Guild Wars 2

It’s a bit vague, I’ll have to wait and see.

I don’t mind the addition of new armor tiers AS LONG AS they’re fun to obtain. Vertical progression is good, as shown by most offline RPGs ever created. Boring and repetitive vertical progression is not, as shown by most MMORPGs out there.

Kuthos.9623:

So you like pressing random buttons and easy mode?

If so, then elementalist is not for you. When will people realize that this is not the faceroll class they thought it was.

When will people realize that what should make a balanced game difficult is the content, not the profession?

Explain me the logic that people who like to play as spellcasters that throw fireballs should have a harder time than people who like to play as soldiers who swing swords. Please, explain me why swinging swords shouldn’t be as hard as throwing fireballs. This is all flavor. People are supposed to pick the flavour they like the best, thus why different professions exist. But, some people are being punished for having different tastes than others.

And,
The elementalist is hard to master, but not that hard to play.

Ninth Requiem.3250:

Get ascended items; now all content is ever so slightly easier. GW1 never had that.

GW1 had that with titles (for specific areas), with the addition of consumables, with the addition of pve-specific overpowered skills, and with the addition of heroes which gave us the freedom of having higher-tiered skill builds and armor stats than henchmen. GW1 was also full of pve skill balanced that powercreeped the entire game, with single skills being able to disable entire crowds of mobs.

You can even play through GW1 prophecies nowadays with an empty skill bar and naked, with the proper heroes.

Exotic is way too easy to obtain. I agree we need two tiers more (aka, Ascended and cosmetic Legendary for armor). However, I don’t want them to keep adding tiers over and over through the duration of this game.

Why is gear grinding a bad thing? Because it’s usually NOT FUN. Are GW2’s means to obtain ascended gear NOT FUN? We don’t know yet.

Vertical progression makes a RPG a RPG. You can’t have a RPG without (statistical) growth. What made this a bad thing in other MMOs is how it’s usually implemented, where you have to kill one thousand rats to get a shiny knight sword of ultimate justice +1.

As long as GW2’s devs keep this fun, and don’t abuse on ridiculous addition of tiers, I’m all for it. As it seems now, you’ll have to play challenging content to get (most of) the ascended gear, which is fine in theory for me. I play something hardcore, I get rewarded for it. Much better than I kill 1000 rats each day, and i get something for it at the end of the week. The former is fun, the later is not. Even the change to legendary weapons, so theat they’re funnier to obtain, seems like an excellent change to me. It also seems that, instead of adding new tiers in the upcomming months, they’ll add more armor pieces for that tier.

I don’t want to defend Anet, because this is certainly a big change in their philosophy, but I also don’t want to come in and say that vertical progression is bad because some other games abuse it. Vertical progression is one of the strongest psychological reasons to ever play a RPG. A RPG is mostly about stats, world-immersion/ narrative and teamplay, exceptions aside.

Vertical Progression IS an excellent thing, in theory, as long as it’s well-implemented, and I much prefer a game that has an healthy balance between vertical and horizontal, than one that picks one of them and takes it to the extreme. But will the devs implement it right?

Won’t custom maps allow us to make 5v5 hot-join matches? If so, that’ll be an evolution right there. Hopefully, we’ll get it the next patch, but even if we don’t, a new map and better balance should entertain us until december’s big patch.

That being said, I also want new game modes. A simple deathmatch like an improved version of Random Arena, with the choice between 1v1 (duel) up to 5v5 (and anything inbetween) is plain fun. Someone said it would be bland. I disagree. I wouldn’t be bland, because GW2’s battle system, at its best, is not bland at all. Bunker builds would be useless here, though, like they were at RA, unless there’s some kind of movement/ position involved with inherent map mechanics, but every other build should work great.

Also, Capture The Flag? I get excited like a little girl just thinking of the kind of strategies we could create in new game modes. I suppose CTF would depend on bunkers or roamers to take the flag, supporters and crowd controlers to keep the flagger safe or cripple them, and bursters to take them down. If there aren’t many players on map (5v5 at most), it could be very fun.

One of the best things about the casual spvp of this game, imo, is that I can leave anytime I want, if I need to, or if I get bored of it and don’t want to wait 5 minutes for the match to end, and get substituted by somebody else right after.

However, tpvp really needs whatever means possible to make sure people don’t rage quit.

HB is far easier to counter than stealth burst thieves. There’s just no comparison.

Vapor Form makes the downed state health drop faster. It usually doesn’t do much other than delaying (a single time) you from stomping them. Vapor Form only becomes truly strong with allies around.

