Guild Wars 2

Justin ODell.9517:

Try to look at it from the eyes of a beginner guys.

The NPCs award points, and give you a buff. Who wouldn’t want that?

It takes a higher level of understanding of the both the map and conquest mechanics to get that securing mid is important.

How would you guys suggest we go about teaching this to players?

Make the beast spawn later, or making it hit harder (no more hp since it would only make it worse!).

Although in my opinion; if you can kill the beast in 3-4 seconds with 2-3 guys before heading mid, 50 points CAN give you a substantial advantage, so dunno why ignore it tbh.

WuGzaGenius.5684:

fingers can be pointed .

It is THIS kind of attitude what I would say makes the most demoralizing ways of losing and might even MAKE you lose!

Dont point at fingers, try to improve YOURSELF, you and ONLY you can be blamed for what only YOU could do.

You cant make others change, accept it, telling them “fgking noob dont go far” or “unistall” or “it is yours fault!” will NOT get you any closer to a win; if anything they might purposely do worse.

So dont point fingers, be supportive, teach, accept their flaws, try to play around them

Justin ODell.9517:

mistsim.2748:

stuff

we want people to be able to change builds in that pre-game window.

That’s actually interesting to hear! Since we are now in that topic, does that mean that you guys are also looking at templates (at least for PvP) ?! Personally I’m constantly changing builds in my guardian between bunker and two alternatives of DPS, as well as staff / D/D on my ele, I would appreciate it if I could do it quicker since when Im having my traits window open Im rushing and NOT paying attention to the chat, where team plans are being discussed or I miss a skill/trait/runes/sigil which might be vital to the build and thus completely destroying my build and destroying my team’s chances of winning (at least from me).

Thanks in advanced!

edit: yah I dont think I will get an answer tbh sorry hahahaha :/

Sarcasm aside ( pretty funny though! ) I would be ok if maybe the AI damage was toned down a bit, the healing tweaked so that there is a window for retaliation.

I would like to fight Players (you know the P in the PvP ), not their turrets/clones/pets/minions.

Justin ODell.9517:

Might I ask why you prefer to solo instead of find a team? Is it that you don’t like the time and effort involved with finding other people? Is it the casual aspect of being non-committed to others?

Also, why do you not enjoy being put against pre-mades? Is it that they have an advantage with communication?

Because of all of the reasons above.

Lets face it; making a team is a drag, making the team play in certain way is a drag, making the team get on TS is a drag, making ALL the team-members be online at the same time EVERY TIME is a drag. Finding people that fulfill all of these requirements is a drag.

There is a reason teams exist even though all of these dragfull things happen every time you want to make a team and it is because they have:

>Communication and coordination.

>Knowledge of their team-members personal skills, builds, etc etc..

>Willingness to cooperate with each other (aka build coordination, no purposely grieving, etc)

>Resistance to morale attacks (they are less likely to take constructive criticism bad and retaliate, personal attacks from enemy usually results on entire ally team retaliating agaisnt said person, increasing in-team morale, and I think we can all agree morale is very important to a team and a player since it promotes motivation and inhibits grieving/trolling)

Basically they have a GIANT edge over a 5 p.u.g. , assuming that the 5 p.u.g. are skilled/willing to cooperate/on top shape. There is no reason to believe the 5 man pre-made couldnt have any of these qualities too.

tl;dr given similar skills/willingness to cooperate, a 5 man-premade will always have an edge 5 p.u.g. of similar players.

Personally I would prefer something someone else brought up (cant remember where I saw it tbh) which is 2 queues;

1- Only FULL 5 teams for 5v5

2- Solo or DUO (2) queue.

Like certain popular MOBA, which imho has worked more than fine!

I mostly do solo, occasionally duo, and I think most people here are on the same (could be wrong, but as far as my guild, friends and randoms I have asked, we all do pretty much the same).

tamzooka.5637:

Turret engineers and celestial elementalists are really tough to deal with at the moment.

