Guild Wars 2

What type of structure would you find interesting for leagues and ladders?

Some type of brackets that defined skill level. I will give an example that are already in place for other games; Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, etc. The list can go on from how you want it to. There can be divisions as well. Bronze 1, Gold 5, or Diamond 3. That would define how high up some one is in there division. Also showing being able to see my rating so I can see my personal progress outside of divisions and leagues would not hurt.

How long should a season last?

7 to 9 weeks sounds best, 8 would be preferable. This amount of time gives people enough time to get their high end goals that they are aiming for.

What would motivate you to play in one?What types of rewards would you like to see?

Some high end goals that make it worth playing in high tier play. Some examples could be finishers, or titles, armor skins, weapon skins. Gems can also be rewarded. Maybe only in the highest leagues reward gems, and for wins. There really needs to something just anything that distinguishes skill for this kind of system. The reward could simply be making it to a Grandmaster/Challenger League and those would be the best teams/players.

How would a player earn these rewards?

At the end of a 7 – 9 week period or 8 week period that’s when the end of the season could be. before then let the players know, some might already know the season is ending. For some of the rewards you can give them out at the end, titles, finishers etc. Gems, you those can be done during a season. There could also be different rewards for different leagues. For example; say I was a platinum 1 and I finished that in GW2 with the new Leagues and Seasons system, I could get my own kind of reward maybe a title, or a finsher. Just something that says, “Hey look I tried, and I am still better than some of these players, and I might try next season.”

How would you encourage players of all skill levels to participate?

Giving players of all skill level different incentives. Not ever player is going to go for gold. Not every player wants to be the very best, like no one every was. So I will reiterate, my point from above, different rewards for different tiers of play. Another example; Say I am a Silver 1, “Well I enjoy playing GW2, maybe I will watch some of the guys on the twitch.tv streams and see if I can learn anything.” The very utmost important thing is there needs to be a different kind of experience in different levels of play spread across the brackets, or leagues and the divisions.

Every leak so far has been accurate to the release notes. Why not these?

Disabling Shot, nerf was not the way it had to be done. The evade frame, and cast time is what should have been changed. There is still little to no window of opportunity between evades. Now with proper initiative management, it can still be just as annoying. Just another case of Anet not knowing exactly how to balance a skill.

Again detonate cluster. Really? This was used to “shotgun” your feet, when the thief has someone behind them, or for downed cleave. 18% damage is ridiculous, nerfs like this seem like nerfs to compensate for players that don’t know how predict this kind of play, and avoid the damage.

Looks like we are still going downhill.

sorrow.2364:

RyuDragnier.9476:

This entire talk of Whirling Axe being OP is just facepalm inducing. If the thief is doing this, he isn’t defending. Throw down AoEs on his spot with Longbow.

Projectile reflect says hi!
(yes, it also reflect combustive shot and arcing arrow)

WOW, are you serious? It does NOT reflect Arcing arrow, or Combustive Shot when aimed at their feet. The projectiles it can reflect on longbow are Pindown, the auto attack, and Smoldering Arrow.

If you want to be really technical about it, don’t even have a longbow out when whirling axe is being used, and switch to hammer, (or mace/shied) and interrupt. in an earlier post you said there is no counter and you don’t even know how to use your cooldowns properly.

Well I would like to point out that Whirling Axe is not easily interrupted. When you combo it with Black Powder, you basically have perma blind, especially taking into consideration that you would use that particular combo after berserker stance.

Anyways, whirling axe is extremely easy to avoid, try the following;

• Walking away

• Dodging

• Proper Cooldown usage

• Blocks(If you are running with a shield or off-hand sword)

If the thief uses a signet to close a gap with whirling axe and you are using a hammer or mace, he will be down one less break stun, and that’s an opening for you, take it.

Shiren.9532:

Why are people hoarding chests?