Archaon.6245:

no they can’t…crying on forums is much more easy that learn how to counter someone

Any class that can instant-kill in three seconds is broken and makes the game unfun, regardless if some builds can happen to have any counters, and regardless if that profession dies in three seconds too.

Getting killed in three seconds, or surviving, countering, and killing in three seconds, is not fun. It’s a pure rock-paper-scissors game.

GW1 pvp eles relied on timing their skills right and on kiting so much as this games’ eles, actually. With or without dodge button/ attunement swapping.

That being said, speccing in water and arcane is not = to learning to play.

Actually, now that we’re at it, why must glass cannon elementalist players (aka, NO points in water/ arcane traits) learn to play, and glass cannon thieves not?

“Lol, a noob killed you. Learn to play, noob, or else you can’t kill noobs like you.”

That boss can lead to some very interesting playing, because it gives us a second way to cap points, but I wonder how frequent will he spawn, if ever at all after the first time. I’m hoping he’s more like Svanir than Lord, and capping points this way is a meaningful strategy through the match and not a one-time only event.

Especially because I would like to look at the bunkers’ reactions when, in their attempt to stall the game to defend a point against one or two players, they suddenly lose the point to the other team and do not have a meaningful build to get it back.

nbikz.2708:

My bad, might have overreacted a bit, but it’s still annoying that for example, Ride the Lightning is very bugged at the moment. (Sometimes just standing still in the middle of usage, aura doesn’t grant buffs while in the middle of lightning)
Also, there is a trait that does absolutely nothing at the moment, how did it get through and still not get fixed is beyond my understanding. (The dagger movement speed one, just doesn’t work)

The necromancer’s entire fifth traitline, the one that boosts their main mechanic, does nothing. Can you imagine us poor Elementalists with an arcana line that did not decrease our attunement recharges? Yeah, Necromancer’s bugs are that bad.

They also have one minor trait that makes them weaker, making people not want to spec into the traitline its on. Fans are even asking to disable that trait as a quickfix until it’s fixed, because it’s better doing nothing that making you worse.

Just so some ele fans realize how bad necro’s bugs are.

garethh.3518:

That’s a lie.
I’ve seen plenty of effective offensive guardians/eles….
The meta just doesn’t really fit what they do though.

As an elementalist player, I would like to understand this. Condition damage is strong, and I suppose the current meta doesn’t encourage much that playstyle. Burst elementalists are pretty much a worse thief at everything: less damage, easier-to-avoid attacks, no stealth, lesser margin for error, less defense (aka = they die even faster). Spike elementalists don’t exist, because they must interrupt their own spikes to defend themselves in power builds or else they die. Which means there’s no spiking at all.

morrolan.9608:

Given the reported fixes to ranger and engys next patch it looks like Eles are at the bottom of their list of priorities.

Do any of the devs play an Ele?

Let me remind you that the last patch had some juicy new stuff for D/D and downed state eles, and absolutely nothing for rangers, because their skill changes were delayed.

Dibrom.6408:

DiogoSilva.7089:

So, what balance changes are we sure we’re getting with this patch?

- Ranger fixes for a lot of their utility, and some of their weapons.
- Stealth fixes and thieves’ burst toned down at the compensation of something else (higher sustained damage?)
- Changes and bug fixes for all 8 professions.
- Possibly some nerfs to bunker builds?

I seriously doubt it.

Most of those were pretty much confirmed.

So, what balance changes are we sure we’re getting with this patch?

- Ranger fixes for a lot of their utility, and some of their weapons.
- Stealth fixes and thieves’ burst toned down at the compensation of something else (higher sustained damage?)
- Changes and bug fixes for all 8 professions.
- Possibly some nerfs to bunker builds?

Anet’s posts have implied that extreme burst builds and extreme bunker builds will probably be toned down, and there has been really good and popular fan arguments over the pvp forums against those builds too.

Kerishan.8460:

They have to fix the problem because organized group have to fight against other organized groups and random groups have to fight against other random groups.
I’v tried to join in solo in tournament and the max result i can have with random ppl (and with lesser ppl) is lose at second match.

Basically, yeah, same here. Random teams only stand a chance in the first match and if they’re lucky to not fight against a highly organized team.

As an elementalist player who has been watching our profession board and playing the game since late-beta, what first happened is that a lot of people picked the elementalist for their needs of magical destruction.

Elementalists, in both GW1 and GW2, were/ are advertised as a versatile high-damage profession with low defense. In GW1 specifically, elementalists revolve around damage. Large aoe bursts with Fire, single-targetting spiking and control with air, general aoe damage and general crowd control with earth, and lesser damage but more focused (crowd) control with water. With GW2, out of the three mage professions, we have the defensive, long-term condition/ life-stealing/ minion army necromancer, and the frail mind-trickster, clone/stealth-hidden illusionist mesmer revolving around CC and anti-play. And then there is the Elementalist, advertised for destruction, the crazy-minded, hot-heated profession that plays with fire, lightning bolts and meteors. Yeah, guess who the more offensive-oriented spellcaster loves would pick?

