Guild Wars 2

Raunchy.6891:

We knew it was coming, I don’t see why anyone is surprised. I’m hardly upset even. Chalk it up as another nice thing we had that Anet took away.

Thats the entire problem here..when we first tried it everyone was all shifty, like ‘omg this is actually nice…it MUST be a mistake!’ not because it was OP but because it wasn’t total kitten

As the title says, instead of mindlessly nerfing the trait into uselessness, Power block should have simply been countered by stability.
This would have added another Layer to the combat onion, the rock, paper, scissors counterplay that GW2 does so well in most cases.

It should still interrupt auto attacks.

It should still interrupt stomps and rezzes UNLESS the other player has stability.

And it should most definitely interrupt thief skills. No other profession is completely, automatically immune to an entire build. Its like deciding Mesmers are immune to warriors knockdowns/hammer stuns without having to add stability into thier build.

Right now this trait that added more build options, has changed a new play style that took skill and timing and turned it into a clunky unintuitive mechanic that has become so situational that I for one wont be using it over Confounding suggestions.

SrebX.6498:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

We were given a new skill that was fairly good. Too good really, at least for some Dev playing on his thief, and he suddenly couldn’t just own anyone he liked.

They didn’t even let us keep this skill long enough to even suggest that thieves could work on their game a bit.

At the same there is quite a list of known bugged skills that are still bugged, but this one got first class priority on a 4 day long weekend (because the thieves were affected).

It was obviously an unintended bug. Whenyou first saw tthis skill did you really think it’ll work on thieves and foes with stability? Did you suddenly forget how interrupts work in this game?
Also it’s hard to say it’s useless now, it still works perfectly well on the other 7 professions you might have forgotten that exist…

Why shouldn’t it work against thieves? Do any other classes have a trait/build that is completely redundant against an entire other profession?
You should have to build defences against a playstyle… counter play… not be automatically immune!
And its easy to say its useless now because no one will take it… therefore its redundant.

It should have been changed to ’doesn’t interrupt through stability’
that would have made a nice counter to build around but completely destroying it was dumb…if i worked somewhere and built stuff then destroyed them the week after, i doubt id work there long.

SlayerUK.5029:

Back to chaotic interruption then, I was enjoying res control and thief defence, but now there’s no real benefit to this trait.

Also a shame my clones can’t proc sigil of generosity any more, but that one is understandable :P

See this ^
People don’t want OP skills and traits just VIABLE alternatives that are fun, useful and intuitive.
What’s the point of adding new traits that no one will use? I didnt see any huge outcry about Powerblock and most seemed to think it was fine the way it was. So since the skill is now rather clumsy and unintuitive please update the tooltip

‘Enemy Skills that you interupt have an increased cooldown – 10s …Apart from auto attacks…oh ya and all thief skills…oh and stomps…and rezzes..yeah those ..and people with stability..and keep lords….oh and anything with the defiance buff.’

Qty Description Price
1 WildStar Deluxe Edition Prepurchase £49.99

Please point to where a dev has stated that power block is
a) currently bugged
b) going to be Hot fixed

I’m not sure the point of all these threads if the above hasn’t been stated.

The idea of giving the trait a hidden cool down is terribad. Hidden Cool downs make skills awkward to use, a chore to play and is the last thing needed with a skill that relies on reflexes.

The whole point of mantras is that they’re precharged and then fire off instantly when you need them so what would be the point in a(n instant) daze mantra that intertwines with a trait that has hidden cool downs.

Where was it said power lock would be nerfed?
I checked the dev tracker and didn’t see anything.
But adding cool downs etc would kill the skill and totally go against the insta cast daze mantra

My underwater mesmer clones done have a weapon equipped when i create a clone with Kraitkin which makes it easy to know which is the real mesmer.
The ammount of time it takes to make a legendary weapon and i’ve had to switch back to my regular trident

as someone with 8x lvl 80s i feel that the majority of my alts are becoming little more than gathering bots.
With ascended equipment and wvw ranks, soulbound and limited bank space..playing an alt feels very awkward in GW2.

