Guild Wars 2

First, i wish people would stop thinking that entire classes are or should be pigeon-holed into “melee” or “ranged” roles. That’s a distinction of builds in this game, not one of classes (as it should be). The latter is an incredibly stupid paradigm, fostered by WoW with its wretched class design philosophies.

There is no class in the game that can’t function at range, though engineer, elementalist, and ranger specialize in it slightly more than other classes. The warrior and the thief are both good ‘ranged’ classes as well, as are the mesmer and necromancer.

There is also no class that specializes in single-target or aoe damage, though elementalist is slightly more about it than the others. The warrior with a rifle is also a fantastic for single-target ranged DPS. Thief with pistols is designed for this, but the skill set is currently a little below average. Thieves have great utility though. Mesmers are also a good choice.

I kind of hated how they removed them. I understand why they did, to make the stats less confusing, but honestly the descriptive ones in the game now just feel bland and flavorless. I think at some point they should bring back the flavor names for the secondary/professional attributes, with some possible minor changes:

Power
Precision (I like Agility, Deftness better)
Toughness
Vitality

Condition damage – Malice
Healing power – Compassion
Boon duration – Concentration
Critical damage – Prowess
Condition duration – Expertise

Warrior – Brawn (I like Vigor better)
Guardian – Willpower (or just Will, or maybe Zeal)
Ranger – Empathy
Thief – Cunning
Engineer – Ingenuity
Elementalist – Intelligence (I like Intellect or Knowledge better)
Mesmer – Guile
Necromancer – Hunger

What say you?

Downscaling is one of the best features of this game.

1. It allows you to enjoy low level content at high level, which opens up the whole world.
2. It helps you look at level as an abstraction which allows you maintain suspension of disbelief which allows you to feel more immersed in the world.
3. It entirely prevents griefing of low level players.

Dee Jay.2460:

Crits start off being 150% the standard damage.

If you invest 30 points into the Critical Strikes tree you can bump it up to 180% the standard damage.

That alone is a pretty hefty increase. You can push it higher if you itemize for Crit damage (with Berserker items for example) if you like.

However the kicker is that the base damage all scales with Power. It’s far more effective to increase your Power than it is to boost your Critical Strikes Damage directly.

Say you have an attack that deals 1000 base damage.

A Crit would deal 180% damage, ergo 1800 damage.

You could invest into boosting this Critical Strike damage to 2000 if you added an additional 20% Critical Strikes Damage.

However you could also boost Power, increasing the base damage from 1000 to 1200.

A Crit would henceforth deal 21kittenage, a little more than the increase in Critical Strike Damage brought you. And not only that, high Power also increases the damage of your non-critical hits.

Now I haven’t done the maths and I don’t know if a 20% increase in Power levels equates to a 20% increase in critical Strikes damage regarding the item budget but on a principle level Power > all.

I haven’t done the math myself, but I’d be surprised if this was entirely true. I think that crit damage bonuses do more for your critical hits than straight power does. It’s more based on the combination of stats you use. With a low critical hit percentage, you’re better off focusing on power, if you’re focusing on precision and have a high crit chance, you’re better off focusing on crit damage than you are on power. I’d be curious if anyone has actually done the math though.

I’m happy with the adjustments to Assassin’s Signet and Flanking Strike. The latter is still a bit on the weak side, but Sword/Dagger is one of my favorite combos thematically speaking and I’m happy for even small buffs to it.

Assassin’s Signet change was a very elegant solution to the over-the-top front-end damage capability of backstab builds. Simultaneously, it indirectly improves a few underutilized tactical options, and it does so without providing any direct buffs or nerfs to any skills. Fantastic.

My only disappointment is that P/P is still a little weaker than it should be (wouldn’t it make more conceptual sense if head/body shot were reversed?) and they still didn’t do anything to address just how wretchedly awful the thief’s downed state is in PvE, which is the primary sources of the class’ survivability issues.

