrenaline race/class in the game, and definitely the most fun I’ve ever had playing a character in my gaming experience with MMO’s (sadly game management really messed up classes/PvP).

Worse? I don’t have one. With over a decade of MMO gaming and fifteen different games in my repertoire, no game has done worse at the ranger/hunter class/spec than GW2. Pitiful diversity, boring mechanics, and underwhelming performance across the board aside from PvE/trash mobs make me suspect the game’s class concept developers have absolutely no idea how to handle this class.

Just again going to praise the OP coming here asking for L2P help rather than just QQ’ing. The warrior section is for QQ’ing :P

I have little to add to the discussion, honestly. I play a GC thief and find myself either stomping or getting stomped by mesmers. I truly think these encounters are more of a demonstration of play rather than class advantages.

I think your biggest issue is that the thief is jumping you. Depends on the GC build, but it’s common for GC to run signets for the burst damage versus stealth utility. I therefore suggest you try and be a little more aware of what’s around you, especially before initiating on camps. Taking a thief my surprise is the second best way to kill him (aside from Hammer Warrior faceroll auto-win, but that applies to basically every class). I’d suggest upping your render distance for WvW roaming if you need to. This lets you see a lot further away and can give you quite the edge in regards to seeing what’s coming to you, or what you’re walking into.

I don’t know a ton about mesmers, but my experience with s/s at the low levels is that you’re heavily invested in staying in the fight, and don’t have much CC. Sadly, this angle is pretty much the worst one to take when fighting a thief. A thief WANTS you to stick around and run helplessly around while he gets in and out of combat. More CC = better chance to kill him. D/D powerstab is a great build, but he’s only going to rip one stab on you after venom. You shouldn’t be dying at this point, seeing as your health is fairly high.

Blinds, stuns/dazes really get thieves. I’d recommend S/P or S/T for WvW roaming if you expect to run into other people. S/S is useful, but more for PvE than WvW/PvP.

Use your #2 to throw him off. Switching places can save you quite a lot, and may force them into blowing excess initiative. F4 is alright, but you should force an early retreat. A true GC D/D thief will have maybe 11k-12k health. Shatter him once or twice into lower values, and he’ll be forced to blow a heal. When he stealths, dodge away a little after a second. He won’t stab immediately unless already behind you, and getting away forces him to either lose stealth/stab or HS to stick to you. HS from stealth does nothing and wastes a stealth, while also opening him up to CC opportunities.

If you use stealth to get away. GET AWAY. He’s going to be looking for you. Backtrack if you have to. Just don’t sit there waiting.

Good luck!

Pertaining to not addressing pets any time soon (if ever):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/December-10th-Ranger-changes/page/8#post3162139

Much discussion ensued about the issue. It’s not happening even remotely soon.

Livestream I do believe mentions pets are the class mechanic and have no plans on being removed or removable to make the archer playstyle exist (Okay, so this isn’t JP). If not the case, I’ll go digging later on. I know it’s been said somewhere.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Developer-livestream-Ranger-PvE-guide/first

As far as P/P thieves go, I shouldn’t say it’ll never happen, but let’s be serious, based on the past patching and future vision for thieves, I think that states enough that the build will not be altered.

I don’t see what you mean by “more interesting ranged combat options.” Doesn’t this simply imply new builds/weapon sets which accommodate for more interesting play options? Does the suggestion for the longbow not accomplish this by providinng both more and more interesting ranged combat options, while also giving archer players a class to play?

If “fixing” was so easy for them to do, then they’d just do it. Clearly, they care more about new implementations than class overhauls, hence my eight arguments as to why this option appeases everyone to some extent.

I’m not sure what you mean by “points in precision.” Are you referring to trait line points or simply just overall investment with gear?

Really depends on how you’re playing, honestly. Seeing as the precision line increases crit damage, they often go hand-in-hand. If you’re not playing crit damage, then simply just going for raw power is your best bet.

For the most part with thieves, DPS = critical damage/chance.

