Guild Wars 2

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Jana.6831:

To help the OP to cap camps (because that was their question) – even that isn’t rocket science :P

The OP was asking for the “best” build not the “fast” build. The “fast” build is not always the “best” build and the “best” build may not always be the “fastest”. The term “best” implied that it’s capable in most scenario, which means including other player(s) trying to defend it. You can’t really Dagger Storm your way into the camp when a player is defending it, thus that is not the “best” build or strategy for that matter. Thus this thread contains posts from different perspectives, approaches, and builds. Not rocket science, just an Asura Strategical Simulation.

That’s a bit nit picking, isn’kitten and I can daggerstorm into a camp even if there’s a player defending it – and in that case the question should’ve been “I want the best build for capping a defended camp”.
ETA: For the best build for D/P rest of wvw: get the build from metabattle. But remember that you need aoe damage for camps.

To make it simple: The best build to cap a camp is full zerker because camps are PvE. The best weapon to cap a Tier 1 to Tier 2 camp is SB, T3 would be S/P – again in full zerker.

Any more questions? And I would’ve left the forums for good if anyone had answered me a genuine question like “well if it’s defended then you better roll berserker warrior”

ETA: “Well then why don’t you leave? you see we’re pros and you’re not – a female player can’t play, we all know that!” – because you guys have no clue about D/D and constantly try to ruin it.

swords show up 30 s after you attacked (until it’s bugged out lately as I didn’t pay attention to it – give me a few mins)

ETA: Jepp 30s after you first attacked or have been attacked.

To help the OP to cap camps (because that was their question) – even that isn’t rocket science :P

That wasn’t the question and capping a camp in 1 min is too little time for most players as they’re rarely standing around waiting for a roamer.
And in even in that case: SB/staff + D/P or whatever your favourite set is good enough to do both.

ETA. Just saying because you make it sound far more complicated than it actually is and the OP is obviously pretty new at wvw – no need to confuse them.

And I’m not completely helpless, even with D/D. I deal with not being able to kill 2 or some classes like berserker – but in that case I have bliding powder and shadow refuge to run.

And that does make sense: I have often been the only one from my server who was online for several hours. When I started solo roaming I used my new skill to solo cap camps to go onto a 6 hours camp capping marathon. The other server tried to get 695 PPT, so I had at least 3 groups of 5 chasing me over all maps – they never got their max PPT.

That is more fun to me than to analyze how to kill npcs to have the most fun while at it :P

Then show us: topic of this thread: “How to cap a camp the fastest” :P

Now I feel stupid – I run into camps, daggerstorm them, blast until only 2-3 are still standing and then switch to D/D – takes me ~30 seconds (+29 s for the ring (stopped the time, I think 24s is for when more than one are in the ring). Fully upgraded camps are a tad harder but by far not hard as they used to be.

And you guys sound as if it’s a science!

I take a bit over a min total (with ring) to cap a camp with my D/D SB thief – that usually isn’t enough for anyone to show up and stop me. I’ve perfectioned the mind games where to go next back in the day and that would still work even with sentries who give me away. I can avoid enemy players perfectly fine.

Anyway: My thief carries all weapons thief can use with him, I can swap them after taking a camp.

Before June last year camps were way harder to cap (npcs were tougher because they forgot to nerf the wvw mobs when they introduced ferocity and nerfed all other mobs – they fixed that last June). But even then Metabattle had a video of a guy who solo capped a 200 camp (which took me several minutes) in “under fourty five seconds” (+24s when the ring is up) – he used: Smoke Screen, S/P, thieves guild. Personally I would still use Daggerstorm but I’m a die hard fan of that skill as you all know.

ETA: My zerker thief is the fastest to cap camps, unsurprisingly. But only by 1 or 2 seconds.

And btw (to not derail this thread and to make it clear although I’m repeating myself) :

I’m still not ok with the delay/ICD – in a 1 vs 1 it might be okay, but not in group play where people use CC and are running around like crazy.
And it really feels wrong: I’m forced to wait stuff out (block block block, cooldown, block, passive block, cooldown and so on) in “this action loaded game” – well ok then, why don’t we play chess?

