I’m curious, what would raids accomplish that 5 mans could not? You don’t need 10 or 25 players to have coordinated group play and fights that require strategies.
Also, as large groups in WvW have proven, ressing is extremely powerful when there are a lot of players around to get you up on your feet quickly.
It’s true that you can do a lot more with 5 man Dungeons that we’re currently seeing.
The big thing that sets Raids apart from Dungeons is that you can build fights around the assumption that one of every class will be there.
With 5 man encounters you need to design a lot of leeway for “suboptimal” groups. You can’t have them require a certain ability or a specific profession because that would be unfair.
In Raids you can do just that. A 10 man fight also has a lot more variables and depth to it than any 5 man encounter could ever have.
That’s why Raid encounters tend to be much tougher and involving than your standard Dungeon fights. I mean look at some of those Fractal encounters. That’s probably as much depth as we can reasonably expect from a 5 man Dungeon. And I don’t really think that’s good enough.
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Yes, there is certainly room for a lot of improvement.
1. Combo fields often apply redundant effects. While cool in theory, who needs a burning combo field when the Guardian’s auto attack is already applying Burning. Same applies to Poisons and various other effects. The only combo fields that seem somewhat useful are the ones applying Boons to the group (Retaliation or Might for example) and the Healing ones (Life-Leech/Water).
For a deeper combat experience you need to make combo fields more important and meaningful.
2. Limited abilities – Looking at Thieves for example you can disqualify roughly half of the abilities instantly from any PvP environment. All traps and almost all Venoms for example can be categorically ignored. Venoms are often redundant and the traps just weak. Other classes have similar issues I assume. That essentially leaves a choice of maybe 10 skills, half of which can again we ignored because of build synergy (example Caltrops in Power builds).
3. Weapon set – I’m going to reference Thieves again, because they’re extreme in this regard. They have essentially 2 ranged weapon, one single target, the other AoE. They have 2 melee weapon sets, one Aoe and one single target. They have 2 basic play-styles, burst or condition damage.
This really limits the choice and flexibility of the profession. Not only that, it also means that every play-style is very limited. Melee Condition Damage is essentially about spaming Death Blossom, ranged Pistol Condition Damage is essentially about spaming Sneak Attack.
We really need more combat depth in this regard. Some professions more than others, but it’s a general problem.
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Yes, Last Refuge is a very problematic trait.
Hi everyone,
You might find these articles of the wiki useful for this discussion
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiant
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/UnshakableIn short, Unshakable will grant the boss as many charges of Defiant as players are in the area. CC skills remove charges of Defiant. Once at 0 stacks the boss is susceptible to CC, after which the charges refresh.
As stated above the players can coordinate to have it at 0 stacks so they can prevent deadly attacks.
Hope this helps in your dungeon runs. As always, we ask you all to have a civil and constructive discussion.
Thanks
The problem is it’s a terrible uninuitive mechanic and largely unnecessary too. I don’t recall a single boss aside from the Dredge Fractal, where interrupting or CC is even necessary.
My big issue with Definat is that way it refreshes. From one second to the next he’ll have back all his charges and CC becomes impossible again. It’s just not a good system.
Why not have Definat charges replenish more seamlessly at say….1 charge every 5-10 seconds.
Either that or simply reduce the duration and effect of all CC by 70% vs. all bosses. Whatever you do it can’t be worse than the current Definat mechanic.
Essentially Raids are 10+ player dungeons.
So how come there is such a disdain for Raids in this game while Dungeons are widely accepted?
I mean even the developers said they like their content to be spread throughout the world and that’s where people should be playing etc. And yet Dungeons are one of the most popular content in game.
Why are different standard applied to something that is essentially the same (just bigger)?
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Great post from the OP, appreciated the style and humor.
As for the issue:
-Remove rare drops from “normal” mobs.
-Increase rare drops from Veteran mobs
-Guaranteed rares from Event chests.
Exotics should remain as random as they currently are.
The Crucible of Eternity medium armor is quite thiefy and is one of the few dungeon armors that looks great on asura.
Yeah, I’ve being eyeing that one but it leans more to the Ninja/Assassin side of things rather than the Swashbuckler/Privateer side.
Surely the best Dungeon Skin but not really what I was going for.