It really depends on expected role, too. I think a number in the 50’s is usually the ideal, notably so if you include Thrill of the Crime in your build, which pumps it to around 70% or so – more than enough for most burst chains in PvP. If you plan on sustained DPS, then higher crit chance is better, for playing a burst build works well vith valkyrie gear and the Hidden Killer GM trait.

There are very few thief builds that do not utilize crit chance/damage. The precision line is definitely one of the most useful, and having such crit damage scaling can make for increased DPS on auto-attacks and non-CnD/stab builds.

There’s no real definitive number, though. It depends on your gear, build, and playstyle. No point in sacrificing anything for crit chance if you have no crit damage, and vice versa.

I think it’s widely agreed upon that the permastealth removal is a completely fine patch, and frankly, has made quite a few non-DP thieves pretty happy.

Fact of the matter is that everything else coming is totally undeserved, and warriors remain utterly broken.

I took a 14k Arcing Arrow yesterday. That’s utter nonsense seeing as it’s coming from a build which doesn’t even make sense for the class, and has no downsides. Without max food, a full-power signet-use thief can’t even get that kind of damage, and that damage is coming from a range.

I sincerely do think you should take your QQ elsewhere, though. If you’re getting rolled by thieves, you’re either a GC and should expect it, or it’s a L2P issue. I take down permastealth builds frequently on my 30/30/10 full-berserker 10k health thief. Just play better than them.

And on any other class, they’re even easier to take down.

Raven.9603:

agree with cynz.

1. Remember, everyone whose not a thief views the entire thief community as trollish jerks. Thieves are widely viewed as skilless baddy griefing smack talkers in the same way that warriors are viewed by non warriors as mentally handicapped. And stereotypes exist for a reason; they are true to a certain frequency.

2. As much as rangers are furious that they are stuck with the poorest implementation of pets in any MMO in the last decade (thanks Obama Anet), and lack luster ranged weapons, they would be hugely furious to see their archetype given to someone else, especially the most hated class in the game.

How bout we fix the problem: Make pets not suck and give rangers more interesting ranged combat options. For thieves, make dual pistols not suck and give them more interesting ranged combat options.

Unfortunately Jon Peters has publicly announced these changes will never happen. That’s why I’m making the suggestion; it actually gives players the archetype as an option on some level than none at all.

As it’s been mentioned, you’ll need to play differently. Ranger and Thief are almost night-and-day different classes in their styles.

Thieves are almost entirely reliant on positioning. Backstab is called Back stab because it’s meant to be dealt from behind. If you’re front/side-stabbing, then position yourself better. Unlike the ranger, whose pet will soak a ton of aggro and leave you totally okay to just kill willy-nilly, you’re going to have to bring everything on yourself. This is going to be the biggest thing to overcome. After mastering your thief, you’ll likely get fed up with the dependency on your pet, actually. I know a lot of thief-to-ranger players who get deeply upset with playing ranger due to this dependency (I’m also one of these people), because doing it on your own, once mastering the art of doing so, just plays better.

You don’t necessarily have a ton of dodges/endurance regen, either. Unlike the ranger which gets vigor easily, the thief, depending on build, never gets it at all. Time your dodges. To be successful, you need to play smart.

NEVER take on more than one enemy at a time if you can. If you absolutely have to, be sure you have a weapon capable of dealing with such a scenario. It’s commonly-agreed upon that shortbows do the best at this.

Kite, and learn your shortbow 3 dodge timing. It’s a free dodge with a gap-increaser. This can make shortbow an incredibly potent weapon against difficult/high-damage foes due to its spammable evade. Sometimes, killing things fast isn’t EVERYTHING (although the way I play thief, it usually is :P)

Switch when you need to, not just when you can. Unlike ranger, which gets a ton of bonuses from switching, you’ll be penalized for it on a thief for the most part. Knowing what to do and when is the biggest obstacle to overcome.

HS spam won’t get you far in PvE. It kills your positioning, prevents damage mitigation, and blows initiative fast. Engaging with one and ending with one is fine, however most damage as a D/D thief should result from CnD/Stab.

