Guild Wars 2

Hm,

I had like 3 Stacks of Bandit Crests and much less Geodes … when I open my new wallet I have 1 (!) Bandit Crest in there (as opposed to the expected 600+) but I have 648 Geodes which I most certainly never had …

Thanks for the invite – I kind of forgot to put this in my application – can someone please change my guild rank from NA student to EU student because I’m on a EU account, thanks.

Rangers in dungeons are not very welcome – no matter how well you play People look for guardians, warriors and eles mainly … 2k AP might still get you kicked a lot of times, no matter the class …

Haven’t been into dungeons much (so far) and our Guild activities are more WvW so an invite would be nice to get – maybe I’ll take a liking to those dungeons then instead of grinding weapons, armour and tokens via PvP tracks

Several items are not salvageable. That includes items you get from the personal story, items you can buy from karma vendors and items you can buy from WvW vendors. If you don’t want to use one (especially since any rune/sigil would be unretrievable) the only use I have found for those items is the mystic forge …

Combine 4 items of equal rarity and you’ll get a random new one which is then sellable or salvageable. Sole exceptions are the WvW items – you cannot even mystic-forge those.

Well … one might want to add that the “perfect” class for you also depends on the game modes you enjoy. PvE is usually done with max damage builds whereas team based PvP and WvW (roaming or zerg battles) require different builds and this is where some classes have more versality than others.

The elementalist, for example, will do nicely as a roamer with a dagger/dagger melee build which is also viable in team based PvP and roaming in WvW. In Zerg battles, however, Eles are usually rare and thus more used to be water field generators that Guardians and Warriors will blast to generate AoE healing. Dagger/dagger, however, is a melee playstyle that is very different from casting big damage spells from the rear. You can do pretty well with a staff in PvE because monsters like to stay in place but in PvP or WvW their attack is too slow to be effective against moving and evading targets (but Eles are among the best to clear the walls in a castle/tower in WvW)

In this regard the Necromancer is of more use in my opinion because with marks and wells you can do quite high damage from max range – minion masters, as in GW 1, are not really viable in GW2 although you can play one in PvE (they’re pretty useless in WvW and PvP).

In regard to the above post that did list a lot of possibilities there is one thing lacking: Warriors are very good condition removers as well – that’s why Zergs usually have a few shout warriors with them – heal + condition removal.

Another question is how much time you have to play and whether you prefer to get things close and personal or to fight from a distance.

Thief, Engineer, Mesmer and Elementalist require more time to learn to play, Elementalist and Engineer more than the other classes because of Kit-switching or Elemental-Attunements so that you have to learn what to use in what order and when which skill will be ready again to swap to.

Range depends on the weapons a class can use and the distance those weapons can “cover”:

Ranged classes: Ranger (doh), Elementalist (staff), Necro(staff), Warrior(bow, rifle), Engineer (with rifle and grenades)

Semi-Ranged: Elementalist(sceptre), Guardian, Necro (scepter), Thief

Melee-ish: Elementalist (daggers), Guardian, Warrior, Necro, Thief, Mesmer

Mesmers (if you go for big damage means shattering your illusions and that’s best done when as close to the target as possible)

So … just start playing

A hammer train with 80% heaves will find itself in a TIGHT spot against a heavy train with 60% hammers and 40% damage backliners

The main problem from my point of view is that they have no intermediate titles as in GW1 – just think about the Luxon/Kurzick track … lots of intermediate titles between starting out and Saviour … why only all-or-nothing in GW2???

Nods – a server wide TS is a nice thing to have, especially if you cannot field full maps everyhwere

Well, the trick is to clog up the waypoints so that you can actually DO something. A T3 wall/door takes a bit of time to tear down. If the defense Zerg appears after a minute you’ll have barely made a dent in it

One word of warning … if you buy the cheapy armor with badges (or weapons) … those are one way tickets. You cannot sell, salvage or mystic forge those. So I wouldn’t buy those if I was to put expensive runes/sigills in there …

TyPin.9860:

How about just limiting ACs to line of sight (LoS calculation only done in horizontal plane). Like I can sometimes look around an object and place my blink there, but the blink doesn’t actually go there but stops at said corner. I use ACs rarely, so I don’t know if limiting to LoS would make them unusable.

It would probably allow you to use an AC behind a door only when said door is open … which might be a tad late

Sorry guys if we aren’t much of a challenge during prime time at the moment … just last evening more than half of our Zerg got hit by extreme lags (there’s a big thread about this in the German forum) and it’s really hard to fight when your commander and the enemies are jumping all over the place and it’s even harder when eles say “waterfield down” and your hammer skill needs from 3 – 38 seconds to finally activate …

Hope that things will be a bit better during the week or that ANet, their provider and Telekom finally get their kitten together and can work out a solution.

wullxz.9574:

@HtFde: I get the feeling you have some kind of blurred view on what’s the situation. I’m on WSR myself and what I observed is this: you have a lot more players than we do and can afford to have scouts in every keep and almost every tower. If one of your structures gets attacked, your scouts apparently message their friends and our rather small attack groups (in case the attack group isn’t a guild raid group) gets overrun by at least double the manpower that we brought.
Also, apparently there’s enough players on DZ that it actually is possible to build and maintain (retag) siege which isn’t really possible for us to do.
Yes, WSR has a rather good nightcap in comparison to DZ but starting from about 7 to 8 am german time DZ outnumbers us almost everywhere.
The fights you put up though aren’t really based on skill or commanding but on blobpower. Especially in EB there’s always a big blob of publics running around (30 – 40 I guess). In a WSR 1:1 DZ or 1:1,5 or sometimes even 1:2 situation DZ zergs lose against most of our guild groups of about 15 ppl from what I’ve seen.

A few days back I even met some guy from DZ in pvp who also said that DZs success is mainly based on manpower and outnumbered fights. He also said that WSR always puts up good fights. So I guess that your view of things is not exactly right.

I only play home-defense and on EB – I play from maybe 19:00 German time earliest to like 1am latest … so this is the window and locations I can describe with no knowledge of what happens on the other borderlands and at other times.