While for a Guardian, a profession with a more defensive/ support nature, many of its fans were already begging to be able to create damage builds, due to how paladins are usually treated and represented in several other games – and the paladin is an extremely popular archetype, basically being the “idealistic hero”; I don’t think that many people were going for the Elementalist for their healer/ support builds (I’m sure there’s a fair few, but I don’t think so they are as many, or at least not as loud, as those who want offensive paladin-type of characters).

And it happens that damage elementalists are pretty bad. So, yeah, there was a huge uproar. And damage elementalists really are bad. To give you an idea, they are basically thieves who take more time to activate their skills, said skills are easier to avoid, and once they hit they deal less damage. But it does not ends here: thieves’ stealth works much better as a defensive tool for a squichy class, than 8+ defensive/ CC skills that deal little to no damage and only last for 1s, for a profession that, if spcced to be squichy, won’t have time to spend to burst, defend themselves and survive. Our burst elementalists just can’t do anything. We can’t burst because we get killed before we deal any meaningful damage, we can’t defend without sacrificing our burst, and our defenses last so little that, the moment they are over, we will be back at point 0, where we can’t burst without being killed first.

So, yes, elementalists are pretty bad at destruction. The thing is, their defensive skills work very well because their defensive builds gives them buttloads of regeneration and good condition removal, so even if their defensive skills end up too quickly, they are excellent at delaying our opponent until our HP is back to full health, and basically, that’s one of the essences of elementalist’s bunker builds. Their HP goes in a zig-zag between low and high, low and high, low and high. Whenever it gets high, they have time to use their offensive abilities. When it gets low, they have time to use their defensive abilities, many of them which also happen to have long-term effects like frost aura, frozen ground, etc.

Elementalists are, as to repeat what was said here, very strong in bunker builds and inefficient for burst builds. And it’s also worth noting that traits play a crucial role here. Water cantrip traits give our best utility a lot of regeneration. An earth trait automatically activates a cantrip when our HP falls low, an arcana trait gives us regeneration whenever we change to water. Our healing glyph grants us regeneration on water, Dwayna’s runes grat us regeneration on healing skills and increases its duration, and finally, a water grandmaster trait removes a condition for us each time we gain regeneration. (And btw, I don’t think this last trait is too strong, because we can’t always remove conditions whenever we want it without wasting really important skills for other situations). At the same time, our offensive traits are pretty poor, especially for our fire traitline.

“A centaur can’t outrun me!”

Arheundel.6451:

How was ele before nerf? here is a video…pls before the dmg done, check the HP of ele, 11K HP, and still unable to deal as much dmg as the current thief…still the ele got nerfed, with the dmg reduced by over 60%, for no apparent reason

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32-V1vmS720

What frustate me the most is that Anet has never given us a legitimate reason for nerfing ele so much…or even a note of “apology” for doing so with little thought

A glass cannon elementalist killing in 2 hits and without ever having to change attunements for the entire match?

I now understand why the devs desperatly wanted to nerf the damage in big chunks. That was not an elementalist. It was some sort of broken god-like elemental creature.

Wheeping Song.6423:

you guys srsly like D/D?

its the most boring build with the most boring wpn skills for ele…..

Usually, people love D/D because it´s the opposite. Intense, dynamic, movement-driven, playing D/D is usually very exciting.

And D/D is fine since the last buffs. Also, yes, it’s possible that bunker eles will get nerfed anytime soon. Likewise, bunker guardians should get their nerf too, and so do thieves frontloaded bursts. Anet has implied that about the former two, and outright stated their plans for the last one.

That being said, I can’t possibly see what else can be nerfed for the elementalists after our bunkger builds get toned down, and hopefully they do it like they said they were planning to do with the thief: nerfing their main issue, but compensanting it with buffs somewhere else.

The defensive elementalists are very strong. It might be hard for some of you to accept that, but good elementalists with specific builds are almost impossible to be killed, because whenever their HP falls low, it gets fully back up again over and over. They can also pack a punch with the right attributes. Anet has already stated that they are watching this build, much like they are watching other problematic issues (guardian’s bunker, thief’s stealth and burst, etc), which makes perfect sense, because should we ever get a buff to our elites, and some crucial bug fixes to our main skills, bunker eles would be even stronger than what they already are. Even the focus, which is our most defensive off-hand, is overshadowed by the more offensive OH dagger when it comes to bunker builds.

