Guild Wars 2

A cookie jar.
The problem was is that it is too easy to reach (it was on the table).
Community suggested putting jar to a higher place (top shelf).
Devs decided to “shave” down the players’ legs.
To compensate, wheelchairs (and gem shop skins for wheelchairs) were introduced.
The most players still reached the cookie jar easily (since it still was on table).
Community suggested putting jar to a higher place again.
And now devs decided to “shave” down the wheelchair move speed.

Please. We can’t stop you from ruining our game. But at least don’t let more and more people see how it is happening.
When a bunch of people talk about very and very specific changes but unable to point out ANY specific issues and, in the end, openly admit “we don’t know what to do so lets do… mmm…. OH THIS” its just disgusting.

Lul. A to-be PRO ESPORT game.
On one side, devs that are concerned with how fast npcs are killed.
On the other side, people that are concerned with how fast npcs are killed.
And chenges reflect on that perfectly.
Its no longer kitten. It a whole kittening bullcharr.

better go back to playing gw1 it seems

its 10% on top of the conversion to ferocity, no? Ferocity loses another 10-15% on conversion.

119 crit damage into roughly 88.
NOP NOT A NERF AT ALL

I keep more than enough stacks from CnD.
And trash dies too fast to bother.

And show me a place and people where you can dps boss for 30 secs straight with 6k dps.
Personal gain in this game weights much more unless you can specialize on party gain.

I already suggested. Reverse shadow trap! Once triggered, (on activation) enemy shadowsteps towards your location. And blinded. For the lulz.

p/d dual skill spam while hugging a wall with the back into the face of someone in melee has similar effect.
For the most exquisite feeling you can also try d/p shadowshot spam under quickness. It has a bonus of being unblockable and unreflectable

mug is crucial for staying over 90% for scholars on small damage you can’t bother to dodge. And 10% from scholar is a freaking lot of damage

Remove stats from gear.
Separate trait lines and stats.
There you go. 70 points to put into 700 stats.
14 traits to select.
Diversity.
Balance.
Bliss.

I am amazed to realize that after everything that happened thief subforum has the most positive prognosis on crit damage nerf.

Well it won’t be the first time thieves will laugh and cry so hard at same time.

Guys you should stop working against yourself – do not give ANET the impression that it is fine just to “shave” things one after another instead of solving issues and adding real content.

Well this does look promising.

Well, time to get new people to party with. Like after every other balance patch.

I sure hope the time I spent farming to get ascended gear for +2% crit damage will be compensated.

Increasing active boon giving effects range to that of the improved banners, and about doubling that of the passive ones would be nice. ONLY IN PVE.
You know, the most often used phrase from my guild’s raid leader: “spread, but stay stacked”. It does not work when in gw2 with aoe boons having almost melee range.

Traps do not exists.
Just like venoms, they are just there to increase theoretical “possibilities” and “diversity”. Not the actual one.
And yes, traps were suggested for f2-f4-fx movement too. Though they are too bad even for that.

Given PvE and class balance there are just two main PvE party rules.
1) Can’t survive – get one more guardian
2) Can survive – do more damage
Gear and stats on gear in no way may or will affect these two rules.

Zerker required? Lies. When people see my full giver’s engi with 20+ might from me alone 24/7 in combat they stop caring about gear I wear.

Remember, most people (especially who “enjoyed” the same pve content for nearly 2 years now) would much rather finish dungeon faster.
What a non-zerker character means to them? Less damage. And, maybe, inability to play in glass cannon mode. Why would they ever party with anyone like that?
Its written all over the game. “DO NOT GET HIT”.
If you get hit, you are doing it wrong.
If you take stats that reduce the damage you take from hits, you are doing it wrong.
If you take stats to heal that damage, you are doing it wrong.
Since there is NO reason to take anything but damage in pve, why would you?
Zerker is not something op. Its just any other gear is either just stupid in pve (for containing stats that work only when you get hit) or just weak (talking about condition cap and condition damage overwriting).

venoms to f2-f4-fx was suggested first time during beta weekends and was suggested regularly ever since. I does not seems like it will be implemented.

there was plenty hex removal on all of the classes. and blackout was awesome. I run it on my echo/blackout/glimmer mark/illusionary pain ele. That was really fun.