As I already said … we dominated the matchup number wise until about 22:00 – from there on WSR had WAY more people (maybe UK because they’d be playing at 21:00 from their point of view)

As for scouts … we change them often and we usually have 2 in our third on WB – homeland is a bit more chaotic, so I can’t say for sure. Some people like to camp for hours at hills or bay.

Night tag – that’s obvious if you have UK players. They are one hour behind – same thing in the morning – we get up earlier than them but when we’re at work they can still play and recap what we did from 06:00 – 08:00

So if you have been playing during early morning and early night only you did indeed get a very accurate impression of DZ dominance. A few hours later, though, you’d have found the situation reversed.

sandvich.8259:

Prysin.8542:

Wall of text

Think about where a warrior usually stands during a fight (PvE) and think about a RANGE-ers usual position. So mathematics ftl in this case.

I’m not going to go back and forth with you or anyone on this. Rangers need adjusting.
Anet buffed them too much.

I have Ranger and playing WvW is like shooting fish in a barrel. Plus I have at my disposal some of the best survival, lock down, mobility and escape abilities in the game.

You must be running a strange WvW on your server then … where I play LB rangers – unless they run as backline in a zerg – are cannon fodder. As for your RANGEr vs warrior … we seem to be getting the rifle warrior back …

Aeolus.3615:

“Adjusting” is a fine word.

So let me try to understand, LB ranger makes same damage when close to his target and far way right?

Except for skill 1, the damage of which is distance dependent.

ViperBruiser.3852:

i dont get your point for wvw

the problem is that 1 power gives u by far more dmg than 1prec/fero does
1 meele blob with full pvt is nearly impossible to kill due the massive tankiness and 5 players cap. a full zerker blob is BY FAR less tanky than the pvt one. zerkblobs will do ofc more dmg but they will drop instantly while the pvt will survive the spike while doing decent dmg.
note : im talking about blobs (50+)

Also valid for smaller blobs as long as you’re above 10 players and are not outmanned 1:3 or more, in which case damage distribution matters little …

coglin.1867:

Johje Holan.4607:

Why you ask does a good zerg have 1/3 Guardians or tons of PVT Guards and Wars?

To deal with the power creep!

In my experience, guardians value comes from AoE stability, AoE cleansing, and a very low cool down blast finisher on hammer.

Never forget empower and the group speed buffs + staff 5 for blocking non-stabilized opponents. For AoE cleansing I actually prefer shout warriors …

Johje Holan.4607:

HtFde.3856:

Otokomae.9356:

Gryph.8237:

So DPS spike classes (thief, mesmer, warrior, and some eles) prosper why classes that can’t do the massive spike as efficiently suffer.

So why are the zergs in Tier 1 made of at least 1/3 Guardians? Lots of guilds won’t even enter WvW to raid until a minimum number of Guardians have logged on! Also, most groups are using at least some of their Eles for healing and support, and Mesmer is generally a support class in the big fights in WvW as well.

Are you specifically talking about 1v1’s you’ve had in WvW or something?

Exactly that! A “good” Zerg has a ton of PTV Guardians and PTV Warriors (many of them shout build). Zerker are usually those eles not being responsible for water fields and Necros and Rangers. Thieves … usually in a Zerg also toughness build for stealth-finishing.

Many public (or PUG) Zergs are comprised of PvE players participating with their PvE armour and builds and they’re quite often the first to eat some dirt and provide rallies for downed enemies.

Why you ask does a good zerg have 1/3 Guardians or tons of PVT Guards and Wars?

To deal with the power creep! They have to run these classes/builds to not get destroyed by the attack.

I only say that half in jest. I’m aware the hammer train has existed since early on – I think it may have been started on my server.

The main reason you need them is of course that there’s no dedicated healers. And without a Monk, the offensive classes/builds would eat everyone alive without some kind of defensive class. A class which can also share its defensive aspects. And you need a lot of them to make up for no straight up healers.

That’s partially true – it depends what the enemy Zerg is composed of and how they are positioned. If they have a small backline but a large frontline you’ll have to play differently than when they have a large backline and only a small frontline.

I admit I was (and still am) totally against ascended weapons/armor and – even worse – buff food. But even if you’d take that away and revert to exotic stuff only, remove those applied strength and fortitude buffs and completely erase all types of buff food … you’d still be facing the fact that 20+ players will do A LOT of damage if they focus it on one spot.

And … be glad there are no dedicated healers. I’ve run my monk in GW1 and dynamic things like FA were HELL to play. Dedicated healers only work well in PvE where a tank can take and keep aggro or in smallscale PvP. I’d hate to play a monk having to deal with 30+ “party” members – and even if you’d have me manage only 5 … if my 5 survive but the other 25 die … will it make an impact that my 5 are still alive … ^^

Bubi.7942:

HtFde.3856:

… and Whiteside .. well, they do have a big Zerg with WvW and TASH but unless they’re 2:1 in numbers they usually show you their backsides and running skills

Uhm… what? Are we playing the same game?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR0CQoak5jE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcUT7ETzX6Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqDzKRM2cQg

First two videos are defending a structure not open field encounters which is what I was talking about. Last video … I have to watch this at home in full screen to see if that was a public mini zerk you encountered or not. If it was public there is no reason to be proud of farming players that have no communication (usually 1/4th of our publics go on TS and 3/4 for some unknown reason do not) with a group 2 mesmers and 1 thief – specially near Golanta with all those nice NPCs to hide in and to make sure you can’t be targetted when you become visible again … can’t read the guilds tags unless I am home … are you from OTAN – the loved to farm at that location with a thief/mesmer/engi or thief/thief/mesmer or thief/thief/engi team …

The Scars of Time.6324:

I have only ever been on Whiteside Ridge, so can’t compare to higher tiers or accurately judge other servers around us (e.g. DZ thinks we outnumber them while I always thought they outnumbered us).

Giggles – and both are right

It’s the curse/benefit from being a country specific server that has only one time-zone. When we come, there’s a lot of us – when we’re at work we don’t have compensation.