Personally i think ascended weapons could have had the same stats as exotic but like legendaries, been allowed to change stats on the fly. I think this would have solved a lot of problems.

Add stealth to it (personal veil)
And then i couldn’t care less about the swiftness part

‘Burn duration runes are good, but 10s protection + burn everyone around you every 60 seconds, + 20% protection duration are too good to pass.’

+30% burn duration on a burn build /or 12s protection + one AOE burn every 60 secs
Your choice Trogdor!
Though i concede deadly mixture isnt much use.

SO remove 10% duration sigil replace with Sigil of Fire (not technically a burn but keeps in theme) aoe fireblast on crit

NEXT replace Flame Turret with Bomb Kit – i know you loose the throw napalm but its so much handier and still has FIRE BOMB -low cooldown combo firefield.
ALSO bomb kit has access to smoke bomb for AOE blind – add in Smoke Vent from flamethrower and replace deadly mixture with acidic coating and you have lots of blinds
(Also bombkit has the awesome big old bomb which is trolltastic)
Im keeping Automated response though cause its mainly for the +30% boon duration for might stacks and still helps you last longer/outlast which is what you’ll need with a burn build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalIq6Zn1y3F17IBoH19u4V0D9fZH/pAbB-jkyAItASWAIRJMHWEN2SWYLwBpCHNNDmKlIq2HUEtapAgZaE-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalIqSVn1y3F17IBoH19u4V0D93YH/pAbB-jkyAItASCAJRBJHWEN2SWYLwBpCHNNDmKlIq2HUEtapAgZaE-w

Tiny bit more survivable but now with added burns!
More burns on crit (rabid)
Longer lasting burnage (2/2/2 burn runes)
More condition survivability (alchemy line)
Lots more might stackages (with more boon duration/juggernaut)

The problem is that somewhere towards the end of beta Anet totally changed how mantras worked.
Mantras originally were powerful single cast spells that were instant but needed charging.
(I think also the charge time was longer than what we have now)
So for example Mantra of Resolve cured all conditions on one cast but then needed charging again’
The problem was it made the Harmonious Mantras trait a little over powered as it gave you two insta casts of quite powerful spells.
So the effects were watered down and given two casts instead of one and three with Harmonious mantras.
(which is why Mantra of resolve has the strange description ‘cures ALL (of two) conditions’
So the core designe of how mantras were supposed to work completely changed- powerful spells that were balanced by having long charge times and an ‘all in’ mechanic became mediocre spells that still needed charging.

Empowering Mantras was also changed from 5% damage per charged mantra down to 3% (which was later changed back up to 4%)
Personally i think this number should have stayed at 5% as what you have to give up to get a possible 20% extra damage is quite substantial (all utility and heal slots needed) and is also a (grandmaster) 30 point trait.
Compare Empowering Mantras to Warriors ‘Merciless Hammer’ (master) 20 point trait which increases damage by 25% and only requires the target to be crippled and also reduces the cooldown of hammer skills by 20%

So my suggestions for mantras, if theyre to be made useful;

Traits:

Empowering mantras should be changed back to at least 5% damage per charged mantra and also include the trait ‘Mantra Mastery’ (reduce the cooldown by 20%)

Protected Mantras should grant protection while mantras are being charged and 50 toughness per charged mantra.

Restorative Mantras should heal nearby allies when you cast a mantra and grant 50 healing power per charged mantra.

Mantras;
Mantra of Distraction ; Dazes your target and grants the mesmer 1 second of stealth (used to break being targeted which people can now do without being grouped)

Mantra of concentration : breaks stuns, grants stability (2 seconds) and swiftness (10 seconds)

Mantra of pain ; Cripple target (3 seconds) and apply (2) stacks of torment

great post and the final observation you make is why i think there shouldn’t be any range to the skill but instead the timer should be reduced to perhaps 10 seconds which would cut all your numbers by 1/3?
So in combat would be 2100 range?