Me to warrior buddy in wvw: “Can you please stop leaping into this group of five? (2 warriors, one guard, one mesmer, one necro) I can’t help you much there”
He: “But it’s so much fun and they’re (server xy)”

And he actually managed to be a pain in the kitten for them and downed quite a lot of them quite a few times while I tried to play ninja nurse for the most part but I couldn’t deal with the massive AoE damage.
Warrior (in wvw) might be the most OP class this game has ever had. Scrapper before was bad, tempest was bad, mesmer/chrono was bad and druid still is bad but warrior beats them all.
It might be that there’s more than one bug to this class which lets them perform better than they’re actually designed to – granted.

So yeah, we’re all in the same boat but thieves are just worse off.

Please remember what happened the last time something was made baseline…

Yeah well, since I accidently became a thief.. My 2 thief buddies: “Jana, you should really create a thief!!” "Nah, I’m good on ranger (need to save your butts in PvE on my bearbow anyway) (and that’s no lie, one of them recently: “Ohhh I miss the old times, you on your ranger….”)
I didn’t want to be an assassin, but it would be nice if thief would make sense again: Ok, we’re squishy, then at least give us our stealth back. Ok, we die in one hit, then at least give us our damage back – and that’s why I said a balancing team would solve the issues I have with thief. The role was pretty good until forced reveal, stealth given to other classes, burst of other classes got out of control and so on.
If I really and truly wanted to play an assassin I would play a different game.

OH sword would be nice, yes. would have been nice to get revs shiro as an elite which was probably planned anyway but PvE folks wanted a new class.

That sounds a bit as if you’re looking for a new game.
My dream thief: Old SA, all bugs in game gone, a balancing teaming consisting of 9 specialists who actually play the game and know what they’re talking about: All my problems would be solved.
I forgot that the reveal skills of other classes should be gone too and the stealth attack cooldown should be reduced to at least 0,5 seconds or gone entirely.

Yuffi.2430:

@Jana: Eight months ago when linking was first suggested there was no indication that guest servers would not have their name displayed or that they would not gain any score.

It never was, yes, but wasn’t it kind of obvious that at least the latter would happen?
Same to the identity thing. If you merge servers there will be a mix up and a loss – it’s very hard to design it otherwise.

Yuffi.2430:

Just out of interest – if it was not a third of players who were on the “guest” servers – what proportion would you estimate?

I’m on EU, things are bit differently over here. We still have blobs in even lower tiers and had that before the “merge”. I’d say maybe a fourth or even less.

Yuffi.2430:

I saw the thread about bandwagoning. It happens because players are competitive and many want to be in the top tiers. These players will transfer if they can because they perceive the top tier as being better.

Again, that is EU – things are differntly on EU – look at how the standings switch every other week.

Yuffi.2430:

Combat doesn’t have to be balanced all the time. In fact being outnumbered can bring a server together as they fight to overcome the odds. The problem with being outnumbered is when it happens for months (literally).

It is a problem if bigger = better. Again, I have told this story at least 20 times: I have been on IoJ, we were outnumbered 24/7 and managed to rank up 9 ranks within 2 or 3 months. It didn’t matter that much that we were outnumbered. People then left because of different reasons.

Yuffi.2430:

A fresh start gives all players (and guilds) a chance to influence the success of their new server. Players will transfer, servers will rise and fall just like we’ve seen since launch, but there would be plenty of fights, and positions to fight for, as the new servers jockey for places in reset tiers. It would in effect restore the element of competition across the wider range of servers.

I don’t think so. You have to take into account that all of these changes make a lot of people quit, so you sacrifice a good portion of the playerbase for your new idea how to save wvw and in the end combat is still frustrating, there’s still “bigger = better” and people will still quit.

Cynz.9437:

Actually, more like: every time you try to log on your thief or make one you get pop up message: WE DO NOT WANT YOU TO PLAY IT. REROLL!!! NOW!!!

