It’s a shame to see Oceanic guilds from T2 servers dropping to lower tiers. SoR would do really well if we had better night time coverage. We only really manage to put up a defensive retreat/hold the line off peak.
I’m not a fan of vertical progression in the treadmill sense but I really do wish dungeons would reward (in boss chest) a minimum of rare/exotic gear with non-craftable stats like Rabid or Magi’s. I like how Rift gave an option of gear drops and the option to buy with tokens. I dislike token systems, they don’t feel like a reward like what you get from opening a chest after defeating a boss.
Thiefs havent been nerfed enough, but they need buffing in other areas.
Truth.
Man it would be nice to get rid of this whole invisibility alpha strike invisible trololo playstyle and make them more thiefy. More survivability through evades, blinds, interrupts and stuff. Swashbuckler/duelist like.
People would hate them less if it wasn’t for the same tired trololostealthyburststealthystealthy crap that keeps cropping up for the ganker class in mmo’s.
I would love this. Get rid of Stealth, Shadowsteps, Venoms and Traps and replace with thief abilities not assassin abilities.
I play Thief because the Medieval fantasy I grew up with were Conan, Solomon Kane, Farhrd and the Grey Mouser, Jimmy the Hand, Ali Baba, Aladdin, The Three Muskateers, Bilbo Baggins and Gord the Rogue. Sure there were wizards in those books but the ones I loved were the Sellswords, Mercenaries, Rogues, Thieves and Barbarians. That is why I play warriors and thieves instead of wizards and necromancers. Also, Necromancers are inherently evil in the pop-culture that I grew up with, playing an evil wizard that summons or reanimates corpses grows old after a while, I want to kill evil wizards not be one.
I would like to suggest my current opponents and fellow oceanics on Isle of Janthir. They have awesome night time coverage but I reckon they would love to have some more US coverage. Great fighters and honourable opponents.
I like the concept of a soldier that utilises stances like an elementalist.
I would love to see them have the weapon options of Shortbow, Sword, Spear, Trident, Greatsword and Dagger offhand. With an option to use 1h sword with no offhand that gives a full skill bar and doubles the stats of the mainhand (not dmg)
Guardian can drop light combo fields and apply burning.
Warrior can drop fire combo fields and apply bleeding.
Zaishen could use Dark combo fields and apply chill?
I noticed a wonderful spike of drop rate over the lost shores weekend but it dropped back to normal after the event finished on Sunday night. Even in WvW the drop rate actually felt “right”. Does anyone else think this is a coincidence that drops rates were great when there was a free trial and event over the weekend which suddenly dropped off?
I have recommended it to friends and I would again. I am not impressed with the design shift of adding gear creep beyond exotics (legendaries don’t count) and I’m not impressed with instanced/Gated endgame when Dynamic Events/Meta Events could still be improved. Even post Lost Shores patch I would still recommend the game to casual gaming friends that would take their time levelling multiple characters and exploring all the game has to offer at a reasonable pace. Out of the friends that I did recommend the game to, the ones that left are the ones that I used to raid with in WoW. The reason they left? It wasn’t because there was no gear progression, in fact it was because they didn’t want to grind through 80 levels or even the progression of gear from masterwork to exotic. They want the challenge but they don’t want the artificial vertical progression anymore, they don’t want tokens to buy gear.
I am still content and happy with the game, but I know deep down that it’s longevity is short-lived. Only a sandbox/themepark hybrid that completely revolves around community driven content will have the longevity to last. When the gear treadmill/power creep in GW2 becomes necessary to participate I will say my goodbyes. Until then I will enjoy it for what it is.
I’m hoping they redirect some of the ingenuity and brilliant design from Fractals and turn that talent to Dynamic Events and Meta Events. Specifically Meta Events, how many Metas have people done since launch? I don’t think I have ever seen one completed on my server, I’ve seen the blue rings on the maps when they occurred but there was nobody doing them.
I want more reason to go into a side kicked zone besides farming or exploration. The world should be thriving with 80s in level 40 zones for example. But 80s wont go there without a reason. If Orichalcum and other T6 materials spawned world wide you might see more 80s and more events in other areas. Fractals fragmented the game (i still think they are brilliant) in that they are instanced, offer the best rewards and are randomised. This design would be far better in open world.
