Guild Wars 2

D/P basically carries itself – all traits are of use for D/P, the set can even survive major blunders. They aren’t even really hurt by the 1 s cooldown as their main damage comes from shadow shot anyway and they’re able to take hidden thief which no other set can really make use of = free stealth.
That’s why it would be nice if the devs would step away from that set if they have any interest in thief at all – and learn that this is a massive “we don’t care about you” to most/all other thief players.
And I’d like to be able to kill some D/P thieves again as well – but they’re that much stronger than me that I simply have no chance.

I guess this was our quarterly balance patch and a buddy just msg me and said the exact same thing I said in my OP – and we both agree that it’s over.

ETA: Again: if the game was running smoothly (ever tried to keep pace with your zerg and although you have the same buffs they do you won’t be able to reach them? same with enemies), no bugs, blunders, lags, wonky gameplay. If the passives would be cut in half, if if if – then I might agree that 0,5s or 0,75 s cooldown on stealth attacks would be ok – but not right now.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Because of stealth/backstab spam. It sadly leads to the mindset that thief is OP. All it would take is a nerf of D/P and then everyboyd would see how weak thief actually is, allowing us to get more buffs. Too bad that will never happen.

I agree with you

Zenith.7301:

Kolly.9872:

The thing is… there’s no skill in passive blocks either

A passive block, by which you mean aegis, happens only every 40 seconds, while you can use backstab at least every 6-7 seconds.

Cry more.

Ok: All classes (except necro) also have blocks they can apply actively – additionally to their passive blocks. The active skills are often, but not always, easier to avoid, but in the end a thief has got to do a lot to stealth and all of that is wasted thanks to the active and passive blocks and thanks to the newest nerf.

People really should cry some more about mesmer and engi stealth – look at how easily they can apply it – why punish thief with every patch?

What is rendering shade?

ETA: You mean Rending shades – I don’t see a use for that actually – but I’d probably have to try it. In the end it only works against aegis, all other blocks aren’t boons and there’s a lot of them around. And well a lot of people have got more than 1,2 or 3 boons.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Dahkeus.8243:

Eh, it’s no big deal. I guess now you may have to pay attention when stealthing instead of just spamming backstab.

This.

Question is: Why do thieves have to spam backstab/why could they spam backstab before? The moment you can answer this will be the moment you do realize this was an unjustified nerf.

OP, you have my voice: There’s a badly named thread to the same issue below yours =)

I tried it in PvE (no SA) after the patch and I didn’t have a chance to get my second BS in.
And in the end: this hurts D/D thieves the most anyway.

“Venomous Aura: The area-of-effect aspect of this trait has been merged into venoms as baseline. The radius has been reduced from 360 to 240. The recharge reduction has moved to Leeching Venoms.
This trait has been renamed Rending Shade and now causes all sneak-attack abilities to steal up to 2 boons when striking an enemy, while receiving less damage from foes without boons.
Leeching Venoms: This trait no longer grants might to allies it is applied to. This trait now reduces the recharge of venom abilities.
Devourer Venom: The number of stacks that this skill applies has been reduced from 3 to 2.
Basilisk Venom: The number of stacks that this skill applies has been reduced from 2 to 1. ~Stun duration has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 second~”

Everything I bolded is a nerf.
I was asked to use venomshare in a raid the other week – yes, I was hired as a damage thief and they didn’t get that I’d have to take SA (damage loss) to use venoms. So for that it’s good new, for everybody else who was using this skills, it probably isn’t.

ETA: And in the end: everybody has got that many CC skills that it shouldn’t be up to someone else to provide them – especially if they have to be in range and only have 1-2 strikes to apply them, in case of CC it’s very hard to time the bar with that one strike you have.

EvilSardine.9635:

Thief main here.

Says a warrior main – ok, then. Why are you guys doing stuff like that anyway, to fool the devs into thinking they made a good descision because a “thief main” claimed this nerf promoted “more skillful play”?

Well, I said why to me right now it’s a nerf.
I can’t really catch up with my enemies anyway (wonky gameplay), there’s lags everywhere, there’s passive blocks everywhere – I don’t get one second more stealth..

This change was unneccessary at the current state of the game.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Thief seems to suffer alot in large scale fights, when you get 5s or so skill lag and 1s of stealth, especially if you run fairly squishy or even full Marauders.