The stealth attack cooldown was brought to us because they wanted to bring thieves into PvE raids: I have been asked to run venomshare in a raid, said that it’s useless and that I’d have to give up my damge modifiers if I’d take SA, since might has been taken out of SA a year ago. They could’ve fixed that but instead chose to heavily nerf VS and make it baseline and punish us with the 1 s cooldown. I’d be surprised to see any thieves in raids now. The whole HoT mess is because of PvE. And they never come around to think of balance in pvp/wvw. Or if so it’s always thief who’s teh bad guy. At some point we will only be allowed to run with offhand weapons since there’s not much left to nerf anyway.

Yuffi.2430:

For those of us who fight for server pride and loyalty, being on a “guest” server is not motivating at all.

The problem with linking isn’t the actual idea, it’s the way it was done. Removing the “guest” server identities has alienated a third of the player base

Do I really want to force everyone in the game to make a new WvW choice? Well, yes actually, as long as it really is everyone. The players on the “guest” servers have seen their identity stripped to appease the players on the “top” servers. Now I’m simply suggesting everyone is treated in an identical manner… this is fair to all players.

Anet are aware of the total number of players and can create a sufficient number of servers for us.

I get that being a guest server must be annoying. I don’t think it’s a third of all players and a lot of people have demanded a solution – it was your turn to speak up against that ~8-5 months ago.
Our current guestserver forms a guild on their server – they’re trying to become independent again which might not happen, but being in a guild might help to build up a server community. I kind of guess that players might actually solve this very problem themselves.
But of course, there’s far more problems to this current systems.
Quite a lot of people, also from bigger servers didn’t wnat the merge. If you’re reading this forum you might have noticed a thread “how to stop bandwagoning” – that was from someone who’s on a server that never has guest servers – so it looks as if people are transferring to get the identity thingy back or to avoid being grouped up with people they consider inferior.
Now we’ve got the next problem: People complain about being outnumbered at the one or other time – if combat were more balanced this shouldn’t really be a problem. And we’ve got another problem: People aren’t npcs – the wvw population constantly fluctuates, there is no “we set the numbers, people chose and everything will work out”.

I guess DrD D/P is in a good spot.
Oh, forgot that we’re talking about different game modes *shakes fist at bogus balance

Let me rephrase: DrD D/P is in a good spot in wvw.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Jana.6831:

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Jana.6831:

Even 4-5k on 5 enemies every 5-6 seconds isn’t too bad and I guess most people in a zerg don’t do more than that.

4-5k mauls (without extra buffs) means glass vs glass, which isn’t very realistic in zerg fights (especially not in the frontline). 2-3k crits would be closer to reality.

Go soldier’s with rune of the pack.

To enjoy 1-2k hits? I prefer a zerk/valk/cav setup, which has better dmg than full soldier and without OS maul rarely hits for more than 3k unless the target is glass and has some vuln stacks on it.
You are right that ranger isn’t designed for zerg fights – and the pet mechanic + the resulting low weapon dmg is one reason. Doesn’t mean, ranger needs more dmg – it would be unbalanced for 1vs1/small scale fights of course, where at least a few pets can be usefull.

You get the base power with soldiers. No ferocity, granted – you’d get that with valk – but you were the one crying that you would have to go full glass – soldier’s isn’t that much worse – I have 3 full zerker thieves (2 with runes of the pack, one with scholar), 2 valk/zerker (pack and hoelbrak) and 1 soldier’s/zerker (with rune of the pack) – they’re not that far apart. My main is valk/zerker with rune of the pack and it’s working fine – I can only dream about 2k+hits in a zerg (with some exceptions). Maybe thief should get more damage.

ETA: My thieves all have zerker trinkets. My ranger however is pretty much full soldier’s as far as I remember – and even he crits.

Ok, thanks.
And yes, it probably will, but I don’t know if D/D really needed to have a higher skill floor (I always mix ceiling and floor up, you might cry NOOB if I just did that again).

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Jana.6831:

Even 4-5k on 5 enemies every 5-6 seconds isn’t too bad and I guess most people in a zerg don’t do more than that.

4-5k mauls (without extra buffs) means glass vs glass, which isn’t very realistic in zerg fights (especially not in the frontline). 2-3k crits would be closer to reality.

Go soldier’s with rune of the pack.

