Guild Wars 2

DaedalusDragon.3754:

This is laughable… Elementalist has only one playable build and this person wants to nerf it because they aren’t learning their own class right? Seriously? I hate that these are the only posts that seem to be taken seriously be the devs sometimes. Elementalist (along with a few other classes out there… you know who you are) keep getting nerfed when they are already incredibly hard to play well. Those people who play well do so because they are good at it and weren’t spoon fed the entire game with easy classes. Player skill is almost never attributed in cases like these by the accuser.

I hate being disrespectful…

And rezzet, are you saying that eles are comparable to thief because they have more survivability and the smallest fraction of their damage? That’s ludicrous… I’ve never been 1-2 shotted by an ele… ever…

Yes, you are laughable… Obviously you must’ve missed last week’s livestream with Colin Johanson.

Q: Do you find any profession to be out of balance like Ele bunker, roamer, thief one shot combo, mesmer portal?
A: Ele bunker is really strong, on our watchlist

Any other QQ would have a reasonable amount of doubt involving learn 2 play issues or culling or hackusations or whatever. But when a dev has specifically stated that a single build of a certain profession is “on our watchlist”, now it’s time to make fun of QQers QQing about QQers that are actually justifiable. So QQ on everyone except the OP. Because obviously these same people who tells the OP that he’s QQing will QQ when d/d eles do get nerfed and say it was the QQers that nerfed it.

I’ve started using portals in WvW, but mostly for my own escape in 1vX’s and I must say it should remain a mesmer-unique skill. The concept of (personal) portal use fits so well into the theme of mesmer it would be ridiculous to remove it completely. If anet is going to nerf mesmers again, I would only agree on either make portal self-only (nobody else can use it) while giving a similar skill to other professions that DO allow others to use it (but mesmer version has longer range, and keep mesmer portal multiple use aka “as-is”, while the other portals are one-time aka one-way use only), or trade us a useful utility skill that grants a significant duration of swiftness in exchange for portal. I’m guessing the latter actually goes against the “theme of mesmer” that anet has in mind, and I personally think the former is actually the better balance option anyway.

I’ve been getting more and more into WvW since the past month or so (aka I’m still relatively new) and it is EXTREMELY boring to be in a zerg or to solo. The only reason I like to play it still is because of my guild. My guild’s neither serious nor big in WvW but I like VoIP-organized gameplay, at least pretending to get things done, and WvW is really the only place where it shines (sPvP for me is just a whole different world I have no interest in).

1. There’s a website that is more than adequate for people who need to LFG. Since the game itself doesn’t allowing NA and EU players to play together anyway, why bother spending dev time developing something that already exists and gets the job done better than what you’re going to end up making anyway.

2. Current problem with stealth is a) it’s not any fun to play against and b) it negates any defensive skills because stealth allows attack initiation and cessation at any time aka initiate an attack and lure defensive skills, disengage using stealth, re-engage when defensive skills are on CD. On one hand stealth is still too powerful, on the other defensive skills are too weak.

3. Bosses need more “readable” animations for skills. For example, Jade Maw doing “absolute” agony damage once it starts and after first set of tentacles at higher levels is kitten No ascended gear = you shall not pass. Make it skill-based, with the skill requirement increasing per fractal level or dungeon boss level by making animations faster or making more difficult variations of boss skills. Skill doesn’t have to completely negate damage, but reasonably reward players that know what to do.

4. No mention of guild capes? Support dueling/build testing/in-guild team/FFA features.

5. Make titles available as achievements/rewards that players can use as their “WvW name”. No personal names should be allowed.

Haldunius.7864:

mkaito.6981:

EnemyCrusher.7324:

mkaito.6981:

Defenders are barely able to stand on their own walls due to mass AoE, let alone actually shoot back. You better had siege placed and ready, because there’s no way you’re deploying a full defence set up before they break the gate. And they better arrive within the 30 minutes it takes the blueprints to despawn. But why bother? The zerg is going to roll over you either way.

