Guild Wars 2

If you got killed 100 to 0 in the initial burst attack then I think it’s probably time you invested in some Vitality or Toughness because there’s no way that happened if you’re not built as a glass cannon. I guess if that’s the case then yea you wouldn’t see a difference but like I said then it’s your gear that the problem not thieves.

Personally I would prefer to not be stunlocked over fighting something that goes into the stealth a lot. The key difference is, if you have control of your character you have a fighting chance. The thieves you are describing are built without defense which means a well timed sneeze (even in stealth) will ruin a thief (obviously this is humor, but it’s not so far off from the truth). There’s a reason thieves like to say it’s a L2P issue, and that’s because it is. I have been literally torn apart by people who know how to play against a thief. So based on actual experience I can conclude that if someone else is so easily able to destroy me and another person comes along (you) and makes the claims you did then obviously you are doing something wrong. Take that for what you will, but the only way this will stop happening to you is if you change something about what you’re doing.

I am in fact very OK with that…the same way I’m OK with getting killed by mesmer’s shatter mechanics, or a guardian’s area control abilities. That’s how the mechanics of the game work for that class. It’s class diversity man and it makes playing the game more interesting. If every melee class was a stand there and spam buttons mechanic then there wouldn’t be a point in having a guardian or thief. If every ranged class was as straightforward as a ranger then the Mesmer wouldn’t exist. That educated guess is part of playing against a thief and if your gear was where it should be then it wouldn’t be an immediate fatal mistake when you guess wrong, and if you know that the attack is likely going to come from then an intelligent person would know exactly where they need to defend.

If your response to this is anything but silence or acknowledgement that you probably need to step it up in PvP then there’s obviously no convincing you using logic and you’re a lost cause.

Video games aren’t supposed to be mindless auto pilot forms of entertainment, especially not in games that involve you playing against another human being.

Magiofdeath.2745:

Well, other game developers actually know balance. Rogues in WoW were a great class in PvE and PvP and didn’t need a broken stealth while in combat every 12 secs mechanic to be good. GW2 thieves are pansies compared to other games. They need to lean on the crutch that is stealth every 12 secs while in combat to be any good at PvP. The fact so many thieves are horrible at PvE is proof that this class is really not all that great and only reason they excel so well at PvP is because they can stealth mid-combat. You will even see thieves say “we’re not that great at huge groups in WvW”. So the point of a thief in WvW is to tag a keep waypoint, randomly kill solo people that are just traversing the map to get somewhere and take camps? Out of those 3, taking out camps is the only useful, non cheap one.

There’s a lot of wrong in this post. Thieves in this game are far more balanced than rogues in WoW. I guess you must not have been around for the permanent stunlocking rogues. Those were a real treat to deal with.

Thieves serve other purposes than the ones you listed. I like to put pressure on the tail end of a zerg to either down a few people and/or force as many people as I can to pay attention to me, because if they are looking at me then they aren’t defending against my compatriots any more. I feel like that serves a good purpose.

Also, we don’t lean on stealth because we are “pansies” (good job on making yourself look like a petulant child with that statement though) we rely on it because of the way that our class is designed. If I could go toe to toe with some of these classes and not have to rely on stealth I would gladly do it, but the sad reality is if we don’t use it we won’t have a prayer for surviving. Argue against that point all you want, but I am content that what I have put down matched up with reality from empirical evidence.

If there’s an issue with a bug in the code preventing people from playing I sympathize no matter what Tier they are in. ANET has some things they still need to fix, and soon so I hope they can resolve your issue. WvW is in a bad state pretty consistently all around (not that it’s not fun, but all the issues are souring the experience). I’m in t7 and we’ve been playing the same two servers for a few months now and the team in the #1 spot isn’t going to drop any time soon as they seem to have a population advantage.

TL;DR: Fix this game ANET, you’re making it difficult to keep caring.

Maugetarr.6823:

Something costing a certain amount and then receiving a refund is different from a lower initial cost. At that point too, the thief wouldn’t be closing gaps or attacking, they would be focusing on maintaining stealth.