Detonating Cluster bombs seems alright to me and Cluster bomb is an excellent blast finisher; it’s just not reliable offensively without detonating, not sure Choking Gas really is that useful nowadays though.

The part after I used SR – it was impossible for me to time cluster bomb and not letting it detonate (which I didn’t want in that case – yes, I’m still learning after 3 years) – the enemies were already gone when my CB landed – and in fact I sent 3 – no idea what happened to the first. That is just too slow.
Choking gas means : no warrior banner, 30% less heal for those that are being rezzed, and heal from all healing skills in general – it could use an overhaul as well/the sustain of the other classes could use a nerf, but alas, cluster bomb is worse.

In the end, I guess my part in a zerg is due to me and not really my class – just that I like thief the best.

Taobella.6597:

well out side of the fact that zerg did not engage in to that convex instantly wipe you. you could of chain CnD walk around in the zerg to find a target.

I don’t get what you mean, sorry.
I kept my distance because a) I’m a thief, b) I’m a valk/zerker thief, c) I didn’t know the commanders very well – I can engage more with commanders I do know or those who really know when to push. It would still be suicide to use D/D in a zerg as there’s so many passive blocks, blocks and aegis flying around that the likelihood of landing a CnD is very small.
But you can always make a video so I can finally learn to play =)

ETA: Actually, I and others are pressuring the enemy zerg that’s why they keep their distance. The footage is pretty good anyway as you can see how the two commanders pressure each zerg but work together to finish each off.
I have other footage in which I found my own blob in pretty bad shape and I somehow managed to keep the enemy zerg at bay long enough for my zerg to recover – I have no idea how that even worked but I’m doing that pretty often, so I don’t think it’s just coincidence. In case I’ll make another video that footage will be in.

“Stealth Attacks: All stealth attack skills will now have a 1-second recharge between uses.”

Makes really sense as there’s no idicator as when your second will be up, you burn your stealth because of it and well the passive blocks and whatnots which still are around hurt additionally.

Why don’t we just delete thief and call it a day?

This isn’t the best of me being a mindless zergling, but just to show you what thieves in a wvw zerg/blob can do except ganking stragglers.
Clusterbomb needs a rework. The speed is fine for melee but way too slow for range.

And before you complain: I’m not dead serious with what I’m doing but there’s not much left for D/D thieves anyway – so I’m basically doing time until I can roam again.

ETA (yeah no post without an ETA) : Me frontstabbing the npc had a reason: I was watching the 2 blobs (and we needed supps).

schlake.2718:

snip

I feel your pain: I’m playing this game for D/D thief which was murdered on June 23th 2015 – he was pretty sick even before that.
I wanted to get some adult toys instead of HoT as anet basically told me to go and kitten myself. Yeah, I do feel unwanted

ETA: All bug reports I sent in or all stuff I complained about on the forums took a while until they were fixed, I don’t think it’s just you or only the lower tiers. Although I haven’t been long in gold – but then again: Devs are really rare on EU.

JTGuevara.9018:

NO the blob is not limited. They have more people! It’s hardly a cost them! You only need a few runners to resupply siege, smaller groups can’t afford that. They’ll get wiped.

As I said, repair hammers will ONLY benefit large groups.

Vote NO.

If we’re a full squad we have around 700 supply if we have been able to grab some +5 or +10 recently. Most if not all in the squad respect the commander, but you can still bet that 100 supply won’t be spent.
We already have got problems supplywise to get a (T3) keep (the commander could build less rams/catas and hope that enough people have got hammers).
The hammers depend on how many people are carrying them, if all of them have supply and how much they repair. If everything to full I see your point – but we don’t know yet.

ETA: I’m usually the one throwing siege disablers, I rarely see anyone else doing it (there are some who do though) – I rarely see my stationary siege being disabled by enemies = most people don’t seem to carry siege disablers with them – I guess the same will happen with repair hammers. If I were a commander I wouldn’t count on it – I’d rather throw my 6 rams and hope for the best. And well, I’d also tell people not to use the hammers, unless it’s for defensive use in objectives, but even then it’s rather useless to repair anything while under AOE “siege”.

blackgamma.1809:

world linking in my experience has only highlighted issues that already existed. being outnumbered on a daily/monthly basis is bad enough. theres now even more room for players to xfer onto the quad server, which is what WvW players have been doing for years. To gain access to best opportunities that WvW has to offer, they have to jump onto the bigger/winning server.