Wtt engi cleave for something decent single-target.

its the variety of the effects that made GW1 aswesome, no? A game where you could kill brainless people by letting them kill themselves. A perfect example of balance.

Same thing I said. Its just what I said would be easier to understand for those it was meant for.
Stability is by no mean a hard counter to CC. The user of CC does not lose because he uses CC on stability.

soft counter is what devalues something
hard counter is what makes it counter productive (eg punishes it)
Its the fact that greatest problems of GW2 is that for almost everything in this game hard counters do not exist.

I have an awesome suggestion.
Do more champion trains and train 1 spamming. Skilled 1 spam helps against stealthed thieves a lot!
Just don’t tell anyone I told you that.

Its the fact that people expect to kill a thief with a single counter (as opposed to making him run away) that makes them think stealth is that strong.
While in reality stealth contributes solely to surprise factor of first attack and, somewhat, ability to run away. If thief is running away consider yourself a winner a get over it.
I still wait for a chance to try all those awesome ridiculously op stealth builds. That won’t happen soon I think, as I still faceroll people with unload spam to the face. Some even manage to complain how I am abusing the stealth I don’t have, evades I don’t have, and all those ragechats about “y u blaend mah hama blou” and the like from people seriously not even bothering to step out of red circles.
I am pretty sure that the ones that complain are closer to them, than to very few of those who actually do know how to play.
Thief is like a cookie jar, but with a lid. Even if you don’t see cookies, you know they are there. You just need some effort to get them.

You know its the people and dungeons that become boring. Zerker armor itself is always fresh and fun.

Scenario C is much less of a scenario, better to think of it as a collection of ideas based on the “meta evolving” or what is it called in English. Its about changing game’s extremes by changing things that would not normally affect regular aspects. Its mostly what ANET balance team pursued in most of the balance changes (though they sadly tend to focus on extremes themselves rather than on things that directly affect them).
Well, here is the list:
1) Cut about 15-20% of stats from gear and move that amount of every stat (maybe a bil shaved on top) to base stats.
Easier to reach some thresholds, less power on gear, easier to choose.
2) Again, separate traits and stats. Chose one stat for every line you invest to, and get how much you invested.
Freedom for players, freedom in trait or whole trait lines switching/changing/remodeling for ANET staff.
3) Skills, traits, weapons, more skills. This is a game. For every player that complains for opness of some new skill, there will be 10 to love it and 100 to thank you for actually adding something. As long as it will happen regularly enough. Don’t be afraid to introduce something new and strong. Just be sure to introduce something to slap it over in the next update. Once we reach over a thousand of skills minor changes to any old ones would already seem like whole new skills. (thats what worked wonders in gw1)
4) Scaling. How about removing on-the-way chests in dungeons (they are not affected by our newly-acquired luck anyway) and instead give a guaranteed rare/exotic at the end? How about a wvw buff that increases scales your every stat for every opponent 5 more than number of nearby allies? Zerg crushed by a single warrior is a good reason to stop zerging when there is no reason to.
5) Customization. Hobosacks, ui, turret ai, combo fields, freaking high shaders without gloss. (last one is really really nasty) You know, in gw1 even armor clipping was (is) getting hotfixed…
6) Mobility and invisible walls. Jumpable (say, up to 3m wide and up to 1m height) gaps should be traversable (by at least teleports and leaps). More leaps with vertical movement. More distance makers (there are like 4-5 times more gap closers with by far lower cooldowns). Please, listen to Newton and remove abrupt speed changes during aerial movement (aside from force inducing cc). Immobilize in the middle of the jump over cliff (or speed drop from entering combat) or jump-shot stop mid-air once the skill distance is reached. Less penalized speed in combat. Especially for things like speed in stealth (since it says 100%) and slick shoes (it does say “very fast”).
7) To sum everything up, including the issue at hand (zerker).
Introduce finally the COUNTERS. Let us (and mobs) bring SKILLS (or effects is thats too hard) that PUNISH something. I am not talking about pbaoe (too much of that we already have) or missile reflection. Let some bosses do debuffs that punish stacking. I am bored of stacking. I want to do dungeons like I did during beta weekends and start of the game. Don’t be afraid to change things (just makes sure changes make something definitely better and not actually worse). Less shaving, more fixing, much more introducing.
8) Just forgot to add: consider replacing (in due time and in small packets of course) all
hidden cooldowns on almost everything with either visible cooldowns or effects that would not need one.