Because they have all the weapon skins, armor skins from the chests. And are most likely full on the materials that they give from salvaging. I wouldn’t doubt some players have every single dye in this game.

There is no reason to open chests. And if they are just removed it would be like there was no reward for winning or playing the past 6 months or even longer

PVP: What would you like to see from a League system?

I would like to see lateral competition. Players that want critical spacing in skill gaps.The players competing to move up leagues/divisions. I would love to see more defined skill tiers in the game with a system like this. Titles, weapon skins, armor skins, finishers etc. All of these things could separate top tier players from your average skilled player, or a person that only plays casually.

All of these things should make the league system dynamic and very critical to playing competitively in Guild Wars 2.

Just submitted, this sounds like a good time. I also have a server, with only 4 days left, I can purchase some tokens before then though. Looking forward to doing some 2v2s or even 3v3.

1. Elementalist

2. Mesmer

3. Ranger

Ah, these kind of complaints remind me of when Mug used to be able to crit, and C&D pre-nerf. Instantly killing someone before they could see you with 6k C&D and 11k BS.

More than a year later now, C&D still doing to much damage, so it should not be able to crit. Mug doesn’t crit and can hardly hit for 2-3k not to mention it actually heals the thief! Instead of learning to play against complain on the forums, and try to give legitimate reasoning.

I,I just want this game to have more features…So yeah why not.

LegendaryLukeee.1462:

This are just some things i would love to be in the game by the end of this year. I know the PvP Dev team is rather small, but they were able to make some great things last year and it gives me hope. This list is in no particular order.

5. Seasons for pvp are coming but i thought just to mention it some more. I know gw2 is meant for a more casual player base, but i would really prefer some elusive rewards for people at the top of season. Pvpers have to a goal with something shiny attached to it. And nothing lame like the wvw rewards, a dumb stomp isnt cutting it.

6. Merge the mists, one for na and eu. Since the pvp population is already so small, only makes sense to do this to create more teams, strengthen the community, show off your skins to everyone and what not.

This is could happen, but in a different way. I say Anet tries localized Custom Arenas (servers) first. Exactly similar to how you would search for servers in CS, or any shooter. You look for a server that has the lowest ping, and play on it. This would particularly be best for playing in any future tournaments this game would plan on having.

The idea of merging EU servers and NA servers is not ideal, while maybe merging all of the NA servers for heart of the mists would be, but EU and NA. Every time I would log in there would high ping, and not everyone has a great ISP.

I can agree it is very strong for what it does. But to increase its cooldown I think would require some better reasons that the ones you just gave.

Shadow Refuge is probably the best utility a thief has, it heals, it stealths, and its a combo field, (not that anyone really uses it for that). Blinding Powder comes to mind when I see SR wanting its cooldown increased. Its a skill that can stealth for up to 3 seconds, it doesn’t heal but you still get the stealth off and enough people helping with the res, the downed player can get up and still be in stealth. Obviously it would require a little more coordination than that, but I imagine you get the general idea.

Other res utilities have less of a risk depending on situation to situation. For example; a mesmer can cover his Illusion of Life with distortion (if necessary) and it won’t be interrupted, less of a risk.

But since you hadn’t thrown any numbers around, I would like to say, 75s CD or 70 would be plenty. Enough to make a difference if it was used it mistakenly or used correctly, but still isn’t available when you need it again.

+798 Ferocity
+569 Precision
+284 Healing Power
+284 Vitality

This could inspire different kinds of builds. I would love too see some. High Critical Damage (Ferocity), mid level amounts of precision, so you might not have to trait into so much damage. Vitality and healing power, on the low side.

A venom share thief would benefit from this amulet, a lot. For a thief to do a majority of its damage it needs critical damage, and precision, so basically it needs to have 25 min. points invested into CS. Venom Share thieves wouldn’t feel like they can only support a team ever 36-45 seconds. They would be able to cleave downed bodies and apply small bits of pressure outside of that large time window.

+1 for this.