This.

aaron.7850:

Now, from a small group VS small group perspective, confusion is indeed overpowered, and as I said before it was adjusted for SPVP (perhaps a bit too harsh), but it should be adjusted in wvwvw as well since many of us small-group roamers end up in 1v1-5v5 situations, just like in spvp.

I disagree. While I hate Zerging, it’s kind of the idea behind WvW (large scale battles). Don’t get me wrong I’m all for small roaming parties (I actually love roaming), but if you’re doing that it comes with inherent risks…like coming up against a confusion mesmer. There are counters for everything and a confusion WvW mesmer, while powerful, is not exactly unbeatable. They just happen to be trickier to take down.

Intigo.1653:

• Confusion is not “easily dealt with”, there’s a reason it was adjusted in sPvP. This is a very silly statement.

Actually, yes it is. WvW is not sPvP, just because it was deemed too powerful in one does not mean it is in the other. It’s called condition removal and any zerg worth their salt is going to have at least a few people running it. They will minimize if not nullify the effects of confusion. On a smaller scale without access to multiple condition removal sources, yes the rate at which a mesmer can apply and reapply confusion was over powered. That is the reason you saw the sPvP nerf. In WvW, against SMART opponents, confusion is considerably less powerful.

Sifu.6527:

You don’t see a problem with HS costing 1 initiative for access to 4 more sec of stealth while somewhat ignoring the need to manage init?

I could see myself thinking it was overpowered if what you were saying was true. Do you think black powder is free of initiative cost? Because HS won’t do what you propose without a stealth field.

toffin.5032:

DH 95189 +380
GoM 74520 +115
HoD 72716 +200

Thank you very much. Come on GoM, let’s do this!

Good job DH, again. :-/

Was away this weekend. Can anyone be so kind as to provide a score update?

Anyone that isn’t built as a glass canon themselves should have no problem fighting a HS spam thief. The first few should barely scratch you since that’s the way it’s designed. Instead of trying to avoid the first few use that time to target the thief with CC or AoE damage. That should help put pressure on the thief (since he’s built as a GC and any damage is non trivial to him). Heal at 66% and you’ve just invalidated the next few HeartSeekers. Save your dodges for when your health gets lower (when HS actually starts to matter). If you do all of this the thief should either be dead or out of initiative and running away. Either way he’s useless and should be laughed at.

This is all assuming that you aren’t built as a GC yourself though. If you are, then that’s the first thing that needs fixing.

Any NA servers have balthazar uncontested?

Personally I would just stick with the ruby orbs…you’ll get more from those stat wise then you will from runes typically. Unless you’re going for a specific attribute on the runes I suppose.

Haha…all good points. I play WvW so those were the only choices size wise I was willing to go with. Also, your favorite music playlist running makes up for any vocal deficiencies that race might have. All in how you game I suppose. Good luck with the choice!

Yea, we aren’t really doing ourselves any favors when it comes to dealing with DH the way we are, but getting two whole servers to get into an agreement such as what would be required takes trust and I just don’t know if that’s there. I’d love it if it was though.

Sylvari, human are my two favorites. I’ve never been able to get myself to play an asura for more than 10 minutes but they are popular. I’ve always seen the bigger classes as being a liability as a thief (too large and obvious), but there are probably people that will see it different.

Alarox.4590:

In the future, read the thread before trying to make a sweeping generalization. No post in this thread has anything to do with the above.

My bad, so used to these types of post being complaint (nerf this) posts. Thanks for the tip about the future, I will honestly check myself before I wreck myself from this point forward. If I’m reading too much into the possible tone of your response please forgive me, but maybe be a bit nicer in the future. We all post dumb stuff by accident.

Thanks again. Carry on with the thread, again my apologies.

Every class/profession forum has people complaining about another class/profession. Just ignore them and move on. Typically the threads and complaints come down to them not knowing how to counter a class and instead of learning how to bring the class down they complain for nerfs. I doubt very seriously that ANET takes these threads as reality, because if they were to cave into demands every class would only be able to use a sword, they would have to remove all class traits and utility slots, and every class would only be able to auto attack while being rooted in front of each other.