I’m really struggling to find a unique look for my Asura Thief.
Most medium armors in this game look a bit drab and generic. Often enough it’s hard to tell apart all of the different trench-coats you can chose.
I’ve been browsing: http://gw2armorgallery.com/asura-medium.htm quite a bit but every look I’ve come up with so far always ends up looking disappointing in game. And I’m running low of Transmutation stones so I really need to finalize my look.
Therefore I’m requesting your help.
I’m looking for an appropriate look for an Asuran Adventurer/Thief/Swashbuckler. I’m not really into the whole Assassin/Ninja look a lot of Thieves have going for them.
Any ideas?
It’s the combination of melee + medium armor +low HP that makes Thieves die so much in Dungeons.
Assuming equal skill distribution amongst all classes Thieves are rather unforgiving.
Wow, wasn’t expecting the “night-capping” debate to resurface.
But yes, while we’ve chewed through this whole debate many times before the fact that 10 people at night achieve more than 100 people during the day seems like a pretty broken system.
We’ve pointed this out to ANet for months now but they never bothered to change anything about it.
The issue was more or less forgotten when WvW matches became more balanced and fights were on more equal footing but the problem still remained.
If you look at the official response to the night-capping debate it shows ANets completely disregard for the issue. So I wouldn’t expect them to change anything about it anytime soon.
As for me, I see no downside as to why the point accumulation should scale with the current player activity.
This looks like the standard WvW Thief build.
Your gear and rune choices seem spot on too. Your HP seems to be a little on the low end but that can easily be remedied by replacing a few Berserker items.
I see you specced into Mug, which is understandable considering the amount of burst it adds. However do you really think it’s worth it? It has a 45 second cooldown and really doesn’t offer much else outside of burst.
Since Sword + Dagger builds are less bursty than Dagger builds I’d argue that the 10 points could better be spent elsewhere…..like in Acrobatics.
As for stats, Vitality is always a better choice for Thieves compared to Toughness, especially since you get a good deal of Toughness from the Shadow Arts tree.
Yes, the Paralization Sigil does work with the the Daze attack from Tactical Strike. As to what’s more valuable, well that’s debatable. It depends on how much you value random burst procs vs. a slightly longer duration daze.
Personally I don’t really like the random Quickness procs as they seem to trigger at the wrong time in most occasions. But whether and extra 0.3 seconds on an already 2 second daze is worthwhile….I’m not sure.
I consider Haste to be somewhat of a cheesy skills. Yes, it’s effective…..too effective if you ask me, but often I don’t feel like “more DPS” is what my Thief really needs in a utility slot.
Like everything else in the Fractals, the increase is very subtle.
There’s certainly a noticeable difference between 10 and 30 but it’s hard to quantify.
Yes, I’ve been experiencing similar issues for roughly a week now with heavy lags during peak hours.
Things are fine during the day and late at night but 7PM to roughly 10PM is virtually unplayable.
Reminds me a bit of September when the game was newly launched as I had similar issues.
You might want to check the tech-support forums.
Well the biggest difference is obviously the fact that the Sword cleaves up to 3 targets at once while the Daggers only hit one.
I’d estimate the single-target damage is better on Daggers because of the rapid the attack rate.
Sword has the benefit of Weakness (unless you’ve specced into Deadly Arts) as well as the Stun/Blind on Tactical Strike.
Infiltrator’s Strike then has the Condition Removal and Root as well as being a gap closer.
Overall Sword + Dagger offers more utility and survivability than Dagger/Dagger. It has many things going for it and the damage is pretty impressive, especially when hitting multiple targets.
Daggers really only have one thing going for them, but it’s a biggy. Nothing matches the pressure you apply by hitting Backstab followed with Heartseeker. Those abilities deal an immense amount of damage and force any target to go defensive.
On the other hand they don’t offer much when things go south.
So overall I’d recommend Sword + Dagger if you’re going for a more durable build. It also happens to be quite a good counter to Dagger/Dagger Thieves.
If you’re out for burst and want to ensure quick kills at a higher risk, then roll with double Daggers.
Lowell a fairly reputable Thief often partakes in the “state of the game” discussions they have every few months. He’s best known for playing a Thief although most high-rated players probably play all professions to an extent.