It’s just dumb, because it seems to me that the Thief needs to have a superior downed state to other classes because of how vulnerable they are and how few tools they have to mitigate damage. Being able to escape a fight in the downed state somewhat reliably is really a no-brainer for things a melee-oriented low-defense class needs, yet the reality is that their still skills aren’t just not superior, they’re notably inferior (in PvE at least).

So, in short, the stealth mechanics (coupled with high burst) make them seem OP to anyone fighting against them, but in the actual game world of PvE they obviously have problems in the other direction. It’s no wonder this forum is so full of QQ.

Okay, for starters, it is much easier to die a lot with a thief than with a warrior. There is a bit of l2p involved, of course, the the skill curve seems higher. That’s okay though, I find the thief enjoyable for the most part and they don’t feel super weak. In particular, the utility skills seem a lot more game-changing than they do for the warrior, so that’s nice. My only real complaint is that some specific weapon skills don’t seem very well balanced, but it’s still very playable.

However, there is one chronic problem I’m having in pve that is really frustrating me- the downed state. I see a lot of complaints on the forum that the thief’s downed state is too good in pvp, but in my pve experience it’s terrible. If I go down, unless I’m in a group, there is very little chance that I’m getting back up. Smoke bomb and the teleport seem balanced for pvp or group play and do nothing for you solo, it’s actually laughable how the stealth doesn’t even last long enough to get an enemy off of you. The knife throw does pathetic damage, and there’s no other interrupt or damage ability. Is there something I’m missing here? With a warrior, you are noticeably weaker in the downed state but between your 3 action skills you still had a fighting chance. With the thief you really don’t, and I die 90% of the time when I get knocked down. It’s really, really annoying coming from the warrior.

What it amounts to is that with the squishiness of the class, thieves are somewhat dependent on their ability to get out of dangerous situations and/or reset fights. Their ability to do that seems to be balanced around PvP (even if it’s too good) and is consequently inadequate in PvE. Does anyone else perceive it this way? Why don’t they just change the timer of smoke bomb for PvP and PvE situations? Like 3 seconds for PvP, 6 seconds for PvE, or something.

Yes, having his health reset after 5 seconds is too much, period.

Honestly, it’s like that for a reason. Thieves are arguably one of the most poorly designed classes in the game. They have a higher skill curve than other classes (which a lot of people defend, but I see as a problem), they lack versatility, they lack weapon choices, they somehow manage to be both OP and UP at the same time, and the initiative system, while unique, results in overly gimmicky game play.

I don’t think necessarily that the degree of QQ on this forum is warranted, but the class definitely needs to undergo some changes, debatably moreso than other professions (except maybe the ele).

Wulfsbayne.8401:

Ranger in this game is a pet class. You may disagree, but in GW2, pets are what make a Ranger a Ranger.

Pet perma-stow has made the rounds several times, and as I have said elsewhere, if you choose to ignore having a a pet that SHOULD be your choice, just like a thief choosing to only have a single sword vs having an off hand. However, just like the thief losing 2 skills, Arena Net should not be responsible for undoing your “self nerf”.

If you enjoy the ranger but do not want the pet at all, use a hawk / crow on passive and ignore it. They take up VERY little screen space and will not be impacting your play that way.

However, it is ludicrous to expect a complete revamp of the class AWAY from what Arena Net intends when other classes offer a play style similar to what you are wanting. Try a thief or a warrior if you want a pet less ranger, but don’t expect Anet to completely change the dynamics of an entire class to fit your expectations when they have SO many other things that need to be addressed.

Your point would make sense, except for the hyperbole of calling something like this a “complete revamp”.

I agree with the OP, if a simple tweak would make more play style options viable, then Anet needs to do it. I also feel this way about the lack of single-wielding viability, especially for the thief. No class in the game is defined by a single mechanic, they are each defined by a broad concept. The classes represent flavors, not gameplay gimmicks. There is nothing wrong with the concept of petless rangers. Period. In fact, it would have made more sense for Rangers and Beastmasters to be separate classes, with the latter being weaker themselves and having stronger pets.

Unfortunately, the above poster is right. It is not viable long-term, which is unfortunate because I love the idea of using a single-wielding thief and it really should be viable. IMO, you should be able to equip utility skills in weapon skill slots when you don’t have a weapon equipped, and there should be a mechanic that improves the stats on your MH weapon when your OH is empty.