Last week I singlehandedly defended a keep (without guild buffs) against a group of 20-25 invaders who tried setting up two arrow carts. They came back a little while later with about 50 people and 6 of us held them off despite that they had set up a catapault, flame ram, and two trebuchets.

The point being that defending a keep or a tower is far from hopeless, even if you’re outnumbered. It sounds like your own attitude and inexperience are what keep you from succeeding.

I think that’s pretty awesome. I wonder how you did that, though.

I’ve done this too. It feels pretty great. It’s all about placing and building the siege before the enemy zerg shows up or else they’ll see the siege prints you dropped and start AoE’ing it. There are times when you just can’t stop the zerg. Gotta take the loss and keep trucking.

At OP, I’d highly recommend switching servers and joining a guild if that has been your experience in WvW. Different servers are in different metas due to what they’ve experienced. In general, larger populations force more competition, which then generates better strategy. WvW is kind of like a canvas and paint brush…anyone can play but it’s up to you and the other participants to make it something truly amazing.

Defending a semi-zerg with 6 people feels great, but what is the canvas offering you for it? The more efficient (and safer) strategy is to simply let the enemy have it then retake it 5 minutes later when they all move to zerg something else as soon as they get the tower (same reason why you’d let them take it in the first place – what is the canvas offering for them to defend what they just took?). The “better strategy” you’re talking about doesn’t necessarily mean the “fun strategy” and as you can see strategy is very much affected by what your canvas offers as rewards and incentives. If, for example, defending was given larger rewards than taking a tower (and for the sake of argument also somehow scaled by the people ratio of defenders to attackers so that the more outnumbered you are the more rewards you get), a lot more people would be sitting around in towers and camps or dolyaks to defend. It could even be more of a camping game and the zergs could be significantly smaller in size. As you can see my example wasn’t a possible solution, it’s how WvW changes strategy. So I don’t blame the OP if the canvas wasn’t to his likings, because his gameplay experience does reflect what a lot of other WvWers see as problems.

Cactus.2710:

Try thinking before you type. Of course WvW was never designed for any specific play style, so why wouldn’t it occur to you that WvW might not offer the best opportunity for any specific play style … such as good 5v5 battles? Especially since arenas were designed specifically for that purpose.

Uhh… Yeah, why don’t YOU think before you type. That was basically my point, and you just supported it.

Cactus.2710:

Now that truly is a clueless comment. There isn’t a single MMO in this world with multiple and highly disparate classes that has ever been balanced for both 1v1 and mass battles. It simply is not possible to reconcile all the possible scenarios and combinations of players without either drastically reducing the complexity of abilities for each class or making all classes much closer to being the same. If you don’t believe that you simply haven’t been paying attention.

True, assuming your definition of “balanced” is some unobtainable ideal where everything is in perfect equilibrium. False, because the balance I “believe” in is much more practical. And I don’t have to prove anything because either this game will eventually balance itself for both 1v1 and WvW (and sPvP and PvE and w/e), or it will lose its audience and people will find a better game to play.

Gab Superstar.4059:

I implore you, go into a zerg of 80’s and kill a bunch of people before escaping safely. Why don’t you record it and show the world too. That’s right, you can’t, because you are all just bullkitten. Oh, and include a minor essay telling me what kind of damage you did to the enemy team when whoever you killed is just instantly revived.

ROFL. Another typical personal reaction. You are exactly the type of person to be out on the front whining about a profession when you realize it’s OP because I can do it and you can’t. But why bother making videos when Youtube is literally flooded with thief videos? Why don’t you go and look at a Wild Bill video or even Flimp’s latest one with a thief as his partner, then why don’t YOU write a “minor essay” whining about everything’s imbalanced because they can do things you can’t.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Ehm okay. I don’t see you telling me WHY exactly stealth as a mechanic is broken, and until you do, you don’t have any argument at all.

Clearly a L2R issue. 1. “it’s gotten to the point anet made its own thread about thief gameplay”. 2. “others are trying to discuss ways to either balance or change the thief so that it’s actually fun for the majority of users playing against thieves and not just the thieves themselves”. And the ultimate argument: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/counter-play

Gab Superstar.4059:

So a majority of mesmers are not using clones? What? And thanks for the personal insult. You have every right to insult me, but I also have the right to not give a kitten about your insults, so there you go.