Ascended gear isn’t the only reason people are doing Fractals. They are also very well designed and fun to do. I just wish that instead of there being a portal in Lions Arch, they were portals that randomly appear across the world (like the halloween doorways)
Sorry bud but if a class gains the ability to see through stealth or break stealth, then there should be an ability to disarm your traps, banish your spirits and charm your pet in battle. Just saying.
Actually stealth should just cease to exist in games period. It causes problems in ALL of them, it’s despised by the majority in ALL of them. Fun for the guy using it, not fun for the people without it available. There’s a reason that stealth, and search both ended up being “must max” skills in Conan as well. Because it’s both OP to use on people and it’s lame to have it used against you. It’s just a terrible terrible playstyle and mechanic. Amen.
I would have had no problem with Thieves not having stealth if the game were designed around it. Imo if thieves didnt have stealth it would have been better if Thieves had more smoke screen/blinding powder style effects that would grant miss chance and blind or protection. If you replaced all of the thief stealth options with PBAoE blinds or smoke effects that cause confusion and grant protection or miss chance then hell yeah bring it on.
I could have quite easily have played a Thief that utilised dirty tricks like that rather than have teleports, invisibility and venoms (assassins use venoms not thieves). I’ve been playing thieves for a very very long time though (when a 1st level thief had 5% chance to hide in shadows and couldn’t move while hidden)
If you like lore then you can’t go past an ash legion charr thief. I find the Charr to be the most interesting because of their historic relation to the humans (They wiped Ascalon off the map), and the Ash Legion are the Charr clan of spies, scouts and Assassins.
Black Citadel also has Historian Goshkia who tells the tale of Oldroar, a wonderful tale about on of my guildies who passed away before GW2 launched.
My main character is a human thief but I also have a Norn and Charr Thief among my alts (I have 2 accounts)
ahahaha, omg, i cant believe u guys bite that… Anet, gimme a fishing rod, ive got the bait already!!
Now seriously,of course i was joking, “ppl complaining that thieves have very little in the way of damage”…
There was a glimmer of evil excitement followed by gtfo u gotta be kitten me
Damage doesn’t break stealth so your eyes are just fine. Thieves do still take full damage while in stealth though and even with the rendering issue tab target will still stick to them. Not only that but if you start a channel or rapid fire type shot as the thief stealths it will still hit them. Ranger traps are great vs thieves especially if you have spike and burning on top of each other. Some thieves will have condition removal on stealth but not all of them. I know I had trouble vs rangers when I played Sword/Pistol because of the camouflage on stun trait.
A thief’s biggest weaknesses are knockdown/knockback/blowout effects as the only stability they have is on dagger storm (90s elite) and immobilising. If you have any of these abilities you can shut down a thief.
My thief is so jealous of the ranger weapons I have 2 ranger alts that I am working on hitting 80. Two rangers mainly for the cultural armor and weapons but also as I want one to be fully exotic with bows and one to be fully exotic with melee.
The grass is always greener so to speak. You only need to look at the thief forums to see that we would rather have better weapon variety and range instead of gimmick builds.
This isn’t a solution for culling in general but may help balance the thief issue and help a class which is currently in need of attention.
From other posts, most classes have something going for them but the Ranger class seems limited.
Why not give Rangers a tracking skill so they can see thieves and mesmers who are hiding. In other games I’ve played, thieves can’t just wander around hidden with out some chance of being seen.
This proposal helps the Rangers which need a lift, and stops thieves from having the free reign they’ve had up to now.
first of all rangers have some of the best utility and conditions in the game, they are hardly limited. I wish I could have access to poison, burning, bleeding and chill between two weapons.
Secondly, tracking in any form can be hacked once in the game. Every MMO out there that has tracking has a hack available on the internet that can grant tracking without using the profession. Age of Conan being the most popular that come to mind. Even if it were available and there was no hack it would just add to the culling issue because of extra processing required. Not only that but how are you going to see a red dot on your mini map and be able tell where the thief actually is?