For engineers, I can only recommend laying some massive aoe before engaging yourself to try and take down some/all of their turrets. Otherwise you’ll just get knocked around like a pinball.

Personally Im not having any issues with celestial eles, if anything they now became viable, (as in noticeable, you know, pay attention rather than ignore/focus fire for 3 seconds and then stomp), although I do agree the healing could use some minor tweaking.

As for the engi, seeing one in a point…./shurgs

It would seem they are a little bit over the top in ranked, specially the turrets ones, where they have decent tanking, great healing and spammy conditions. I dont know, shouldnt this be looked into ?

Im just curious, are you keeping track of which ones are picked most?

It doesnt work like that for us, weapon switching works for runes/sigil effects but does not benefit from reduction other than arcane trait line or Anet game editors.

Yep, it worked, rank 746 now….. I think this new PvP way of scoring is flawed :/

Hmm, I see, so basically I shouldnt worry so much as to win but rather gather as many points as possible? (of course I dont mean that I wouldnt try to win, just that my main concern should be on the points)

Is this correct? Because I can see a bunch of people just rotating points to cap/decap for quick points

Isnt this flawed?

edit: now that I think about it, Lux, which is in the top 20, yesterday I saw him running a shortbow thief, decapping, everytime I will confront him he will run….. it all makes sense now!

I’m sorry, player coming back after a while, Im currently rank 937 in the leaderboard, but Im not sure what counts (and what doesnt) towards going up on it

Is it personal score? Kills? Objectives? secondary Objectives? Wins? Premade? Class? Build?

Please help me with this one.

Thanks in advanced!

I do agree with the light aura on blast as opposed to only leap, the retaliation on blast was in my opinion just subpar compared to this new aura. Also, I really do like the aura’s holy feeling and would like to wear a hammer and blast it all the time (guardian)

PookieDaWombat.6209:

wompwomp

Yeah, i wonder if they will listen to that? i wonder if it needs to happen in more places. I wonder if Wooden Potatoes and Matt Visual will have the testicular fortitude to speak honestly about this update.

They wont, they might risk losing their benefices such as logging in before anyone else, having inside trading perks thanks to know WELL in advanced how the economy and items will move, etc.

If anything they might give a small “discontent” or “it could have been implemented slightly different but lets give it time to see” or that kinda stuff.

As for a large company, Anet barely do ads now a day, they rely mostly on word-to-ear communication of the community, I recluted 2 co workers, 1 friend, 2 cousins, I was excited for the game, all of them are avid MMO players overall, only 1 of them remains, and none recommends the game anymore, just like I wouldnt anymore.

It isnt sourness, I still play and enjoy the game, but I realize that it sure isnt as promising as I once thought it was. Who knows, perhaps Anet proves us wrong, but I sure as heck pity the poor newbies. I made a new character after the first pack, the traits were the most uncomfortable thing, I had to spend a lot of gold and SP, now for the patch i decided to just use 60 tomes of knowledge, it is THAT unbearable to lvl up

Suggestions:

It takes 24k to finish 3 parts of both sets, why not make it all 6 parts of only*ONE* set?

Zefrost.3425:

Stealth needs to be changed to work exactly like the adrenaline change. It’s called balance, guys. Stealth is WAY more forgiving than adrenaline.

---

- Guardian activated aegis when you stealthed? Good, he counterplayed you. I’m sure you’ll just stealth again in 4 seconds again anyway while his aegis is on a 90s cooldown.

- Necromancer used well of darkness and you missed? He counterplayed you with a 50s cooldown. Your stealth is on a 4s cooldown.

- Thief spamming evades while you’re stealthed? Nice, you’re both overpowered.

- Warrior used his shield block while you stealthed? Cool, he’s actually playing the game. His block is now on a 25s cooldown while you can stealth again in 4s.

- Meditation guardian using multiple sources of block, blind and evades while you’re stealthed? He’s using cooldowns to randomly try to mitigate your overpowered skills with no telegraphs because you’re INVISIBLE.