Do dump 10 points into Shadow Arts for the initiative gain on stealth. This saves you so much initiative and lets you do a lot more with it.

Focus on your enemy. You don’t need to worry about keeping your pet alive, being at max range, or healing people. Learn the enemy’s moves, their behaviors and their weaknesses. Brute-forcing won’t do it. Be smarter when fighting, and out-play your opponent.

Don’t get discouraged, and really learn the thief. Once learned, it becomes extremely easy and has a really nice flow, and makes you a better player overall. You can always apply thief strategies to whatever other class you play; reset the fight when you can/if you can if you need to, don’t just charge in stupidly, know your enemy, know your limits and counters, and always have a plan B if things don’t go successfully.

You’re not OP or UP. The meta has you as being weaker, but the early levels are no harder. It all boils down to knowing how to play the class. I play GC squishies exclusively as a gamer, so the thief’s unforgiving nature played well into my style. They’re not harder or weaker, just different.

3.)
There is no “archer” archetype in GW2.
This is where rangers come into play. The ranger community is vastly torn on on this issue, and ANet has recently announced that there are no plans to allow the pet mechanic to be optional in place of better damage despite sacrificing utility. Thus, a HUGE population of players are upset, and giving them another medium/light-armor/squishy DPS archer, as per the style in many games which people absolutely adore, is something that both increases build diversity for thieves, and gives archers a true home to play and thrive in.

4.)
The thief is adaptable. Unlike many other trait lines, the thief’s are not very specific. I believe that the thief traits are some of the best-executed in the game, as there are so many viable builds and styles which do not have a heavy emphasis on particular weapon paradigms. A thief can run the same build running D/D, S/D, S/P, or shortbow, and have all of his traits work just as well. Thus, instead of re-tooling the ranger in its entirety in order to appease archers, the thief makes an excellent candidate to receive this weapon. Additionally, since the weapon is two-handed only, it places thieves on the same weapon-combination count as rangers.

5.)
The longbow works excellently with the thief’s theme. While many argue that since thieves can use pistols, and should thus “snipe” with rifles, I disagree. Rifles are loud, clunky, and simply, based on their art aside from The Predator, just not fitting for a rogue/thug-style class. While many people who have no real-life archery experience claim that longbows are just as clunky and unfitting, they are incorrect, and the art, almost entirely, fits thief style extremely well. Bows are quiet, maneuverable, and require dexterity to use; something that thieves take pride in exceeding in.

6.)
Long-range damage-dealers that can stealth in medium armor might seem like an issue at first glance, however the ranger has been made similarly. The rework to #3 on their longbow to become a stealth skill definitely insinuates that there are no problems with stealth and ranged combat. This especially applies to thieves, who have the lowest HP pool of all classes in the game, and some of the worst returns for building into toughness/vitality lines, further punishing the class. Plus, if longbow does not have a stealth, blind, or mobility skill, this places thieves into a position of needing to choose their weapons carefully in order to predict the situations they will face as to avoid death.

7.)
New weapons need not be developed just for this occasion. All that needs to be done is create new weapon skills which play well for the thief, rather than re-tooling entire trait trees or re-doing class mechanics.

8.)
Shortbows emphasize AOE’s. Aside from pistols, which are a skirmishing weapon, the thief has no means of pulling mobs, or simply hitting a single target from a fair distance.

Thoughts/concerns, and support is welcome. While I don’t have high hopes for this idea due to the fact ANet gets a ton of suggestions every day, and therefore cannot look into all of them, increased discussion and popularity may just do something about the issues which would be resolved by this implementation.

Suggestions are frequent in any game. Everyone thinks their idea is the best and really significant. Obviously the dev team doesn’t get most of these messages, though, and a lot of the suggestions are often game-breaking or stand against the vision of the developers.

I’m proposing a change that I believe benefits a large group of players, adds diversity to the game, makes the thief much more viable in general as a class, and does so with significantly less implementation than other similar ideas.

The suggestion is simple: Give thieves the option to use longbows.