The smaller the niche an ability fills, the cheaper it should be.
This is the primary source of our disagreement. Balance isn’t nerfing general purpose skills until they’re so weak that they’re niche, and buffing niche skills until they’re so powerful they become general purpose. Balancing skills means ensuring that there are interesting trade-offs in which skills you use in different situations. It’s totally possible to use one skill 100x more often than another and still have them be balanced.
I don’t think we actually disagree here. I just think you misinterpreted my meaning.
When you have an ability that fills a very narrow niche then this ability needs to be cheap to use.
Say you have an ability in game called X….and it’s only real purpose is to counter ability A from another class. It serves a very narrow niche and is highly situational.
In the rare case that you do want to use this ability, it’s use should not be further limited by a high cost. After all you already sacrificed something to take this specific ability and you remembered to use it.
If a niche ability is too expensive players just start ignoring it completely or substitute it with another.
Again, the fact that I may have used Dancing Dagger less than a dozen times in the past few weeks clearly indicates that it serves too little of a niche and is not an effective choice.
In a game like Guild Wars 2 where you only have 10 skills to manage at a time you simply cannot afford to have abilities you only use once or twice a day. That’s my reasoning anyway.
I just realized you probably didn’t misinterpret my meaning.
If Mug were a weapon skill or a minor trait I would agree with you 100%.
But it is not a weapon skill, it is a major trait, which means it is an option. Options work better when they have clear purposes; it makes the decision space cleaner and makes each decision matter more. So I think that Mug being totally unattractive to condition builds is a good thing. It is clearly a good trait for a certain style of power build (and particularly a crit build), and not good for a condition build. That is a strong design. That is the point.
Now, your point that there are not attractive adept major traits available in Deadly Arts to conditions builds is well taken. I agree with that 100%. But that is a case for re-working an unused minor trait into a trait that is attractive to condition builds, not muddying up Mug.
Valid point but again I disagree.
If you think that ideally, every weapon skill should offer something to every play-style then why exclude Majror traits from this?
Shouldn’t Major traits ideally offer something for every play-style as well? Otherwise your choice is just very limited.
I don’t see how your play-style eliminating 50% of your viable trait choices makes for a more interesting or engaging game.
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-snip-
I like all of these ideas, especially the Black Powder one.
The reason I kept my above suggestions fairly simple is because realistically, ANet is going to changing much in the way abilities work at this point.
Considering the snail pace at which they make balance changes even something as simple as a cost increase is a pretty “dramatic” change.
I too would love to see some more fundamental changes to abilities but I don’t think it’s realistic to expect that at this point.
I don’t think HS needs a nerf. When fighting a thief, you know exactly how Heartseeker works and that the enemy thief is going to use it multiple times in a row, and information is the best kind of advantage in a competitive environment. After all, if you know what your opponent is going to do, you can counter it. If a thief starts HSing me I know exactly when to block, dodge, or drop an AoE, and after that’s done with he has no initiative left. He trades relentless offense for the fact that he’s boned and standing directly next to me if it doesn’t work. Kind of like 6 pooling in starcraft.
I don’t have a high-level thief, but having been on the receiving end of HS for many a month I think it’s fine as is.
We’re arguing from two different perspectives here.
You’re saying that Heartseekers cost is ok because it is easy to counter and predict.
That may be true, but I’d say almost every ability you can spam is easy to predict and counter.
My argument is coming from a different point of view and is about efficiency. I argue that considering the damage, utility and usability of Heartseeker, it is too effective at 3 Initiative.
This isn’t directly about nerfing Heartseeker spam (although the relative efficiency is a big reason why it happens) but bringing it more in line with our other abilities regarding cost/effect.
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I honestly think all downed states should allow for exactly 1 interrupt and that’s it.
First glance thoughts:
-Heartseeker cost increased to 4 Initiative (up from 3)
I really dislike this proposal. It represents a monstrous nerf to D/P, and represents a bigger hit to game play than actual power. Gap closers need to be cheap to encourage interesting combat once joined, and the power level of the skill is such that its use is sub-optimal once you’ve closed the gap, up until your target is below 25% health (at which point you’re not going to be spamming it much since it should be dropping them in 1-2 shots anyway).