And I don’t give a kitten what you feel about anything, so there you go. And the majority of mesmer complaints is not clones, that’s your lack of skill whining about not knowing how to use ctrl + T. If you don’t even know what the problems are, I suggest you don’t go blabbering your mouth about it until you do your homework.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Are you talking about the 60CD SR, the 30CD heal or the 6 initiative CnD? Either way you are wrong, and you probably never played a thief.

Oh yeah, that SR with 15 second stealth, 30 CD heal with 3 second stealth, and 3 second CnD stealth. Without traits. I’m a mesmer who thinks 3 second decoy, 3 second Prestige, and 5 second mass invis is borderline OP. But let’s just continue arguing numbers and theorycrafting in a discussion where it has absolutely no ground to stand on.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Okay, I will petition Arena Net to give thieves portals, because I think it’s unfair only mesmers can use those. I also want the extreme mobility of D/D eles and while they are at it they can give me the health pool of a warrior and the boon upkeep from the guardian too. I mean, everyone is supposed to be equal right?

Go ahead. Keep making a fool out of yourself. Keeps me entertained.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Maybe you are distracted from the pet immobilizing or crippling you, or maybe from his high DPS that forces you to focus on the pet instead?

Or maybe you are just a kitten who purposefully twists a text to fit your own illusions.

Lol.

Learn to dodge. Err, I mean play.

Honestly, I feel silly now for trying to push logic into a teenager.

Steapa.3297:

The other problem we really have here is that we have two seperate, very dynamic systems of pvp. Both of them are currently out of whack.

This is why I think any significant fixes for class balances will be largely delayed. They’re simply not going to release fixes because WvW has a problem. Or because sPvP has a problem. They have to play politics between the modes and try to somehow make both your parents and your sibling happy before actually doing anything about it. I still don’t get if they want to make two unrelated, independent forms of PvP or if they’re two different toppings for the same cake. The glory system and the badge system sure seems to point to the former, but again, I get the feeling they’re not willing to make the same distinctions for the professions.

Cactus.2710:

Ashanae.9362:

MMOs are supposed to be balanced around team play not 1v1 duels.

It staggers me that so many players are incapable of understanding this. It’s even more astounding to me that players complain they can’t get good 5v5 battles in WvW when sPvP and arenas are available and were specifically designed for such play styles.

And it staggers me that you can’t come across the idea WvW was never designed for any specific playstyle, and as such people complaining about not getting good 5v5 battles is just as justified as people complaining about not getting good 40v40 zerg battles.

And the preconception that classes aren’t supposed to be balanced in 1v1 as well as team play is even more staggering.

Gab Superstar.4059:

blah blah blah blah

1. NO, thieves CAN go into a group of people, kill a lot of people, and get away with it. A significant portion of WvWers ARE “underleveled newbs with no skill what-so-ever” and for every other profession to do the same, it requires a lot of heavy investment in defensive stats that make them impossible to do any significant DPS for the time that they’re given because they don’t have stealth abilities. This is why the second most OP profession is the mesmer, which just happens to have the second most stealth capabilities. And the logic that you need shadowstep to stomp shows how much of a newb you are too.

2. Stealth is broken. You can deny it all you want, but if you haven’t noticed it’s gotten to the point anet made its own thread about thief gameplay. While you can’t think beyond “oh no I don’t have my stealth what ever shall I do? I must stop people from trying to change things!”, others are trying to discuss ways to either balance or change the thief so that it’s actually fun for the majority of users playing against thieves and not just the thieves themselves. And DPS rotation isn’t what kills players, it’s the strategic use of said DPS rotation, which atm thieves don’t even have to worry about because of culling.

3. You obviously haven’t been around long. And no, thieves are the worst because while only a few mesmers abuse it, ALL thieves abuse it, regardless of whether it was intentional or not.

4. Why is speed of any importance in getting away for a profession that has all the abilities it needs to simply go invisible? And all you’re doing is getting one example of a general gameplay and using it as the be all end all argument. I can equally argue most thieves don’t pop blind, they just go in stealth or use quickness.