The biggest problem with the elementalists, is that they are lacking at almost everything else. Their glass cannon builds can’t kill anything nor can they defend themselves meaningfully. Condition builds and crowd control builds are all secondary to bunker, and for a reason. Conjure builds are ineffective, glyphs are (mostly) ineffective. Half our traitlines are quite not there and one of them is really poor. Our elites are mediocre at best, and our underwater skills are not much better.

What we pretty much have is:
10 earth/ 30 water/ 30 arcane Staff Bunker (with good support and CC)
10 earth/ 30 water/ 10+ arcane S/D Roamer/ Bunker hybrid (20 air/ fire and/ or power-healing hybrid amulets for good damage)
10 earth/ 30 water/ 10+ arcane D/D Roamer/ Bunker hybrid (20 air/ fire and/ or power-healing hybrid amulets for good damage)

(The amulets I’m talking about are Shaman’s, Cleric’s, Valkyrie’s and possibly one or another more).

Yeah, I can definitely see air’s “Grounded” trait to be the damage boost a glass cannon ele would need, if it worked with updraft. The effect is called launch, btw, while Push is something like Gust from Staff. The trait should definitely affect launched foes, and if that was the case, it would affect Tornado and Lightning Hammer too.

I do think they should get some form of defense from their fire/ air traits, but a different kind of defense than what is offered by water. Something that would help Elementalists spike for 1-2 seconds extra. I think Tempest Defense (the one that gives Shocking Aura) is pretty cool for that, it stops a spiker and makes it easier for you to spike them, but I feel it’s not worth being tier 3 (maybe tier 2?) or having that high of a recharge.

@ Shadow Dragon Ad

I don’t think our damage should be as high as it is with a few other professions, but the problem with us having 20 skills with a lot of utility (and some high casting times), is that we spend a lot of time setting up skills.

Our damage input is currently fine, or close to it, I think, for our defensive builds, as we can survive extremely well while still manage to slowly kill our opponents.

But for glass cannon builds, elementalists just don’t work with their current damage output. Considering that elementalists take more time to set up their bursts, any other glass cannon will be able to kill us before we kill them. And what about having a lot of utility? That utility comes at the cost of our damage, and most of it is especially lacking for low-vitality/ low-toughness builds. Several of the auras and armor of earth require us to get hit, our anti-projectile skills are conditional by their very nature, most of our defensive support skills interrupt our own bursts or require us to get hit.

It’s exactly because Elementalists have and rely so much on utility through so many skills, that their glass cannon builds currently do not work. Because elementalists need time. They need time to react, set up, improvize. And while our defensive builds full of regeneration among other boons and full of condition removal give us time to defend ourselves while (slowly) killing our opponents, our glass cannon builds are, much like the entire thief profession, a kill-or-be-killed time bomb. Our glass cannon builds do not give us time to use twice the skills of other professions, because we have less natural defense and because several of our defensive skills are not worthwhile without the proper investment on specific attributes, or better yet, they are worthwhile to delay our death, giving us extra seconds to make sure we kill our opponents. But we can’t kill our opponents that fast, because our damage is poor for the sake of our utility.

Elementalists do need more damage, but not for all their builds (specifically, not for their current meta builds, which are fine as they are). Or better yet, elementalists with glass cannon builds need more efficient means to make sure they kill their opponents before they are killed. This can even mean more defense for our power builds, if that indirectly fixes our power.

And the solution to all this is possibly in fixing our terrible fire/ air traits, considering that increasing our spike potential with those traits comes at the sacrifice of our other traits. I really think the traits are the main issues, because with 30 water and 30 arcane, I can make a lot of weapon combos work, and I can even invest on power through amulets (valkyrie’s my favourite for this combo), deal good damage, and still have high defense. But I can not, in any way, make above mediocre builds with 30 fire/ 30 air traits, unless I have an entire party devoted at protecting me like a princess.

Fire’s Embrace is good in a signet-aura build, but the fire shield it gives is useless beyond that. Pyromancer’s Alacrity is your best bet, but it’s only worthwhile for Fire Grab – I personally feel all other D/D fire skills recharge fast enough.

Generally, fire’s traits are lacking, which makes it hard to specc into fire.

I want the sharks to be there, I think they add a bit of fun, but I agree that they are too many.

I think their functionality should be revised. I can’t seriously get attached to my conjure weapons like I can with kits, secondary weapons or main weapons, because they have a duration and they have charges. I can’t tactically swap to them when I need them the most, because they have casting times. I can’t make fun combos between my main weapons and conjures, because of casting times and because they disappear after swapping them out.