OP is full of fail.
1. Nothing is forcing you to used ranged weapons, you aren’t even kittening yourself by not doing it.
2. Refusing to use ranged weapons because they “aren’t warrior-ish” (which isn’t even true) is goofy.
3. Rangers shouldn’t be the only class that uses ranged weapons, nor should Rangers be only good at using ranged weapons.
4. The purpose of the warrior is to be a power-heavy weaponmaster, which includes things like Longbows and Rifles. This, in fact, makes them very versatile compared to other games, which is awesome.
5. There are people who like the idea of playing a ranged weapon user without a pet, why should their preference be repressed any more than yours?
6. This game rightfully does not define classes as “melee” or “ranged”. Stop pulling your concepts of how classes should be designed from games with terrible class design like WoW.

Dual swords is more appropriate for the ranger IMO. Thieves do need at least one other weapon type though. I would vote for something new and unique (glove, whip, etc) that would let thieves feel more distinctive rather than just another variation of fighter. Sans that, I think MH axe or mace is most appropriate.

Main issue is the Longbow 1 damage is poor, a good chunk of the damage comes from the flame spread, which is effective only as aoe or in a target’s face. If they were to modestly improve the damage of the 1 skill I would like longbows a lot more. As it stands, I prefer rifle for ranged and melee for aoe.

I don’t really like pets as a central mechanic of a class, but if they’re going to do it then that needs to be what the class is ALL about. In other words, the standard ranger pet type in MMO’s get on my nerves, because the pet part of their class always feels arbitrary and tacked-on.

Pet using classes should function like spellcasters, where their pets are the majority of their power/identity and they themselves are weak. Rangers, however, should be independent, resourceful, and versatile, and therefore shouldn’t need to rely on pets. It really doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Dual wielding swords has long been the iconic ranger thing in D&D, it would make total sense in this game as well, since the ranger archetype is very similar. It’ll probably happen at some point. I see a lot more people requesting it on the thief forums, though (I suppose because they’re used to WoW), when it really doesn’t make as much sense for thieves (although they need more weapon options in general)

The main problem with thieves, IMO, is that they just don’t have enough versatility and are way too one-trick-pony. They don’t have many weapons available to them, and the ones they do have don’t operate generally enough and are way too built around specific niches. Moreover, they really don’t have a particularly strong selection of utility skills like thieves should. It is my opinion that thieves are the least well designed class in the game currently, and need some pretty serious revamps.

Want my opinion? Thieves should have more utility skills than other classes. Steal should be a utility skill rather than an F skill, and they should have F1-F3 that operate as extra utility slots. It would require some rebalancing, but that’s really how they should have been set up.

I think it makes sense the way it is, though I’d probably say the Ranger speed boost should be 15% instead of 10%.

I’m with the OP. It’s not a matter of “is the sword good or isn’t it”, it’s simply a matter of being locked inside a long animation. You should pretty much never be restricted from dodging or moving by an attack animation, it’s too much of a liability. The people saying it doesn’t need to be changed aren’t thinking too clearly.

I see a lot of posts defending the thief and frankly, I just don’t see it. I leveled a warrior first, then started leveling a thief, all while experimenting with most of the other classes.

The warrior is dynamic, versatile, and both fun and easy to play without feeling overpowered. Other classes felt mostly the same way to varying degrees.

In comparison, the thief is gimmicky, lacks flexibility, and is very weak at the baseline. As an above poster said, they can function effectively only by min/maxing their builds and have a few skill/trait combos that make them OP in PvP, but they’re still pretty bad in PvE. Even at low levels, it feels like it lacks polish compared to other classes and is the bandaged result of multiple changes in design direction.

Some people love to say “l2p”, and I say in response: classes should be easy to learn, hard to master. The thief is the opposite, and that’s a problem. They need some pretty serious revamps. To begin with, they need better survivability and more weapon skills.