It’s because of the ‘straight line 1200 range as the crow flies’ that im finding the new incarnation of shadow return unintuitive.
It can be a little disorientating sometimes when you shadow return and you have no clear idea where you ‘return’ to, where as before you knew you were where you activated the skill.

Personally i feel the new incarnation removes what i loved about S/D and replaces it with a guesswork headache. Before it flowed, now it stutters.

Sunflowers.1729:

I’m so amused by the OP – none of his arguments are actually about whether this change is a ‘bug fix’ or not, except #1 and #3 (which is actually the same point, made twice in slightly different ways).

Everything else is just discussing whether the skill should be changed to be better or worse. That’s not really the point here, since this entire patch just fixed bugs (if you notice, there were no balance changes).

So let’s take a closer look at this argument – I’ll quote the post here:

Arganthium.5638:

1. Counterargument: “But the tooltip says that it has 1200 range!”

The tooltip also says that you “return to your original location”, so obviously the tooltip is contradictory. Furthermore, just because the tooltip says something does not make it theoretically correct in the first place, anyways.

Alright, what he is saying is that
1) The tooltip says “return to your original location” so obviously the intention was to return to the location, regardless of the actual distance in between
2) The tooltip is wrong

For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Judge%27s_Intervention
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blink
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flashing_Blade
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ride_the_Lightning

I think that’s enough abilities to get the point across. All of them say that they teleport you to the target/targeted area (I specifically chose skills that say that in the description, just to be very pedantic)

All of them also have a range stated in the description. When Shadow Return allows the Thief to teleport back from an infinite range, I expect to see all of the abilities above work at an infinite range as well.

As for your second argument, that makes even less sense. If the skill description isn’t ‘theoretically correct’ (whatever that means) then we can completely disregard them.

Personally I think that the Engineer Grenade Kit should summon a fotm lv 40 Jade Maw to smite all my enemies for 90 million damage. What’s that? It doesn’t say anything like that in the description? Ah, the description isn’t ‘theoretically correct’.

Good job OP, you posted a huge amount of stuff that is completely irrelevant.

Edit: In case I wasn’t exceedingly clear enough, the patch had only bug fixes.

Whether Shadow Return deserves a buff is another topic entirely, but to call this change not a bug fix is just silly.

You conveniently forgot this skill
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Pursuit

range 10,000
and its a thief skill
Oh and it doesn’t usually work

Shadow Return has 15 seconds to be activated after using Infiltrator’s Strike to return to original location.

Leave the Skill with an unlimited range but make the built in timer 10 seconds not 15.
Realistically how far can you run in 10 seconds?
It may save the in-out gameplay style of sword/dagger instead of creating another skill that no one uses.

I fixed the broken bone in your leg by amputating the limb.

Prior to the ‘fix’ to play s/d well you had to have pretty good situational awareness.
Know where you set the return point etc.
Now the skill seems to use line of sight and elevation.
IE if there’s something in the way
of the return you tp up to it (or inside it)
If where you set the return point is higher or lower than where you use the return skill you tp up to or inside it.
Its now guesswork where your going to end up, it doesn’t feel intuitive and has made the skill feel clunky.
Doesn’t sound like a fix to me.

Shadow Return feels very ‘clunky’ and unintuative now.

I have no issue with a 1200m range but why does LOS and terrain elevation affect it now?
Quite often dropping you into scenery or under the world.

Please put the skill back to how it used to be but with a 1200m range

Wuffles.5319:

Fade.5904:

I’m the guildleader of Acme.Co [acme] a pikken square/ruins of sumaria EU engineer guild but atm we’re not open for recruitment RuBarBz.
Just thought id let you know other engineer guilds exist with the tag [acme] (we originally started on WoW as goblin engineers)

Regards

Eh, I didn’t know that. Oh well, seeing as you’re EU I’m still jacking that tag lol

Why on earth would an all engi guild not be open for recruitment? that sounds so weird to me, unless you’re actually full. Which is hard to believe.

