Guild Wars 2

I think you’re on to something about gear progression being just as much about prestige as it is about character “progression”. I just don’t get why you assume everyone who thinks like that is some sort of elitist jerk.

I for one chase gear-rewards for prestige, rather than stats. I…and I assume most people, don’t really care what sort of stats their gear has. The role of a status symbol is what makes new gear appealing.

The same logic also applies to Legendaries although their acquisition thus far has been 99% dedication, 1% skill.

As to why? I guess it’s the same reason people buy Sports Cars despite a 70mph speed limit. Recognition…

Yeah, the PvE designers at ANet didn’t get the memo that 1000% base HP doesn’t make something 10 times harder. It just makes it take a lot longer.

HP scaling is a general problem in GW2. On one end of the spectrum you have normal mobs that die instantly as soon as they spawn during populated Dynamic Events and on the other end of the spectrum you have Champions and Bosses that take 5-10min of non-stop auto-shotting to kill.

We can just hope that ANet will iron out these issues over time. I wouldn’t expect too much for old content but the new stuff will probably improve in this regard.

I think everyone is looking forward to Duels. It would be cool if they added a mosh pit to the Mists too, specifically for dueling.

1st expansion will have Trahearne turn evil/corrupted and thus become our antagonist.

You heard it here first folks.

When looking at popular builds you see one common theme. Especially in PvP builds tend to go for extremes. You either have full glass-cannons or bunker builds. Very few professions compete with balanced builds.

I believe partially responsible for this fact is the way stats scale in GW2 and that they seem to lack any kind of Diminishing Returns. Going from 1000 Power to 2000 Power will double your DPS, and going to 3000 Power will increase it again by the same amount.

I believe all stats (except Toughness) work this way and it encourages people to build for extremes. Diminishing Returns have the advantage that they limit the extent to which people can push into one direction (be it bunker of cannon) as increased investment into one stat will yield less and less benefit.

Most MMOs have some sort of Diminishing Returns built into their stat system but GW2 does not.

Maybe this is something that should be considered for the future, especially now that we’re getting a new tier of gear.

Builds that can easily beat a Backstab Thief:
Bunker Guardian
Mesmer
Bunker Elementalist
100 Blades Warrior (most Backstab Thieves don’t have stun-beakers so 1 charge and it’s GG)
Hammer Warrior (just chain-stun them)
Necromancer (if he’s really good)
Pistol/Dagger Thief
Bunker Engineer with lots of knock-backs
_____________________________________

Bottom line, any profession that is either somewhat tanky or has lots of CC/knock-backs can pretty much roll over any Backstab Thief.

The only profession that seems rather kittened is the Ranger….well because they are.

It does seem odd that something like Shadow Refuge would have a cap of 5 players and yet a Mesmer portal can teleport an entire army across the map.

I too have a hard time understanding how a single profession can have utilities that are 100 times more potent and valuable than those of any other profession.

Something unique and prestigious, something I associate with skill and dedication.

Jestersmiles.4365:

Dee Jay.2460:

I just came back from another 1 hour Siege that just kept going and going because neither side was able to significantly weaken the other side.

Rezzing mechanics just make Sieges so entirely pointless it’s mind-boggling. People die constantly but they never stay dead. They are constantly being rezzed by their mates and stuff just goes on and on an on.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother trying to kill people in the first place. For Badges I guess…because it certainly doesn’t make any difference for the outcome of a Siege.

ANet, you must seriously review the resurrection mechanics for WvW. They make the game so incredibly pointless.

Working as intended.

Says who?

I honestly doubt ANet inteded the resurrection mechanics to have this effect on WvW.

I’m not sure about your suggestions. I understand that DAoC RvR played a lot different, a lot more epic than current WvW. But both are different games.

The map size itself really limits how much roaming you can do. I mean you can traverse a WvW map in about 2 minutes. There’s only so much roaming you can do in such a densely populated area.

That said, I too would like to see some kind of WvW score-board, just for bragging rights.

Something like:
-Kills,
-Kill/Death Rate,
-Karma earned
-Keep Lords killed
-Keeps defended
-Dolyaks killed
-Guards killed
-Supplies collected
-Siege weapons built
-Repair efforts
-etc.