Chickbits.7164:

I just hit level 80 on my Sylvari Thief and I’m a little overwhelmed and unsure where to go from here. I have about 8 gold and 115k karma. I mainly want to start running some dungeons for armor sets (although I don’t know which ones are best) and I am also interested in wvw and spvp. I’m planning on getting exotic karma armor, but am still unsure which set to get. Is it best to get every piece of the same kind (I was thinking the whispering armor with infiltration runes)?

I was thinking of running this build for dungeons: http://en.gw2codex.com/build/23810-thief-d-p-backstab-build

and something like this for pvp:
http://en.gw2codex.com/build/5225-condition-stealth

Most of my gear is level 70ish. Is it worth spending the gold on the tp for rares or exotics? My leatherworking skill is not very high (about 130).

TL;DR: Don’t know which armor to get now that I’m 80

My first upgrades were my weapons. Those seem to make the biggest difference in over all damage output. But that’s just from casual observation (I’m no mathmatician).

They should build a statue to commemorate his bravery. Maybe put it up in Stonemist in place of the useless NPC in there. Instead of having to kill the lord to claim the keep they should make it so everyone has to /dance next to this glorious statue. :-P

styx.7294:

I don’t mean to alarm you but those people wish us harm!

OMG! No way! I thought we were all friends now since we can’t seem to get enough of each other week after week. I mean there has to be a reason why we are all sticking around in t7 together!

All joking aside the 10v1 doesn’t bother me nor does the dancing/laughing. I take it for what it is and have a good time. I just sit there and hope that maybe I delayed 10 people from an important meeting they were trying to get to. Haha.

Theftwind.8976:

Then again I keep forgetting about the non-aggression pact GoM has with DH. My bad!

Someone please tell the large murderous packs of DH that keep smashing me in the ground with impunity about this non aggression pact. They didn’t seem to get the memo on that one. Hahahaha.

I think the reality of it is that DH has a bigger number and coordination advantage than we do, so when we try to take their stuff we are met with some overwhelming defense at times and we just can’t seem to break through until our night crew shows up. At least that’s the logic I keep seeing in /team chat. So we go where we can get points and often times that means we are pointed in HoD’s direction. I suspect that what is also happening on your side of the fence? Regardless what should be happening is a GoM + HoD alliance to help bring DH down a little bit. As it stands those guys are hard to beat in this tier alone.

Also, I have never had my corpse danced on or /laughed at more than by DH guys. I guess 10v1 isn’t as funny from my perspective (from the floor, haha). Either way despite the loses we keep taking I’ve been having fun with both HoD and DH. However, I will not be sad to see DH go when they finally (hopefully soon) break the magical t7 barrier and head into T6. Gotta love the Glicko system.

Zephyranthes.2715:

Imo, some system that reduces point worth based on the overall population currently playing. If every place is 100% packed, you get full points. If there’s only 10% in the zone because it’s super late at night, you get… some amount less. There would be need to be some balance there to keep the overall point score the same as now, since it does affect the bonuses and such. Basically if all your points come from capping while you have no opposition, you get a good deal less points than you would if you had to actively push and defend during more active times.

A lot of people have proposed similar systems. Something like this definitely needs to be in place. Anet is hopefully paying attention to posts like this.

Yea WvW comes down to coverage and numbers. The only way to really progress in the tiers is to have a decent amount of both it seems. Oh well, T7 is where it’s at anyways…

For dungeons…I would think a Ranger would be better than a thief. You can do some pretty constant damage without worrying about getting smashed every second. When I’m on my thief if I’m not paying very close attention to what the boss is doing then things can go very badly for me in short order.

Yea I’m not sure how it does it either. Sometimes it seems like my daggers hit everyone a lot and other times it feels like it just isn’t hitting anyone. Still an awesome elite skill despite all this though.

Eliyahu.1467:

The whole point of the highly detailed points system is so that we don’t get stuck for a week at a time in the kittenty wvw matchups that your volatile suggestion creates.

It’s no fun for anyone when the only WvW action is a server farming another server’s spawn with 30 ballistas.

Why would you even complain anyway? It’s not like you have to do the math. Just get out there and cap and defend.

How would this proposed system do any of what you said? In fact…if you ask the lower tiers how the current point system is working out for them they will be happy to let you know exactly how the current system is pitting the same three servers against each other week after week after week with the same situations you describe and 0 tier movement. At the very least this new system will allow tiers to move more fluidly based on actual wins and losses.