I have no idea what “quad servers” means – so it’s a bit hard for me to follow you.
Again: there have been population issues, especially on NA – a lot of people asked anet to change it and this was their solution – they did block our transfers in the first linking period (only lower servers weren’t “full”) – and I don’t think people on EU really transfer to the winning servers – there’s the NA vs EU problem yet again.
If you’re really bored I’d say look up my post history (don’t) – I said that merging servers/throwing more people onto existing problems wouldn’t solve a thing about half a year ago.
I knew, but did the lot of other people (like you in the passage I’ve quoted) know as well? Most people think that having more people will make them win, or that they lost because they had less numbers. So of course “most” don’t think about changing combat (stability, class balance etc) first, but they demand more people. Server linking was actually the best solution they could come up with, although they should’ve implemented something like a server own LA at the same time. It’s really hard to fix the population issues – no matter how you turn it.

blackgamma.1809:

maybe it does take a repair hammer poll to measure players feedback on the current WvW experience. but you dont need a poll to measure already legitimate problems in WvW. if you have a topic that has 50 replies to work with. the amount of time invested into making a poll, they could of been used to read a big post.

I already said that the problems wvw/this game has are far more complex than reading all answers on all topics on all forums. I’m certain they do read most if not all of what we write here.

blackgamma.1809:

also i probably should highlight that our expectations of thousands of people will never match that of a small group of people on a games designers.

They try. They made some huge mistakes with wvw for a long time, they made some very serious mistakes with HoT – it’s really hard to fix all of that – and if they completely overhaul wvw they will alienate even more people.

ETA: Pic: This pretty much sums my earliest wvw experiences up. My server back then was dying at that time and I started to play wvw when it was just “coming” to life a few months earlier.
We were constantly up against zergs at least twice our size and defeated them all.
I know that the changes made to combat were the main reason why servers are dying and why wvw is dying.
ETA²: The problems that server had were also caused by transfers though – I guess most of the core quit when there was free transfers for another server shortly before a tournament. Then another load quit after the introduction of ferocity. Then I left but watched them climb up a few ranks the following months until they faced an enemy they couldn’t beat (because of your locked tiers) for several weeks in a row and that might also have been when the stability changes were made. That was the final nail in the coffin – this server only exisst on paper anymore – and we were so good back in the day – it’s a shame!

It’s hard to tell what impact the hammers would have. They’re supposed to work like traps, so you have to have supply to repair them. Even a blob is somewhat limited with that. I object the idea that rams, catas, trebs, basically all field siege can be repaired – worst would be golems, though, but it would be nice to be able to repair stationary siege in objectives (canon, mortar, oil) inbetween fights.
But even if this works on field siege it’s hard to tell how this would turn out before we haven’t seen it in live action, I guess.

Depraved Ambience.7942:

So remove the nodes, disable hero points, and promote toxic player behaviour! Salt for everyone!

I agree with that actually, the nodes are far worse than the crafting stations could’ve ever been – ask almost any commander (one I know solved this by ignoring the nodes and his zerg – but he’s that good that people don’t want to miss out, so they’re ignoring the nodes as well – don’t neccessarily try this at home).

They did try that – with the server linking which was the wish of a lot of people on the forums (not exactly in that way, I know, but it’s really hard to sort even that out).

You have to look at the bigger picture: There’s your issues with wvw/anet and there are a lot of people who have got issues. A lot measure how well wvw is cared for on how many red posts this forum has got, a lot measure it on how many polls there are (I guess), a lot take new features for a measurement.

And honestly: Wvw needs slow changes so we can see how all of it turns out: I really wished they had implemented the autoupgrades a lot sooner so we could have given our feedback without being distracted by the HoT classes, tactivators, new guild buffs, DBL..

You get the chance to recover supply once all your supply is spent.
Repair mastery just makes the whole process of building something faster, you don’t get more/less chances to recover supply.

blackgamma.1809:

if anet knows there are more pressing problems, why would they use their resources on making a new item other than fixing the actual issues.

They did say in the polls that their focus is on other stuff but that they can offer this right now.

You said it yourself: There’s a lot of problems and in some cases they’re that complex that they have to be sorted out by several teams, like class balance which is my personal most pressing issue. They can’t do this overnight especially if they still want to balance all modes together. After class balance there’s damage balance, the June patch made the overall damage too high, after that there’s bugs and lags, after that there’s class vs siege balance and so on.