So from 17:00 CET to 21:30 CET DZ did outnumber WSR. 21:30 CET to 22:00 CET we were about 1:1, past 22:00 CET WSR fielded more people and from 23:30 CET we often had the undermanned buff while WSR was still able to field rather large groups via WvW and TASH.

We have about the same situation in our current matchup so we lose almost everything over night (less than 10 people on a map defending against 30+ Zergs – usually 2 of them against different objectives) but from early morning on to early evening we can reclaim and upgrade.

As for active WvW population … as long as ANet does not provide numbers or re-posts the current queue-over-time diagrams … we can only guess. All I can say for my side is that at prime time we might get a queue on EB that rarely surpasses 4 people in it and no queue at all in any of the other borderlands.

Marpo.8695:

As a WSR rallybot i second what Bubi said. Really DZ moves only in zerg and runs from anything else if not vastly superior in numbers (3vs1 and up). More than one time they turned away if a tower was defended by one (1) regular ac…

It sure depends on at what time and in which borderland you play. During my runs in EB we sometimes camped in front of WR spawn with 23 people and – according to my screenshots – against 30+ enemy players – and killed them, killed then, killed them.

I am quite sure, however, that at other times the situation might have been exactly reversed.

If you take a look at the points we scored in our encounters (and still score in our current matchup) you’ll come to realize that your statement cannot hold true – you just can’t get as many points as we did by running ONE zerg and running away if there is one AC inside a fortification.

In addition to that we dont have many large WvW guilds so many of our players are ‘publics’ and I really doubt that our more organized guilds will run from a single AC

Otokomae.9356:

Gryph.8237:

So DPS spike classes (thief, mesmer, warrior, and some eles) prosper why classes that can’t do the massive spike as efficiently suffer.

So why are the zergs in Tier 1 made of at least 1/3 Guardians? Lots of guilds won’t even enter WvW to raid until a minimum number of Guardians have logged on! Also, most groups are using at least some of their Eles for healing and support, and Mesmer is generally a support class in the big fights in WvW as well.

Are you specifically talking about 1v1’s you’ve had in WvW or something?

Exactly that! A “good” Zerg has a ton of PTV Guardians and PTV Warriors (many of them shout build). Zerker are usually those eles not being responsible for water fields and Necros and Rangers. Thieves … usually in a Zerg also toughness build for stealth-finishing.

Many public (or PUG) Zergs are comprised of PvE players participating with their PvE armour and builds and they’re quite often the first to eat some dirt and provide rallies for downed enemies.

gennyt.3428:

I think he has a point though. Zerg fights in GW2 are a lot more forgiving than small man stuff, the biggest culprits are the rally system and the AoE cap. Melee sticking on the driver and cycling stab is pretty basic at this stage I should think. In small fights your build and team coordination must be tighter. Stab isn’t going to save you from focused burst or condi bombs, while in a zerg it negates a lot of bad stuff happening to you.

To some degree yes – but if you ever had the misfortune to run into a VERY organized Zerg (my nemesis has been an encounter with [SO]) and your 30 man Zerg get’s more or less insta-wiped by a 20 man Guild Zerg … not really forgiving. The whole encounter took maybe 20 seconds

In addition to that in a smallscale fight you can evade, you can spot and try to interrupt/evade telltale skill animations …

So .. all fighting modes 1 vs 1, 5 vs 5 and Zerg battle have their advantages and disadvantages, require different team compositions and builds and provide specific challenges.

zinkz.7045:

HtFde.3856:

Zerg battles in WvW do require skill …

But not much…

Unless you think for example not having to decide your positioning (in any meaningful sense) as a melee and having your “driver” decide it for you takes skill.

Or that running in the melee ball where you have stability up most of the time covered by numerous boons that renders what should be one of the strongest aspects of PvP play – hard CC, a total joke most of the time.

and so on…

Ah … but having stability and boons up most of the time is what makes it tricky. Most enemy Zergs we fight somehow lose their stability and other nice boons rather quickly in exchange for a lot of conditions

Well – we left Vabbi and Whiteridge two weeks ago and got up one rank but Whiteridge and Vabbi were pretty active when we were still fighting them, though Vabbi has always been at a disadvantage number-wise. Both Whiteridge and my server (Dzagonur) did outnumber Vabbi significantly in our prime times.

Zerg fights … when I was playing (mostly on EB) I never met a Vabbi zerg outside of one of their forts (but, boy, they LIKE to defend their towers/forts with hand, tooth and nails) and Whiteside .. well, they do have a big Zerg with WvW and TASH but unless they’re 2:1 in numbers they usually show you their backsides and running skills

Whiteside has a few very good roaming teams – usually from OTAN and Vabbi has had a few running as well though I didn’t encounter them personally so I can only conclude their existance from the camps that changed colour.

Gryph.8237:

So what you get is zerk wvw and who can do the most damage as fast as possible, versus skilled play.

Ahem … you’re so wrong with this …

(a) When you talk about roaming condition builds are (except for a few classes) MUCH better than zerker builds – especially when you expect to not only encounter NPCs (camp flipping, dolly killing, etc.) but a few 1 vs x encounters with players.

(b) In a Zerg fight NOONE but SOME backliners run berseker if you want to win and not get your Zerg wiped. And as for lack of skill … commander has to have the right classes with him in the frontline, has to do some nice movement to get to the backline and the whole Zerg must be on target with stuns and other cc, null fields + damage followed by regroup and heal via water fields. If executed in a decent manner you can easily defeat a Zerg twice your size if that Zerg is uncoordinated and you could possibly wipe a Zerg three times your size if they were all using berserker gear.

Zerg battles in WvW do require skill – don’t take EoTM Zerg fights as a reference – the bigger blob will always win there because you have 3 un-coordinated Zergs fighting each other with tons of upleveled people, non-complementing builds, lack of communication, etc.

In borderlands Zerg fights can be much more difficult – especially when a large public get-together-and-come-as-you-were Zerg encounters a much smaller but highly organized guild Zerg. I’ve seen 20 people roll through about 50 – with ease.