IMO, conjures should not have a duration nor charges, and they should work like secondary weapon sets where you can swap between them and your main weapon anytime you want. As a drawback, despite the utility slot spent, would be the casting time (which you would have to pre-cast) and the fact that you could only have one conjure at the same time in your second weapon slot, meaning if you had more than one conjure skill and cast your second, you would override the first one and put it into a high cooldown.

Hey Mr. Jon and Mr. Jon 2, :P

One of the things I find more interesting in this map is the existance of a pirate ship, but there’s almost never a good reason to go into it, outside of cannon balls. The entire map is all about running between the beach and the “town”, with the occasional ruins capping.

I agree underwater needs polishing and that combined with less sharks should make underwater play a bigger role (although I don’t like the current state of the elementalist’s underwater, it’s very underwhelming).

But what about the pirate ship? Gives us more reasons to go into there. :P Give us reasons to assault that ship, or maybe put cannons in ti so we can ravage from that place. I always felt redudant to put the cannon in the position where it is now, because everyone goes through that way with or without the cannon. Putting one cannon at each side of the ship sounds cooler, and maybe the cannon balls in the room bellow?

I do love the map, though.

1. Burst damage and I’m not just talking about thieves, there are a ton of classes with damage just set way too high. It compounds the problem when you add more players in the mix and makes fights way to short. PvP should be a intricate dance where players try to set up for combo’s while the opponent counters and looks for weaknesses. Fights in this game are way to clunky, mindless, and fast.

I’ve noticed this problem right away when I started playing this game. Being used to GW1’s low-level Random Arenas, I found the (monk team) matches there to be more tactical than the spvp of this game, for the fact that there existed better means to survive longer (but never too long) against burst builds, and because bunker builds were pointless and ended up counting as one member less on their team, and were then left for last in a 4vs1 situation and easily dispatched.

But I’m not saying conquest is worse. I like the extra strategy behind defending and capping points, in addition to the normal deathmatches that happen there (or somewhere else). But I feel like burst builds are too mindless in the sense that, even if they were/ are perfectly balanced, they just kill too fast, before you have time to react and have fun using your profession meaningfully, and who cares if they die too fast if they fail? You won’t have the opportunity to use your profession meaningfully there neither, because 2-3 skills will finish them.

I think the extreme damaging builds and the extreme defensive builds should be toned down, and compensated with a little bit more of the opposite each.

When I play with an elementalist, I usually only have fun with it when I’m specced for defense, because it gives me time to survive and it takes me time to kill, which allows me to do a lot per battle and having fun. Now, spike elementalists are underpowered at the moment, but even if they were any good and could kill as fast as they can die, would they lead to a funnier spvp match? Aren’t thieves already in that situation, and isn’t that already annoying? And I DO enjoy spike or balanced builds over defensive builds. I DO enjoy being offensive-oriented. But I don’t enjoy killing or being killed in 3 seconds. If an elementalist spiker ever comes out someday, I still want to use all my skills, but that will never be fair against a thief or a warrior who only need to use 3-4 skills due to extreme bursts extremely fast, as long as these continue to exist.

I’m walking around the map, suddenly someone pops up behind my back and takes out 3/4 of my HP before I can react. Or I find someone, stealth and do the backstab sequence to them. If they are glass cannons, it’s a win. And if elementalists were ever this good at spiking, then I would Ride the Lightning and do the air/ fire spike sequence for the same effects. Until, of course, someone catched me behind, and killed me in 3 seconds.

Yeah, I don’t like that. My elementalist in GW1 (taking into account the more recent patches) usually focused more on spiking with Mind Shock, Invoke Lightning; or having a good balance between damage and defense with Shockwave builds or Mind Blast builds. Not a fan of the tankier Stone Sheath or Blinding Surge. Yeah, that’s my tastes. But none of those were extreme. I still had to kite, swap to my defensive sets, use my block skills, and rely on my monk, or else I would get destroyed fast. And if I did all that, I would last long enough. Being more offensive meant less margin for defensive errors, and being more defensive meant less margin for offensive errors. There was no such thing as “kill in 3 seconds or die in 3 seconds”.

Now, a conquest mode without the traditional trinity is more unorganized and chaotic, and I don’t mind that, but I would enjoy it more if it wasn’t full of extremes. It’s boring to stay forever in one point because someone refuses to die for one minute, and it’s frustating to get stealth-killed or haste-killed out-of-nowhere and being left wondering “if I jut had time to react, things could have been different…” It’s unsatisfying.

Seriously, people, the first post answers a lot of questions.