---

If warriors could use burst skills while in invisible every 4 seconds and spam EVISCERATE EVISCERATE EVISCERATE EVISCERATE until it hits as well, the game would definitely reach esports status.

Good night everyone, please go home, you simply cant post anything greater than this. This post should be stickied, framed, printed on hollywood’s stars street, put on a golden tablet and sent to space where other civilizations will find it one day and realize how advanced our race was.

Evening,

First of all, I want to thank you, Anet, for creating such an MOST HAVE SHINNIEEESSSS appealing set to my inner skritt refined taste in blinding everyone around me particle heavy armor/weapons, specially those white and/or blue.

It truly, truly does appeal to me, specially for my all “holy” guardian theme I got going on for me. However, there is one minor complain; the way these are obtained.

Currently we have to “double dip” into both set regardless of whether we are interested in hellfire or not. Im sitting at around 12.5k and I must say I might as well give up on getting radiant set anywhere within 4 years given how AP gain have been SIGNIFICANTLY reduced. AP dailies are capped, now you cant get constant AP from LS anymore.

Dont get me wrong, Im fully aware that this isnt intended to be a skin everyone should have, that Im not entitled to it, that I have to work for it.

Believe me, I dont mind working for it, as a guy working on his 3rd legendary I know whats its like, however, the reasoning behind why you must pick both sets and only certain parts baffles me, almost as if in order to finish Sunrise you needed to also get the precursor for The Bifrost and Twlight, as well as the gift of wood….it just doesnt add up.

Regards

Talyn.3295:

Brutaly.6257:

Harbinger.8637:

Talyn.3295:

I am kinda interested in the Superior Rune of Evasion.

It just sounds really strong, especially if you’re using energy sigils.

-Bought the recepie
-Removed my travelar runes
- Crafted 6*evasion
- Put them in my zojjas/keepers set
-Tried them out for like 45 minutes
-Put back the travelars
-I will not look back

They have have 10 sec internal cd but work out of combat. One weird thing is that even with 50% boon duration i didnt see the 1,5 s increase on uptime on fury and swiftness i thought i would see.

The aoe on the cripple is just to small

Well that just burst my bubble. But thanks for the heads up.

same ’er

I see, it makes sense, given how the buffs were nerfed from 5 seconds to 3 seconds from the beta (given wooden potatoes’ video) I guess I assumed they had tested it internally already.

Lets hope it doesnt take them too long though……. they almost made me log back in

I was very excited for the evasion for guardian since it solves 2 core issues; lack of cripples and movement speed, then I see that it is only for PvE and WvW.

Why is this the case? Would it be THAT strong? EDIT: perplexity was not added, my bad, been a while since last time I logged.

Lastly, not caring too much about the aura one since it is not my cup of tea, but as a guy who prefers to test stuff on PvP, was is this not available there either?

Talyn.3295:

I am kinda interested in the Superior Rune of Evasion.

I was SUPER excited when I saw about it, specially for PvP where we SUFFER from lack of cripple, movement speed of any sort and to a lesser extend fury outside meditations, so I thought that the set would be PERFECT for PvP (even better if the raw stat was power instead of ferocity tbh) ….

then I saw that it was for PvE and WvW ONLY……sigh, the disappointment, lets hope it doesnt take as long as it took the perplexity one to get implemented…..

Frost bow, the conjured weapon from eles, skill number 5 will constantly (solid 7/10) say Obstructed when there is a minimal ground difference, even if the person is on the same level, if there is grass, a mini hill( like 2 cm hill) or anything, it will fail.

Possible problem(?) maybe because the projectile goes around instead of straight line?

dancingmonkey.4902:

. 45 condi’s cleansed, including the user, on a 15s cool down untraited is very extreme.

Im under the very certain impression that people do NOT read.

I CLEARLY stated that instead of removing 45 conditions, it would remove 29 at MOST.
Please guys, take the actualy time tor ead the entire thing before jumping to wrong conclusions.