Thanks for a reply in the German forum – it does not solve the problem but it’s better than weeks of no-response which is poison for customer relationship management. Even a lame “We’re are aware of the problem …” is better than no response – at least for a while.

Coronit.9432:

There were some rifle-warriors in wvw because of the latest patch. At least on Drakkar.
Man, Dzagonur must be emptier than I thought (it was empty when I left it a year ago).

It’s not a matter of how full or empty Dzagonur is but what your opponents throw at you because rifle warriors on Dzagonur don’t attack me … and the opponent that fields a lot more players than Vabbi, Whiteside, had this thief fetish …

Coronit.9432:

What the hell of mesmers are on your matchups? There must be somthing like skill to miss a shatter on a “RUNNING” (dodging?) player O.o

Do you play a shatter mesmer? If you run S/P you usually know what’s up when the bullet hits you and have 1 second to react before things go boom. Apart from that it’s pretty essential that all 3 clones and the mesmer are in range when they’re shattered. If you run with the 33% movement boost that almost all Engineers have a 100% uptime of the clones or the mesmer are usually a bit away from you and need to move a tad before they’re “in range” + time to see the clones/phantasms and use wrench kit 4 or use rocket boots. And quite often the mesmer runs into one of my dropped bombs – depending a bit on what bomb that is that often saves me.

When playing a Memser I usually do not go after Engineers when they’re in kiting mode. Too much effort to get close enough and usually much easier targets around (0% movement speed vs 33% movement speed is a pain and I don’t blow blink for that)

Maugetarr.6823:

HtFde.3856:

Maugetarr.6823:

HtFde.3856:

I kinda have come to dread statements like “you can see the animation winding up” – in sPVP maybe – in WvW when yur’re fighting against 1 or 2 opponents … you might be leet enough to fight and still maintain a 360° awareness – I don’t. So I cannot see the thief doing his oh so obvious animation while I try to deal with an enraged guardian, warrior or whatever … blame it on me then …

Wait, you’re already fighting versus one or two people so a burst class comes in and finishes you. That would happen with virtually any group of 2 or 3 that decided to focus you down. Especially if you’ve blown cooldowns in that fight. If you can have 2-3 people jump you and survive without cooldowns, then that class would be OP, not the thief.

Even when a thief gets focused, they typically blow 2 cooldowns to escape.

I never made the claim that I was leet enough to handle 2-3 people (of equal skill) while fighting like that. If we’re having this whole argument on the fact that you can lose against 1v2+ burst people attacking you, burst (and auto attacks) across all classes would have to be severely reduced in damage.

Oh … 1 or 2 people is peachy with a bomb engi – you run a lot It’s just that you have to see where they’re headed, how far they are behind and where you can get out of LoS again … so a “Hello there!” visit from a thief is a bit of problem where even a normal 3rd player wouldn’t be as long as I can see them and choose my pathing (unless, of course, they come directly from where I am headed but this is a rare occurence like when deeply in enemy territory)

Mesmers are another issue but they usually have a problem to land the full attack on a running Engi so they’re better survivable, even if they approach from stealth.

…..Maybe we should take a look at the survivability of bomb engi then, hmm? Or maybe, just maybe, thief was supposed relegated to single target spike/harassment in group battles where builds have a peachy time surviving up to 3 people attacking them simultaneously.

Tsk – you can do the same with any class that can “drop” the damage skills like a necro or a trap ranger. You just gotta run, run, run, evade – use the terrain to your advantage. If you stand still or engage in open and flat terrain you’re dead unless you run away.

Maugetarr.6823:

HtFde.3856:

I kinda have come to dread statements like “you can see the animation winding up” – in sPVP maybe – in WvW when yur’re fighting against 1 or 2 opponents … you might be leet enough to fight and still maintain a 360° awareness – I don’t. So I cannot see the thief doing his oh so obvious animation while I try to deal with an enraged guardian, warrior or whatever … blame it on me then …

Wait, you’re already fighting versus one or two people so a burst class comes in and finishes you. That would happen with virtually any group of 2 or 3 that decided to focus you down. Especially if you’ve blown cooldowns in that fight. If you can have 2-3 people jump you and survive without cooldowns, then that class would be OP, not the thief.

Even when a thief gets focused, they typically blow 2 cooldowns to escape.

I never made the claim that I was leet enough to handle 2-3 people (of equal skill) while fighting like that. If we’re having this whole argument on the fact that you can lose against 1v2+ burst people attacking you, burst (and auto attacks) across all classes would have to be severely reduced in damage.

Oh … 1 or 2 people is peachy with a bomb engi – you run a lot It’s just that you have to see where they’re headed, how far they are behind and where you can get out of LoS again … so a “Hello there!” visit from a thief is a bit of problem where even a normal 3rd player wouldn’t be as long as I can see them and choose my pathing (unless, of course, they come directly from where I am headed but this is a rare occurence like when deeply in enemy territory)

Mesmers are another issue but they usually have a problem to land the full attack on a running Engi so they’re better survivable, even if they approach from stealth.

Jana.6831:

HtFde.3856:

I kinda have come to dread statements like “you can see the animation winding up” – in sPVP maybe – in WvW when yur’re fighting against 1 or 2 opponents … you might be leet enough to fight and still maintain a 360° awareness – I don’t. So I cannot see the thief doing his oh so obvious animation while I try to deal with an enraged guardian, warrior or whatever … blame it on me then …

Can you see a rifle warrior sniping or using eviscerate on you in that situation?

Rifle warrior – no, last time I’ve seen a rifle warrior … must have been a few months ago. Eviscerate – probably because warriors do not come out of nowhere, neither do elementalists channeling earth 5 and using air 4 to deliver it.

The situation might be a bit worse where I play because, as I said before, about 30%+ of our enemies play thief – usually in groups of 2 thieves, one not-thief like Engi or Mesmer.

Dante.1763:

This sounds like a problem with Telekom and while Arenanet can sure switch providers, who says that the new one wont be worse? Another game i play swapped servers after a year of complaining from the players, and the new one has turned out to be worse lag wise than the old one.