I like this idea, and some changes it could bring. I would want to be able to play 3 points with out having that lingering feeling of fragility in a team comp. Comparatively to more defense/tanky team comps this would most certainly balance things out in terms of in game strategy.

hooma.9642:

evilapprentice.6379:

hooma.9642:

EoNxBoNx.9213:

I love these threads, these are the kinds of threads that really show some players don’t know why S/D has so many dodges, or does SO MUCH DAMAGE.

Fun Fact: ( I hate repeating myself) 30 into acrobatics gives a lot dodges!

Fun Fact: 30 into Critical Strikes gives a lot of damage!

Joking aside, but its almost like no one knows that this has nothing to do with sword dagger at all. I could play…anything literally any weapon set and have the same results with x/30/x/30/x really now. Back in October I would say you could S/P and have the same amount disengage, same damage, only little less evades, but for blinds, interrupt, and a stun. S/P is actually decent now with the small buff it was given.

Leaving these here for the people that don’t know what they are:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/First_Strikes

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Feline_Grace

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fluid_Strikes

Also Lyssa runes do need to be changed, but not only because how good they are on thieves.

-snip-

Your comparisons are mostly pointless, when they’re not hyperbolic or loosely defined. You compare Thief to Ranger evade skills, but strangely forget to mention Ranger’s better base HP, access to immunity skills, and strong access to protection and Regeneration- all things that should be taken into consideration when we’re comparing defensive skills. Let’s not also forget that you’re comparing damage coefficients on the one class in the game that has a dedicated pet, and therefore sees lower damage coefficients on it’s skills

Fun “Facts” 1 through 8 don’t seem to serve a purpose for your argument – they’re just basic information we’re all already aware of. 9, while technically true, is misleading – AA and FS-LS Spam do nearly the same amount of damage – I believe FS-LS spam might do ~12% more damage than AA over the same time period (Without cripple or weakness while costing initiative, mind you). I pointed out my issue with 10 in the previous paragraph. Points 11-15 just seem like disjointed thoughts.

This long rant just seems like alot of “I Hate S/D thieves because they’re annoying to fight” rather than an argument based on merit.

basic information 1-8 and esp 9? well i suggest reread the complete thread.

i wasnt comparing the evadesskills of ranger, i was telling the skillcoeffs. nothing more. what i had compared was the shortbow 3 with flankings strike. same evade time, same cost but different dmg coeffs. 11-15 disjoints? well maybe u should watch some highlevel play of s/d and s/p to see the difference and whats make s/d so strong.

I did not want to reply to your unintelligent rambling, but I thought I would just like correct you here bud.

Flanking Strike evade frame: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking_Strike_

Disabling Shot evade frame:http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Disabling_Shot_

It’s also weird how Disabling shot costs 1 more initiative than Flanking Strike too isn’t, it?Yeah it is. Anyways as you were.

Writetyper.1985:

EoNxBoNx.9213:

Justin ODell.9517:

Harbinger.8637:

Is there anyway to tell or see what your individual MMR is?

No, not currently.

I would actually like to know slightly more about this. Is it likely that we might be able to have a visible rating at some point?

Word of warning: having played Heroes of Newerth, publicly visible rating is a bad, bad bad idea – it should be personal and mutual friends only, HoN players would trashtalk the hell out of and blame the lowest MMR player on the team frequently.

Sure then it could be personal, but it wouldn’t hurt for me, my self to know my MMR. I want to know this. Not just know that I am x rank on a leaderboard, that has unknown ratings behind it.

Justin ODell.9517:

Harbinger.8637:

Is there anyway to tell or see what your individual MMR is?

No, not currently.

I would actually like to know slightly more about this. Is it likely that we might be able to have a visible rating at some point?

I love these threads, these are the kinds of threads that really show some players don’t know why S/D has so many dodges, or does SO MUCH DAMAGE.