someone got between my 3 posts

And the constructive part:
Its not the “peaks” that need shaving. It’s the holes that need filling and poopiles that need buffing.
I don’t see what is wrong with doing lots of damage (in zerker) to, for example, 40 fractal random boss. It’s debatable, but I can agree with the fact that of being one-shot by ANY non-avoided attack of ANY mob up there. What I don’t agree with is that, for example, I can’t do that on engineer. I can’t play those fractals on engineer. I can’t do anywhere near that damage on engineer. I can’t agree to the fact of my bank being full of ascended rings with not a single needed one ever dropping for me (every single one I wear I had to buy). Not to mention fractal weapon skins I will never be able to wear or sell.
Now, what should be done?
Scenario A (the mmo ideal hard and long-term one, lots of changes involved, though i personally do not favor it):
Start by shaving (very important that ALL of the listed will be affected) crit damage and any on-crit passives, abilities and effects. So people will be less dependant on crit rate.
Proceed with shaving crit rate (solely crit rate) or introducing a REASONABLE CAP. People will come to trading unnecessary rate for other stats. At this point (i mean at the same time as the second step) the combat values on non-player characters should be revised (to less active combat time per target overall).
Next step – separating stats from trait lines. For example, letting any player select ONE stat to benefit from for every trait line he invests into (according to amount of points spent in every line). Now this will be a hard change, but with clear orientation for future limiting the effectiveness of every stat in general.
As previous step suggested, next one is more aggressive diminishing returns or caps on toughness and overall passive damage reduction, and more progressive returns on condition damage and healing power. At this point, classes need to be brought closer together in terms of base hp and one more thing (that I cannot really figure out yet) – conditions to be brought down. Perhaps limit the time and frequency of applying conditions and/or introducing diminishing returns/resistances for them (on per-character basis, so conditions would be then freed of caps in the future).
With some more minor changes, this would result in rather stable, albeit bit gray, overall game-play. Either way, its the one many other projects successfully utilized and proved to work since it is (rarely technically more difficult) rather transparent and less creative (less effort/stable gain scenario favored by many companies). I, as a player am not very fond of it since I by my nature hate the whole unreasonability of “forced” limits on just about everything (that these changes imply).
Scenario B is what they usually call overhaul. I won’t propose anything on this part as it involves in creating something totally new, even if still leaving something in place. Thing is, no matter the effort is will always be half-good and half-bad.

I’ll separate my response into 3 parts. First, a not constructive one.

Unlimited crit rate as a (stat) is utterly worst thing you can do to a game – especially the one that also utilizes crit damage boosts (again, as a gear stat).
Why? Because once the multipliers kick in (rate cap + 119% passive crit damage) there are no options left. I do not know mmo where you could sit at 100% crita rate with 269% crit damage.
But problem of this game is NO LONGER this damage. Problem now is that the game itself, including decision previously made by development staff, focus on that damage.
It is the fact that this very damage represents big portion of the value of the game at this moment that makes me think that addressing solely zerker stats and builds parts of the game would devalue it even more.
I’ll be honest – since the very day I’ve grown disappointed of how this game went I logged in, farmed, played and wasted time on in other ways for just two purposes:
the guild, the people I play with (without those (that already left) I would never even bought the game to start with) and a goal I set for myself in making the glassiest of cannons on both thief and engineer. Practically, the thing that keeps me in game is the damage I can do. And skill that is required to survive with the damage I can do. Without it I would find no meaning in this, already far beyond simple “unrewarding”, gameplay.