One problem with rangers is the lack of build diversity created by a number of sub par utility skills. Many signets, a shout or two, and spirits are all a bit lackluster. That is the first place to expect improvements. Second is trying to improve the feel/ pacing on some weapons.

Spirits are going to be improved, most signets and a few shouts too. Possibly, your weapons will feel better to play with, if that comes in time with this update.And you’ll get bug fixes in top of that.

I thought bunker builds couldn’t kill?

Unless cleric’s amulet (or similar) and water/ arcane traits (because they are the best traits) automatically means bunker, the best builds for an elementalist nowadays are either the extreme defensive ones (THE bunker builds) or a hybrid between their defensive builds and power and/ or condition damage speccs.

The later one is equally effective but funnier.

Decutho.3642:

Strongest burst damage maybe, squishiest? Definately. As for strongest class cannon in the game? no

An elementalist is durable when specced for defense, but I can’t in no way imaginable think of a glass cannon elementalist build that is less squishy than any kind of thief, as elementalists have the same HP pool, lower armor, no awesome stealth, and a handful few defensive skills that, more times than not, require them to get hit or simply delay their death for one or two seconds. All the while, a glass cannon elementalist takes about twice the time to deal as much damage as a thief, and their attacks are far slower and easier to avoid.

In comparison to any professions, thieves are way too easy to play. An elementalist or an engineer must play keyboard piano and use a crazy amount of combinations, a warrior is extremely predictable and must be persistent to manage to hit meaningfully, and a burst mesmer also happens to be one of the strongest glass cannons in the game and anyone is expecting a nerf for it sooner or later.

I don’t see how nerfing the thieves initial bursts but increasing their damage over time will ruin thieves. If anything, it’ll make them equally strong, but harder to play with, which is one of their main problems imo.

Some thief fans got too attached to their overpowered toys, and are having a hard time accepting that they must be toned down to the power of other professions. They come to the forums whining that the devs shouldn’t listen to the whining of others.

Runcore.5107:

Decutho.3642:

Seriously you are just going to nerf every single thing that gets cried about? A single target burst weapon set does high single target damage ? NO WAY. I’m 2 nerfs away from re rolling guardian. I can solo a guardian maybe 5-10% of the time and my class is getting nerfed again. Compensation? What the hell could you possibly improve on? D/D glass cannon is built for doing high damage, compensating anything other than improving damage is kittended

Agree, Im now thinking about developers. I dont know if their have their own braines or just do what kids say. Its same like halloween game “Mad kind say” but here it is “Cry kid say” and developers do it. Thief is mainly damage class and without damage thief is nothing and can be deleted from game. We have the least amount of HP, we are like paper and they take us damage so what we have then? No much HP, no much defence and now no damage. I think that thief is now only for decoration in game. You should buff pistols and bow instead of nerfing daggers.

Oh my god, the world is coming to an end! The strongest glass cannon in the entire game is being toned down to the power of other glass cannons, but the thief players want buffs instead. Oh, what a cruel world. Having the luxury of being stronger than any other burst build, they now must accept the harsh reality of being as good as any other burst build! Protect the frail thieves! Protect them from this cruel world!

Actually, I think earth skills make more sense as finishers than fields. They’re hard, physical rocks, pretty much comparable to being smahed by a hammer or a mace. I can’t see why it would make sense for an arrow to cross a bunch of floating rocks and gain bleeding, or why whirling hard rocks against the the face of everyone else would add protection. :P

I think they were clever in making earth a finisher attunement. Maybe it could work as a sand field, but then it would overlap with the dark/ smoke fields.

That being said, mechanically, it does makes sense as a protection/ bleeding field, which is currently lacking.

I’m not sure if there’s a “better” one though. Invulnerability makes you more reliably immune to damage, but it does little to allow you to escape and nothing to allow you to hide.

Once again. The problem isn’t Backstab. It’s the comination of C&D, Steal, Backstab hitting all at once. If Backstab is nerfed, it us nerfed for specs that it isn’t overpowered in and becomes useless. Interrupting C&D with steal is the problem. Teleports need to be fixed to cancel current action, across the board.

Teleports NOT canceling current actions is a cool mechanic that works very well, and is very fun, with other professions. For example, a Mesmer with Blink or an Elementalist with Lightning Flash can spend one utility slot to make sure their self-root bursts hit reliably.

Fixing a mechanic to balance a single skill sequence from a single profession, while ruining perfectly balanced strategies from other classes, is not a good idea. Clearly, as I’ve shown, the problem is not with the teleport mechanic itself, because it works greatly in other situations.

Shizzlenit.7648:

No it’s not. You can still be hit in stealth.