I’ll try again: Class balance in GW2 is kitten for now more than a year – it became absolutely worse with the elites.
The way ranger is designed makes them rather unsuitable for zergs. Other classes have the same fate, it’s not just rangers. Ranger is a class that makes people lazy (I know because I’ve been one “Dodge? why would I dodge? See I have a trait that lets me do more damage if I don’t!!”
Ranger doesn’t lack damage but utility for especially zerg fights. And well pets could be redesigned to probably dodge – but that might kitten up small scale/roaming.
I guess that’s one of the things you just have to live with, just like I live with being a frontline thief who’s always grouped up with all other thieves who are faaar away capping camps = no boons for me. Doesn’t matter.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Jana.6831:

Even 4-5k on 5 enemies every 5-6 seconds isn’t too bad and I guess most people in a zerg don’t do more than that.

Maybe that used to be the case but have you tried running a hammer rev?

“They are OP I WANT TO BE OP AS WELL” – no argument, is it?

The “could” was missing, and since I already experienced the numbers – it was easy to misunderstand how it was meant.
Anyway: The 10k+ maul setup is with LB vulnerability and some other stuff, yes but that doesn’t mean that maul would do more damage if it weren’t for the pet, it means that you can add extra burst to it. If the base damage were increased I truly would be hit with 20k mauls. Even 4-5k on 5 enemies every 5-6 seconds isn’t too bad and I guess most people in a zerg don’t do more than that. Adding more and more damage to a class that is already borderline OP makes no sense.
And please don’t forget that the pet constantly does damage as well (@apharma) that’s why it’s counted towards the rangers DPS.
ETA: And if the pet can’t survive in a zerg, then it’s the class design but not because ranger lacks damage. And that was my initial point.

You yourself said that you have 10k mauls and in fact I’ve been hit with 12k mauls (but that was a while ago).

Jim Hunter.6821:

Dropping 10k+ mauls on 5 players every 5 seconds while providing heals, condi clear, group stun break, and cc would be enough that rangers wouldn’t be shunned from zergs.

There you go – remembering isn’t one of your strong skills, eh?!

ETA: Just leave it at that, pls. I like you but I don’t get why you become so narrow minded when it comes to ranger – and the next post might be a post in which you explode yet again and I won’t take that.

ETA²: Ok, I get this was a misunderstanding: I have already been hit by more than 10k mauls, so to me this is already reality. You say though that this “could be” reality. I would have to run ranger to see for myself – but I’m afraid I don’t want to.

Jim Hunter.6821:

I’m saying it should be doing 10k+ when you are heavily invested in power and you are might stacked. Right now you’d be lucky to do 4k in a zerg fight. Rangers have to run gimmicky builds that require popping several cooldowns to deal decent damage with maul. Stuff like activating SotW, SotH, and having a remorseless opening strike ready, and that’s if your opponents can’t dodge the biggest telegraph in the game….. I mean a 3/4 second attack with a big kitten bear animation…. thanks anet.

So your complaint is that you have to go tanky to survive in a zerg and then do less damage?
I’m really afraid of the things to come: rangers/druids are already unkillable in wvw it might even become worse – because rangers always feel they don’t do enough damage!!!!

Jim Hunter.6821:

Nothing really harder about the other weapons. Main hand sword could work in a zerg, it would allow you to bring off hand axe which would work fairly well or warhorn for an extra blast finisher. It’s main problem is although they fixed the weapon so you can use it without leapfrogging through the zerg, they decided to nerf it’s dps at the same time and they still haven’t added cleave to the second chain in the auto attack.

Main hand axe could have been decent if it properly scaled with power until the most recent set of ranger nerfs where they removed a bounce from the auto. Before that it would have been decent tagging/might stacking weapon with a high aoe chill uptime (when traited).

Shortbow is just worthless. Nerfed into the ground back in the day to make longbow more appealing. It’s arguably the worst weapon in the game.