Telekom is Germany’s biggest provider. So quite naturally there is more bandwidth that goes from ANet’s hosted EU servers to the Telekom backbone than any other single backbone. There are some packet loss analysis results posted in the thread and it looks to my like the coupling isn’t sufficient to handle the traffic. This has been an issue before – about a year ago.

Now with the new extension around and the season to end it seems that many players returned to GW 2 so that we run into the same problem again.

I am aware that this is not a thing that can be solved overnight but 2 weeks without any feedback and a completely unplayable game for those affected (which is a strange phenomenon because it’s not just an overloaded node – there seems to be some “smart” capping going on because some people, who use the same route as I do can play without issue while I can’t or vice versa) is not really something that motivates people to spend more time with this game or even buy the extension.

Hello,

for more than two weeks many players who use German Telekom directly (or a provider that uses Telekom’s infrastructure) are experiencing extreme lags that make the game completely unplayable (we’re talking 10 – 30 second lag spikes). There is a topic on this in the German forum:

https://forum-de.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Lag-Probleme-Sammelthread/page/128

Since there has been no response to this for two weeks now, things are getting a bit toxic. It might be a good idea to have some official feedback on this issue.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

HtFde.3856:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Hello, I’m a Thief and I hate Stealth — Not because it’s OP, but because it is a bother.

1) To require to stealth just to backstab someone is a stupid mechanic. It’s not like your target’s back simply disappears when you’re not in stealth. It should be that when I position myself at the back or at flank, the backstab bonus should trigger — automatically. In addition, all sneak attacks should have this same no-stealth-required mechanic.

2) Stealth ruins DPS for SA builds. To get the maximum benefit from SA, the Thief must stay in stealth for the duration while in the mean time not contributing to the team. Often times, stealth is used in combat for the reason posted at #1. It’s a bother and no one really uses SA for this very reason and if the Thief would want to maintain a high DPS they have to stay away from SA. Shadow Arts shouldn’t have to revolve around stealth, it should instead improve shadowstep skills.

3) Revealed is a bother and it is because of stealth. Not only that reveal denies stealth but it also cuts the effectiveness of many skills that Thief uses for survival. For instance, Hide in Shadows. This skill suppose to heal and protect the Thief. However when revealed, its effectiveness diminishes only because stealth cannot protect the Thief from receiving further damage. It would be more effective if the skill shadowsteps us away just like Heart of Shadow from GW1 instead of stealth. It would serve the same purpose.

I have been complaining about stealth for a long time and I am not a supporter of this mechanic. I do accept however that this is a defense mechanism, albeit a horrible one, but there are times that developer have to reiterate and reboot a profession.

Oh my … another spin doctor. While there is some truth to what you say you neatly leave out:

(a) Extra damage when you do a flank attack (if traited so)
(b) Extra damage when revealed (if traited so)

So there’s nice compensation for being revealed or to just execute one autoattack chain from the side/back .

What’s your point? The extra damage doesn’t eliminate how annoying and bothersome stealth is. Stealth is an unnecessary requirement to gain access to certain ability like Backstab.

Yet another ignorant who thinks that Flanking Strikes and Revealed Training are great traits. sigh

Not great but it’s a nice sugar for when the thief misses …

I could play devil’s advocate and interpret your post as “OK, I want backstab without stealth” but I kinda read it more like “Thief class should be reworked” and that’s a point a I could agree with

Stealth exists in a couple of games but usually it’s more balanced than in GW 2 where they packed just too many goodies that are available at the same time. I much prefer approaches where you can perma stealth but have to “survive” detection checks and where stealth is broken once you engage and cannot be regained until you’re out of combat.

Of course … this would mean a thief would have to be viable when out of stealth for the rest of the fight – a situation that is currently not happening in GW 2.

Maugetarr.6823:

HtFde.3856:

Maugetarr.6823:

DarkSyze.8627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

DarkSyze.8627:

yolo swaggins.2570:

DarkSyze.8627:

So you are say thief can not spam? i can show many evidence of thief spam from other thief player. I experience thief spam every time i go to wvw and spvp; so what you say, i do not know what spam is? Initiative is not excuse for thief class; every class should have same punishment and same consequence when not play good; no excuse.

This is why nobody is taking you seriously:

You say “evidence” and then say it should be nerfed due to said evidence, but you do not show any evidence that you’ve played thief to the extent we have. Focusing on a small part of the thief’s issues without factoring in the other problems that are keeping the original problems from being solved shows that you are ignorant to all of the problems revolving around thief. It shows that you do not play thief and have no clue what you are talking about.

And if you had ANY idea what you were talking about, you’de know that no amount of vid and thread spamming will change it or our minds. Deal with it and git gud or don’t and git out.

Example; do you have to be in hospital to be sick? So because i do not play thief class; i do not know what thief class is? I am ignorant for not play thief class? so you say same as example; because you are not in hospital; you are ignorant? It do not make sense.

That’s a horrible analogy.

Just because you’re a die hard NASCAR fan and have seen all the races, you still remain ignorant of what’s happening behind the wheel.

Those drivers, just as those Thieves, make what they do look easy.

I stand by my analogy; i am not ignorant. Ignorant mean- “lack of knowledge and training” ; http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ignorant What lack of knowledge i have; i experience thieves all time in wvw and spvp. I have thieves in party, guild and server; zerg. Last; lack of training; i experience thieves in spvp; training game mode. It make no sense what you say about me be ignorant.

I experience and know what stealth is; arena net did not invent stealth! arena net did not invent thief class, arena net did not invent mobility, teleport, evasion, dodge and critic damage. You think i am new to mmo game; ask me before you call me ignorant; not hard; very easy.

So again, just because i do not play thief class, it do not make me or any not thief player ignorant.

Suggestion; You need to be careful of using that word; adjective word of ignorant is stupid, idiot, imbecile. It can get you in serious trouble.

Knowing how something is done and being able to do it yourself are completely different things. There is time and experienced involved. You are inexperienced in how to use a thief and it appears that you die too quickly in fights against them from your posts to gain experience fighting them. That is why people suggest that you play one yourself, so you can see the other side of the coin, learn the setups and strategies first hand, then take that to your main once you know how to counter them.