Just generate such a list for every current match-up going on. No rewards, no nothing, just prestige.

Addressing the resurrection mechanics would go a long way towards buffing defenders and limiting the attraction of zerging. The fact that a 20 vs 20 zerg can go at each other for an hour and achieve absolutely nothing is really quite game-breaking for me.

I just came back from another 1 hour Siege that just kept going and going because neither side was able to significantly weaken the other side.

Rezzing mechanics just make Sieges so entirely pointless it’s mind-boggling. People die constantly but they never stay dead. They are constantly being rezzed by their mates and stuff just goes on and on an on.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother trying to kill people in the first place. For Badges I guess…because it certainly doesn’t make any difference for the outcome of a Siege.

ANet, you must seriously review the resurrection mechanics for WvW. They make the game so incredibly pointless.

I understand that there is a nerf to Backstab underway that’s probably too late to stop.

I’d still like to point out that when people complain about Backstab they are really complaining about 3 different abilities all hitting in conjunction for maximum burst. That is, and always was the problem with the Backstab combo, not the Backstab damage itself.

I hope ANet understands that and doesn’t just straight-up nerf Backstab because it’s a essential part of Thief Dagger DPS.

To iterate, when you are being gibbed by a Thief, you are typically being hit by 3 abilities within a second.

Those are:
1. Steal which is a 900 range Shadowstep that will poison the target, steal an ability and in conjunction with Mug (a trait) hit for about 1000-6000 damage, depending on the build (a full glass-cannon will achieve 6k crits, a more moderate Backstabber only about 4k)

2. Cloak and Dagger is the second ability that typically hits as it can be pre-cast. This is also what puts the Thief in Stealth allowing him to Backstab. Cloak and Dagger doesn’t usually hit very hard unless you are a full glass-cannon. Then it reaches up to 5000 critical. 2000-3000 are more common for moderate Backstabbers or non-crits. This ability also consumes roughly half of the Thieves initiative.

3. Backstab is a Dagger melee attack which is only available from Stealth and only hits hard when behind the enemy. It is by far the biggest hitter but also the easiest to avoid. Against glass-cannon players this ability can surpass 10.000 damage if the Thief himself is a glass-cannon. However the damage quickly scales down to 6000 against more defensive targets. It drops even lower as soon the the Thief isn’t an all-out glass-cannon.

So yes, Backstab may be the biggest hitter, but in my opinion it’s not what makes Thieves OP. The damage done by Steal + Mug is however. Up to 6000 damage on an instant-shadowstep ability with 900 range, now that’s overpowered.

In general it also seems that Thief damage in general scales excessively well with offensive stats (maybe this is a general problem rather than a Thief specific issue). Even a slight drop in offensive stats leads to a significant drop in PvP damage.

The most seamless and efficient way to nerf the Backstab combo would thus be:

1. Nerf the damage generated by Mug. Up to 6000 instant damage on such a low-tier trait seems excessive. A 30% nerf seems justified.

2. Adding a 0.3 second cast-time to Steal would make it impossible to pre-cast Cloak and Dagger fixing many of the burst issues associated with Backstab.

Those two simples changes would do a lot to mitigate the complaints about Thieves. None of these touches the damage of key abilities however. Addressing the core is always better than fixing the symptoms.

Kashien.6278:

I’ve already learned how to counter the thieves. Question is, Why havent the other players? Why do thieves have to suffer because the majority of the playerbase just suck.

Only a minority of players prefer to adapt and learn about a class rather than cry for nerfs This is why QQ about Thieves rarely comes from tPvP and more often from people caught off guard in WvW.

That said, just because something can be countered, doesn’t mean it’s balanced.

Ideally all abilities should fall into a certain power spectrum and even a glass-cannon duel should last a few seconds. This is what’s broken about the Backstab combo (note: the combo, not Backstab itself). It’s too much damage in too short of a window, leaving many players with little time to react or respond.

I don’t really have a problem with people complaining about the Backstab burst combo. My problem is when people solely blame Backstab itself, rather than the 6k Steal or the fact that we can pre-cast Cloak and Dagger. That’s what’s broken about the Backstab combo, not Backstab damage itself.