Of course 45 conditions would be OP! 4 conditions for allies, and 9 for the user, 26 in TPvP.

NinjaEd.3946:

Fortus.6175:

None of the heals of guardians remove conditions, not even traited.

Smite condition
Signet of resolve
Purity
Sigil of generosity/purity
Hoelbrak runes (reduces their duration anyways)

Please read again, i said heals, as in #6 skill. And yes, as stated earlier, there is one heal (the signet) that does remove conditions, 1 every 10 seconds. Traiting it is not for DPS guard though, and lets face it; 1 condi every 10 seconds is not enough to survive in the condi meta.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Fortus.6175:

As for the engi, you are forgetting that as it stands right now, it already cleanses more conditions than the engi with that one weapon ( 9 conditions)…. If anything, it would make the engi’s condi cleansing more valuable since it would be bringing the condi cleansing of the torch down…

I am referring specifically to the suggestion the OP maid about the skill removing conditions from ones self. That is immensely OP in my opinion.

I am all for making out lying weapons more popular, but making them ridiculously OP is not the way to do it.

Think of it as total conditions removed. What is stronger; 45 conditions removed, or 29?

As far as my math knowledge goes, 45 > 29.

Lastly, tell me how many other skills in the game have giant group benefices that do not affect the user? I can guarantee you that there are FAR less than skills that affect both the entire team AND the user.

I dont know, the skill just doesnt seem right, it is counter intuitive, to the point of almost punishing, something that by the standards of teamwork and no-griefing that GW2 has created, it does not bode well.

JusticarArkiel.1564:

Fortus.6175:

JusticarArkiel.1564:

the fire isn’t touching you, therefore it can’t really cleanse conditions from you. it does however touch the allies it removes the conditions from. simple reason there. real reason is probably because anet figured guards have enough condition cleanse for themselves with utilities and heals that they didn’t need a weapon skill that does it too.

None of the heals of guardians remove conditions, not even traited.

As far as “logic” goes….it does not apply to videogames.

Bunker guardians has condition cleansing, DPS guardian doesn’t, any experienced guardian will tell you that. Torch isnt a bunker weapon..at all, so it would greatly benefice the DPS guardians.

Lastly, the trade-off is actually decent; it still removes a lot of conditions on allies, which encourages its use on them, and now it would also give the guardian an incentive to use it on himself.

the signet they have, i forget the name, has passive condition removal. and i didn’t say the rework was a bad idea, i simply said as to why the original skill probably works the way it does. though i also love the idea that only a bunker guard can have condition removal of worth

True, forgot about that one, my apologies. Also, I agree that only bunker guardian should have condition cleansing of worth, thats why 4 conditions instead of all 9. Think about it, as it stands now, DPS guards have better condition cleansing than a bunker with say mace/shield and staff.

As for the engi, you are forgetting that as it stands right now, it already cleanses more conditions than the engi with that one weapon ( 9 conditions)…. If anything, it would make the engi’s condi cleansing more valuable since it would be bringing the condi cleansing of the torch down…

I seriously dont see the complains, except for a rare case of a bunker guardian who runs x/torch staff, it shouldnt be an issue to anyone.

JusticarArkiel.1564:

the fire isn’t touching you, therefore it can’t really cleanse conditions from you. it does however touch the allies it removes the conditions from. simple reason there. real reason is probably because anet figured guards have enough condition cleanse for themselves with utilities and heals that they didn’t need a weapon skill that does it too.

None of the heals of guardians remove conditions, not even traited.

As far as “logic” goes….it does not apply to videogames.

Bunker guardians has condition cleansing, DPS guardian doesn’t, any experienced guardian will tell you that. Torch isnt a bunker weapon..at all, so it would greatly benefice the DPS guardians.

Lastly, the trade-off is actually decent (lets not forget that 45 to 29 conditions removed is a HUGE, enough to be a tradeoff worth considering); it still removes a lot of conditions on allies, which encourages its use on them, and now it would also give the guardian an incentive to use it on himself.