And in between you have PvE players who demand new stuff

ETA:

the latest poll not only shows (and i feel horrid for saying this) thats not only anet doesn’t have a clear direction to fix WvW.

We all lost track about how to fix wvw. Anet ignored a lot of the genuine complaints on the forums, yes, like the stability changes.
But fell for the complaints about zergs/blobs and most people aren’t on the forums, so they didn’t get what was about to come which was the DBL – designed to break zergs/blobs.
Not sure if you get what I’m trying to say: On the forums it looked as if what people wanted was something to break up zergs. Now the problems are that complex that I think everybody is lost.

@OP: I don’t think things are really that dire you make them out to be. Sounds like a typical PvE argument. Right now my server is holding our corner in EB and thats it. I did rage quit half an hour ago (but also because I don’t like wvw like I used to for multiple reasons), but I know that the tables will be turned later in the day – and we’re EU, so we don’t have 24/7 coverage anyway – and even when I was on NA things were like this.

Anyway, on topic of the GoB:
I do wonder why they made it this way. Map completion of wvw was a piece of cake compared to this and even that led to a neverending flood of complaints. With precursers now somewhat easier to obtain I expect this to become another neverending story.
And well, personally: The reward tracks are kind of nice but being forced to do certain ones diminishes that.

Balthazzarr.1349:

… and remember … apparently this is what the majority voted for… server linking…

The poll for the server linking had a very bad timing: Those who didn’t like it had already left and those who did like it didn’t yet understand the full consequences of it. And of course; EU and NA are thrown together in these polls, yet they should be seen differently.

Teon.5168:

snip

I’m fine with walls of text – just saying.

My guess is that wvw was something between pvp and PvE – no real endgame was planned at that time and that those who developed it left the team shortly afterwards.

GW2 then put too much attention on PvE, cause you know it’s teh only folks that buy gems and stuff. Then they turned their attention to PvP, then again to PvE. I have never really talked with anyone about what they really want from wvw – I guess most of us just love the interaction with human enemies and to try to outsmart them. I didn’t like the DBL because they were too complicated and I felt I was fighting the map and not enemy players – otherwise I’d say you can throw me on any map and I’d be fine.

Now comes the irony: I started playing wvw around 2,5 years ago – things made still sense back then – I was on a rather low tier NA server so it took a while until we faced real blobs. Maybe that’s why things made more sense to me (I was a noob, frankly).

Then came range increases for classes: most siege became rather useless, then came the introduction of ferocity which made condi OP, then came the stability nerf which mad the bigger blob win, then came changes to the camera which kittened up siege and the use of field siege and which lasted several months, then came the June patch which increased the overall damage everybody put out. I think they stealth nerfed that but the damage is still too high and we haven’t had any real balance patch since (more than one year).
Had a discussion in mapchat yesterday and the consens was to remove HoT from the game. I think what people want from wvw is what they’ve had 2,5 years ago – it basically is that simple to satisfy those who really play the mode. And I’d also like a solution for the server-linking, I guess more people quit than stay because of it as a huge factor of why people play wvw is the community.

Problem with wvw balance is that it interfers with PvE. So at some point they either have to realize that they can’t balance all modes together (pvp is balanced through the runes, so it’s separate already anyway), or they have to give up on balance altogether (it kind of looks as if they did already) or they have to roll back the game to at least before HoT, better before June. At least in their minds and balance the game from there. I don’t think the traitmerge will ever work out – in case of my main class they killed all but 1, maybe 2 weaponsets and the elite weapon is none of them.

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Blows GH a KISS

We’re all glad KISS is gone

Skinnii.3504:

Steelo.4597:

RoF isnt being double teamed, you are left alone most of the day except for some ppt-hungry AM blobs cruising through your border after they tried our T3.

It’s not like a GH blob would come to RoF BL and flip a t2 bay when it’s 2 dollies from t3 and then leave, capping nothing else*. GH would never do that. GH are in it for the fights with AM and leaving poor little RoF and WSR alone.

To be honest I’d prefer to see all of RoF capped by AM than one camp capped by GH. The more ppt and glicko AM get the better. Perhaps then they will pass Augury Rock and we will get something different next week. And that reflects perfectly the sad state of WvW for RoF and WsR.