Alright, I guess our constructive discussion about rangers in a zerg is over
I hope you guys got my point.

alchemyst.2165:

The only real difference it’s made for me is in thief v thief when we’re both in stealth, and we can’t spam it any more. Otherwise, it’s actually improved my play. My timing is much better overall, and I’m paying more attention to enemy movements. I actually can time my backstabs so I can hit them right after their bound during stealth, or do the same with a noscope shadow shot.

Although the CD is annoying and didn’t take backstab’s aftercast into account, I’m starting to get used to it.

Since I’m a non native: I found anoscope but no noscope – what are you talking about? :P And what is “right after their bound”?
And one random thing: You’re the thief who plays the most accurate I’ve ever seen.
I partly agree: I got a bit used to it, but the cooldown doesn’t feel right, it’s a mess in smallscale where someone uses CC – so I still don’t think this really should’ve been brought into game and not 1s long.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Rangers have lower power coefficients and base numbers on their power weapons to account for the pet. Even if we somehow miraculously keep them alive in a zerg fight we deal less damage because pets don’t cleave, they were never given the 10%ish more damage that everyone gets when they upgrade to ascended gear, they don’t receive the benefits of our food/utility buffs, they don’t even get boons like might unless we run nature magic.

So even if the pets live a skill like maul is doing half of the damage it should be because of the pet tax.

Yeah but it is not as if every weapon in this game does the same damage, regardless of the class – you yourself spoke of 10k mauls which is on the top range of damage people can dish out – even more so on 5 players at once. If it really were 20k otherwise then the devs should have a look at it.
And back in the day I was always glad when my pet was in the melee group as that was where it survived the longest – but that was PvE, granted.

Jim Hunter.6821:

I’m sorry but you’re wrong. You seem to be under the impression a ranger has to run a longbow, our melee weapons cleave and our staff isn’t blocked by all the projectile hate.
If our weapons scaled properly and our pets received aoe damage/cc reduction we could run frontline melee and bring some decent support to the group.
Dropping 10k+ mauls on 5 players every 5 seconds while providing heals, condi clear, group stun break, and cc would be enough that rangers wouldn’t be shunned from zergs.

Ranger was my first main, I have at least an idea how the class works, never tried staff though, but every other set. LB and SB are more or less single target – your melee weapons aren’t and you would have traps. I don’t get how weapons don’t scale properly because of your pet – don’t they scale just the same no matter whether or not your pet is alive or dead? If you run melee and have some friendly guards, you’d do enough damage, have your pet always near and that should work – right now without any further buffs.

ETA: And you answered “my noobish aproach to ranger” (“but we have more than LB!!!!”) yourself: most players are used to LB rangers, rangers themselves and everybody else – how should the commander know which weapon the ranger uses?
And LB and GS are both pretty foolproof. It’s a bit harder to pull the other weapons off (again: I don’ know about staff).

Jim Hunter.6821:

The pet tax is the reason why rangers lack damage. Our weapons scale for kitten.

That isn’t the problem in a zerg fight though – it doesn’t matter how much damage you do – the problem is that most of your skills are single target skills.

ETA: Just arguing because you guys make it sound as if this were solved with adding MOAR damage of which ranger has got enough anyway. I guess it’s rather how the class is designed which makes them rather unusable for zergs – and that goes for the pet as well, but standing in 1600 range might not be ideal to see how many reflects are up – and with that you might kill your own guys.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Honestly the biggest issue more than anything else is rangers lack damage in zerg fights because we have a damage tax imposed on us because our pets are supposed to make up a percentage of it. Our pets don’t cleave, don’t share in our buffs (they can get our boons if we sacrifice an entire traitline but they still won’t get boosted stats from ascended gear or food/utility), and a ton of our traits are tied into our pets which spend the majority of the time dead in zerg fights.

Let me rephrase this: You lack AoE damage for zergs – I think the pet is the lesser problem.

Lalainnia.3598:

Somewhat confused here how exactly is the 1 sec icd on stealth attacks the death of the class. Does missing a stealth attack apply reveal??? As for the invul and aegis/blocks why would any thief waste a stealth attack on a target with aegis or an invul up do ppl not look for boon icons or ability tells isn’t the whole point of stealth to gain the upper hand or retreat. If someone pops an aegis/block or invul anticipating a stealth attack isn’t that just a good move on them and poor play by the thief if they attack?