Nothing weird about it really we’re just a guild of RL family and friends

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/guild/deathwing/Acme%20co/

^ that was us on Wow
And don’t worry about jacking our tag, there’s always been cheap rip off copies in engineering
(jk but couldn’t resist)
:D

I’m the guildleader of Acme.Co [acme] a pikken square/ruins of sumaria EU engineer guild but atm we’re not open for recruitment RuBarBz.
Just thought id let you know other engineer guilds exist with the tag [acme] (we originally started on WoW as goblin engineers)

Regards

im pretty disappointed Anet feel they need to start going down this road.
They proved with legendaries that people will still grind (and have something to aim towards) without the addition of increased ‘stats’

I just dont understand why they’ve buckled and added this, why not just make them shiny new skins with exotic stats and the added new upgrade slots. As long as they have flashy particle effects people will still do the content for them.

Also, since the new armor will have better stats than exotics does this mean the new weapons will have better stats than legendaries? (if there are new weapons)

“Once they are max-level and have max-equipment they start complaining that Warriors are too weak because Kill Shot does only about half as much damage as the BS combo does currently. "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-H1zpdg7dU&feature=youtu.be
So your saying BS does around 64k dmg?
(42secs in…multiple 32k+ crits)

This video is taken in spvp so stop talking about it only doing that kind of damage to undergeared boosted players in WvW

This can be justified by warriors as much as they like but if thief is nerfed into the ground next patch, expect a boatload of ex thieves rolling sniper warriors. Thus bringing builds like this more into the open which will lead to more cries of nerf for warriors.

And the cycle begins once again, so be careful what you wish for when calling nerf on another class.

I recently got the ‘Vision of the Mists’ greatsword and there seems to be a graphics bug where 2 greatswords are melded together at different heights. Though it shows as 1 normal sword on my hero panel.

Same thing is happening on my laptop and 2nd pc
Possibly something to do with the region im playing from?
(playing from the UK btw – will see in a few hours when the rest of the UK wakes up)

I have this too, makes me cringe whenever i see it as those legs (it’s definitely the legs) are my favourites
I use the default body shape so not sure if its an issue there

Having exactly the same problem.
Worked great until this last patch and now launcher wont DL

Have to agree with you, i’m always a little disappointed if my server starts winning…
I know that im going to have to queue for WvW the rest of the week (seems lots of players only like to WvW when we’re winning – thus creating queues)

The outmanned buff is rather nice and does make you feel so much better than being a tiny cog in a huge stupid zerg.

But what i love the most is the camaraderie being in that situation creates

im voting for no nerfs and maybe a few tweaks
EG
cloak and dagger + steal
Dodging while using certain stolen abilities

What WOULD be an interesting topic is if the whiners do manage to get thieves nerfed into pointlessness, which class/build will they cry about next?

I think a huge bunker build whine-fest is brewing . . .

Rome.3192:
Fade.5904:
“Is there anything that can even survive, let alone kill you?”
Ehtom – “People seem to mainly be concerned with thieves and while I can see the logic behind the complaints (1shot from stealth outside human reaction time is not fun) they are also squishy and not particularly useful in groups.
Warriors on the other hand just seem like god mode to me (I play Mesmer/Necro)… 100 skills gives ridiculous 1shot potential, they seem very tanky and hard to kill, they have alot of cc, they can easily run away from you and if you do down them they can just resurrect themselves and get back to the pain train. About 1/2 of everyone I see in sPVP is a warrior. Why does nobody talk about this, what am I missing?”
lol’d

Just to clarify, that’s me quoting Ehtom’s (OP) post history, not something i wrote :P

This thread is ridiculous
You change the thief in the microcosm that is sPvP and kill it for WvW and PvE.
Ive seen it happen in every MMO i can remember.
Stealth class gets nerfed because of PvP and in PvE the same players who called for the nerf wont entertain a stealth class in their group because ‘they bring nothing to the team’
As some sensible poster stated here, when/if a big enough nerf to thieves happens and people leave the profession to some new golden <insert class here> build discovery the cycle begins over again and it may just be your class next.