Or would you prefer an ability that allows you to target through stealth? So you can happily pluck away at your bow from the safety of 1500 yards. Sorry bud but if a class gains the ability to see through stealth or break stealth, then there should be an ability to disarm your traps, banish your spirits and charm your pet in battle. Just saying.
It was a ninja patch from anet: due to many ppl complaining that thieves have very little in the way of dmg, they made the thieves guild melee thief use backstab after scorpion wire.
classes that can remain stealthed while they slaughter people.
Not how it works. Either they’re abusing culling, which isn’t stealth, or they’re “slaughtering people” at a rate of 1 hit every 3 seconds.
Thieves don’t abuse culling. For your enlightenment, when you play a thief you don’t notice any culling on your thief because you are rendered first. What you consider a thief abusing culling is merely a thief playing his profession within the parameters he is given.
If I want to attack the back line, I drop Shadow Refuge on some allies that need a bit of a heal and I don’t attack, I sit there and stack my duration (a feature of the skill, not an exploit) when the refuge disappears I move as fast as I can to my target (or targets) drop caltrops and shoot choking gas cloud to reduce healing and deal an additional condition, I then follow this up with blinding powder to cause AoE blind, cluster bomb to add weakness to the poison cloud, Switch to pistol dagger, C&D and target the lowest health player with a sneak attack. Then I use Shadow Strike to step out of melee and retreat back to my team. Smart teams will catch me, necros might transfer their conditions back to me, Elementalists or guardians might remove all my work with one button but the majority of pugs and mercs will panic, run around like a benny hill episode and bleed out. This tactic varies greatly depending on what the enemy does but it is far more effective than backstab and it doesn’t Abuse rendering, I jusst use my abilities the way they are intended to be used. Rendering is an unfortunate side effect for the enemy. Abusing rendering is would be zerg rushing or portal bombing, but eeven then, it’s not abusing anything, it is merely utilising the abilities we are given withing the parameters we are granted.
I’ve noticed a major shift in zone population since Fractals arrived. I think fractals are great but I really wish some of those brilliant fights were also added to the open world. I would love to have more reason for my 80 to come back and do sidekicked events, meta events and generally be a part of the world. The Jade Maw fractal boss would be amazing as a DE in the mid level areas (without the agony of course). Things like the Temples in Orr should be throughout the whole world not just at 80. Rift is a good example of how you can offer a casual/elite open world dynamic and have instanced dungeons at the same time. Every content patch like Lost Isles should add a new DE or Meta event to the world, not just at 80 but also into the low and mid level zones to show that the world is a living/growing thing.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
Legendaries should be just that, a legendary achievement. Those that expect an easy path need to manage their expectations. I knew from launch that a legendary would he a long term goal for me that I would do at my own pace as a natural progression not a “must have now” grind that could burn me out. I just wish I didn’t have to do the whole gearing up thing again after I got my exotics. I could deal with legendary weapons, but Ascended gear is going to be BiS and now there will be confirmed gear creep in the future.
DFrost I think you’re onto something with the Dark theme.
I think something along the lines of Heretic could be a dark soldier theme. Not so much a undead theme like the necro or the poison and tricks of the Thief. A heretic would be everything that that the guardian/warrior isn’t. I could imagine a Heretic using Dark combo fields, confusion, weakness and water and having a cthulu/dagon cosmic terror theme to it. A profession that defies the gods but has dealings with the unknown terrors that lurk in the bottomless depths of our sanity. They would be the epitome of corruption and insanity and their motivations for helping Tyria may have some unknown objective that only the insane powers that corrupt them would truly understand. An objective that would render us mere mortals irrevocably and irreversibly insane should we ever discover the truth.
This thread would be more useful if it were only thieves posting here but it would be impossible to moderate that. How can Arena Net collect accurate data when there is so much hyperbole and misinformation in here from non-Thief players Please moderate this thread to remove non-Thief input
PvE
Weapons We do not have enough options for weapons
Compare our weapons to that of a ranger or warrior and it is depressing. Why can’t a Thief use a sword in each hand? or a Torch? or a Rifle or Longbow? 6 weapon combinations is the lowest of all the professions. This is why you only see one or two popular builds., lack of variety.