You now have more or less one chance to land your backstab (or whatever stealthed skill). It takes a bit to get into stealth – we “work” for our burst which is then likely lost if a passive procs, the game bugs out (no valid path to target) or the enemy gets their boon elsewhere, which you can’t always predict. So yes, this hurt us even more – we’re often wasting all of our initative for nothing.
I also have to agree with Azukas for once: trying to hit stealthed enemies is now really a pain.

Just to add: PvP and wvw have got nothing in common anymore. But Deceiver can explain that better than me.
Also: the PvP team made a bogus balance by adding and removing amuletts/runes – we still have all of it in wvw.

DeceiverX.8361:

I understand Jana had such issues of CnD “missing”, but I’ve never experienced this once.

I really should’ve made some videos of it – but everybody told me that I was nuts – so I actually believed it (halfway).

You can imagine it like this: You run towards a thief and use CnD and steal (my chance to hit another class with that combo was 50%, thieves 0%/ CnD without steal: 0% against other players), they move and you miss, although they’re still in range and didn’t evade. In case you were lucky and landed a CnD and turned around to BS (which takes me less than half a second) the enemy would already be out of range, without a dodge or anything. So I would have needed a gap close for both attacks and still miss.
The game looked rather normal (it was often hard to see any telegraphed skills) just that I seemed much slower than everybody else.

And I would also love to know why it was “only” me.

Anyway in general: My hit quote is back to how it has been, I think. But now the problem is the sustain of the other classes and the damage they dish out and the reveal skills – so yeah, anet probably won’t step away from their powercreep, but I guess it’s no solution to add more powercreep that cries for more powercreep then again.

I still think the 3 traitlines thing won’t work out in its current form – I guess most lines of all classes need a rework – best way to stop powercreep as people have to chose one thing or the other but can’t have everything (like it is right now).
And depending on what anet wants to do with their game/balance/traits I can’t really say what my thief needs in order to compete. Actually that’s their job.

Hexalot.8194:

This makes no sense. With the nerf to rallying in WvW, having multiple Warriors running banners is a huge advantage for the zerg running them compared to an opposing zerg without them. Nothing turns the tide quicker than seeing all those downs you worked so hard for getting rallied en mass due to the other zerg’s Wars coordinating their banners.

Poison fields say hello (banners don’t work in them).
Anyway – warrior might be the best class for roaming – they’re pretty much unkillable and dish out a massive amount of damage. They’re very much there.

ETA (to someone else before): And the group composition only really plays a role if you’re average pugs vs average pugs and the same size (or smaller) as your enemies – skill still is what matters most – even in the faceroll meta.

Azukas.1426:

This is a GOOD post. It nerfs nothing and actually has a nice idea to help OH dagger. You need to focus on OH dagger only.

I would say either up the vuln to 10 stacks on CnD. This helps all OH dagger sets w/out greatly OP’n them.

Nice post

Wow, thank you
But actually this is pretty much the consens here – I think most of us just want back what we had – and that was a working D/D power set.
Problem with that is: overall powercreep, merged traits, deleted traits, nerfed sets and so on: In my opinion it’s impossible to work out a solution until we know what anet plans to do.
But: if you look a bit further than the thief forum, you’ll find that the PvP forum and also WvW forum are complaining about the lack of (class and “damage”) balance (the pvp forum is pretty intense when it comes to that) – so – the devs did pretty well with their gambeling how balance actually “should be” but if they want to keep the pvp and wvw crowd they will have to rethink “their vision” of how class balance should be (spoiler: they have no vision). We’re here to remind them of how this game once was. And, although it doesn’t seem so: we still believe in them.

What’s your mission, Azukas? To shut all of us up cause you don’t play the class anyway?

And btw the cooldown idea came from 2 enraged guards, not from thieves.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

How exactly do you achieve that without shadowstep?

Even without the target’s defensive mechanics, CnD is not always a 100% hit. The only time it is reliable is when used with Steal.

If shadowstep is not an acceptable option, I would favor an instant cast CnD.