*Btw GH did that last week.

And because GH capped your bay when it was 2 dollies away from T3 they’re double teaming and you hate them?
Actually RoF don’t stand a chance even when not outmanned, so maybe you should work on that and then start to complain and throw dirt at others who play the game as intended.

Azukas.1426:

You all do realize this boon share stuff is right inline with the rest of HoT right? Effortless, overly effective, and the ONLY way to play.

IMHO you need to go back to the way boons/group buffing worked circa 2013. It actually took group skill to fully buff your group with the proper buffs.

Here’s the joke: I’m doing all of this (recently completed my 161 HoT ranks, did my HoT story solo, was in the first raid, am in wvw zergs all the time in a non boonsharing party) as a vanilla thief. I have no idea why they made all elites that faceroll easy, there was no need for it. The only problem the new maps really have is the bars you need to cc down, otherwise I’m pretty certain that all vanilla builds are doing fine on them.
And I actually have no idea why they implemented a trinity into this game as the party I was running the raid with would’ve been better off if the tank had been able to sustain on his own as the healer had no idea.
I’m curious what the upcoming balance patch will bring.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Yeah i did bring that point up lol, that’s the whole point of p/d because you know, shadow strike gives torment and they have to chase use, (asuming they are melee) Oh what ever. No, going d/p is the easy way out. I practice s/d with out using #2 so I have the same mobilty as you apart from that now I have 4 skills instead of 5 but I will use #2 to clear a condition.

Now I see why people lose intresting in you, you put words into other people’s mouths wich are completely opisite to what’s originally been said. I never said condi d/d had nothing g to do with hot, I said lotus training made it stronger wich it did. I also said pre hot condi d/d was arpund but i also didnt say it was as common, if anything it was a rare site. I don’t need to prove to you anything because I have seen it with my own eyes.

I actually feel as if you’re putting words into my mouth and on the other hand forgot what you said. But it’s good to know that people lose interest in me – for whatever it’s worth. Important point, cabbage! What was your point again?

ETA: A try, although I guess my intelligence is wasted on this:

You said D/D condi has always been around (yes occassionally people tried to make it work) and at first that DrD had nothing to do with it, then that DrD DID make it a thing and also said I’m a stupid kitten for not running DrD as I have to adapt to the changes and DrD is just soooo much better than the rest of the traitlines (I can quote you all of this in case you forgot what you wrote one hour ago). You want skill 3 of D/D to be nerfed because of condi D/D – albeit you already said that DrD is the reason why people are running it/why it works.
So you want to possibly ruin a weaponset because of a traitline which is likely to be nerfed. We could talk about what DrD does to D/P and S/D and think about how that line should be changed to bring it into line with vanilla builds.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

You don’t have to get to your enemy, in fact I let people come to me, that’s how I used p/d same as d/d I dunno why you think it is vice versa, may be that is you who had issues fighting people now.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

and I dunno how you spam it when you’re sent back 600/90 range? I forgot now.

It was you who brought that point up.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Why would i of wanted to record condi d/d thives in the first place, let alone pre hot but i can asure you that they did exist. Perhaps it is you who should be posting videos to us and show how hard you have it?

You said you saw that many videos of D/D condi spamming 3 that it has got to be nerfed and also claimed that condi D/D has always been around and has got nothing to do with DrD – I’d like some proof to that claim.

ETA: And to the rest: This game has changed, yes, into a very unhealthy uncompetitive boring cookie cutter game. No idea whether or not anet are planning to make the rest of their game viable again but if they plan to do so they will have to nerf every single elite. If they nerf elite x, they will also have to nerf elite y. And with that the “new progressive” DrD will also have to be nerfed as it has got too many evades, especially when paired with acrobatics. DrD does nothing for D/D that’s why I’m not running it. Adapting in my case would be to go D/P and I refuse to do so. I live with the consequences but don’t want people who have got no idea about D/D to ruin that set beyond repair, that’s why I’m arguing with you guys.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

You don’t spam flanking strike at all…May be 3 years ago, it’s used defencevly and kiting. People who spam that are asking for trouble. It’s stupid but for what shadow shot does and how it cost ofc people spam it but that’s only because of the blind, as p/d condi? That was a cheap way to get torment up and I dunno how you spam it when you’re sent back 600/90 range? I forgot now.