HellsMachine.4083:

If so, when do you think it will most likely happen?

Thursday, the 15th of November.

I made a suggestion similar to the OPs before.

The problem I have with Stealth currently is that Cloak & Dagger is our only “on demand” Stealth ability we have. Sure, we have other sources of Stealth but they tend to be limited by long cooldowns and are required for more than just Stealthing.

With a Stealth mechanic that drained our Initiative we could have “on demand” Stealth for a lot more weapon setups. It would also emphasize Stealth as a defensive tool, rather than an offensive tool used to prepare big hits. Since we can’t dump 10+ Initiative into a target when coming out of Stealth it would probably be easier to balance as well.

Obviously though this would require a pretty fundamental rework of many of the Thief mechanics and traits.

The capping mechanics are the problem here, not the fact that the Thief has perma-stealth.

You notice this in other aspects of the game too (Bunker standing on nodes in tPvP, single mobs stalling the capping progress in PvE).

There needs to be a simple mechanic that allows you to cap with a sufficient majority.

If you have 3 players within a cap area and the enemy has 2, then it should slowly progress towards your side. If you have a 1v2 going on, it will slowly go towards the enemy.

That would solve a lot more than a Thief specific abuse tactic.

Kam.8109:

Angriff.1935:

I think it would be really cool if in the future, each server(or world) had a unique home map, that was themed towards the name of the server.

I love this idea. Blackgate server would have a huge gate of some sort. Tarnished Coast would be one huge coastline. And Sea of Sorrows would be a map filled with perma-stealth thieves.

I lol’d in real life at the last part +1

For Simin I do in fact recommend the “brute force” tactic. It might not be working as intended but given how frickle and unreliable the sparks and traps work I still think it’s the better option.

Just make sure to maintain poisons on her to suppress 33% of her healing.

Here’s a video of how to do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBEWtmZnuQY

PS: Simin isn’t the final boss, so be prepared to add another 20 minutes. Thank god the final fight isn’t hard.

The stats in general are totally off on gw2db.com. At least in the case of Legendaries they are. They should really update their database more often.

Anyway, this is correct: http://www.guildhead.com/item/30704/twilight

I have an Achievement under my “Heroic” tab that requires me to acquire 200.000 XP without dying.

At level 80 200.000 XP is slightly less than a full “level up” and I’m absolutely certain I have achieved this without dying. To be honest, it only takes a couple of successive Plinx runs.

Not that hard really.

And yet I still haven’t got the achievement and I’m wondering why.

Does it reset if you log out?
Is it reset in “downed-state”?
Does “Bonus XP” not apply?

Actually, I’m fairly sure I’ve accumulated almost 1 Mio. XP without dying today and still nothing.

Can someone explain the intricacies of this Achievement to me?

Wow, you are seriously a good player. I applaud your video.

I also agree that Pistol/Dagger is actually a lot more powerful than Dagger/Dagger Backstab builds on Thieves. However they’ll probably still generate a lot less QQ since you can’t near instant-gib people with Pistol/Dagger.

On the other hand you can come out on top of a 3v1…something that is very hard to do with a Backstab build.

Knote.2904:

Dee Jay.2460:

Knote.2904:

To be fair, while Thieves do need changes, this has to do with WvW.

Stats are way, way, inflated there compared to Spvp.

How so?

Are you serious? Oo

You have stats on every piece of gear in pve, including all jewelry slots, and weapons.

I’m fairly confident you have the same overall stats in sPvP as you’d have with regular exotics in normal WvW.

The only thing that affected WvW was the boosters and the Orb buffs, which don’t exist any more.

So you’ve had your first encounter with a Thief and are already calling for balance changes?

You’ll fit in nicely here.

/here here /raises hand

But seriously, removing the cast-time would be a step in the right direction. At least that way it could serve as a decent interrupt. But I’m not sure if even a 3 second duration would make it more attractive except for Backstab builds.

I would hold off until the patch hits before dedicating too many resources towards any current Thief build.