So, my bug, you guys know about it. I couldn’t land any CnD, my chance to hit with CnD and steal was at about 0-50%
I haven’t really been in wvw lately but my hit chance should be back to ~70% even with all the blocks – I might test this further but you don’t really need steal to land it, although it’s a higher chance, granted.
I agree on your last post btw.

ETA: What CnD needs is blind on stealth. I’d be fine if it were via traits again, doesn’t neccessarily have to be on OH dagger. What I would like to see for CnD would be buffed to the damage it had a year ago and/or more vulnerability. Don’t think that would be a powercreep.

Kageseigi.2150:

Yeah, the suggestion of a Backstab that doesn’t crit only if blocked would be better… because if no Backstab could crit, Hidden Killer would be useless for a D/x build.

Actually, I wouldn’t mind a trait that allowed a Thief’s attack to daze/interrupt an opponent specifically if they are blocking. Even if the initial attack did no damage, it would allow the Thief to force the opponent out from bunkering.

We have more pressing issues than the bunker meta. At least thief is in a complete mess:
Traits deleted or merged in a way that are only of use for a few sets, heals out of reach because of the traits no one takes, forced reveal, D/P being relatively OP, VS destroyed for the sake of PvE, calculations between heavy/medium/light are off – why does a warrior with twice as much HP hit harder than me?, the bunker meta, the shadowattack cooldown and so on.
Not only does thief need a complete overhaul by people who know what they’re doing – this whole game does and it’s such a mess that a few nip and tucks here and there won’t do anymore – that ship has sailed one year ago.

And it makes no sense. A backstab that doesn’t crit – well ok then. That could be in the next balance patch.

ETA: I want a wet noodle dagger skin.

I’m a main thief in a zerg and the only ones that can single me out and down me are hammer revenants. Some thieves try from time to time, some rangers do as well, but they just annoy me, nothing else.
In the end to me this is a non story – rangers complain about them not being wanted since day one and as a result are now nearly unkillable (with the “right” build). There’s a bunch of good and true arguments why rangers are usually seen rather sceptical. And in the end: I’m a thief, but my server knows me so they don’t complain about me running along – maybe you should try that approach.

My problem with the ICD is: BS is a single target damage – it’s the main source of damage for a D/D thief and this game is a mess from a-z. I don’t feel in a position to say what this game needs because of that. Because I couldn’t fight thieves (except if they were running idly) for 1,5 years – I had no chance to hit them – other classes were okay though (which detoriated) – get what I mean?
And because everything is a mess, from programming to balance, bringing the ICD into game as it is (1 s is freaking long) made no sense. Shifting the main source of damage to CnD doesn’t make sense as well – nothing in this game makes any sense at all anymore. And I am no programmer and no programmer for this game, I can’t say more than “I have troubles to hit anything after patch xy although everything looks normal” – it shouldn’t take them 1,5 years to get behind that or they should take my noobish complaint more seriously – I guess you guys know what I mean. Frankly: Im giving up on anet.
ETA: This game is a PvE game – go enjoy it.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That really has nothing to do with the complaints especially the exaggerated one about not being able to do anything for 1s after BS.

The ICD is there for both weapon set once they use BS — and D/P uses BS. I mean it’s a free damage when they’re in stealth.

Why should I complain about something I don’t use if I don’t use it? Also D/D needs a bit longer to BS than D/P or better: it’s a different playstyle.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

What you’re implying is that D/P don’t need BS because their main damage comes from SS. SS cost 4 init while CnD cost 6 and they practically have the same base damage. SS has a positioning advantage while CnD is harder to use. So the argument that you’re really making is not about BS or its ICD, it’s about giving D/D the same usability as D/P.

No, it is about BS and SS – see above and see any other post I wrote to you. But I’ll leave it at that because repeating the same thing over and over isn’t my idea of having an intelligent conversation.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

For instance, if they reduce the cost of CnD to 5 and give it shadowstep, then they should both not have any problem with BS and its ICD. That’s my point — to solve this issue is to improve CnD.

I know, but why wouldn’t I play D/P if D/D does just the same but still inferior to D/P?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

WvW is too big and was never polished. They’re in a hurry to release it without even thoroughly testing that every key profession mechanics (i.e. shadowstep, scorp wire) will work properly — but that’s a whole different issue.