I agree that impressively bad players over-use the skill as a crutch against their inability to move; and that not quite as bad but still bad players lose to heartseeker spam because they do not know how to defend themselves in a reasonable manner. Unless we’re going to start balancing the game around what bad players are doing, this doesn’t make any sense.
-Dancing Dagger cost reduced to 3 Initiative (down from 4)
You’re kidding right? You want to make what is already a 100% uptime projectile snare even more spammable?
I agree that the damage on the skill was overnerfed and that some bounce back is warranted on that, but the utility part of the skill is already very strong and is not due a buff.
-Mug damage reduced by approximately 50%. Mug now also applies 4 Bleeds for 4 seconds.
Interesting. I think the power level you’re proposing is roughly in the right place, but why do you prefer bleeds here? I don’t get the flavor and I don’t see how they enhance gameplay.
I think a simple ratio reduction does the job here just fine. The big packet is where the play is, and I don’t see what we gain here by shifting power into something else. Find the biggest number you can put on it without breaking things and run with that.
-Infiltrator’s Singet now also steals a boon from the target when used.
I like this, it’s a good idea for an active that lacks oomph. I’m going to steal this one.
-Body Shot now also applies 4 seconds of Weakness to the target.
Eeeeh.
I think this is an ok buff, but it doesn’t make me want to spend initiative on the skill over the other options available. Not that weakness is bad, but I don’t want to actually pay for it.
Wow, some honest feedback….wouldn’t have expect that at this point.
However I don’t see how you can make that argument about Heartseeker and Dancing Dagger.
Heartseeker is an incredibly powerful ability. It’s a high damage ability, a leap-finisher allowing you to utilize all kinds of combo fields as well as a gap closer. It also happens to be targeted which makes it incredibly easy to use effectively.
It is simply far too efficient an ability to have it cost less than almost all our other abilities. The cost/effect ratio is simply off with this ability. It’s too good and too cheap to use.
That’s why I think it deserves to cost a little more.
Dancing Dagger is in a similar situation, just on the other end. It too is essentially a gap closer, but by snaring the target rather than leaping. It kind of pales when compared to Heartseeker due to its cost and multi-target niche.
I honestly can’t remember when I last used Dancing Dagger simply because it’s so expensive. The smaller the niche an ability fills, the cheaper it should be.
The niche Heartseeker fills is far larger than the niche Dancing Dagger fills and that should be reflected in the costs.
And let’s face it, and indirect damage nerf wouldn’t be uncalled for on Thieves.
As for Mug I liked the idea of adding Bleeds because it makes the trait more attractive for Condition builds. Deadly Arts after all caters both to Power builds as well as Venom/Condition builds and I think Mug should reflect that.
If you just reduced the damage of Mug then there’d be no reason for a Condition build to ever take it again. This way it has something for both.
As for Body Shot …..I can’t really say much about that. It’s clear the ability needs a buff and Pistols have no source of Weakness so yeah. It also happened to suit the name of the ability to an extent but obviously it’s not ideal. This was just a simple way to make the ability more attractive without requiring too much work.
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You can try gaming VPN service like WTFast or Battleping
Why would I need something like that…which is a paid service btw….when I already have a really low latency of 13 ms. It doesn’t make sense to advise me to reroute my latency.
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I recall a period during the first weeks of the game where I was constantly plagued by laggs during peak hours.
Much of that was fixed when a friendly user pointed me to the “/testport” 80 extension to the GW2.exe which fixed most of my problems back then.
However that was months ago and since then I’ve switched ISP (using Unitymedia in Germany now). The ISP has extremely low Pings and the game ran flawlessly until about a week ago when the lag made a comeback.
This is especially noticeable during peak hours….starting around 7PM and going on well into the night, when the game becomes borderline unplayable for me. Abilities won’t react, targeting becomes virtually impossible etc. typically lag issues.
Now nothing has really changed on the client side and I’m not expericing lag in any other online games at the time. My Latency is measured at a constant 13ms according to speedtest.net and I have access to my full bandwidth.
This and the fact that the lag seems to be tied to the server-load leads me to assume that the issue lies with ANet Europe.
Any idea on what might be causing this lag and how to fix it?