Fun Fact: ( I hate repeating myself) 30 into acrobatics gives a lot dodges!

Fun Fact: 30 into Critical Strikes gives a lot of damage!

Joking aside, but its almost like no one knows that this has nothing to do with sword dagger at all. I could play…anything literally any weapon set and have the same results with x/30/x/30/x really now. Back in October I would say you could S/P and have the same amount disengage, same damage, only little less evades, but for blinds, interrupt, and a stun. S/P is actually decent now with the small buff it was given.

Leaving these here for the people that don’t know what they are:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/First_Strikes

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Feline_Grace

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fluid_Strikes

Also Lyssa runes do need to be changed, but not only because how good they are on thieves.

I am assuming this is ALL from a WvW perspective here? Because the drawback/risk in sPvP would be if you went in for a backstab on point, you would take the risk of dying from aoe damage. Maybe in a different circumstance, you are in a 1v1 with a warrior (pretty common nowadays) if you go in for a backstab you can run the risk of getting hit by an arcing arrow. Any decent warrior that knows how to predict stealth will see this coming and will use arcing arrow at his feet.

There is definitely a “risk”, there are definitely “drawbacks” just because reddit says something doesn’t make an idea worth talking about or a good idea that will provoke good or smart play, on both ends.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Thieves have dominated the roamer role for about 8 months now, with no sign of any good buffs for elementalists and only nerfs for mesmers. Again APEX PREDATOR much?

Are you going to fix your PvP in the immediate future, or is GW2 simply another candidate for a post-mortem?

You do realize engineers are frequently used as roamers, they do not beat thieves in terms of mobility but no class necessarily should. Engineers mobility is great with their kite potential, their amount range, and swiftness up time.

Thief is definitely not apex predator in this position, because engineers do just fine at how they are supposed to roam. Thief having the highest mobility is made up for how squishy the class is.

Also forgot to mention, thieves have only been as strong as you say they are if you could play one to its fullest potential, not just spamming 3 playing S/D, or 521 spam D/P, or even being slow on your rotation for a decap

I am going to comment on Mesmers being brought down from mid-tier.

Mesmers (in PvP) are already weak to conditions. They have very little condi clear, outside of Null Field. It’s okay for them to have a weakness, or even a hard counter, but lowering their health that equal to the thief and guardian would make them extremely vulnerable to condition damage. The other classes in this tier have their ways to deal with it just fine.

However, Elementalist, (in PvP) should definitely have its base health brought up to mid tier, equal to engis and rangers. It seems everyone agrees to that point but. Warriors have a way too deal with every application of damage in the game. Why does their health need to be so high as well? I agree that warriors need their health dropped and eles need theirs raised.

18k -Necromancer
15k- Mesmer , Warrior, Ranger , Engineer, Elementalist
10k- Thief , Guardian

Jax.5261:

• Give an option to make all enemy character models human (so on there own screen they have whatever animation miniaturization they wish while on yours they can be seen) <— this is the obvious choice

I have absolutely no clue why this isn’t addressed yet, many of us saw this problem before the bloody beta started.

While this is the right choice it is not as easy as you make it seem. Yeah it may have seemed like a problem more than a year or so ago, but it was definitely not a key issue. Now it is a more prevalent issue and can, maybe be resolved.

But to clue you in on why it is not addressed yet, the amount of programming it would take to ensure animations do not bug and the model textures is one reason, as well another might be would something like this end up being mandatory?

EDIT: Lowering spell particle effects would also help this problem for the players that have issues seeing asura animations.

I am okay with just about everything on the OP here.

I only have one question, knowingly you cannot test the changes you are suggesting to the after-casts, but what are the numbers behind the increases you have suggested?

Other than that I particularly like the suggested changes to Shadowstep, Roll for Initiative, and Shadow Refuge. All makes for smarter play in this department, and a more attractive Roll for initiative for those builds that may need it.

Would you be willing to participate (y/n)?

Yes.