There is no counter but sheer luck against a macro’ed CnD preload, Steal + Backstab. Luck as that a nearby guardian grants Aegis, luck that some blind happens and affects the chain, luck that you happen to move or dodge someone elses attack and thus mess up the thief’s attack …

Outside of sheer luck the combo will land and – especially if you’re fighting someone else and have already lost some life – it’ll most likely be deadly.

You can actually see the animation for CnD winding up before the steal or you should dodge immediately after the steal hits because they have cast it late.

You can pop a block against the backstab if you miss dodging the CnD.

You can simply turn around and take the 1.2 coefficient to the face also. 1.2 also happens to be the same coefficient as necro auto attacks on dagger. Warrior has a 1.4 on double and triple chop as well as a 1.5 on the final hit of triple chop (1.5 is equal to a midrange heartseeker). Lightning whip has a 1.4 on the hit pairs. The single target burst is meant to bring thief up to other classes’ sustained damage in trade for defensive boons, cooldowns, and AoE bursts.

I kinda have come to dread statements like “you can see the animation winding up” – in sPVP maybe – in WvW when yur’re fighting against 1 or 2 opponents … you might be leet enough to fight and still maintain a 360° awareness – I don’t. So I cannot see the thief doing his oh so obvious animation while I try to deal with an enraged guardian, warrior or whatever … blame it on me then …

Maugetarr.6823:

DarkSyze.8627:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

DarkSyze.8627:

yolo swaggins.2570:

DarkSyze.8627:

So you are say thief can not spam? i can show many evidence of thief spam from other thief player. I experience thief spam every time i go to wvw and spvp; so what you say, i do not know what spam is? Initiative is not excuse for thief class; every class should have same punishment and same consequence when not play good; no excuse.

This is why nobody is taking you seriously:

You say “evidence” and then say it should be nerfed due to said evidence, but you do not show any evidence that you’ve played thief to the extent we have. Focusing on a small part of the thief’s issues without factoring in the other problems that are keeping the original problems from being solved shows that you are ignorant to all of the problems revolving around thief. It shows that you do not play thief and have no clue what you are talking about.

And if you had ANY idea what you were talking about, you’de know that no amount of vid and thread spamming will change it or our minds. Deal with it and git gud or don’t and git out.

Example; do you have to be in hospital to be sick? So because i do not play thief class; i do not know what thief class is? I am ignorant for not play thief class? so you say same as example; because you are not in hospital; you are ignorant? It do not make sense.

That’s a horrible analogy.

Just because you’re a die hard NASCAR fan and have seen all the races, you still remain ignorant of what’s happening behind the wheel.

Those drivers, just as those Thieves, make what they do look easy.

I stand by my analogy; i am not ignorant. Ignorant mean- “lack of knowledge and training” ; http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ignorant What lack of knowledge i have; i experience thieves all time in wvw and spvp. I have thieves in party, guild and server; zerg. Last; lack of training; i experience thieves in spvp; training game mode. It make no sense what you say about me be ignorant.

I experience and know what stealth is; arena net did not invent stealth! arena net did not invent thief class, arena net did not invent mobility, teleport, evasion, dodge and critic damage. You think i am new to mmo game; ask me before you call me ignorant; not hard; very easy.

So again, just because i do not play thief class, it do not make me or any not thief player ignorant.

Suggestion; You need to be careful of using that word; adjective word of ignorant is stupid, idiot, imbecile. It can get you in serious trouble.

Knowing how something is done and being able to do it yourself are completely different things. There is time and experienced involved. You are inexperienced in how to use a thief and it appears that you die too quickly in fights against them from your posts to gain experience fighting them. That is why people suggest that you play one yourself, so you can see the other side of the coin, learn the setups and strategies first hand, then take that to your main once you know how to counter them.

There is no counter but sheer luck against a macro’ed CnD preload, Steal + Backstab. Luck as that a nearby guardian grants Aegis, luck that some blind happens and affects the chain, luck that you happen to move or dodge someone elses attack and thus mess up the thief’s attack …

Outside of sheer luck the combo will land and – especially if you’re fighting someone else and have already lost some life – it’ll most likely be deadly.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Hello, I’m a Thief and I hate Stealth — Not because it’s OP, but because it is a bother.

1) To require to stealth just to backstab someone is a stupid mechanic. It’s not like your target’s back simply disappears when you’re not in stealth. It should be that when I position myself at the back or at flank, the backstab bonus should trigger — automatically. In addition, all sneak attacks should have this same no-stealth-required mechanic.

2) Stealth ruins DPS for SA builds. To get the maximum benefit from SA, the Thief must stay in stealth for the duration while in the mean time not contributing to the team. Often times, stealth is used in combat for the reason posted at #1. It’s a bother and no one really uses SA for this very reason and if the Thief would want to maintain a high DPS they have to stay away from SA. Shadow Arts shouldn’t have to revolve around stealth, it should instead improve shadowstep skills.

3) Revealed is a bother and it is because of stealth. Not only that reveal denies stealth but it also cuts the effectiveness of many skills that Thief uses for survival. For instance, Hide in Shadows. This skill suppose to heal and protect the Thief. However when revealed, its effectiveness diminishes only because stealth cannot protect the Thief from receiving further damage. It would be more effective if the skill shadowsteps us away just like Heart of Shadow from GW1 instead of stealth. It would serve the same purpose.

I have been complaining about stealth for a long time and I am not a supporter of this mechanic. I do accept however that this is a defense mechanism, albeit a horrible one, but there are times that developer have to reiterate and reboot a profession.

Oh my … another spin doctor. While there is some truth to what you say you neatly leave out:

(a) Extra damage when you do a flank attack (if traited so)
(b) Extra damage when revealed (if traited so)

So there’s nice compensation for being revealed or to just execute one autoattack chain from the side/back .

DarkSyze.8627:

See thief now and compare with past 2012; what plenty of nerfs? I want you read this; http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/guild-wars-2-are-thieves-and-mesmers-cause-meta

Very nicely worded, I must say.