Now the almost-constructive part.
Everyone likes to throw around those “you are not forced to play a role, instead you can play any style you want”.
Thing is: you are not “not forced” to play any distinct role. You are merely stripped of the ability to do so. Style is something that is a part of a role. Role is what you do, style is how you do it and how good you are at it.
And in this game there are, at this moment, one role – damage. It is the fact that without damage you can’t do ANYTHING in this game. What variety, what build diversity when there is no goal you can reach without damage and no goal you can’t reach with JUST damage.

Improved stealth (like the one CoE npc gives)?
It ignores revealed and does not grant any stealth-related bonuses

well that what to be expected from a game chopped off from everything mmo designers ever designed to keep gameplay balanced.
There is no need to nerf tankiness. Just something to make sure you can’t bother trying to complete a dungeon with 5 of them.

In this game there is never a PvE situation where tankiness is better than damage. This game is all about avoiding hits – any step you take towards taking or being able to take one more hit is counterproductive.
Though having more transparent agro and hitbox system would be nice. (and some limit to how fast mobs can turn around)

Evades are PART of thief’s survive-ability. Not an additional benefit on top of it.
So before any changes proposed to increase the amount of hits thieves actually take, changes to the amount of hits thieves CAN actually take should be considered.

all effects from shared venoms (or any other effects) come from your own stats

Lets start be reducing the turret hitbox.
Then we can buff turrets by either making them scale or introducing scaling effects and aoe buffs.

if you are fast it is possible to pull enemy into fire bomb + 2 (3 with switch) turret explosion + jump shot + bob.
That is pretty much the only combo with which you can kill heavy training dummy in single-two second burst

Because typical scenario for any talk (including forums, in-game chat and ts) involving engi is:
1) wtflolisthis bug/OPSHEEP/hobosack
2) my kspm is bigger then yours (kit swaps per minute)
3) prybar joke

That sounded like Trap Sharing in trickery 30.

That is what you get for playing the strongest and most op forum class.

For dungeons it is most crucial to learn attack patterns and train yourself to manage your dodge rolls, evades and ranged combat accordingly. Its not about taking something with you, just need to watch and learn. A good start would be to practice dodging with shortbow in melee range. Shortbow 3 is very similar to regular dodge roll and can be used several times too.
The next step would be having a definite set of skills for every boss and/or party. In several cases something as simple as changing healing skill before fight can result wonders.
Some cases might even need trait adjustments.
And first thing you must know and never doubt – it is both absolutely normal and crucial to have all weapon sets available to you in your inventory and switch them around all the time, almost always keeping shortbow on yourself.
Granted you are zerker thief (and no other should be doing dungeons) you will do more damage with any weapon, even shortbow, than any support build or a dead thief with a single set will ever manage.

WTB reverse shadowtrap. Set a trap that once activated shadowsteps enemy (and maybe you) to your (or each other’s) locations. Range 10000.

Back on topic.
Current traps traps were balanced around two objectives:
1) You should not be able to have fun with them
2) Almighty Warriors should be able to cunningly jump over them
Well, it seems warriors did have trouble jumping over them so traps were instead redesigned to not be able to even scratch warrior’s polished armor. And since knocking down even one (unsuspecting aka without stability) warrior is unsightly, traps were limited to one use on a very lengthy cooldown.
There were also issues with filthy thieves using their own traps on themselves (how underhanded) to escape warrior’s righteous fury. So that was toned down as well.
Actually, it is now debated whether tricks as dirty as thief’s traps fit well enough into Guild Warriors 2 definition of fair and honorable combat (PvP, WvW and PvE included) and as such should be soon considered for removal.

last time i checked heartseeker did not include evade, block or invulnerability. You can just stand in your own aoe as ele and thief will be down by the time first heartseeker lands since thieves do not have block (you do), invulnerability (you do), protection (you do) or, as a matter of fact, any proper OWSHEEP trait (you still do).