While the discussion about giving rifles to thieves is nothing new, and subsequently viewed as being a more prominent suggestion, I’ll need to support ANet’s decisions about the subject; the rifle is not an appropriate weapon for the thief for various thematic reasons, as mentioned below. Subsquently, I believe such implementation would resolve many issues pertaining to ranger discussion, also mentioned below.

So, why do thieves deserve a longbow?

1.)
For one, thieves have some of the lowest kit diversity in the game. While having more weapon combinations than Engineers and Elementalists, we are tied with Mesmers and Necromancers. While not inherently a problem, the other classes have much more diverse class mechanics which allow split-second changes to style of play to support fewer number of weapon skills/combinations. The thief, left with steal, and designed around the principle of being an improviser, should carry just as many tricks as the other classes. As it stands, thieves, in their current state, are predictable, avoidable, out-damaged, out-tanked, and overall out-done in various aspects by most other classes. This especially applies to ranged combat, where magic-wielding classes have an inherent advantage after the shortbow range nerfs.

2.)
Simply, the thief has problems in WvW, especially when it comes to both attacking and holding keeps and towers. Auto-attacks with the shortbow get blocked by the lips on towers due to the thief’s shortbow animation’s abrupt arrow fall-off, resulting in the undesired cluster-bomb spam. With a long-range alternative to compete against super-long-range casters such as Necros and Elementalists, or even damage the Veteran Archers while at an angle from below them, the thief could see significantly increased zerg viability, and subsequently, more viability in general.

FAILURE.

Worse matchups than before, busted server communities, smaller servers getting absolutely destroyed every time, increased gold : gem ratio, disorganized units, pre-announced matchups, servers/guilds intentionally throwing matches, longer queue times on higher-tier servers, and even class imbalances vs zergs. I could go on and on.

The #1 servers and the high-end of the low servers saw almost no changes, however the middle tiers and those in the low-high and very bottom got absolutely destroyed by the season update. I’d much rather fight the same server week after week if the fights are good than get stomped by a different server or stomp another server week after week just because we’re forced into playing other servers.

I have no problem with losing, however unfair matchups have totally killed this format for me – and WvW is almost the entire reason why I joined this game. Stomping/being stomped are not fun; there’s no challenge in either, for it’s either easymode kills or an impossible obstacle that no matter how well-organized and skilled your side may be, having less coverage and fewer numbers makes the task just not feasible.

I think the matter has more to do with ANet’s failing attempts to make WvW seasons “competitive” and allowing for people to switch servers on a whim.

In order to make it “competitive” the map player count per server needs to be equal to that of the server with the lowest player count. That’s a horrible idea just because coverage issues would regulate who can WvW and when, potentially making huge queues and overall small player numbers.

Additionally, players should not be allowed to enter WvW for a whole 1-2 weeks after switching servers. This prevents people from bandwagoning as easily.

That, or simply ANet could just ignore the whole “seasons” thing and return WvW to how it was before; closest match. WvW is fun, but unlike e-sports, there is no limit on team size/player participation. I like that ANet is trying to push the competitive aspects of their game, but this game is both way too casual, WvW is horridly unbalanced in both classes and server dynamics, and is in no way an effective means of displaying skill. I’d also argue that until they add in some kind of spectate feature or something, there’s no point in trying to make it competitive; e-sports are “sports” because they’re just as fun to watch as they are to partake in. WvW is definitely not in this category.

I say this because WvW isn’t even fun at this point, and the current systems only encourage the huge zergfest + high population servers. Ultimately, if your server is low-tier, going to WvW doesn’t feel fun, because you simply don’t even stand a fighting chance.

It’s not about losing or winning, it’s about being able to do something or having a real feeling of presence. Currently, lower-tier servers get none of this.

Because even the way it worked before is just as good of a measure of WvW capability as it is now; the top 3 are going to be the servers with the highest WvW population and biggest zergs. It’s why they do so well to begin with, and why the new system changes nothing except makes the smaller servers less inclined to participate.