And this is only looking at it from the sPvP angle and leaves out the group stealth issue and the hiding-in-structures issue, both of which are more or less WvW exclusive issues.

Ario.8964:

DarkSyze, your “solutions” just lost you any sort of credibility you had.

As for the initiative argument, As Yolo said it’s a global CD for the entire class. With other classes, if you have skills on CD you can swap to another weapon and have more cooldowns to use. With thief, if you blow all you ini you are without any weapon skills until you get some more which can mean your death because you are stuck in the open and are a free kill for anyone for a good 6-7 seconds.

You’re leaving out the bit where there’s those skills that are not weapon related and are tied to the standard cooldown mechanism. So a heal + stealth (if you didn’t pack the signet or Withdraw) + blinding power and/or shadow refuge and shadowstep, wich is usually on the bar will give you initiative independent stealth + gap opener with 6 seconds and more of stealth so that regain enough initiative to either continue the pressure (most often by using shadow return) or to use SB 5 or whatever you have available to disengage.

Initiative is a very tricky mechanism, especially since it regenerates at a rather high rate even without attacking. You’re only in deep … kitten … when you’ve blown your cooldowns already and then run out of initiative as well – something that doesn’t happen very often to an experienced thief unless he’s caught on the wrong foot which does happen from time to time ..

Jana.6831:

HtFde.3856:

Jana.6831:

You can’t kill a zerg with 3 people * shrug* and that was my point.

ponders – 2 hammer guardians + 3 superior arrow carts and fully trained … how big a zerg? ^^

Yeah, you’re the man! Now you only need to kill one single glassy thief and you’re good =)

If the thief appears in the portal … no worries

Jana.6831:

You can’t kill a zerg with 3 people * shrug* and that was my point.

ponders – 2 hammer guardians + 3 superior arrow carts and fully trained … how big a zerg? ^^

Maugetarr.6823:

The “no other class can [something ]” arguments really fall flat. Every class in this game can do something unique. Also, considering they removed the ability to CnD off walls in keeps, and now it is back, either it’s a bug that you should report, or they thought there was enough counterplay with stealth disruptor traps, arrow carts, sic em, and utility goggles.

I am afraid they thought that … they made the new dailies and the NPE … yes, I think they could really think so … that you have to pack class specific counters now instead of generic counters. When, oh when, will we get skills that’ll block ranger only attacks/skills … never happen, right … but, of course, we need to pack something against thievs and please don’t say “But rangers and mesmers can stealth as well” – they can, but I’ve never used Sic’em on a Mesmer …

Stealth Traps are useless when the thief wants to remain hidden. As long as they have NPCs and walls and gates to stealth from they’ll never bother attacking a player. So stealth traps only work when you place them at a wall break before the enemy rushes in or when you decide to play thief bait against a thief who actually wants to fight.

In all other situations it is 10 mats wasted, especially since you can’t plant many stealth traps to cover a bigger area …

Jana.6831:

What people meant is that a perma stealth build sacrifices the survivability of thieves, we can be invisible for a pretty long time without speccing into it, true, but as I said, we aren’t invulnerable in that time, so you’ve got to use your brain to catch a thief – that goes for mesmers as well.

You lose a lot of damage, yes, but when your main intention is to remain hidden in the keep/tower to solo-cap it when empty or to revive teammates then stealth and not damage is your priority. Since we can now retrait “on the fly” all you need is a few moments out of combat. I actually preferred the old way of talking to the class trainer (cost removal is ok, though) because some classes prefer benefit more from this and on-the-fly retraiting has made dungeons even less appealing than before.

Jana.6831:

Edit² and the mesmers also have the advantage that they can portal, so once the mesmer is discovered he can put a portal down, jump out and port the zerg in, happened more than once.

Portal is a very powerful thing and I guess there’s at least half as many posts about mesmer portals as there’s about thieves and stealth. Catch is, though, portals are visible, make a sound and can be a very bad experience for people using it because your enemies will know exactly where your zerg will appear …

Jana.6831:

It’s simple: What I said was true: once you know the thief mechanics you don’t need 3 guys to kill him. Sweeping after a cap is always a good idea and there are all kinds of classes hiding in towers as all of them can solo towers, depending on their skill level.

I am a thief myself and have capped around 30 towers solo, I hid in few of them, I usually used a cata to open them, sometimes a treb.
That a mesmer is easier to catch is your personal opinion.

Want more arguments? Because all we’re doing is running in a circle – you don’t like thieves, we get it, you haven’t figured out their mechanics, we get it, but well.. too bad, I guess.

The “mechanics” is to hit a door or wall or heartseeker through their smoke field or backstab those silly NPCs …with a big enough structure they do it as far away from a player as possible. And that’s why you need either a ranger with Sic’em or a nicely placed stealth trap or … lots of people.

Your claim that “once you know the mechanics” is just a strawman’s argument. The argument about mesmer is perfectly valid as a mesmer – depending on build – has 3 main options to stealth (veil, decoy and mass invisibility + torch if carried) and one teleport (blink). All skiles have cooldowns which means the mesmer has one chance to get away and hide until his cooldowns are gone or he is dead.

A thief can stealth much longer by much more means and has way more gap openers.

Some people will now say “Oh, yes – but that requires a build for that that is not combat viable” … another strawman’s argument. When I enter a keep when things look shaky at best I usually hide from the very beginning, retrait and change weapons and play the hiding game if things go wrong because my main focus is to hide and possibly revive a memser and not to fight so my build is perfectly viable for what I am doing.

Ario.8964:

Sorry I haven’t responded in a bit, got a little busy with life and didn’t really find a reason to post back as most people are just being ridiculous with their claims.

@zinkz
Ok, you seem to think you know everything there is to know about this game and balance, so tell me:
How is stealth OP? And don’t give me the useless answers that people spam. I want specific evidence, reasons behind it that I haven’t already addressed previously specific to gw2. And don’t create the overused situation of “1 thief keeps stealthing himself and we need 20 people to fight him” because that really has no merit at this point. And, because you claim to know what is OP and what isn’t tell us how you would balance the situation we are in.