Again, I wasn’t having any issues until about a week ago.
PS: I’ve tried the /clientport 80 extension to no avail. Nothing seems to change.
You’re just seeing more of them than you did.
Bunker Eles have been around for a while now but it’s taken a few month for it to trickle down into your standard WvW
I mean it took 4 weeks into release for someone to post the Thief instant-gib combo in a youtube video but it wasn’t until November that this build and play-style really became wide-spread.
I wasn’t seeing many D/D Bunker Eles in WvW until about December.
Pistol/Dagger Thieves are a build every Thief tries once in a while but then quickly leaves behind because it’s boring as kitten and makes you hate downed-state more than ever.
The only new build I’ve encountered in the past weeks is the Ranger Bunker build with traps and lots of leaps combined with a very high Protection uptime. It too has probably been around for a while but most Rangers seem to prefer damage builds.
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I share you general sentiment. My only issue I have with Mesmers is the rate at which they spawn their illusions. Depending on the exact build they seem to spawn one every 2 seconds if you include stuff like Illusions on Dodges etc.
This makes it feel like destroying the illusions isn’t a viable tactic as they spawn too quickly.
Portal is something of a separate issue and not really a Mesmer balance issue per say. I think it warrants it’s own discussion.
Low poly avatars are obviously preferred to not seeing anything, but I don’t think it’s the end all solution to the problem.
I’d much rather see my frame-rate drop to 20 before culling even takes effect.
I believe Invisibility is capped around 18 seconds. This is only really attainable by Dagger/Pistol Thieves however after extensive stacking via Black Powder.
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I just came back from HotW Story Mode,
talk about damage sponges.
Clicking and 1v1 Pistol/Dagger?
No thanks
Don’t people have any sense of what is and what’s not worth showing?
Limited range aside, yes, Thieves are good in WvW.
Guardians also have this healing aura which has this blue and white symbol.
I assume it acts similar to Regeneration but it has it’s own unique symbol.
Afaik Stealth should suppress the auto-attack chain, which considering the unique nature of Stealth attacks, can be quite crucial.
However this does not seem to work reliably.
For example when targeting a wall in WvW a Thief will constantly try to auto-attack the wall.
It also constantly triggers itself when targeting mobs at range with a Pistol in WvW.
I’ve had countless occasions where my Stealth attack was broken prematurely because somehow the auto-attack decided to trigger.
Please fix.
I know it already does….at times…..but it does so too unreliably.
I’ve come across countless occasion where the auto attack would simply self-trigger without any input from the player.
Considering the importance of Stealth for Mesmers and Thieves it should work much more reliably.
Turning off auto-attack is tedious and requires excessive button-mashing, especially when playing something with rapid auto-attacks.
Guys on sparks, have speed buffs, movements skills, blinks and switfness of course, guy with 3 sparks should be ready by the time she stealths to start pulling 3, guy with 2 sparks shud be done before the other gets there. Sparks follow in a straight line. Rest stay out of the way.
Timewarp after 4-1 to give u more running time for sparks, potion of undead slaying helps ALOT, 50% more damage to simin if all players equip
You fail at maths but otherwise speak true.
I’d argue that Thieves in general need more access to various boons.
Or maybe all other classes need less access to them because seeing Guardians and Elementalists rolling boons 24/7 is equally as broken as barely having any at all.
I mean we have no source of Protection, Stability or Retaliation (outside of Daggerstorm) and most other boons have a really limited duration.
I mean not every class has to be a Guardian when it comes to boons but it would be nice to at least have access to each one in some form or another. And I’d especially love a more permanent access to Swiftness so I can finally drop that Singet of Shadows.
Don’t attack the OP.
He made a real effort and a real guide to show the minor tricks and clues on how to maximize your CoF 1 efficiency.
You don’t have to approve of CoF farming but you must accept that it’s a popular thing to do and that many people do it. I might feel tempted to do the same if I ever had a perfect setup but as it stands I prefer doing 1 run a day than spend 30 minutes looking for a perfect group and run the dungeon over and over again for less and less return.
Yep, nerf Elementalists and Guardians boon rolling/bunker abilities, slightly nerf Mesmers utility and clone spam and make Thieves a little more defensive and less bursty and Warriors should be fine again.