BrunoBRS.5178:

i didn’t even know it had the ability to remove conditions. i thought this thread was going to be “why doesn’t the attack burn?” which is just as important of a question, if you ask me.

Yah thats another one I’ve encountered a lot of times; people dont know it removes conditions, you can see me getting completely out of position just to cleanse some conditions, just to see all my allies scatter away from it…..almost on purpose…..

What it is

Over 8 pulses it removes 9 conditions on allies excluding the guardian himself.
Overall it can potentially remove 9×5=45 conditions. (36 in TPvP)

My suggestion:

Let it remove conditions on the guardian but less than half conditions on allies; 4 conditions on allies. 4×5=20 + 9=29 (25 in PvP)

Why?

-IT IS COUNTER INTUITIVE; It says “removes conditions on allies” but nothing is said about you, the tool fix is confusing already, are you your own enemy? New players dont understand the concept, old players dont like detrimental exceptions.

-Guardians dont have problems with conditions, true, but only if you are a bunker. Torch isnt a bunker weapon. DPS guardians already suffer from not being a bunker and having very poor condition removal. Having a torch would greatly benefice DPS guards(which are on dire need of it, they have low health pool, little condition removal and have to be melee for everything, the opposite of warriors altogether)

-Overall it is a good trade-off.

As an ele main I must say that I would have no issues with it and would not compare it to ether renewal. They perform different roles already.

You and about 90% of all sane guardians.

As it stands right now, Shield, although not truly underwheling, it is the msot anti-thematic and underwhelming weapon of guardians, despite being their “iconic” thing.

A true shame.

I would give anything to be able to run a sword/shield build that isnt gimping me or my team in anyway.

its 30 secs CD, and traited JI refreshes before it comes off CD.

@OP: I have been using it for a while and I must say I dont like that sometimes it can be unreliable. I would rather JI into pull and then spin them away.

Personaly i feel the damage is a lot a little over the top. Some shavings like 30% or so would be good, specially considering the new trait pretty much guarantees it hits like a truck with perma crit. Not even eles have access to guaranteed crit, it has longer CDs and the coefficient arent as sily.

I would say backstab also needs some shaving too.

I loved them, I want more of them!

Specially the latest one, and Scarlet’s death!! They are so pretty, the colors, the sounds, the music, the theme, the art style, I just love it!!

I just really hope it is isn’t a very time/resource consuming thing because I would definitely love to see more and more and more of it!

Heck, who knows, perhaps a short film at the end of the season, or even half way through! I would totally support a gem-store “donation” towards that goal.

The films in question:

I loved them, I want more of them!

Specially the latest one, and Scarlet’s death!! They are so pretty, the colors, the sounds, the music, the theme, the art style, I just love it!!

I just really hope it is isn’t a very time/resource consuming thing because I would definitely love to see more and more and more of it!

Heck, who knows, perhaps a short film at the end of the season, or even half way through! I would totally support a gem-store “donation” towards that goal.

The films in question:

+1 internetz for you , bookmarked.

Hmm interesting topic, personally I havent seen it pop in the forums in about a year or two /s

They are working on it currently, or so have been for the past year, given Colin’s last post about it. Should you wait for it? It is up to you, however, Anet is very aware of the issue and bringing it up every week will probably do very little to haste the content, considering how little attention it has gotten and how little answers Anet has given to it.

Is it a priority? Hardly. There are already 2 ways of getting it, there are things in this game which dont even have one! (some armors like the mascarade for light)

I remember back in the days when WvW wasnt all tiered up that Kaignen, DR and TC were all up in our kitten s…….

Now THAT was disheartening and demoralizing. It was specifically because of Kaignen that I gave up all together in WvW. Many people could relate to this. We didnt get new players as noted by many, we simply recovered our dignity and will to fight.

Edit: At the poster above all; exactly! You finally got it. As you said, we dont have numbers, we have coverage, which came from organization. Believe me, my guild leader was not very happy with it but she was the one in charge of night coverage. We spent many nights just running around upgrading, papering stuff. Strategies, no number is what won, which is not what the OP is complaining, which is that we have great numbers.