Humposaurus.5764:

I would like this class:

God:
- Immortal
- 1 skill: Win!
- Haz wingzzzz omg wingzzz can you believe it?>??z

Would still receive less hate than Thieves.

But on topic, I have a soft spot for Martial Arts Monks.

I agree with the OP,

currently groups offer too much safety from bad play in PvP. “Oh my mate just died? Let me just click him for 3 seconds and we’re good again”.

Currently PvP in GW2 is like PvP where everyone has a Battlerezz.

2 changes would address most issues I have with the downed-state.

1. Direct Damage should interrupt the revive process from downed-state. This would allow anyone to interrupt a revive, not just those with a knock-back, stun or daze currently at hand. Considering how quickly you can revive, this is really a necessary change.

2. Resurrections (aka. reviving dead players) should only be possible out of combat. This makes it possible to actually destroy zergs rather than battles continuing ad nauseum.

Knote.2904:

To be fair, while Thieves do need changes, this has to do with WvW.

Stats are way, way, inflated there compared to Spvp.

How so?

I could tell this was going to be another “ZOMG Backstab!11” thread just from reading the title.

But to answer the question. In order to counter the damage you need to dodge as soon as the Thief enters 900 range. Be sure to face him when he does because he needs to be behind you in order to Backstab. Better is if you can catch him first and force him into defence. A single knock-back or stun is often enough to sit on the face of any glass-cannon Thief.

If you don’t see him coming……well…it’s only another 3 more days until the nerf.

Just an observation:

Thieves are undoubtedly the most hated profession in the game currently receiving hate from numerous sources.

Yet the only source not complaining about Thieves are people who actually play PvP competitively (aka. tPvPers). Now you might say it’s because they’re busy complaining about Guardians.

But maybe there’s more to this observation. Maybe Thieves are only the bane of bad players or maybe they’re ability to pray on the unsuspecting is what makes them seem OP.

Just a thought.

Class balance is a lot more intricate than simply OP, OK, UP.

That said, the following was pretty much the summery of the previous thread:

OP: Guardian, Mesmer, Elementalist (only if you tPvP), Thief (if you don’t tPvP)

OK: Engineer, Necromancer (bugs aside), Warrior, Thief/Elementalist depending on wether you tPvP or not.

UP: Ranger

I am expecting a nerf to Mug but not until the 15th.

I admit it is getting rather tiresome.

Every time you visit either the Thief, sPvP or WvW Forums half of the new threads are about how OP Backstab is and why it should be nerfed etc.

The thing is, very few of those posters ever really bother to understand the intricacies of the Backstab combo and the fact that they are dying not to a single ability, but rather a multitude of attacks that all hit them in quick succession.

Anyway, all of this QQ will be over in a few days when the new patch hits. ANet has already announced that Thief damage is under review. The question is not if we’re going to be nerfed, but rather how and what.

I hope ANet really tackles the root of the problem rather than simply nerfing the damage.

It seems like every mob in HotW drops at least 1 blue item.

Combine that with an Omnomberry bar and it should be hard to top.

Subjectively I can confirm that I’m seemingly getting less Ectos than before. Rates seem to have gone down since November.

Maybe death should draw up the map on your screen, unable to close it, forcing you to select a respawn point.

But honestly, I haven’t really had a problem with corpse scouting thus far.

OP is just talking about backstab in it’s most extreme form. But the ability is…and should remain useful for all builds. If the extreme glass-cannon damage is the problem, then fix that without nerfing it for all other builds.

Mug is what could do with a nerf, that’s all. Everything else is a side effect of offensive stats scaling too well in this game.

Oil just delays the building of a RAM by a few moments. Nothing more, no less.

I can’t recall the last time I’ve actually seen it used as a weapon.

What strikes me as odd is that ANet opted to have some player drop 2 Badges, thus increasing the RNG factor even more.

I’d rather have every 2nd or 3rd player drop one Badge than have every 6th drop two.

But in general, 1 Badge per kill would be perfect.

Yes, 100% DPS increase is always going to be impossible to balance. A 50% speed increase would be ok I guess and bring it more in-line with what other abilities offered.

I think you should be careful what you wish for. I think Mesmers have more nerfs coming their way than buffs.