Now that the free server transfer madness is over with I think this system seems pretty legit. First place moves up one, second place stays in the tier, and third drops a tier. Is there a reason this isn’t how it is?

Blinka.9078:

This is a bug/glitch of thief fade out render. Fix it please. Don’t go on details like “he was using Sneaky attack not unload blah blah”. I say again, he was using BOTH, but that doesnt even matter! Some of you guys are missing the whole point.

Details are key when you’re talking about bugs. Be specific and as accurate as you can be, otherwise be ready to answer a bunch of questions and get nit picked until the picture becomes as clear as people need it to be.

oZii.2864:

Would you really want a matchup fighing a server that you know is going to steam roll you?

Yea, that’s what the reset would have done. Chances are your server would have moved back down to T8 (or close to it) but instead now your server would have been demoralized by the constant and overwhelming beatings your forces were going to take. Trust me though unless you want to have massive culled (invisible) zergs making WvW more un-fun then you’re going to be happier where you are anyways. I’m in T7 myself and honestly WvW gameplay in the higher servers doesn’t look like something I want to be a part of.

If ANet ever makes Zerging impractical, which they said they wanted to do, then I will be envious of the higher tiers again. Until then I’m content to have a more enjoyable experience.

No problem man. Happy hunting.

SQLOwns.7316:

Harbinger.9645:

Since when do we, GoM, roam with DH?! Is this actually happening?

I saw a DH roaming with 3-4 GoM (Tuesday I think?) taking turns capping sentrys and supply camps. Wasn’t sure how to report it or if it was even reportable.

Well if that was happening just know it’s got to be a minority group. I’ve never seen anyone in game doing it and would probably start baiting the two groups into fighting each other if I did.

DH is top dog right now, and for the last few weeks. Everyone from GoM and HoD SHOULD be working against them every chance they get.

Since when do we, GoM, roam with DH?! Is this actually happening?

Just get which ever you like the look of more. There’s no difference besides that as you can put a Rune of the Scholar in the CoF armor.

Orikx.9671:

As for the AoE limits. I’m not sure that removing it would fix the zerg balls. Retaliation is so strong and easy to get via combo fields that you’d just see AoE classes instant explode after 1 AoE attack because they’d be getting Retal from 40 people now instead of 5. Think of the old days when Arrow carts took Retal dmg. They would instant exploded from one enemy blast finisher because they were hitting 50 people.

Perhaps some nerfing to combo fields and/or retaliation mechanics might help with that? It would have to be handled carefully obviously but it could help with Zerging Combo field stacking being too powerful. However, it’s hard to say what can be done about that if anything should be. On the one hand I would say that’s a pretty intelligent counter to AoE and should possibly stay way as long as siege doesn’t take damage from retaliation. Maybe they can make it so you can only take so much retaliation damage at one time thus making it useful in protection from AoE but at the same time not making it instant death.

Okaishi and I are on the same page apparently haha

Having the AoE limit in place is just one example of this game emphasizing superior number versus skill. Having a large group of mentally handicapped people go up against a structure designed to be defensible with intelligent defenders in said structure should end in failure for the attacking army. Our own real life history has many examples of this. Until they stop using kid gloves with GW2 players “Zerging” will continue to be the dominant strategy in WvW.

Some people are OK with this and I would say that most of the people that are OK with it are on servers that have the numbers to field large Zergs. Having larger numbers should in essence provide an advantage, but it shouldn’t be as much of an advantage as it currently is and therein lies the problem.

Thrashbarg.9820:

Server load may also be an issue here. Removing the 5 target cap could doubly (or more) increase the amount of packets sent/received, depending on the situation and how the information is bundled.

Ever been in a 3 way fight in Stonemist where you couldn’t use any skills due to input lag? Let’s up the potential damage calculations per unit from 5 to 200+ and see how that affects large battles……

Anet needs to up their HW if the servers built for WvW can’t handle all that info with relative ease. It’s kind of the point of the game isn’t it?

MiLkZz.4789:

Should stay, in the current way the game works and is being played, aoe without a limit would be 100% OP.

Just get 40 ele’s and keep aoe on the gate, no way any zerg what so ever will get through.