5. I’m sorry, but there’s a problem when thieves are the “king of 1v1”. Every profession should be able to beat a thief, because the core issue of any 1v1 should be the player’s skill, not the profession’s unique abilities. The problem of QQing is when a player thinks HE should be able to beat every thief, NOT when a legitimate problem is presented with emotion. And ROFLMAO at character description. Here’s one for you:

“Rangers are proficient with the bow. They rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature to slay their targets. Their loyal pets, which rangers tame and train, distract enemies while the rangers strike safely from a distance.”

Oh yeah, I see that ranger over there but I’m too distracted trying to pet this pet to death.

TL;DR Quoted guy has absolutely no valid points, read next comment.

WOW. Honestly I came in here expecting the typical “k thx for rage post cya bye” but at least people agree there are serious problems in WvW.

ZvZ is only fun when only certain conditions are met. 1. Your zerg is on par with the size of the enemy zerg (because most of the time my server always seem to lack in numbers) 2. The commander knows what he’s doing (which is maybe 1 out of 20 commanders at this point) and 3. The commander’s actually going to take SM or something instead of karma farm or play cat and mouse.

Even when all conditions are met, I simply don’t find massive battles to be fun. Sure, this is fun to do sometimes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uxOGyC77c0) but all the most intense moments in WvW, for me anyway, have come from doing things like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0X4Tr8uUfA). How to ruin that for me? A bunch of thieves with perma-culling-stealth that does 4k backstab 4k steal and 6k heartseeker before I can even use tab to target him. Severely an issue of Counter-Play (http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/counter-play).

ZvZ is mindless and boring, maps are stale, strategy nonexistent, there’s nothing but kitten thieves to fight when you roam, and there’s absolutely no rewards of playing WvW. I think I’ll go practice wall climbing now and troll like thieves, or maybe I’ll just stay out of WvW until it actually gets fixed.

Trying to compare d/d ele with staff mesmer… Yeah, you’re not going to be as tough to kill. That’s why we have clones and utility skills to mindkitten your opponent. The entire concept of a mesmer is to not get hit in the first place. Shatter builds is nice and flashy and all, but the true mesmer IMO is all about mindkittening.

Caelib.2497:

The Thief needs a serious overhaul — allowing ANY class to stealth as PART OF COMBAT should have at least have a 10 second cooldown.

Yes, it’s about time anet admitted an “all-initiative, zero cooldown” approach was pretty fail at this point. One way to potentially balance stealth (and DPS) problems is to add cooldowns just like every other profession.

Nemo.6295:

But if you nerf that thieves are boned since they have little survivability, way too little mobility to justify a major stealth nerf and if certain other stealth abilites get hit as well, less utitlity.

Great! Increase survivability, increase mobility, increase utility, nerf stealth. Negotiations have reached an agreement.

Korgov.7645:

For example imagine the grieving 2 thieves would cause hovering on outskirts of a enemy group. They’d be bursting one target at a time out of the group. After target is down follows a stealthed/invisible quickness stomp. Then escape combat and repeat as soon as initiative allows.

There’s a very simple solution. Make stomping impossible while stealthed. The entire point of having a downed state, in the very words of the anet devs themselves, is to give players a “second chance”. You just had an intense 1v1 but got downed first with the other guy at 50hp. This is where the downed state gives you a “second chance”. Well, it’s not much of anything if the guy can simply stealth and stomp you with no resistance. I don’t see why this wasn’t implemented months ago, and I see no reason why any thief would cry against it. Unless they sucked so much they could down a guy but couldn’t stomp him…?

As for the other side, I don’t see a problem with thieves reviving while stealthed. That’s one of the advantages of being a stealth class and it is a way of taking advantage of your profession. What I DO have a problem with is that while melee can swing at air and hit the thief reviving, staff/scepter players can only despair helplessly while they know exactly where that thief is yet can’t do anything unless they have AoE’s available.

^ reported.