Jon Peters also implied they might be changing how the Portal works, your #1 most important ability.

I won’t say that Dungeons aren’t fun. I enjoy them most of the time.

I will however agree that they are very inconsistent and more often than not, very easy where they shouldn’t be and very unforgiving where a little leeway might be nice.

Latinkuro.9420:

Dee Jay.2460:

I want to take a moment to discuss the vast discrepancy in base HP between the various professions. At level 80 that would be.

18372 for Warriors and Necromancers
15082 for Engineers, Rangers and Mesmers
10805 for Thieves, Elementalists and Guardians.

And yet 2 of the 3 bunker almost unkillable classes in the game are tada ele’s and guardians followed by mesmer.

So you see higher HP pool doesn’t mean as much as you think it does.

It means exactly what I think: That the designers were forced to givem them massive mitigation abilities in order to compensate for their lack of HP.

Did you even read my previous post?

If Guardians and Elementalists had a little more HP, they’d need less excessive mitigation abilities and thus things would be more balanced.

Is it really too much to ask for people to read and understand before posting?

Wasselin.1235:

I like patch notes! I wish we had them to read just a little bit before the patch came out.

Yeah I too would love to see the patch-notes at least 10-12 hours before the patch goes live. I just like to know what changes to look for and what to expect.

It’s also not fun spending an hour pouring over the patch-notes when you could be playing the game.

ConterK.3972:

It has to do with what the OP said,
Scale the HP and skill dmg all over again,
“WoW removed the HP difference eventually” he said! etc etc
pretty much asking to make the game PvP exactly like WoW! wich i dont really see why would we want that

being tanky and surviving has very few to do with the amount of HP you have, with thief backstabing for 12k, i dont think u would survive much just because you have 20k hp instead of 15k!
if you dont dodge, go invul, evade attack, break stuns, block, get aegis, etc
you aint gonna survive no matter how much hp you have!
surviveablity is based more in what skills you have and how you use them!

People like you are why we can’t have nice things. You see one word “WoW” and immediately jump to a forgone conclusion without spending a second to think about what I typed and in what context it was.

Nowhere did I say or even imply that GW2 PvP should be anything like that in WoW. All I did was give an example of another MMO where the designers originally took the same stance on character HP, only to change their stance further along the way.

It was an example, nothing more, nothing less, so stop riding the hyperbole.

All I’m saying, and all I ever said on this matter was that the developers are making balancing unnecessarily difficult for themselves by having such a big discrepancy in base HP. This is as much an issue for PvP as it is for PvE.

Take for example and encounter designer. He wants to create a boss ability that will be threatening to players without one-shotting anything but a glass-cannon build.

How much damage should such an ability deal? 10.000 and the Warrior will just “yawn” . 15000 and the Thief will complain about getting one-shot.

It’s not impossible to pull off, but very difficult.

By having base-HP closer together they’d alleviate some of that balancing pressure by requiring less extremes. Elementalists wouldn’t have to mitigate 80% damage in order to attain decent survivability and Guardians could also have somewhat less mitigation without being less durable.

There is a general problem of mobs and bosses having too much HP, forcing you to repeat the same attack pattern for a lot longer than would normally be considered “fun”.

And while I agree that some bosses especially have rather lackluster mechanics I’m not sure how you could improve Dungeons much. I mean the feeback in this thread hasn’t been all that specific.

I’d hate to see Dungeons become another zergfest like “heroic” dungeons in WoW.

The only Bots I’ve seen in WvW are those bunched up in the Water farming Kraits.

They typically switch to the dominating server in each WvW setup so they get farmed less.

I’m not sure I’ve actually seen any roam around the battlefield and participate in combat.

Why would it be considered an exploit? After all you’re paying what? 63k Karma per weapon? Not exactly a Steal.

Zerging isn’t really bad per say.

It’s just what people would do naturally anyway in a WvW setting so it doesn’t have to be encouraged. Currently GW2 has multiple mechanics that reward people who play in zergs (namingly near constant rezzes).

Welcome to WvW, where having one overseas guild is more valuable than having a dozen extra peak-hour guilds.