Considering how important cosmetic progression is to GW2 I’m having a hard time actually finding the resources to define a “look” for me.
I know about GW2armor.com but the skins there are very limited. I know there are plenty more out there.
Is there any resource on the internet that could help with designing a particular look for your toon? I’m really getting tired of the same of generic skins on 80% of the characters.
So you basically want a summery of these entire forums?
Its sad how we have no ledges to stand on. If we get defeated we are noobs, if we use our class legitametly with stealthing and kill, we are noobs -_- this video supported that pov from the majority, and it makes me upset how one of our own even thought the thief was hacking
It helps if you see the player base as a series of individuals rather than a unified entity.
The player base doesn’t ask for nerfs, individuals do.
And to be fair, the amount of Thief QQ has dropped significantly over the past months/weeks.
As for Pistol/Dagger trolling…it is extremely hard to counter especially in a group situation like that. When culling is in full effect you can barely react to his attacks. Sure they were bad players and sad ones too for accusing him of hacking etc. but I’ve done stuff like this myself and neither is it hard to pull off nor is it satisfying.
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I believe it also only applies to forward movement, not strafing or back-peddling.
My guess is that there was some sort of spell-reflect mechanic going on. Not sure what that would be exactly but who knows. Maybe some necro just happened to roll over his fear button in just that second.
I’m noticing it affecting my nearby Allies a lot more. They will constantly render and disappear again when I pan my camera.
I can’t really say how much it affect enemies as I haven’t experienced many zerg clashes in the past days.
F1: Steal
1-5: Weapon skills
Q: Heal
E, R, C: Utilities
X: Ultimate
Tab: Targeting
WS: Move forward/backward
AD: Strafe left/right
Middle Mouse: Run forward (lock)
Mouse 4: Dodge
Mouse 5: Weapon switch
Warriors are fine everywhere except for the highest level of PvP where they seem to be lacking compared to other classes. But this is as much due to some professions being overpowered as well as Warriors being a bit shallow.
Yeah I kind of agree that although there are ways to hurt him, it relies on the Thief making mistakes as much as it does on the Warrior.
People tell you to dodge the Cloak and Dagger attack which is fair enough, but incredibly hard to do in a WvW environment. It becomes a non-issue once there are other targets around you (even mobs and critters) and he can use them to Stealth as well.
So in theory, yes, try to dodge his Cloak and Dagger if you can but far more importantly, try to CC and stun the Thief nd put him under a lot of pressure.
I’d think a Hammer and Rifle would give you the best shot, the Hammer for all the stuns and CC and the rifle for the range damage and pressure.
Just be aware of the “Blind of Stealth” trait many Thieves run with as it could ruin a crucial attack. So keep spaming.
Mesmer because they have by far the most raid utility and tricks.
So playing one yourself cuts out the middle-man if you ever want to perform fancy portal moves.
Other than that you want something fairly durable like a Guardian and ideally something that is easy to play so you can focus on other things.
Hey ! Great job, I’ve really enjoyed it.
Just one simple question. Wouldn’t Shadows Embrace be better instead of Infusion of Shadow ? You’ve got no condition removal (only HiW)
Yeah, I’m really torn between the Condition Removal in Stealth and the Blind on Stealth.
Both are really powerful and every time I have one I wish I had the other.
But Infusion of Shadows is too good to pass up in a WvW build since it allows you to keep using Cloak and Dagger without having to worry about Initiative. Without it you couldn’t afford to constantly cloak off random targets which is essential in WvW. It also ensures that First Strikes in the Critical Strikes tree is almost always active.
Yes, the sPvP Amulets all have much more “well rounded” stats meaning they’ll have a more more even distribution.
In WvW you can push things a lot further, especially when accounting for:
-Ascended quality gear
-Food and Oil
-More specialized gear
WvW also uses the PvE rule-set so some abilities like Cloak and Dagger deal significantly more damage.
What are we talking about?
WvW? tPvP? sPvP? FotM? Dungeons? PvE farming?
Where are you getting these benchmark stats from and what are they based on?
Afaik the only shift in Thief meta-gaming I’ve noticed is the increasing popularity of Dagger + Pistol. Other than that most players still seem to be running the same old 25/30/0/0/15 build.