I take issue with two things:

1. They die way too easily for a class that is supposed to be able to function effectively in melee range, period. I don’t know if it’s Medium armor not being effective enough, or their health being too low, or what the deal is, but it makes them frustrating to play in PvE and forces you to rely on the shortbow too much. To a degree, this is a l2p issue, but there is also an issue when you are in a zerg and routinely get one-shotted. Thieves need a modest Health/defense boost to be effective meleers in PvE content, end of story. They could counteract this by reducing some of their burst potential which makes them too deadly in pvp.

2. They have too little variety in their weapon options and several of the skills they do have are rather lackluster. This leads to poor versatility and consequently pigeon-holing gamplay. Thieves are probably more one-trick pony than any other class in the game, which is both unnecessary and nonsensical.

I do, however, take huge issue with this statement from the OP: “If i wanted to play a ranger I would, why do i have shortbow?”

This is not WoW, and that’s a good thing. Other classes besides ranger can use ranged weapons, there’s no reason thieves shouldn’t be able to use shortbows. In the same vein, rangers are not “ranged weapon masters”, they are wilderness roamers and general nature-oriented fighters. In short, this game was not built around the rather half-witted concept that classes should be classified as “melee” or “ranged”, but rather the classes are designed to include mechanically anything that makes sense conceptually. A shortbow makes sense for the thief concept. It’s just that they should have other viable options for group events.

I would actually argue that the weapon system in the game is most odd for elementalists, with thieves being second. You would think the elementalist’s skills wouldn’t revolve around weapons at all. I’d love to at the least see a UI option for elementalists to hide their weapons altogether, but that’s a different topic. I do agree, though, that single-wielding one-handers should be viable for all professions.

I would assume that just doubling MH weapon stats would be the most natural solution. I wouldn’t even really have a problem if they didn’t quite double it, but increased it by 75% or something, maybe making it increase to 100% through traits. I say that only because I hesitate at fully doubling it by default, people tend to equip the strongest weapon they have in main hand and whatever is in the offhand tends to be slightly weaker.

Fundamentally, it boils down to this – rangers are wilderness scouts. Scouts rely on concealment, discretion, and being “one with nature”, and their combat tactics usually involve stalking, ambushing, and skirmishing.

It’s not that a ranger would never use a gun in any situation ever, that’s not the purpose of weapon restrictions. Weapon restrictions are an abstraction; it is more precise to say that every profession has weapons they are significantly more likely to use in generalized situations than other weapons, and the weapon restrictions are what supports the intended flavor of each profession in the game world.

Rangers getting rifles would mean you’d see rangers all over the place in the game using rifles (in part because many of them come from playing hunters in wow, don’t get me started on that class). This is a direct contradiction to the flavor and the feel that the ranger class in GW2 is supposed to evoke, and that’s why it probably shouldn’t ever happen.

More importantly, it is important to get over the misconception that Ranger = ranged weapon master. That is NOT the case, and WoW is the only game ever (ok, not literally) that designs classes around a gamist/mechanical gimmick like “melee” or “ranged” rather than a thematic concept, which is one of the reasons it’s extremely overrated.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

I still feel that, for ALL classes, wielding just a single one-handed weapon with no off-hand should be a viable playstyle that gives you 5 skills for that weapon. Would allow for more aesthetic variety.

If Ezio Auditore da Firenze and Altair Ibn-La’Ahad can kill people with just a single sword and a graceful flourish of style, why can’t we?
Okay, so technically they have an off-hand “dagger” or “pistol” hidden in their bracers that they can use, but that’s just a technicality!

I second this. Another possible (and easier to implement) option besides making all Main-handers have 5 skills is just letting each profession have unique utility-oriented 4th and 5th skills when no off-hander is equipped. For the thief, this would also result in an upgrade their off-hand light skills to complement the purpose of long-term viability for single-wielding. I posted in another thread that Steal would make more sense as an off-hand skill for when no weapon is equipped, and that the F abilities should be something else, but that point is of course debatable.