If you are at 20% health, heartseeker WILL be used on you. If you survive one heartseeker – it will be used AGAIN. And again. Since there are no other options. At all. Repeated usage of best available option is not equal to mindless spam.

1) add trait: when dual wielding pistols, reduce initiative cost on all abilities by 1.
2) add the following functionality to “10% more damage with pistols” trait: your vital shot deals double damage but does not apply bleed

Lets not go into negativity and comparing. Lets focus on trying to make this game better.

Rat Token
Double Click to use. Adds a permanent Rat critter to your home instance.

Oh yeah, 80% nerf is before considering real situations where it can be a 100% nerf.

Link you provided does not consider the Opportunist. The very thing this thread is about
Compare:
1 initiative. 50% on hit. 5 sec cooldown.
1 initiative. 30% on hit. 1 sec cooldown.
At some point (with high enough hits/second) this is a 80% nerf.

Take an example: a very frequent situation for me – a lone P/P-Shortbow zerker thief against staff-gs dire/soldier mix guardian.
Well, I have superior mobility, so I am more likely to both notice the guardian first and attack him before he uses pre-buffs or changes utilities.
So what do I do? First attack is obviously vital shot followed by immediate unload or straight unload. Means you either choose to get aegis off and land as many hits as possible before he reacts, or go for as many hits before reaction as possible with the delay between 2 unload shots (first of which take aegis off) being much smaller than delay between vital and unload.
After 1-2-3 hits in dodge comes. First mistake they make as unload outlasts dodge and usually at least last shot makes it in. 2-4 hits in. Alas, 2-4 crits in. New opportunist is at 75%-93.75% chance of refunding us with 1 initiative. Old opportunist has a 51%-76% chance of recovering at least 1 initiative, and 9%-26% of recovering 2 initiative. Even considering that old one can proc twice, new one is better due to the higher proc chance.
BUT. The new one gets 3.75-5 seconds cooldown (depending on which of the crits procced it). While old one has, in worst case scenario, a 1 sec cooldown with 21% chance. 79% chance to have 0 cooldown.
Tecnically, we also regened 1.31 initiative with old regen or 1.75 initiative with new regen.
Old so far: 1.31 initiative with 49-23% chance or 2.31 initiative with 42-50% or 3.31 initiative with 9-26% chance (with 2-4 hits). If guardian does not dodge its 7-8 crits and considerably greater chance on initiative return. (22-23% for 2 and 69-71% for 1 initiative). And a around 50-10% for a 0.22-1 second cooldown.
New so far: 1.75 initiative with 25-6% chance. 75-93% chance for 2.75 initiative. And 3.25-5 sec cooldown. If we get all hits in? Same 2.75 regen, same cooldown.

OKay, continue on combat simulation. Guard took only 2 hits. At the end of dodge, he either charges me with gs. I cannot allow myself be hit and even more so to get a dire burn on. I dodge (0.7-1 sec lost). At this point the actions of guardian usually decide the outcome and how fast it comes.
There are 3 rather acceptable variants, but most go for closing in again on foot. This comes with unload (at least 4-kittens) to their face at which point old opportunist and old regen win by far. Once they make it into melee I usually pop pistol 5, forcing them into retreat and switching weapon to staff.
What the difference? With old opportunist and old regen there is a decent (70%-ish) chance I will be able to use one more unload at this point. With new things, there is 100% chance that I will not.
And this unload is the most important one – at this point guardian either dodges or takes enough damage to start blowing the cds.
If I don’t have enough for unload – guardian is most likely to spend some of his time buffing might (Which i will be forced to interrupt (if i am lucky enough to not get into aegis at the point) and waste whatever was left of my initiative).
To summarize:
Option A forced guardian into defensive mode (where difference in initiative regen for thief is neglible).
Option B forces thief in defensive mode (most likely going into shadow refuge and retreating for a while). Alas, either thief does not care about ini regen (long retreat) or he will not have enough of it no matter how buffed it is (for option without st and with shortbow defenses).