Things have changed a lot as we all know, it’s the same thing with vualt spam, people will soon work out how to burst them and they will become trash again and can only kill tunnel vision people and or baddies.

Lotus training just made it stronger, people ran that build way before hot was even thought of.

Then show me one video of a condi D/D thief before HoT or after HoT who isn’t running DrD.
A range of 600 or whatever that skill has is nothing, besides you have to get close to your opponent with P/D and D/D anyway, all other sets have got teleports. (ETA: That setback is the best part of that skill anyway as people usually run after you).
Let me think when my poor D/D thief has been killed by a staff thief.. umm.. never. So you say vault spam is a thing?
Lets just agree to disagree and probably also agree on that no further nerfs should be done to D/D unless we know what nerfs are about to come, as DrD, along with every other elite, has got to be nerfed.

Taobella.6597:

it work on all tower walls all supply camp. i am not sure what walls you are referring to?.

Not sure what game you’re playing.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

This leads to combination of d/d, the #3 skill is flawed and premotes very poor and simply game play that anyone 1 can do with hardly any risk involved. I see a lot of there’s d/d condi spam videos and I just can not see the point of such trashy play style, is this what thief has become?

D/P spams their #3 skill, S/D spams their #3 skill – back when I was a P/D thief I spammed my #3 skill. Never did that with D/D though. But D/D condi is only viable because of daredevil, so saying the weaponset is at fault is the wrong direction.

Taobella.6597:

you can still stealth off walls anet never fix it lol. it just says in patch note that it was fix.

It only works on a few, not all.
I think I’m going to force all of you to play D/D before you’re allowed any further opinion.

ETA: But in the end; what matters is that the devs finally know what they’re doing. I somehow suspect they just leave D/D as it is as it’s too much work to a) play it b) fix it.

Azukas.1426:

The plan is D/D is fine and needs nothing.

See, I had/have this one stalker, who came to my server and called me by my real name but not where I knew him from. To impress me he brought his friend who copied “my style”: D/D with one Incinerator. They followed me around for some time, and his friend was lying around more dead than alive. Then I pretty much quit wvw because it was kind of creeping me out to have these two guys around.
I now know who it was and the D/D thief is a thief main, but usually D/P (of course).

In short: If you’d knew wvw you’d know that stealthing off walls has been nerfed = pretty much impossible right now, you’d know that mobs were vastly reduced and you would also realize that a playstyle relying on RNG “I have to be around an enemy tower/mobs that aren’t killed by anyone else” is worse than D/P. But alas, yes, D/D is fine and needs nothing.

Azukas.1426:

You want to talk WvW? Please don’t b/c you can CnD off countless creatures, walls, and mobs in WvW. Also I love when you face one of the BP HS thieves who rely solely on stealth. It’s the most telegraphed way to stealth in the entire game. If a thief uses Pistol 5 you KNOW wtf they are going to do so you interrupt it with ease. Heck try using scorpion wire when you fight a DP thief. I bet the free CnD BS will win you that fight.

Thieves are not a problem right now and in fact are under powered in the grand scheme of things. Y’all need to stop clamoring for nerfs on your own class when it’s not a problem. Also D/D meta >>>>> D/P meta 1v1. That’s the kitten truth too.

You haven’t been in wvw as a thief for a very long time, right? But I bet you never played D/D anyway so my question is more than rhetorical.
Anyway: Good luck interrupting a D/P thief as a D/D thief – they will be able to stealth at least once, no matter whether or not you equip scorpion wire which won’t work ~50% of the time.

In general: As long as we don’t know what the devs are planning to do with the game it’s pretty hard to make a “plan” for D/D as 30% of D/Ds viability relies on what other classes can do, 30% on the traits which are locked behind merges or were removed altogether, 30% on wonky gameplay.

NA and EU are different, it’s kind of silly that both are mashed up together and not viewed separately.
We’ve had a lot of people complaining about not enough people (in this forum) and I do agree that the lower tiers, even on EU, might have needed some help. Lowest I’ve ever been was rank 24 on EU – but even we had blobs during prime time, so all the server linking did was making the queues bigger. Ironically my friends from the lower servers quit the game after the linking.
I don’t think the linking will work out, as the smaller servers don’t have a chance to be on their own and form some sort of community, they’re thrown into another server then ripped out and thrown into the next. The idea is nice but with no means to communicate as a bigger group it’s bound to fail.
But those who think only the smaller servers are the ones suffering: My server is the bigger server and we’ve almost never had any commanders, we were a bunch of roamers who went where they were needed. The first smaller server complained about us not providing commanders, so we now have commanders everywhere, a lot of the regulars quit and nothing really works out anymore. But that’s my point of view – I pretty much quit wvw myself (lot of reasons).
I have no idea how it could’ve been solved for EU so that all would have been happy, but I fail to see how server linking should work out in the long run – and yes especially on EU where you can’t just put any 2 servers together.