If yes, how much would you be willing to pay to enter (5/10)?

Either.

Do you have a team (y/n)?

Nope.

If no, would such an event create incentive for you to find a team to compete with (y/n)?

Maybe.

What region do you play on (NA/EU)?

NA.

Traps literally have nothing working for them in traits aside for one trait that reduces the CD by 20%.

They are way to situational for their use. All can be dodged over, too make them useless except shadow trap, and ambush trap, and shadow trap requires a reaction from the thief.

I think 3 of the traps wouldn’t do too terribly as class skills, because in their current state they are hardly used for anything, outside of immobing someone in caltrops or, making 4 thieves, or just trolling around and having fun with tripwire in jumping puzzles.

If they are removed they should definitely be replaced with something equally as useful as half of our deception skills at the moment. Most thieves run with SR, ShS, and Signet.

Removing an entire skill set, with some equally as bad as the last would be pointless, I would rather see them improve them to make at least one trap viable for specific builds, revamp the traps to something different like a class skill. Or remove them and change it to anything else but not something worse or just as bad.

Not even going to read the quotes from the OP. This kind of feedback isn’t all too helpful, if you wan to be helpful in terms of feedback, be constructive, don’t come off so bias, and don’t make class balance lists.

I can’t even play this game anymore but I can tell its getting better (slowly). This thread is only helpful in the sense that Anet knows and will always know they cannot please everyone, and their game is not perfect, who would have thought.

Since 2013 is nearing a close, and what was promised in this blog post; https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/ for PvP basically has not happened, or has only come in pieces so far.

What are we going to see in the next year? Is this Ladder going to be some kind of an incentive for players to want to play and remain competitive? Will Guild Wars 2 be keeping conquest as its competitive game type? Please go into more detail about the new reward system that is being worked on, other than glory being removed when it is to be implemented, and gold will be the main currency across the board.

New Ladder

Is there going to be a definitive way to separate player skill, and skill tiers among players? Showing ratings, showing players ranks, or an actively working ladder, etc.

Rewards

If ranks are removed how are skins going to be given out? Is everything going to be given via gold? For example, I want Human Cultural T3 medium armor, can I work towards it, or do I need to jump through a variety of hoops just to get this armor set? Are there to be more or even less prestigious skins with the removal of ranks? Possibly, skins from the ladder, that are awarded from having high rating, and ranking.

Game Modes

IF conquest is scrapped as the competitive game mode would(should) it need to be a unanimous decision across the pvp community to change the game mode? Also, is it possible to see the maps for the new game modes that have been worked on?

This idea is actually not that terrible. But, I do not like how all of the half decent stolen items were changed.

The mesmer steal has stability, therefore it is actually good for the thief to have.

The warrior steal is also good for a thief to have, missile reflect and on a immobilized target, can do a lot of damage.

Necro steal is a fear, that steal helps so much in killing necros, and getting decaps in spvp.

Ranger steal should just stay the same, I don’t really see thieves killing condi rangers or spirit rangers without a water field.

That ele steal passive is way to strong. 20% crit permanently (considering the thief never uses it) is way to strong, maybe get a boon based on their attunement, and a combo field.

I don’t even need to say anything about that thief stolen item.

The idea that thieves could steal multiple times and have 4 different stolen items sounds great but keep the same stolen items. Most of those are too strong or don’t do enough to matter.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pay-to-win

Would save so much heartache to just post this. This guy clearly does not know what paying to win means.

No, it won’t be. ArenaNet should focus on making a game that players can enjoy, (not saying there are not players that don’t) and still have fun being competitive in their own right. Then if there are enough players and the community sees it competitive enough, it might be able to be an esport.

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the responses!

Most of the responses here seem to revolve around actual combat, builds, and lastly conquest.

With these three things in mind…how would you redesign the tutorial to cover all of these points? (As a thought, when we introduce new game modes our current tutorial is going to seem fairly of outdated, considering it only shows you how to cap points.)