The thief will always be hated on because of the mechanics, you’re able to use your best ability until you run out of initiative.
So instead of waiting for skill timers you instead have to learn to judge how much initiative to use and when.
Just because a class uses a “rotation” or uses 5/5 abilities simply because of cool downs does not = better player
Ask your self this, if your class didn’t have cool downs would you use every single skill in a rotation or just the best ones for the given situation?

Good players (and this includes thieves) use abilities when needed and yes sometimes that is a few (A) back to back heartseekers or (B) deathblossoms if your condition damage – why waste initiative on other skills if you need to (A) finish someone off/ catch them/leap to next target or (B) apply bleed stacks as fast as possible.

Also please keep your comments truthful and try not to exagerate too much, yes there are problems with some thief mechanics as there are for most classes in certain builds.
But the guy who did nothing but spam heartseeker 7 times in a row and kept going, nice 21+ point initiative pool you have there.

I do agree something should be done, i read these forums twice a week and each time i do it depresses the heck out of me.
If you go to any other class forum and its all about sharing builds or stories, here its post after post complaining about one skill/build after another.

The worst part about it is Thieves will ALWAYS have this stigma attached to them as being button mashing noobs with ‘i win’ buttons because of how they’re designed.

Where other classes have to use other skills whilst waiting on cooldowns (and thus convincing themselves that it surely must take more skill to play ‘X’ class since they use ALL their skills) a Thief is free to use the best skill for the given situation and worry instead about initiative consumption.

“Is there anything that can even survive, let alone kill you?”

Well Ehtom, i had a quick look through your post history to determine what class you played so i could try to answer your question. Seems you play a Mesmer and a Necro which, ironically are 2 really good classes at countering the build your mentioning.

May i suggest you hover your mouse pointer over your utility slot skills (those are the 7, 8 and 9 skills)
This gives you information about what those skills do, for instance:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague_Signet
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Thievery
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Null_Field
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Disenchanter

As you can see there are ways to counter the build (your welcome)

On a seperate note since you play a mesmer and a necro im curious as to why 90% of your posts are in the thief forums?

I’ve provided you some more handy links below:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer

Also im glad that you finally see thiefs as a threat and no longer waste your time complaining about warriors 100 blades skill:

Ehtom – “People seem to mainly be concerned with thieves and while I can see the logic behind the complaints (1shot from stealth outside human reaction time is not fun) they are also squishy and not particularly useful in groups.
Warriors on the other hand just seem like god mode to me (I play Mesmer/Necro)… 100 skills gives ridiculous 1shot potential, they seem very tanky and hard to kill, they have alot of cc, they can easily run away from you and if you do down them they can just resurrect themselves and get back to the pain train. About 1/2 of everyone I see in sPVP is a warrior. Why does nobody talk about this, what am I missing?”

And finally yet another link that might interest you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_

Like you OP ive played a LOT of mmo’s (since UO) and agree, this game is a breath of fresh air after WoW and the multiple clones it spawned.

(Actually i don’t mind WoW really, more so the type of players it bred which now descend on any new game like a swarm of locusts, race to ‘max level’ and pick the bones clean all the time crying that there isn’t enough meat before moving on to thier next ill fated meal.)

Good post OP

ummmmm no you wont

There’s an old saying which ends with ‘You can’t please all of the people all of the time’

Unfortunatley the OP and others in this thread aren’t pleased with GW2 which is fine and as others have pointed out it just means this isn’t the game for you.
If you enjoy things this game doesn’t have but others cater for then why waste time trying to shape GW2 into something it was never designed to be?

Arena Net have done (in my opinion) an amazing job in creating a world to explore and ‘live’ in and yet here we are, a few weeks into launch arguing that there’s ‘nothing to do’ or ’it’s not what i want! i feel cheated!’

Have you just set out in a direction and seen what happens without chasing a goal?(and 100% map completion doesn’t = explored the entire map btw)
Have an adventure, forget about ‘acheivments’ for awhile and just …play.
If you’ve reached level 80 and got the best items available then great! thats one less thing to worry about, now you have time to soak up the world thats been created for you to play in.

Go play