You can be randomly hit while in stealth, but chances are, if you are good, you won’t, unless you’re crazy and decide to teleport right at the middle of a zerg’s aoe. More often than not, your opponent is going to waste their time creating fields around them or hitting the air in hopes of hitting a thief.

Stealth is an amazingly defensive mechanic. It requires a little bit of skill, it’s not an invulnerability button, but it’s extremely strong.

Creston Whitefall.6380:

Yes, please, nerf the thief more because someone has a problem with it in PvP. So what can a thief do against a warrior or a guardian after you nerf backstab? Well, uh…

Weakest class overall, and this will be the third MAJOR skill nerf you do against it. you guys become more like Blizzard every day.

Weakest class overall

I know it might be a bit disheartening to have your favourite profession get nerfed, but if you think a thief is the weakest class in GW2, you should try half of the remaining options. Try a ranger, a necromancer or a non-bunker elementalist, and get a feel of what it means to be weak and what it means to deal with being weak.

Whiners can be a good or a bad thing from both sides, either they’re crying because they feel things are too strong or they’re threatning leaving the game because they feel things are just right.

Also, making a huge generalization is a pretty poor argument. I consider myself a decent-to-good spvp player, with an elementalist usually ranking between mid to top tier at your average match, and even I can see that Backstab feels like a cheap shot.

Now, it also happens that elementalist’s power builds are completely crap and can only hope someday to be as good as the thief’s builds at any detail of what makes them good, but even if they were worth anything, a backstab thief would still be able to completely destroy a glass cannon elementalist.

I mean, you do realize that all your skills hit faster and harder than most other glass cannon builds out there, right? With a backstab, you’re basically starting fights with your opponents at half hp.

I would love to see if you think it’s balanced a backstab thief to fight a 8k out of 16k HP glass cannon elementalist taking 10-15 seconds to take you down with their easily-avoidable burst sequence. If anything, a backstab thief could probably kill a glass cannon elementalist twice, if that could be possible, before they could kill the thief once.

At least thieves have been getting nerfed, and will get more so now that the devs said they’re looking forward to town down their initial bursts with backstab and the like.

That being said, I feel like our damage nerf was way too extreme. We went from killing too fast, to not killing fast enough with glass cannon builds.

People are always willing to defend their classes because they get attached to them, no matter how overpowered or underpowered they are.

It doesn’t takes a genius to figure out that thieves are the most popular and easy to use profession at the moment, the “popular” part is not even an opinion, it’s quite clear at every single spvp match.

Listing drawbacks of the thief is not enough, because we’re not comparing the thief with itself. We’re comparing the thief with other professions, who also have as many if not a lot more drawbacks, while not being as effective at bursting as the thieves.

No one else can choose to start a fight with an enemy under half their HP like a backstab thief can. It’s completely unfair, and comparing thievers’ broken skill sequences in combination with stealth to an extremely predictable GS warrior is not a good idea. Warriors are extremely predictable, and far easier to focus fire on that thieves. A dodge, a stun-breaker, an invulnerability skill, an interrupt, anything in this game can counter a GS warrior, and it’s easy to dance against one with a fair chance of winning. GS Warriors are compensated for that with great damage and some movement skills. Their HB must have brutal damage, because it won’t hit often and requires a great deal of skill to hit with all strikes. A thief can take out half of the HP of anyone while under stealth. And no, the loss of initiative is not a comparable drawback to a 45s cooldown (or is it 60s?) frenzy for an extremely predictable and easy to counter sequence.

People who think thieves will suck after a few nerfs and want to switch classes, I have bad news to you. Maybe a Mesmer and a Guardian, which are two of the strongest professions of the game alongside Thief, are a good choice if you like broken stuff, but they also have been getting nerfed. Maybe a Warrior is tempting, but you’ll be surprised you can’t do things as easy as with a thief. Maybe you’re tempting to try a Ranger, a Necromancer or an Elementalist? I have bad news here too. Those three professions are the least common for a reason, but hey, at least they have buffs coming, which might make you happy!

Thieves nerfs should be targetted at the right spots so that thiefs are still equally strong, but harder to play.

It’s a bit lame that a noob thief can kill half the spvp community in 3 seconds with a few button presses, while a noob elementalist player had to use all of their 20 skills at the right time to not be killed.

Imperator totius Sylvari.9164:

This. The Backstab setup is a great noob killer (Even better if they go full glass) but meet a half decent opponent and the thief is going to die.

Dealing 8k+ damage against any opponent before they even see you is an absolute noob killer and puts you at great odds against any other player. It’s almost a win button against any other glass cannon build in this game, because those will not have enough defense to protect themselves, and will not be able to deal twice your damage neither to compensate for starting the battle with half their HP.