Thanks guys. Hope you’re having a good weekend!

With new game modes in mind, I would more emphasize players learning the basics of their builds/classes. If you enter sPvP for the first time, it opens the traits tab with a commonly known build for any class, and briefly explains what the traits do in this build.

As for new game modes tutorial, having the new players capture a orb from spirit watch, (e.g. depending on what new game modes are released) or a hill for king of the hill, and fight a NPC for it.

Small hints that should be given to these players are things like, combo fields, and using instant skills while using one with a cast time. This should be taken into thought when they are fighting an NPC. In the tutorial there could be another NPC that is lying down a combo field, most weapons players have either have combo: projectile, blast, or leap, and if one of these are in that players UI, a hint could pop up acknowledging to them, that they can do a combo at this time.

Other than some of the other issues of conquest, that come with playing the game mode, and cannot be taught, I think this would really get peoples feet wet and slightly more interested, as far as a tutorial goes.

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the post, Jonnis.

Imagine you just made it out of the introductory tutorial – in your opinion, what’s the most confusing thing for a new player, right off the bat? Traits, builds, items, conquest? How to get into PvP? Feel free to mention whatever.

I had several friends play with me and quit over the past months, the most, the one thing they had the most trouble understanding were traits, and finding the more optimal builds on their own.

Before there were tons of guides, and build generators, and the players willing to tell their builds, I didn’t really know what to tell them, other than google build editors for gw2.

Trait setups for the first characters should definitely be the most popular build at the moment.

Thief for example: 10/30/0/0/30 with a brief one time explanation on what every trait does, and your skills do. Or 25/30/0/0/15, this is till a very popular trait setup for thieves. Utilities remain the same for both of these trait setups normally, with Shadow Refuge, Infiltrators’ Signet, and Shadowstep.

This is just my opinion Grouch, and I feel the current way of players learning how to play their class is very rigid and crude.

Edit1: Something I completely blanked on. Using an or multiple instant skills while using one with a cast time. This should common knowledge to every beginner player, as well would only be just a tip of the iceberg of what Guild Wars 2 combat is capable of.

I vote, no and I would ask that (when there are team flags) there should team flag finishers. And could still have nationalism through whoever your favorite team is.

Why does this thread feel like 8 months ago?

On another note, you claim, backstab cannot be blocked, it can. Aegis, works, warrior shield 5 works, list goes on. Also, dodging, while the thief is in stealth works as well. I do not know the class you are on, but if you were on mesmer, mesmers have tons of ways to avoid damage from an incoming backstab from stealth, or even a burst combo from a thief.

The only thing that I see changing with thief is their burst combos.

D/P will still perform fine. In the hands of a decent thief S/D can outperform D/P, but in the hands of a great thief, D/P outperforms in every aspect.

There is nothing that these changes have done, that have significantly neutered D/P, or even GOOD (emphasis on good/great) S/D thieves. The Inf. Strike nerf made it way more reactionary. There is hardly any stuns in this game that could kill a S/D thief that has longer than a 1/4s cast animation. Maybe you should use shadow return before the stun happens, that’s just a place to start.

Justin ODell.9517:

The solo arena roster shuffling should be in the next update (11/12) unless we find a critical bug and have to back out the change. This change should eliminate the sync queuing, and do a great deal toward preventing lopsided matchups.

More significant changes to matchmaking will come sometime next year, and I’ve already been told I can write-up a blog post and start a conversation with you guys, so keep an eye out for that.

Not sure I am the biggest fan of “eliminating” sync queues, mainly because there is hardly anyways to play with friends in spvp. If you want to duo queue you have to queue for team queues, and play against a full 5 man team that is using a voip, and has more coordination, than the 3 man group you were grouped with.

Hopefully more “significant” changes mean the capability of duo queues. Honestly the new the players in Guild Wars 2 get the worst end of the stick.