ANet, you’re shooting yourself in the foot with this new system. You’re doing literally nothing to change the inherent problems with WvW and only de-legitimizing the competitive side of the game you’re trying so hard to push for.

This is my female. She’s pretty much finished as a character. That said, my male will come later. He’s geared up, just not finished aesthetically.

It’s weird because it only affects some users. My pets have remained having the same names for almost a year.

I’m still saving my longbow skin for the day either LB archer ranger becomes viable or thief is given the longbow due to the fact it has the least weapon combinations in the game and has no long-range combat style.

I also purchased this game to play an archer-style ranger. When I noticed I was deadlocked into the pet mechanic, I immediately turned away and went thief, which was still fun due to SB viability. I absolutely hate losing DPS to anything AI. I’ve never had a problem playing solo ranger in any game before, despite the fact I always run glass cannon. Getting through content hasn’t been a problem on my ranger, because I believe the pets both make the game easymode in PvE, but also because I’m skilled enough to solo things and dodge despite taking longer to kill them.

I’d much rather be able to blow people up knowing I could die at any moment than idling around relying on AI.

Sadly thief SB nerfs now prevent them from actually hitting casters/rangers/lb warriors/being out of gap-close range/targets on walls in WvW due to ledges, cluster bombing targets from walls in WvW, etc.

I’m still astounded ANet refuses to even comment about why they are not making strides to make archer a possible playstyle despite all of the demand.

Aveneo.2068:

I just find it funny that they can’t get it to work properly when in WoW pets were much better to use and responded instantly to commands.

When I told my Loque’nahak to attack, it would actually rush forward, stop briefly (crouch down) to perform a special attack when in range and keep on the target like glue; always trying to attack from the back. Oh, and they had an innate resistance to AoE, which helped a bit because their AI was stupid when it came to AoE effects (just like in Guild Wars 2)

In Guild Wars it’s like my pets are constantly stoned and have no clue what they are supposed to be doing and die almost instantly from random AoE.

So I think it would be better to give them an innate 75% resistance to AoE (which could then have a trait in BM to boost it to 90%?) and allow the F2 effect to originate from the player. The pet could then just have a short animation to give the illusion that it did something. Oh, and pets should have a small AoE Cleave on their attacks so they can actually hit their target.

EDIT: Oh, and Active Signets should affect both Ranger and Pet by default. It’s pretty ridiculous that we have utility skills that only function for our pet unless we actively spend 30 trait points.

Just my 2c

Indeed. Would much rather have it affect both users and then allow for the 30 power GM trait to allow for permastow pets with a damage boon to compensate so that pure archer/DPS rangers can do without the mechanic if they so please to.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

pawned.2359:

personally idc what u do to thief i will figure a way to kill people with it i have played other classes they seem to slow/easy thief is only one that tickles my gizzard when i out play someone ……….

^ this

Zacchary.6183:

If the thief profession is to truly be a thief, it should have plenty of access to everything via theft.

Stealing life, boons, endurance, certain attacks, switching out conditions with boons should all be part of the thief’s attacks while they have nothing to produce for themselves. They should be able to improvise with what they steal to at least create some sort of synergy for themselves. And for a thief to be able to hold all of the kitten it’ll be stealing, the thief will need deep pockets (meaning open up F2, F3 and F4 for stolen items).

The thief SHOULD NOT just be another rouge class whose only redeeming quality is ambush and going transparent all the time.

The ability to store multiple stolen skills would definitely add to thief gameplay. It’s something I wish we already had, everytime I have to waste stolen skill to free up my steal.

They simply shouldn’t be on the same button and should be queued for F2.
Steal remains on F1, and F2 allows the use of the last three stolen abilities from newest to oldest. Steal more than three times and the oldest gets kicked out of the queue.

Put an ICD on stolen skill use equal to that of steal’s such that you don’t have people stealing warriors and stacking whirl and then just spamming triple whirl.

So steal becomes a much more usable mechanic rather than just a gap-closer.

Precisely what I mentioned above. Useless to have crit chance/damage unless you’re doing to do things with it.