No, the limit is perfect.

Yea because every server has 40 ele’s that are that coordinated on hand, at all times. If they have 40 elementalists doing that then they deserve to hold whatever they are defending. If your server is smart they will adapt to the gate being impassible and siege a few walls (if they really want that keep). Otherwise move on to a new target and keep those 40 elementalists from getting into the new target. It’s called strategy and it’s pitiful how little people think out of the box these days.

Kasama.8941:

…Interesting stuff…

I’m actually extremely interested in trying this out. Would you mind linking your mantra build here? I’ve been toying around with a few but haven’t really locked one down yet. Thanks!

Kasama.8941:

Mantras are a lot better then they look on paper. I bet you the majority of players who say they are bad, simply haven’t tried using them for more then a few minutes. You do not need to create a complete mantra build to use mantras. They work just as well on their own.

This excerpt from your post seems to contradict the rest of what you wrote. Basically, any counter point that someone would have brought up as to why Mantras aren’t viable you countered that by listing a trait you have to take to minimize that deficiency. So, what you’re really saying is (it seems) is that Mantras aren’t viable unless you build yourself around them trait wise.

Kyrion.2749:

Don’t forget to Scorpion-Wire downed oponents into your zerg, thus granting their ultimate demise and the frustration of their revivers.

Hahahaha, that’s priceless.

Hmmm, I hadn’t thought of doing that combo into the middle a zerg…I have gotten a dagger storm or two off and gotten away before but I hadn’t though of signet of malice and caltrops. That’s pretty solid. Thanks guys. I also like the idea of stealthing a few strong melee AoE allies (guardians and warriors) and running into the middle of the pack. That could do some real damage and force them to stop paying attention to the front lines.

Thanks again everyone that should help out immensely to keep the zerg boredom down.

Hey all,

Fairly new to the thief (level 70 something) and still trying to get my legs under me in WvW. Solo roaming I generally don’t have many issues unless I run into a exotic’d out 80 or anything about 2 other players. My question is really what to do in a Z vs. Z situation. I could just spam cluster bomb I suppose, but that’s not really a whole lot of fun. I have tried being tactical and stealthily make it to the enemies back line and harass them but more often than not I wind up CC’d, focus fired, and subsequently dead. This might just be a combination of gear and skill issues. So my question goes out to the exotic’d 80 thieves out there. Does this style of play get more feasible as you gear up, or are you just there for the cluster bomb spam?

Don’t mantras already have an effect for charging. Mine gets this weird collection of symbols and then my character says something emo and dumb and then all the magic symbols fly into my body, and I wouldn’t mind all of this if the kitten thing was worth the cast but in reality it’s pretty lack luster. The defensive spells can be pretty useful particularly the one that grants stability but mantra of pain (the one I am more interested in) isn’t worth the slot of the skill bar. Such a shame.

The first rule about the epic fail is you don’t talk about the epic fail. :-P

Sounds pretty bad though, but we all do stupid stuff every now and then right? Right!?

Let’s also not forget the issue where clones won’t move and attack at the same time. makes it really obvious which is the real mesmer if they are running and shooting the Ghostbuster beam.

Let’s hope that English isn’t the OP’s native tongue.

I started to feel like GoM was in a similar state a few weeks ago, and perhaps we still are, but in the last couple weeks we have seen steady positive progress. Hang in there, this is a very frustrating time in WvW because people abused the free transfers to the point of ruining whole servers. Now that it takes actual investment to move we will see population regrowth on many of them. However, if it becomes too unbearable, GoM would be happy to accept all serious WvW transfers. Best of luck.

Whatever you’re on I want some. I’ve never felt overpowered on my mesmer, definitely have to work for my kills. Granted I’ve only been playing since after the nerf to shattering a while back but I don’t think that’s relevant here anyways.

Hey guys,

I’ve been playing around with a shatter build in WvW. I was wondering if there was a general set of conditions for knowing when it’s a good time to shatter and when not to?

Thanks in advance!

Had a lot of fun last night defending the GoM BL last night. For a while there GoM was finally representing in WvW in such a way that it was refreshing. DH and HoD were putting up some impressive defenses all over the place. Good show everyone!