Necromancer
Grasping Dead

Grasping Dead: This skill now applies two stacks of bleeding instead of three (PvP only)

This is my thief. I have several thieves, but this is the look I like best.

Thieves are definitely receiving buffs for builds that lacked on initiative regen. Sword MH is pretty much being shafted, but 1/4s cast time is still pretty quick, you can dodge stuns with that. I can name several stuns right now that can be avoided with it. Obviously the direction they are going with the sword main hand is, if you are caught, you are caught, in that .25s you manage to get away you are rewarded with your life.

The vigor nerfs are acceptable, questionable why bountiful theft got changed but who knows, maybe it will get reverted.

And of course, initiative nerfs are going to happen when they increase the base initiative regen, not to surprising. Thieves overall were buffed, maybe some new builds can come to fruition.

JonPeters.5630:

Thief:
One of the issues we are working on for thieves this patch is the dependence on the traits which boost initiative. We did this by shaving a significant amount of initiative gain from these traits while simultaneously boosting the generic rate of initiative gain by 33%. We have also somewhat reduced the effectiveness of high evasion thieves by reducing vigor up time and adding some cast time to the Shadow Return skill on the sword. This prevents these thieves from evading too much and too easily dealing with being disabled (stun, daze, fear, knockdown, etc.). Also we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait and increased effectiveness of the Assassin’s Reward trait. This will reward thieves who are actively engaged in the fight rather than those who are just dodging over and over again. The change to Infusion of Shadow is meant to stop players from gaining initiative by applying stealth while already in stealth. This should keep thieves from being able to recharge all of their power while idling in a very long stealth. We felt that using a lot of different abilities to maintain stealth is ok, but re-using the same ability over and over for almost permanent stealth was just bad for the game, especially when gaining large amounts of initiative.

• Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75/second to 1/second.
• Shadow Return on Sword. Renamed to Infiltrator’s return. Added a 1/4s cast time.
• Pistol Whip. Reduced the after cast on the first half of this skill by .25 seconds.
• Deadly Arts VI – Sundering Strikes. Increased the trigger chance from 50%. Remove ICD. Decrease Vulnerability duration to 6s.
• Critical Strikes VI – Practiced Tolerance. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
• Critical Strikes 15 – Opportunist. Increased trigger chance to 50%. Increase cooldown from 1s to 5s.
• Critical Strikes VIII – Signet Use. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
• Critical Strike X – Critical Haste. Increase trigger chance to 25%.
• Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.
• Acrobatics III – Vigorous Recovery. Reduced Vigor duration to 4s from 8s.
• Acrobatics IV – Assassin’s Retreat. Increased swiftness duration to 20s.
• Acrobatics IX – Quick Recovery. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
• Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
• Acrobatics XI – Hard to catch. Moved to Master Tier.
• Trickery 5 – Kleptomaniac. Reduce initiative gain from 3 to 2.
• Trickery IV – Flanking Strikes. Move to Master tier.
• Trickery VII – Bountiful Theft. Reduced vigor duration to from 15s to 8s.
• Trickery VIII – Trickster. Move to Adept tier.

Overall great changes to thief here. I cannot wait to see the new initiative regen. However, there are some awkward changes like the trickery changes, that hurt other builds like for example, a 25/30/0/0/15 build that would have wanted flaking strikes, for that extra bit of damage. Personally I do not find flanking strikes to be that great of a trait, and to be worthwhile of a master trait.

Bountiful theft having its vigor reduced hits d/p thieves more so than the thieves that were dodge spamming without this trait. A trait setup like 10/30/0/0/30, with s/d is still effective in its own right, and does take a toll to this change as well.

Hard to catch, IMHO, is just a bad trait. And its a stun breaker, the thief does not have to use, not anyone would be a fan of that, if it rose to power. I do however like the buff to assassins reward, and I will love to try this trait out in some kind of condi build.