Conditions
We are only able to apply poison or bleeding, whereas most other classes have access to poison, bleeding, burning as well as the utility conditions.
Traps are bad
Nothing more needs to be said here. Ranger traps are good. Thief traps are bad.
Initiative
Our biggest strength is also our biggest weakness. Because we are able to activate our weapon skills twice or three times in a row (Spamming), we also leave ourselves open to running out of initiative.
Stealth
I cannot count the amount of times I have activated stealth in PvE and the monster continued to attack for a few seconds after. THe Karka in Lost Shores are a perfect example of this with their rapid fire attack. I can hit C&D to stealth and it means nothing to them, it will still rip me apart and force me to use dodge in stealth.
Previous nerfs
Previous nerfs to the thief that were for sPvP balance reduced our effectiveness greatly. Sword/Pistol #3 Pistol whip is the prime example with a blanket 15% damage reduction. Please go back over your previous changes and make them sPvP only if they are for sPvP balance.
WvW
Conditions
Condition removal is far too prevalent in this game. 25 stacks of bleeding mean nothing when they are all removed with one condition removal.
Controller: Sword/Dagger: Daze lock and stealth abuse. Damage unsustainable since Cloak and Dagger change.
The Bleeder: Condition damage. Completely useless against anyone with more than one condition removal.
Range limitation
Every other profession is able to deal damage from 1200 or even 1500 yards. Except the Thief. Cluster Bomb is our only 1200 range ability and the frequency of it’s ranged attack is so sluggish that it’s damage per second is next to naught. It purely a shock/burst attack. We need some long range sustainable damage in WvW (note, sustainable, not burst).
Positives
We can potentially one shot another glass cannon every 45 seconds.
Mobility is great when built for it.
Stealth
Negatives
Lack of weapon variety
Range limitations
Traps & Venoms aren’t that cool. I suggest
Change traps to be more like ranger traps. Let them persist and trigger more than once.
Venoms, should have an active and passive effect. Passive could be a % chance to deal the effect. Active is guaranteed.
I’ve seen a staff elementalist do over 16k AoE damage with meteor swarm. How is that any different from backstab? you can do it from range, and they can’t avoid it when you combine it with immobilize, and it’s on a 30s cooldown. A Backstab combo like what you saw is on a 45s cooldown, must be behind the target, land the C&D and he’s in melee when finished.
I was getting Dancing Dagger crits of around 4.5k prior to the patch. That’s a ranged attack, that cripples and has a chance to hit the same target twice for 4k5. I believe that’s why Dancing Dagger was scaled down.
I have a no stealth evade tank build ready to go for the day you QQers manage to get Anet to destroy the Thief class with a change like this. It’s so much easier than learning to combat the mechanic.
At least we will have a target
But you still wont be able to hit us because of blind.
Here’s to hoping that would be the case but for large chain events, that may be difficult to fit in – EU/US players wouldn’t want to miss the opening events if they started on Thursday either.
It’s not hard to work it out. Instead of only having a weekend event, start it on the previous Saturday evening, go for the whole week and finish on the following Saturday evening. This means anyone that doesn’t work on the weekend has a good chance to participate.
I feel sorry for all the non-EU/US time zones that missed out on this. I was lucky enough to have a day off (RDO) today and spent 3 hours in the event from start to finish. I can only suggest that next time ANet schedule the finale for a Saturday Evening instead of a Sunday. Saturday evening PST will cover a global weekend, with +GMT being Sunday Morning and -GMT being Saturday Morning. This would keep everybody happy.
What traits do you think are good and which are bad. For example:
Shadow Arts
Power Shots (VII): Shortbow and Harpoon damage increased by 5%.
Suggest: Change to Shortbow and Harpoon range increased by 300.
Trickery
Merciful Ambush (I): Create an Ambush Trap when reviving an ally. This can only occur every 20 seconds.
Suggest: Remove and Replace with a trait that creates Shadow Refuge when reviving an ally.