by my own experience: It takes ridiculous effort on zerker thief (especially P/P) in wvw to actually at least force into retreat things like tanky guardians/rangers, wont even be mentioning mesmers and warriors running nothing but defensive utilities.
Not even because of the amount of defenses they have – much more so due to the fact even being in tanky gear they destroy clueless zerk thief in seconds.

There has never been a time I won against those because I was a thief or gear (only 2 ascended accessories, rabid green back, rare rings). There were times where I was saved by shadow refuge – but that does not count as offensive move.
Its just I can’t even take initiative major traits or vigor major traits against them – otherwise no matter how good my survival is I can’t even damage those.
Now out of these changes:
Permastealth – I did not use use and just as well never considered it to be a problem when it was used against me. There wasn’t a single case where such a thief defeated me 1 vs 1, I would even consider myself dangerous to them due to unload channel and black powder blind. I can see where the frustration (and the rightful nerf) is coming from, but to be honest – with currently avaiable both SPvP and WvW objectives – permastealth in no way affects balance. So-to-say – this change is more casual player base oriented rather than some pressing balance issue. Still, I don’t care.

Second change: the cast time of IR. To be honest, I dropped S/anything the very day they started destroying it so this change does not affect me much. And I won’t ever consider S/anything a viable main weapon set until at least dual skills start working and doing something. Remember, PW got nerfed year ago because of its synergy with quickness? Guess what, quickness was nerfed after too, but PW never got its damage back. Even more so, PW got hit every balance patch even more.

Well, and initiative changes. As I stated – with update we will get more initiative by doing nothing. And we get a lot less initiative and vigor from traits. Well I don’t take initiative or vigor majors anyway so who cares. But for what reason do I get obligatory nerf on obligatory minors? I mean ANET comes and claims that we are held hostages by minor traits we CANT choose. So opportunist is getting nerfed because every power thief has 30 in critical strikes. Kleptomaniac is getting nerfed because… its a 5 minor trait? Or what reason?

I can’t understand. I specifically wait for my enemies block/invulnerability/evade to end, for them to blow their dodges so my unloads will land on them, crit on them, proc traits on them. And now my reward for being able to land a whole unload on a target is being taken away. Why am I being forced into blowing my initiative away into a trash can just so I can benefit from the new initiative regen instead of working hard to benefit from my own traits?
This is not as much of a change to thieves as much as it is a buff to the any and all defensive abilities which, for some reason, thief is the only one to not possess.

Other classes need only to wait for the moment when using skill A would be more beneficial.
Thieves need to plan ahead and make decisions in line “if I use ability A, will I be able to use ability B when I need to?”.
EG, in any given situation other classes can individually consider every skill in their @rsenal to be worth using or not. Thief must consider all skills at once before using any.

Do take note, when a thief misses with skill, he must wait before he can use ANY skill again. If someone else misses the skill, they still have a whole lot to choose from.

all the constructive feedback was already given and not replied to.
So we are waiting for some enlightenment from our devs. Whether those are some answers or “thread closed”.

No.
The base idea for whole initiative idea is that you can have low initiative regeneration when you don’t need it (outside combat) and more initiative regeneration when you need it and willing to do something for it (like when actively attacking).
Base initiative regen works 100% of time. Out of all that time I spend around 10-15% of time actually using initiative.
Initiative from other sources (namely opportunist) works only when you are far more likely to need it, eg during attacking.
We get a 33% buff to initiative use 15-20% of time.
And 60-50% nerfs to initiative we gain only when we need it.