I had this bug everywhere: PvE, WvW and PvP – just that in wvw everybody is on a different but the same server – prone to even more positioning bugs.

ETA: And that’s not a different issue – that is the main issue people have with the shadowattack cooldown – and that needs to be taken into account if bringing something like the cooldown into game. I was complaining yet again about my bug (which I complained about for 1,5 freaking years) and they fixed it then. Without this fix (~1 day after the patch) I was unable to hit anything. Be glad you hadn’t had it because otherwise you would get why a lot of people don’t think the cooldown is a good idea at all.
ETA²: And if you don’t believe me that there was a positioning issue and that it has been partly solved, read the patch notes – we had about 3-5 small patches after they brought the cooldown into game. And no: it is still not entirely fixed, mobs in pve still count as being hit from the front when I hit their back. But at least I don’t miss them anymore now.

Joker.9812:

If they want us to stop playing, they can say it to the balance patch log: “Don’t play the class.” And it’s done, they don’t have to do such a things all the time like they do.

They could write this to pop up every time anyone clicks on the pvp or wvw button: We don’t want you to play this mode!!

(sorry, but that’s how I feel)

IndigoSundown.5419:

Out of curiosity, does EotM still throw badges at players like candy? If so, I’d like to see badge awards be normalized in EotM and WvW, whether it be at the high or low end or somewhere in the middle.

No, have been decreased to wvw level a while ago (with HoT?) – but I haven’t been in EotM for about 2 years, so I don’t know how that worked out (maybe the badge gain is different because EotM and wvw are different modes).

That aren’t completely different issues as D/P uses more SS than BS anyway – get what I mean? They don’t need backstabs anymore thus won’t really feel the ICD.

Call me old or oldfashioned, but I’d rather have the game like it was than having more powercreep added.
But in the end: I have been crippled by a bug for 1,5 years and in the end was unable to kill anyone (it’s a bit better now, at least I’m able to kill thieves and don’t miss every CnD because my enemy caughed).
Now is the question: Is everything as it seems or is just everything bugged and we have no idea how combat really is? I guess especially wvw may be suffering from “positioning bugs”. So it’s a lot more than missing class balance as it seems.

Reh.5986:

I tend to go through 10 to 20 siege disablers a day when I play for any decent amount of time. I throw siege like crazy all week too so I’ve had to start buying that off the TP. Stuff gets expensive and there just aren’t enough badges to go around.

Yes, anything but catas and trebs is way cheaper off the TP. You can argue that no one should be “forced” to buy this stuff from other players but in that case you’ll have the EotM problem again: people get massive amounts of badges and have no use for it.
I usually only buy siege disablers for badges and they’re mostly my “Big Spender” – I get that to some this can become a problem but mabe just lower the badge-cost for them instead of adding more badges to the game.

No, asking the community to balance their classes doesn’t help at all. You can look at almost any thread in this forum and see that people might have an idea about their own set but no idea (or forgot) something about the other set = we’re no professionals as well and people say this or that isn’t needed because they don’t need it. Another set does require it though (like me saying that ricochet could be thrown out a year ago).
Right now it’s like children competing “if I just cry loud enough I’ll get my will” and anet should try to be good parents and make the decisions on their own. They can take stuff of the forums but not in a copy and paste style but thought through.

AikijinX.6258:

It may have been on blatant display, but you know Anet doesn’t knows how to Thief. What you did was gave them an explanation on how to do it. It may have been blatant in Thief streams,etc, but they were still left in the dark.

Whats done is done though, so no use in calling names.

Since I’m on these forums for now 2,5 years: Do you think this is the first time this trick has been explained? I knew that trick and I never played S/X.
You are right though: Devs don’t know how to thief and they like to copy &paste off the forums.
BUT is it the players who are to blame or them who should know how their classes work?!

Lets see if Sizer will quit again (he did that as well, so don’t just blame the forums).
Really, Anet.. I don’t get what you’re doing. Someone at your HQs must hate thieves endlessly.