Have fun! I look forward to seeing what you have for me.

I’m not the one you wrote to but I’ll jump on the train anyway. Stealth is especially op in a tower/keep as the thief is able to stealth off walls and gates allowing him to stealth far away from enemy players so you need a lot of players with untargeted AoE skills to get rid of one.

We can discuss stealth being OP or not with a thief who wants to fight. But it is a completely different story with a thief who just wants to remain hidden. Add the infernally bad downed state and resurrection mechanism this game has and you’ll know why a living thief poses a threat until the last enemy corpse has finally been force respawned.

Jana.6831:

HtFde.3856:

Well – yesterday we had to flush out a thief from Klovan and there were 3 other players with me and … for the first 2 minutes we never saw him but for the little black cloud. Finally understood his pattern and layed out a bit of AoE and forced him do gain stealth somewhere else and this actually made him appear for a second or so which was enough to get rid of him.

Congrats you learned how to counter a thief. Do you still want to claim stealth is op or do you realize that you have to figure out a pattern to get to him like with every other class? (Get through Aegis, evade Evicerate, deal with clones and so on).
I was told that it’s rather hard to cheat in this game and I do know of a hacker, I’m pretty sure that I’ve met someone who’s using scripts but other than that; it’s easy to claim someone is cheating – it’s a bit harder to understand the mechanics of the game.

You didn’t read my post, hm? Imagine a mesmer in a keep … imagine any other class than thief … 2 minutes in there? Hardly! And then in a keep you need many people with untargeted AoE to get him down and … Aegis doesn’t work on doors and walls which provide stealth when hit.

So, sorry – yes: Thief in a keep/tower is nothing but a troll class and the perma stealth allows that stealth and, yes, it is OP compared to any other class – including a mesmer – who you want to flush out of a tower/keep.

Prysin.8542:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQFADDlsWxiDLctGYPoWHAFwZztDGBfbBA-TJBFwACuAA12foaZAAPAAA

This is how you set up a ranger for max LB damage. Rune of Pack give 2% less crit chance then Rune of the Ranger, but offers 175 more power, this power in turn bumps up your damage more then the added ferocity from ranger runes.

Correct DPS rotation is: RAO, Signet of the Wild, Quickening Zephyr then use Rapid Fire. End result should be around 13-15k max on the heavy golem, upwards of 17k on light golem, depending on how lucky you are with critical hits.

OK – I was thinking of something more viable … this build – gotta test the damage output – looks like it’s a gonan melt the minute someone starts throwing things at you – which happens a lot, at least to me – so I actually prefer something with a bit of survivability.

Extra Damage from flanking is nice if your target is unaware of you or running away …
might be worth testing …

I kinda miss piercing in there … useless against single targets but oh-so-nice in zerg situations. Shame we cannot have range/damage, piercing and velocity speed – sigh.

The nature magic traits sound like they’ll improve your damage (kiind of overlooked that) but the price you pay – 0 in wilderness survival – is it worth it? If you were in a group with a guardian … might be worth testing how survivability turns out.

Signet of stone is what I run too but you can’t convince me to pack any of the others. I need entangle, I need “Sic’em” because we usually run into a ton of thieves (sometimes I think 1/3rd of our enemies runs thief) and I most certainly will not use QZ over Lightning reflexes – I hate it if I win but get downed a second later.

Thanks for the build – I’ll test how shifting a few points will work out …

Prysin.8542:

8k is low for RF on heavy golem. If you set up correctly you should hit for 13-15k at max

Go on – explain to me how to “set up properly” then … I was running:

6/4/4 (I,X,XII – IV,X – III,IX) – Berserker Amulet and Rune of the Ranger – Berserker Weapons and Air/Fire Sigil in the LB.

Which gives: 2,158 Strength, 53% cc and 200% cd

Against the heavy golem this never surpassed 8k in 20 attempts. I’m really curious how to boost that up by nearly 100% … (not counting fury, might and such, of course) (even using warhorn for might I usually end up a tad over 6k in 12/20 attempts and only get close to 7 or above in 8/20)

Chairface.9036:

To an experienced player stealth is a get out of jail free card. One class can stealth over and over again, all throughout the fight, none of the other classes can, I have to call that overpowered as in not balanced for competitive play.

Again GW2 is the only PvP I’ve ever seen that allows constant stealth once your in combat. Wonder why people say its OP as in not balanced for a PvP game mode? They must have played just about anything else in the MMO PvP genre.

Well – and this is not even what it was at the beginning. You could stack stealth ad infinitum – we had a lot of fun stacking more than a minute and waltz into the enemy base fortress and scare players there … it took ANet a while to cap stealth so that you could no longer gain minutes of it and – sigh – they added the “teleport out of enemy spawn” feature.

In addition to that thieves could cap/decap/cap-freeze while being stealthed. Not that much of a problem in sPvP – you know where the thief is because the capping circle is really tiny but a big problem in WvW.

I admit I did sometimes troll – I loved to climb the ladder in the NW camp, sit up there and prevent recapture – sometimes the group below gave up on recapping because they never figured out where I was …

At the moment I would not say that thief is OP in sPvP – he’s pretty strong in a deathmatch map but when you need to cap … there’s better classes with better team synergy. In WvW though …

I was actually pretty … angry … when I realized that ANet did not have different skill sets for PvP and PvE- It took them ages to finally split the skills depending on game mode in GW 1 and only after endless complaints in the forum because Izzy broke yet again a PvE class for his oh-so-precious PvP balance.

Add to that the scaling problem of ascended gear + buff food – another step ANet took I don’t think much of – and you have a very unbalanced game mode. So PvP is ok – you have the same rules for everyone (bar the runes/skills you need to unlock but, hey, that’s motivation) and WvW remains an unbalanced mess. To start sorting that out I’d apprechiate if ANet would split the skills in PvE. sPvP and WvW versions so that they could tune initiaive cost, damage, cooldown, etc. per game mode. In PvE against high end, upscaling monsters you need more damage than you need in WvW.