Although I agree that it should exist for all professions, the absence of this type of option is particularly glaring for the thief, who in many concepts/archetypes uses only a single dagger or sword because they use their other hand for various tricks and acrobatics. I actually resent the fact that I’m “forced” to dual wield at all times on my thief (or use a shortbow).

I also like the idea of adding a bunch of new weapon types, which I’m sure we’ll get at some point. Ideas: whips, crossbows, boomerangs, claws.

I know this is an older topic, but I just want to say I agree with the above poster. Thieves are too lacking in choices, and I feel like they of all classes (though it should probably apply to other classes as well) shouldn’t be forced to dual wield due to the game’s mechanics. Here is my suggestion:

Make the thief gain some unique benefit from only wielding one weapon in the MH, either give them “bare handed” utility skills in the 4th and 5th slot and improve the stats on their MH weapon, or give them a new unique off-hand “weapon” type that is thiefy and doesn’t really feel like “dual wielding”, maybe either a small toolkit or gloves.

The only thing that bugs me about it is that it counts as 3 of their already poor number of weapon skills. Thieves really do not have enough skills or weapon choices relative to other classes. I really have to say that even though the Thief is fun to play, it really feels less polished than other classes, almost like they switched gears a hundred times through development and ended up with something klunky and bandaged.

Having said that, I’ve mentioned in other posts that I don’t like how the game forces you to dual-wield (or use a 2 hander), and that thieves at least really should get either some incentive to only use a MH weapon or an OF weapon type that is not really a weapon and is utilitarian.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Doom.8647:

Sword offhand would create 5 more skills (4/5 skills + dual skills with dagger/pistol/sword), which is more balance work for ANet. I personally feel like a dual-sword thief wouldn’t feel like a thief.

Why wouldn’t it feel like a thief? =\

It’s easy to be a very agile dual-sword sneaky type. Just look at Drizzt Do’Urden.

But Drizzt is a Ranger! In all seriousness, I wouldn’t mind the option of using dual swords on my thief, but I really think single-wielding smaller weapons is more “thiefy”.

To me, dual swords would actually feel more appropriate to rangers.

No, not in the least. You obviously spent too much time playing WoW.

Rangers are not the same as hunters (really a hunter can be any class, a ranger is something more specific). More importantly, they are not a “ranged class”, they are a “nature-themed class”. Designing classes around conceptual theme is vastly superior to designing them around gameplay mechanics, which is one of the many reasons GW2 has a much better class design paradigm than WoW does. WoW’s hunter should have been more like GW2’s ranger, not the other way around.

In any case, for an example of a greatsword-using Ranger, I point you in the direction of the most well-known Ranger – Aragorn.

Ooh, I have it- A two handed swallow-type weapon, usable only by thieves. Also, boomerangs and whips for main/off and thieves’ tools for off.

The possibilities are really endless.

I feel like the Thief needs more weapon choices, but I’m not so sure that off-hand sword is the best fit. I think people are conceptually pulling this from WoW, but dual-wielding swords is actually not thief-y at all.

I wouldn’t stand opposed to it, granted, but I would actually prefer to see a light/non-weapon offhand (I talked about it a bit in a different post) that granted some cool utility skills (similar to horns, but more thiefy). I like the idea of fighting only with a single sword or dagger, and using the other hand for something more utility.

This is something that could apply to any profession, but it seems more noticeably absent from the Thief due to the niche they tend to have (stealthy, stealing, acrobatic).

I would like for single-wielding one handed weapons to be viable somehow. As a thief, I kind of like the idea of fighting with only a single dagger/gun/sword rather than being “forced” by the game’s mechanics to dual wield.

I don’t know the best way to do it, exactly, and I don’t necessarily mean making it where having nothing in your off-hand is as good as something. Maybe thieves could have a special off-hand item type that was unique to them that was like a toolkit or something? Something that would actually not appear as a weapon in your hand and the skills tied to it would be utilitarian? They could even move Steal to it and change the F1 skill to something different (like an independent Stealth), which would kind of make more sense.

Anyway, they could do it however they want, I just like the aesthetic of single-wielding a gun, sword, or dagger (especially for the thief) and feel like the thief needs a few more “weapon” skills anyway.