Which is why I suggest people not build to 100% but build up crit chance to necessary levels such that they aren’t sacrificing either burst or just plain DPS. Even then, thief AA sequences are pretty quick, so a 75% rate with high base damage will ultimately proc similarly. Seeing as you get through about two full sequences over five seconds, you’re looking at critting immediately or almost immediately after the cooldowns spite having a much lower critical rate, effectively keeping proc chance per unit of time the same.

Basically you simply take a sample size of hits (the larger the better), then apply your crit chance to a percentage of those hits given a certain base damage derived from power, and modify them with your crit damage modifier. Then add up the damage you would deal on non-crits to this and compare the DPS, if that’s what you’re calculating. That’s just for AA DPS, though. One has to assume their build and how it’ll affect their skills. Imho, crit chance is less of a necessity in D/D or x/D stab builds due to the fact Hidden Killer raises backstab crit chance from stealth to 100%. Might as well just build heavy power, then.

This is particularly why I believe my previous post was indeed relevant despite not being a 90% crit/toughness build on the first suggestion; crit chance/damage is great and all, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have base damage worth modifying.

Seeing as you’re s/d, I wouldn’t be too concerned with DPS and would be more focused on remaining in the fight. That said. most of your damage will come from AA, so by all means calculate out which works better for you. Plot out the effectiveness of various builds and then see what’s just right. Idk your build or your playstyle, so simply making blind suggestions as to what the most effective build for you is simply silly :P

Your crit damage modifier could be 150%, at a 100% crit chance, but if you only have 1k power, someone with 3-4k power at 30% crit chance/damage is already dealing more dps and burst than you, unless you’re running on-crit condi.

It comes down to addressing builds. Yes, there are diminishing returns, but that would only imply that the most “effective” use of points would then be to put a little in everything – which for most people isn’t too great – for everyone else just beats you at their own game all the time.

Regarding the discussion about the change to Infusion of Shadows…

What exactly am I missing here? Spend 6 to regain 2 is the current situation… and the notes dictate that you gain initiative now only when you enter stealth versus using a skill that simply would put you in stealth.

Okay, I get that, but then why are people complaining? If you spam CnD, you net loss 4, and if you bust out tons of stealth skills whille you’re revealed in order to gain initiative, you end up blowing cooldowns for seemingly no reason.

Granted, I do not play D/P thief, however I see no problems with this for D/D or anyone simply running a build based on chaining stealth post-reveal. Seeing as I don’t play perma-stealth just fine (even with P/P alternative), why is this such a big deal?

I totally disagree with a lot of the other changes made, such as Shadow Return’s cast time, but I don’t quite get the QQ about making the class non-viable with this change. Thief isn’t in the best spot, but even then it can excel without perma-stealth builds, and I see no real issues changing the skill to only go into effect when simply entering stealth.

Anyone mind to explain the reasoning?

I honestly prefer this build for a high burst DD.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAoYlUmaPHcy5E+JFy2jhqCJKuCGl/ByS/AOB-jkyAY/hMSUEyoCgJPho0nGbVrIas6aMlrQtKOR27ioVLFQELjA-w

Stealing into Fury helps immensely, effectively raising your crit chance to 74% for what SHOULD be the duration of the fight. Imho, going above 80% is just kind of unnecessary. You can definitely mix in some assassin runes in place of berserker, however I prefer the damage boost versus the crit chance due to the fact D/D power shouldn’t be extending the fight into much beyond a few seconds from backstab and auto-attacking.

The reason I suggest this is because there’s not much purpose in going crit strikes unless you actually plan to do things with it. If you’re running condi/on-crit, then definitely look into the Trickery line.

I’d probably do something like this for a crit-based build with high toughness playing with condi.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqaVlUmaPXey5E+5Ey2jK8n4JvHfFZZWaFwJA-j0CBYfJDLUQkoIZUFBiIAM/RILHSitaqIasKmYKYER1mbFRrWKgHFGB-w

Not super tanky, but you’d be better-off than most other builds and would easily stack up bleeds.

Not really sure if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me.