The “condi was always OP” depends on what “vanilla” you talk about. Before April 15th 2014 (Introduction of ferocity) condi wasn’t that much of a threat. But because power was nerfed with ferocity, albeit condi stayed the same, condi became OP. Doesn’t mean condi couldn’t be strong before that.
Nowadays the trait merge and HoT-Elites led to a powercreep. Condi per se isn’t OP but certain conditions are way too overpowered and way too easily applied. Others were toned down.
The game as it is now is a mess and I would pay a lot of money to roll it at least 1,5 years back, yes. But we all know this ain’t gonna happen. So it’s PvE for me.

ETA: The players have changed, btw: Post ferocity a lot chose not to run condi because it was mindless – these players now mostly have left. Those who are still playing are those who pick the easiest class with a metabuild to win win win. Would be funny to roll back the game and kill all these players as they are carried hard by their builds.

This was actually a QoL nerf for me – I used the banks a lot and actually crafted stuff. Last time I tried to create 200 feasts and couldn’t get the ingredients on the TP, so I asked my server if they would help me and they did.
I do get the argument that “PvE players could just afk there” but honestly; there were maybe 3 at the crafting stations at any time. And I often jumped into a fight when I switched stuff between my characters because someone called it out on map chat.

Straegen.2938:

Jana.6831:

Don’t know if you mean “they used CnD when they knew they’d have a guaranteed stealth” – no CnD is guaranteed since June last year (and even before) thanks to all the blocks and passives – one of the reasons D/D is dead. The guy you saw got lucky against whoever he was fighting.

You can see blocks and invulns before attacking just takes some practice. Players can also cloak off of pets, clones, etc. Then there are NPCs and of course walls/doors still allow cloaking.

Basically using D/D as a spike/utility weaponset can work just not as effect as D/P as a primary weapon thanks to Shadow Shot. I do believe when CnD should be unblockable. It should use less initiative or use less when it doesn’t stealth.

See above (what Deceiver said) – a backstab isn’t just one skill it requires a lot more than just hitting 1. But stealth often is the only defense a thief has got, so CnD is crucial nonetheless and you don’t have time to watch every boon your opponent might get in that moment, you need to survive their skills which hit harder than your backstab despite them sitting on 25k HP and 3k armor.
Believe me: D/D doesn’t work anymore – I’m still running it and I’m still killing people with it – but mostly in a +1 scenario 1 vs 1 I have got no chance.
It’s completely false and useless to claim otherwise as not even the devs seem to know this weaponset – and honestly: I want it back again. I want to be able to play this game again.

ETA: But, it’s not just the botched traits and weaponskills, it’s also a lot of bugs and other changes which were made to this game which ruined that set.

With that I’m back to my retirement, initially just wanted to complain about wvw polls and thought it would be a good time to remind anet that D/D power thief is still dead and that there are people who miss it.

(Thanks Deceiver, btw, for keeping D/D up – I’m a mostly quiet reader)

MintyRequiem.4958:

I’ve been testing a d/d build using shadow arts, trickery, and daredevil. So far it is definitely more difficult than d/p and the lack of a reliable interrupt is sad, BUT it is surprisingly strong and works very well in sPvP so far.

Yeah, sure, those like me who have several k of hours of experience with that set simply have no idea and just say things.

I pretty much quit wvw because of the non existing balance (regarding everything) – no tournament would bring me or any of those who’ve quit back.
Nothing that happened the past few weeks (which were a lot of good changes) brought anyone back (granted the ABL did bring some back, but others quit).
Not saying that it happened exactly how I predicted it would… you can’t just throw more people onto existing problems and expect things to work out. It might work out in NA – but our server has got the exact same queues we’ve had before being merged with another server = a lot of people quit.
The problems this game has are more subtle than fixing anything with a tournament.