I agree. It’s extremely frustrating I spent hours and hours leveling a character up to 80 to find that WvW is NOTHING like the potential it showed itself to be. Don’t like zerging? Don’t worry there are thieves to 1v1. Ganking/Escorting Dolyaks, PTFO – What for? And who plays WvW for unique personal rewards unobtainable in PvE or sPvP right? Apparently fractals is so “hard” it warrants its own set of skins, but of course WvW is so easy when you’re a thief. Heck, I’d be satisfied with the same rate of rare drops as fractals at this point. Also speaking of skins, Eternity requires two legendaries to make it look different from day and night, yet nobody thought day and night combat would be interesting in WvW. Maps created with strategy and flanking in mind, with hidden corners or areas to get temporary stealth or swiftness boosts, or destructible environment that can do damage or temporarily block/make choke points, or even a JP in certain areas of maps to get to strategic/vantage points, who needs any of that stuff, you know? And of course those random mobs out in the world that do nothing important in combat except the occasionally planned rally, but is actually in place by that anet guy who came up with the idea of CnD. With all the heart quests that require feeding dolyaks and cows, why couldn’t the same concept be implemented to the giant wurms in BL so that they can be “tamed” to protect that passage way? And so much running, it’s all part of the gameplay they say, yet some professions have passive 25% boosts while others can enjoy constant weapon swapping or just watch TV. Nobody was apparently smart enough to think of something like having a built-with-supply portal device that needs to be attacked/defended while zergs engage in mindless charging and running games with each other. OMG I just made thief’s stealth useful for something other than backstabbing. Let’s not forget the completely unaddressed, increasingly more rampant wallclimbers that destroy towers and siege equipment by one lonesome, and don’t even get me started on professions and combat gameplay.

I remember all the incredible hype developers personally showed with things like traps and unique features that only GW2 has in gameplay. Yet while all of that exists in PvE in some form or another, they slap themselves in the face and go ten steps backwards in WvW. Now they hype about the upcoming biggest quantity update that’s probably just more ascended gear, new skins, and new explorable areas (Notice the common denominator? PvE) but I doubt they’ll do anything about the quality of WvW (or sPvP for that matter, but I don’t even go there).

Mesmer here.

I have no problems dealing with burst thieves. I’ve never had a chance to 1v1 a good p/d thief, but I did try the p/d build to learn how it works and what its strengths/weaknesses are. Gameplay-wise, it can be called either boring or overpowered. Sure, it takes skill to CnD and take multiple enemies at a time but in the end all you’re using are 1 and 5, while all the other professions require more intelligent combinations/usage of 1,2,3,4, and 5. Equal results for less effort was my gameplay experience.

Now, on to the real problem with thief gameplay. The problem is that stealth abilities provide two enormous advantages in any situation (1v1, 1vx, zvz, w/e): the ability to initiate and the ability to retreat. This means that they are always given the element of surprise (should they choose to utilize such a thing) and they’re always given a guaranteed means of escape. I doubt people realize how huge these two things are. So all the thieves I meet are basically put into 3 categories: 1. Too stupid/greedy and dies. 2. Runs away when he knows he can’t kill. and 3. Knows he can’t get the kill but sticks around and annoys the hell out of you with hit and run guerilla play. The skill level here is between 1 and 2/3, and that level isn’t very high at all. Good players aside, any decent thief is unkillable because he can, at any time, run away. So am I crying that I can’t kill thieves? No, I’m saying they don’t suffer like other professions (facing the consequences of poor decision making, or being surprised by good players who know how to flank, or facing an enemy thief that just utilized his own element of surprise).

The other problem is Dagger Storm. I see too many thieves that just run in front of a zerg, pop DS, lul for awhile and sip some tea, then vanish in stealth (again, no consequences of running into a swarm of enemy zerglings). Comes with free HP reset too. Survivability + DPS + mobility? Needs a giant nerf to put it on equal grounds with the elite skills of other professions.

Personally, I would remake all the currently unused skills into something that’s viable, and have stealth for thief as something that they can only use with timing, with more thought, and with more consequences. But I don’t balance games, I just point out the problems.