Seeing as the drake skills are far from just instant casting (breath lasts for a duration even when cast), I don’t see why making them faster to cast would really help tbh. Breaths are cake to dodge seeing as there’s a huge visual queue beforehand. Fixing the delay on F2 wouldn’t really help these pets except for maybe they’d get a fraction of a second on someone unprepared.

It’d improve those particular pets, but those pets really only function well to begin with when their targets are locked down. Even fighting drakes is pitifully easy due to how slow and clunky their skills are and how easy it is to evade their hits. I think that breath is more of a drake problem than a time/delay problem. ANet has human players fighting drakes as some of the first mobs they encounter due to their predictability. Pet breath should probably just behave differently so that the pet rotates with its enemy despite being rooted and performs the action with less wind-up but with a shorter, more concentrated duration as to simply make the actual skill more difficult to dodge against in PvP scenarios.

CETheLucid.3964:

Warrior:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dual_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dual_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Arcing_Shot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcing_Arrow
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Pin_Down
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pin_Down

Thief:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ignite_Arrows
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cluster_Bomb
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Choking_Gas
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Choking_Gas
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Tripwire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tripwire
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Apply_Poison
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spider_Venom

Compares pretty well actually. You can build a very powerful marksman out of warrior and a preparations n’ traps oriented thief.

If you hate the pet mechanic so much, quit playing the ranger class.

You’re so incredibly misinformed it’s kind of sad, really.

You’re effectively telling someone who likes Greatswords and melee DPS but doesn’t like the way Guardian plays that “Well, mesmers can use the greatsword, so you should play that instead,” with the obvious pointed aside that Warrior fulfills that role.

If you’re going to make class/build recommendations for play styles, at least play what you suggest lol. As someone who’s run two level 80 thieves (I like keeping two different builds), an 80 bow warrior attempting to replicate ranger, and an 80 ranger, as well as maining ranged-based characters in MMO’s for over a decade on sixteen MMO’s, I can assure you that pointing to thief and warrior as “alternatives” for the style is simply incorrect.

Thief SB fails on two fronts:

1.) Lack of support for SB builds:
As it stands, there is only one trait in the Thief class which affects the shortbow. It’s on the toughness (SA line) and is a Master Trait. 20 Points into toughness for a power archer is absurd for an investment for just one trait.

Shortbow damage is fairly low and has very limited range.

Thief’s SB is a utility/tagging weapon. Its DPS is sub-par, and it’s based entirely around AOE damage. AOE’s are great, but forcing a player into AOE’ing is poor design for a ranged class. Why? Because it means you can’t properly kite/lure. The best available means of attacking a single monster is with using the tip of Cluster Bomb. With the nerf to thieve’s SB range, however, CB is no longer very viable for pulling/plinking due to the fact in most cases aggro will get you when you get close enough to use it.

In PvP/WvW, SB is used as a tag/escape weapon or to generate a combo field. Most caster classes out-range you, and rifles/pistols at times also can.

Pertaining to longbow warrior:

I don’t need to say much. The DoT playstyle and heavy reliance on AOE’s yet again demonstrates this class as not being quite right for the archer role. This of course discludes the obvious issues pertaining to again having shorter range than most casters, being 20% slower than almost every other class (Warrior’s runspeed increase only works with melee weapons), and the obvious thematic problems which make this class definitely not an archer.

Last I checked, archers don’t run around in plate mail shooting fireballs and burning their foes to death. When showing this class/build off to my friends, I’ve had them actually laughing out loud because it seems so wildly out-of-place and contextually poor. It’s cool that this style exists, but come on, it in no way encompasses the archer role. If anything, I’d argue that ele plays closer to an archer aside from the critical aspect of not having a bow.

It boils down to giving players either an alternative with a whole new class, giving the longbow/single-target DPS to another one and reworking that class so it works, or simply just giving the option for rangers to stow their pets for a damage bonus.

Anyone stating that pets shouldn’t be the class mechanic is being silly and unreasonable. Fact is, people just want options and diversity, and as it stands, there is none for the archer players out there.