I agree that coverage is EFfffed up, but so is zerging, but then again, what should be what determines wins?

I cant speak for the entire server, however I can speak for my guild when I say this;

we have 500 people, 100 on at any given time, and you would barely ever see anyone playing in WvW at any given time. We didnt get many transfers, Worm was one of them, but they are small but dedicated. Besides that all major guilds representing GOM have been there since the beginning. GoM, ASH, etc.

I know it can be hard to believe but ever since the TS we DID organize and brought everyone together, and it was because of this that we were able to pull ahead. Moral plays a big part. There are commanders who represent WvW widely, we are getting more and more people into the TS server. My guild, [GoM] is now seeing more actions and more representation, as well as people actually caring about WvW.

Like I said, we dont have queues in WvW except for prime times or reset, and never went above 20 in EB….. sometimes our borderland with no more than 7-8.

In fact, I would dare to say the enemy blobs were always bigger during prime time for other servers, I remeber getting rolled even in borderlands.

Organization DO matter, moral DO matter.

On the enemy rank there has always been good guilds with equally large number; [MvM], [CoSA], etc..

We have always had the numbers, just not a single banner to rise to. All severs have the same potential…seriously.

Julie Yann.5379:

72hour isn’t that bad when you can just go hot join. It kind of sucks for people that have unstable internet that get DC’d often.

I have bad internet days too, and here is a little advice that will do great things;

If you know you have bad internet, and you know you will make the experience uncomfortable for 9 other people, as well as yourself, do yourself and everyone else a favor; Do not queue. As simple as that. Fix the issue, once its working again: queue.

Everyone here is treating the leavers as the victims, but they are no more victims than those who have to go through to the bitter experience of a 4v5.

Im all down for increasing the leaver buster time to a week, and make those people queue with other leavers more often than with non-leavers. Dota has a similar system, where leavers get paired with leavers, that way everyone wins.

It is true that people have situations, however, I cant think of any terrible situation where you queue for 3 games in a row and leave all 3 times. “Oh my mom is dying, gotta go”, “oh never mind, she seems to be ok, let me queue again”, “oh crap, my mom started dying again, gotta go”, “oh, nvm, what a faker, let me queue again”, “oh my cat is on fire, gotta go”….etc

Funny thing is;

We didnt win because of zerg numbers, but because we actually organized and played to win.

>[ASH] would constantly be running on enemy borderlands with 20-30 people, facing 50+ zergs and winning (I often joined them, I can verify the validity of this).

>We brought the ENTIRE server under one single and unified TS server, which allowed organization.

>As for coverage, it is BS. We are mostly NA, the reason why it appeared to have it is because our guild leader, who is an West player, would stay all night capping stuff, together with some guildies (Im East, and most other people were also NA).

We actually fought for that, we actually made sacrifices (NA doing night capping and keeping everything upgraded).

We were always a 21-23/24 server, but ever since the TS and the moral boosting we got from the big guilds (GoM, ASH, Worm, etc) we were able to pull ourselves together and win.

You want to experience the same? Try working towards unifying the community. Most servers have the capability of queueing WvW. Gate of Madness barely ever had queue, if anything on EB during peak times, and no more than 20 people.

You lost because we won, not because you sucked, I would dare to say FC and DR gave us a run for our money, and we loved it!

Oh I loved this part

ColinJohanson.2394:

Edited to add: We’ll discuss what sort of projects we’re doing instead in more detail in the blog post later this week, and even in more detail as the Jan/Feb/March releases get closer.

lol

It isnt anything big but I would like to know if there is a way to prevent my guild chat from disappearing everytime I switch characters.

My loading screens are atrocious and the guild chat’s speed is even worse, and as a someone who is constantly switching characters ALL the time this can become a little bothersome.

Thanks in advanced!

I remember back in pre-release days that there would be an app that would let you chat with your guildies, check WvW, etc.