Thedenofsin.7340:

EoNxBoNx.9213:

I think its funny how people still think this skill is broken. From when it was nerfed on Oct. 15, effectively the only thing changed now from April 30th, is the new ability Larcenous Strike, that did equal damage to the old Flanking Strike, as well they cleaned up the animation a bit.

What the OP is saying is that a skill that is hardly different from when it was underpowered and needed buffs is overpowered and grants perma evades. This is not true because of the chain of FS/LS. The perma evade comes from the Acro trait line.

Please for the almighty based god play the class before complaining about it, or at the very least have some semblance of knowledge of the class.

Doesn’t change the fact it is imbalanced – it’s just a different knob to adjust.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview/first#post3133119

Go down to the thief section that is how they need to nerf thieves and it looks like it is going to be effective.

manvilrock.guildts.com That is one sPvP TS hub. There are a few others, but feel free to start your own.

I think its funny how people still think this skill is broken. From when it was nerfed on Oct. 15, effectively the only thing changed now from April 30th, is the new ability Larcenous Strike, that did equal damage to the old Flanking Strike, as well they cleaned up the animation a bit.

What the OP is saying is that a skill that is hardly different from when it was underpowered and needed buffs is overpowered and grants perma evades. This is not true because of the chain of FS/LS. The perma evade comes from the Acro trait line.

Please for the almighty based god play the class before complaining about it, or at the very least have some semblance of knowledge of the class.

cymerdown.4103:

Thief

• Infiltrator’s Strike now requires line of sight, otherwise it will fail to teleport the user (Obstructed).
• Shadow Return (from Infiltrator’s Strike) can no longer be used while CCed.

I don’t think this can be changed in that way without anet, changing teleports in someway. Maybe like they did before, but these two changes hurt the thief more then they help the game. Thieves would still spam rolls to disengage, while being unpunished, even use dodges to dive for higher priority targets.

Well I get why they need to change for new game types or more team based rewards. But is this going to follow suit with your revamped reward system?

3 – round 1v1 arenas. Use a similar system that was in place with 3 -round tournaments. If you keep winning then move to the 2nd round. To elaborate more on this concept, just picture the 3-round tournaments. Now picture doing that but 1v1s all the time, with no rating, no ranking.

King of the Hill, or Deathmatch (with a side objective ). Make a new map for the KotH, and literally make a hill or mountainside and teams of 5v5 or more, have to control the hill or mountainside for certain period of time. The first team that does, wins that round, and it will continue to another round of king of the hill. The standard could be set to best of 3. If it ever gets set to a draw scenario, which ever side had to point capture longer just wins, and moves on to the next round.

Deathmatch is pretty self-explanatory. You kill enemy players, but to avoid a giant zergfest, or spawn camping, or people standing in the middle of that map waiting for thier elites to come back up, there should be side objectives that benefit more towards TDM. So maybe something like the ferocity side buffs would actually be nice, and side damage buff increases. “Increases damage of team by 10%”

Capture the Flag. Only other game mode I can think of is CTF, and with out saying how horridly imbalanced it would be I want to say the good things. It is similar to both KOTH, and TDM, but pulls a different audience. CTF in this game would have to changed that classes do not get insane speed boosts. The flag should be 100% separate, or make a map that is very long, that insane speed boosts do not even matter. Ideally, you would be going into the enemies base, and that should not be remotely close, and if an engineer is kiting someone (or an entire team) all day, and has rocket boots with super speed, I wan to hop that he can’t not already be at his flag.

Not a problem for me Arken. Hopefully it can get fixed soon, and for good so you don’t have any more disruptions

Hey Arken I did message you earlier just thought I would post here to follow up with you and let you know I am a thief, and have over 2900 hours played on thief.

My name was Kinjax I T D earlier.

I was queued for Solo Arena in sPvP, and got this

http://i.imgur.com/gXGB4SE.jpg

Also, I got a queue to pop, and it would not let me enter my queue.