Straegen.2938:

I ran into a buzzsaw of a D/D, Staff, Acro build. They basically used D/D as an up close killer, Staff for mobility/AoE damage and used CnD on guaranteed stealths. Worked really well but the skill requirement is clearly high.

Don’t know if you mean “they used CnD when they knew they’d have a guaranteed stealth” – no CnD is guaranteed since June last year (and even before) thanks to all the blocks and passives – one of the reasons D/D is dead. The guy you saw got lucky against whoever he was fighting.

alemfi.5107:

Jana.6831:

ETA: And D/D condi is probably not the playstyle you were looking for.

what does ETA stand for in this case btw? I usually associate it with “Estimated time of arrival”. Also, I can agree that the majority of the play style is probably not what he/she is going to be looking for, which is why I didn’t bring it up initially. There is finesse to it, and a few key moments where switching to “conventional” d/d power style attacks will be what you need to do to secure the kill/victory, so I decided to put it out there for him/her to judge for themselves.

Edit To Add

MintyRequiem.4958:

Jana, I would totally do it in PvE if I PvE’d, but I am not interested sadly :< I’m 99% PvP. Oh well, maybe D/D will be viable again some day, thanks for the replies.

I actually forgot to add that the set is even worse in PvP and has been for a long time (for several reasons).
We told the devs beforehand that they’re killing the set – to no avail. And it’s been a year – all my D/D power friends either quit the game, the set or the class. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
There’s no use of pretending that D/D power still works “just play what you want and don’t listen to anyone” as that won’t change a thing and D/D has been the stepchild of this game for ages.
There’s a lot of reasons why the set isn’t viable – if you want me to list it I’ll do that.

ETA: And D/D condi is probably not the playstyle you were looking for.

D/D power is dead – died on June 23th 2015.

It’s still good in PvE though, although everything else is better.

Since you don’t know me: rank 3100 wvw player all but 100 ranks in real wvw, not EotM, have been a solo roamer (power D/D) for 2 years – not possible anymore.

@Dawdler :

Not true, you will be infracted if someone doesn’t like and reports you – for no reason. That’s how this forum works – infractions are more or less completely random.

ETA: And then we’ll have the DBL situation again: only randoms write on this forum so anet doesn’t know what people want and we get a map everybody hates – GG.

Anyway, halfway OT, I can’t read the whole OP too many QQs in it – the opening of the WPs and the stairs instead of jumppads made the DBL a lot better in my opinion – but in the end; I won’t be around to say so, cause infractions, you know ;)

ETA²: Do not quote this post – under no circumstances! ;)

Yes, S/D is back but all other classes have received no nerfs again, it is mostly buffs, so the powercreep is still very much there.
As much as I appreceiate the wvw updates – I’d rather have a class balance update.

I do wonder what the guys at anet are doing.
They destroyed my thief with a single patch a year ago – the pvp forum, this forum and probably other forums are full of complaints about the powercreep and what did they do? add more powercreep and now we have to wait another 4months until some things might or might not change – a time in which players one shot each other.
Why are they so afraid to make a proper balance patch and nerf big time?
They are losing players because they don’t – screw those facerollers they will leave anyway.

I will be on topic in a few mins.. probably

OT: In short, I want my thief back – it’s that simple. I wasn’t playing a faceroll build, I was vulnerable, I had a 50% to win a fight (the rest 45% was my skill, believe it or not – has been destroyed because of the other classes passives and changes to the game).
I didn’t create a thief because I wanted an “assassin” I created a thief because I promised Iwould do it – what blew me away was how fast he was and I loved the initative system. In the end; I grew into the role of an assassin. And I guess that’s just how thief is and always will be, no matter if we try to change the roles: Someone who’s super fast = assassin, has to be squishy = stealth and so on. Redefining the role of thief would create a whole new class. How about something like Revenant?

And with that I’m retiring from the forums – I need you guys to take care of D/D thief for me as I’m probably the last one around (not so sure about Deceiver )
Be loud and be fair and if you want to push ground targetting, insist that it will be an option – GW2 is a completely different game than GW1 and ground targetting and thief is no real good idea. Probably not even for staff.

I miss the really good troll threads we used to have.

Entenkommando.5208:

If every treb could be countered they would be considered in huge waste of supplies.

It depends on how fast you are and they hit hard – if you’re really fast you can get all defensive siege out.
Example: Red Keep and the opposing hill – Theoretically they can be countered.