What happened with that? Although i dont care about the WvW part given the APIU release, I do very much care with the guild chat since Im at work bored and could definitely use some guild company.

I hope to see something about this in the months to come

/cheers

Spin Echo.8263:

In sPVP, everyone can “reset” a fight. Without stealth, you are transported back to your spawn point first. With stealth, you can stick around a little closer and maybe get back into the fight a little sooner. Either way, you’re out of action for a little while.

Of course if you reset using stealth, then your opponent won’t experience the joy of stomping you right before you take your time-out. But that’s a problem only if you mistakenly assume that the purpose of sPVP is to rack up stomps.

Believe it or not, stomping DOES make a difference, thats 5 points per stomp. Stealth pretty much ensures that you never or barely ever get stomped, and if you use SR then it also goes to your team. Also, killing an opponent which sends him back to respawn and just making him retreat for a few seconds is NOT the same. A downed person will have the respawn timer on top of walking time, a person who resetted the fight will avoid all that and re-engage at full or almsot full health. If you cant see the strength on that and the fact that only one class can reliably do this all the time then you most probably dont understand the basic of sPvP scoring and strategies.

also pirate runes give you a bird and bam, everyone dies

My problem with this weapon in guardian is that;

Shield should be the “iconic” weapon of guardians, yet skill #4 is so underwhelming in an overall sense (nobody denies the importance of protection in AoE) that it is enough to make people not choose that weapon other than for #5.

My suggestion is quite simple; add a 1 second daze to #4 and reduce the CD to 20 seconds, or instead add aegis, 20 seconds CD still.

Why aegis? Because there are traits that heal on aegis removal, or that gives retaliation on aegis removal. I would give guardians a way to time time a clutch skill and would make the weapon feel more guardian-like, and more “defender” like

There is no end to just how broken this class is, 2.4k armor is not enough to mitigate the damage, and to top it off, the thing that truly truly saddens me is the fact that the boon stealing has absolutely no ICD, basicaly any class (namely ele) that relies on boons simply has to bend over and take it.

Most classes have quite the large ICD on boon dispel (note I said boon dispel which is only half as bad as boon stealing, because the opponent doesnt get it), something along the lines between 10 seconds to 60 seconds, but thieves can spam it and leave the ele effectively naked…..

I think a new name for thieves should exist; Spammadiers, since their entire existence revolves around spamming something, whether it is stealth, backstabs, blinds, evades, boon stealing, or sadly, all of the above at the same time.

Hmm, there seems to be some good threads about initiative balance, and although i dont believe it will solve much of the core issues, I do think it would be a good start:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Why-Initiative-does-not-work/

I wholeheartedly agree except for a couple of points;

-It isn’t ineffective to spam skills, in fact, one of the main reasons why thieves are so successful is because they can spam all their skills, say you equip D/P and you fail the first shadow shot, the second will connect, or the third will, which pretty much renders any form of active defense on the other side, well, useless.

-Heartseeker needs rework, not in the damage per say (although it might neeed it a little bit) but it shouldnt have a queue and an instalock, it should be like D/D ele fire #3, where it just goes the way you are facing, that way it isnt a braindead-supereffective skill and might even offer some room for skill floor, something I would dare to say most thief players are completely unaware of.

-I agree on the chill and stealth part, but you forgot that they also got very strong skills which dont need any initiative and yet are spammable, those are the worse, like backstab which is literally the definition of spammable, you cant miss it, literally cant miss it, you spam it until it lands and it does no consume any initiative (and to top it off cna take up to 50-99% of a persons hp)

As for the person saying that thieves dont work in PvE, I dont know what your sources are, but in terms of raw, single target damage; thieves are up there. Also, they are very useful in TA, Arah, dredge, etc. Would you bring a 5 thieves group into a dungeon? no, that would be very stupid, just as stupid to bring 5 same classes for any other profession, but a thief per party can become very useful for taking out single targets even in crowded enviroments, like killing assassins in CoF p2