Deadly Arts
Sundering Strikes (VI): 40% chance to cause vulnerability for 5 seconds on a critical hit. (1-second cooldown)
5 seconds too short for vulnerability to be of any worth. Procs on critical strike in Deadly Arts tree?
Suggest: Blocked attacks enrage the Thief granting 5 stacks of might for 5 seconds.
The following link is a guide on how to use formatting for the forums for those that want to learn. It makes an amazing difference imho.https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/faq
Seems odd to buff Blinding Powder, Scorpion Wire, and Smoke Screen, some of the good utilities already. Yet leave many of the crappy utilities untouched.
What utilities do you consider crappy?
Not baiting you here, I’m genuinely interested in your perspective
Here you go mate. I wasn’t on tonight, but logged in just to get the score for you before I get my head down. Looks pretty grim but I’m not sure who was online tonight. I had other commitments.
So because someone doesn’t log on for a while that automatically makes them a bad commander.
Nice logic.
Over a month makes them non-existent. Mara, Owl, and Mia are the only dedicated commanders I’ve encountered that actually spoke in /team to rally the troops. Losing just one of them crippled our chances of making tier 1.
I could always start commanding again if I could find the time to log in for an extended period. I actually took a step back because Miasmic and Alpaca Owl were all we needed with the amount of people we have on for the night crew. We don’t have the night population for more than two commanders. If I started commanding again it would only split what little forces we have even more. That is the only reason I held back (that and my insane work schedule lately). That and I found a good group of like-minded crazy people to take on some of the smaller tactical challenges that are needed to support the main body.
I wont be here for restart this week as I have an award ceremony that I have to attend on Friday night, but I will definitely be around Saturday/Sunday. And If Miasmic or Alpaca ever need me to fill in for them I’m quite happy to oblige, I just haven’t seen the need because they are doing well.
I’m still showing up when I can make the time. Had a great time last night as we stole two keeps in SoS border with a 5-man group while their zerg was on our borderland.
If this was a FPS i wouldn’t care because those games revolve around the fun of simply playing, but people aren’t entertained for long in MMOs with a similar design. the point of an MMO is that you never complete it or if you do, it’s right before the next patch.
Am I doing something wrong? The greatest thing about playing GW2 is that I am playing it just for fun, exactly as I would play an FPS. The greatest thing about GW2 is that I can play it this way because there is no gear creep or mudflation. The best thing Anet could have done was continue pumping out dungeons with cool new skins because those skins are worn like a badge of honour. They can continue making the content harder and harder without requiring gear advancement to progress through it. The difficulty of their dungeons has not even reached their potential yet.
I don’t want gear progression, but I wouldn’t mind having new skills to spend skill points on or new weapon skills to slot in as an alternative to an existing weapon skill. Spending skill points in character progression seems more interesting for me.
I don’t think a 150+ page thread with over seven thousand replies could be considered a vocal minority. I’m against vertical gear progression. Skins and other cool stuff like new runes, sigils or skills is fine, something substantial to spend more skill points on, but not new tiers of itemisation.
I’d love to play a hammer wielding engineer or a thief acrobat using a staff.
Hopefully in time we will see new weapon combinations, but they need to fix the current ones that don’t work first (Flanking Strike I’m looking at you)
Personally I would still do open world just as often as I do WvW or dungeons, a change such as this would merely give me something else to do when I feel like some quiet time to myself. Much like fishing in an Mmo, it’s good to just immerse yourself in an area by yourself sometimes.
I actually feel sorry for Fort Aspenwood more than HoD or Darkhaven. I love fighting an uphill battle but it really sucks kitten to steamroll some poor server and wait outside their spawn like a rabid wolf waiting for the next sheep to wander out.
Where’s the Half-Naked Norn these days? I used to love running into his pack in WvW.
I think it would be a cool alternative if there were solo versions of the dungeons or even an infinite/endless dungeon like Torchlight. Prior to launch I actually thought story mode was going to be solo and explorable was for groups.
8% increase is an extra 100 damage on a base 1250 damage ability. It definitely adds up to a significant increase when combined with all other damage adjustments.