Hundred Blades setup is the great noob killer that takes a lot of skill to work against good players. The Backstab setp is simply much more effective.

Please, stop the crying. I’m sure you all play thieves because you like the profession, not because it’s currently overpowered and dominates most of the team matches in numbers coughcough.

I’ll have to be a slightly bit harsh, but some of you haven’t played enough of several other professions to come in and claim that the thief would be useless if it had any kind of nerf.

So some people are saying that glass cannon elementalists can inflict more damage than a thief. I’m not sure what exactly could lead someone to say that, but I wonder if it wasn’t a pure mindless thought in the impossible attempt to defend the thief’s current state.

For those who don’t know how those classes compare to each other, I’ll detail a few things out for the ele. Glass elementalists are a disaster. Yeah, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but – OK, they really are ineffective. Unlike thieves, since the game has started that the elementalist was deemed as a terribly nerfed profession, and that mentality only started to change when ele players found out that the defensive and/ or bunker elem. builds are actually effective. To put things short, a defensive-specced elementalist makes up for a lot of their weaknesses and gives them time to shine with their 20 skills.

So, a glass D/D ele against a thief. Yeah, well, it’s simple. Imagine a thief. Imagine a thief even more squichy than what they already are (lower armor). Imagine a squishier thief with no stealth. Imagine a squishier thief with no stealth that takes twice the time to set up their burst.

Imagine a squishier thief with no stealth that takes twice the time to set up their burst and whose attacks are far easier to avoid.

Wait, Imagine a squishier thief with no stealth that takes twice the time to set up their burst, whose attacks are far easier to avoid AND has more defensive skills that completely force you to interrupt your own burst to give you meaningless defense, because most of those skills require you to get hit, and a glass elementalist who wants to get hit and not die in 3 seconds must be specced for defense, while we’re clearly talking about glass cannon eles.

While the thief is by far the most played class in spvp, the elementalist is just uncommonly seen, specced for defense, or has become almost extinct, when it comes to power builds. I’m not sure if any of you remember, during the days of HS-spam and the like, at the beginning of the game, when elementalists were still seen. You probably do, because elementalists were easy kills to every single profession, especially to thieves.

So, yeah, I can’t see how a nerf or two, especially if it is compensated in some other area, is going to ruin the thief, and I don’t see either how a warrior is any better just because they have one big burst skill that is hard as hell to do anything with it except against newbs. When I go to a warrior’s forum, did you know that it has its fair share of players who think the profession is “oh so useless” and “oh it needs a buff”? Happens at every forum.

EDIT:
To the user above, the “elementalist who knows what they’re doing” is possibly a defensive-specced ele. They’re pretty good at countering spike builds, or at least, spike builds that blow off their skills/ initiative mindlessly. I’ve been going against thief players and the odds have been about balanced with such builds, but trust my word, if I ever went glass cannon with an ele, I would still die in 2 seconds against a thief.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Aurelian Omenkind.2470:

Tried 4 or 5 times, then said “nope, I’m’a farm some more candy corns.” Been happy since.

When I made this map I was HOPING that people who aren’t into jumping would do exactly this. They’d see a fun Halloween looking environment, maybe get to the first chest and snag a goodie, then be on their merry way. I see now it was a mistake to make the hardest jumping challenge in the game part of an in-your-face update like a holiday event. I’m not going to stop making difficult stuff like this, they just won’t be so prominent in the future. I honestly hate making people upset and have a very high level of empathy. So it’s been hard hearing all the people that are so angry, frustrated and sad because of something I’ve made. But it’s just another lesson learned.

As someone who is not hardcore at jumping puzzles, I was left with the taste that I was not good enough to enjoy 100% the content this halloween had to offer. The tower is the best puzzle I’ve seen so far in this game, when it came to aesthetics and design, and I really wanted to complete it to make the entire halloween event even more satisfying. It was possibly my favourite part of the event. But I was left disappointed that my favourite content was not targetted to the type of player that I am. I feel a bit empty that something I expected to be part of my sweet memories in a few months/ years actually had to be ignored, because I simply don’t have the dedication for extremely hard jumping platforms.

It might be harsh to hear, and I do think the tower was genius at everything else, but I agree that this kind of very difficult content should be left to optional, hardcore stuff, and not to an event where everyone want to join in and have fun with the community. (That being said, I don’t think it should have been “easy” neither, the difficulty is part of the fun, I just found it too much for me).

Sorry for sounding so negative!

Do you truly get free candy after the door? I was hoping I would get some bags/ candy for each emote I would hit right, something like in GW1, but I still found the finale fun.

It’s possibly a bug, it’s happening to me too.