Guild Wars 2

TheGrimm.5624:

Actually no, we had less than 1 servers population voice up since there was nothing posted in game. Unless we think there are less than 600 people playing WvW in total. And if that’s the case we might want to close up some of those servers and merge into 3. So you want to start up a server merge thread, see you there.

Anet has got the metrics and wvw is dying all around since HoT – so I guess the assumption that “we” don’t want DBL is accurate.
They also have the metrics how many people play EotM and WvW and I guess that again shows that WvW players don’t want EotM.
You don’t need to be on the forums to have a voice.

Yeah, it is normal and one of the reasons I’m annoyed by the DBLs – also that they’re 4 guards of the same kind and I have perma weakness which I can’t get rid of (thanks June Patch!) – if any camp can kill me it’s a DBL camp in which I pulled all npcs.

ETA: And because they’re so far apart they have the habit to reset which is really nice!

Just saying: The game is out of control since June 23th 2015. The trait system as it is will never work out as it is powercreep already and in a lot of cases only leaves one viable vanilla build per class (if the elites get toned down). So yes, I’m curious when they’ll realize this.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Since the games release I’ve always loved watching armature and non-mesmers attempt to balance or fix Mesmer. Like a florist trying to fix a high performance car by whacking at it with a hammer.

Fortunately the owners know this method will only result in a write off.

Here’s a non native speaker fixing your English: Amateur.
I can try to fix your armature, though – but I’m a florist.

mulzi.8273:

This happens to me all the time (T1 server). I take it as respect that they chase me so far and deem me that dangerous to their mighty numbers. Not to mention that while i’m running i’m communicating with the main zerg and usually leading the enemy right into them (or away from my servers zerg’s objective

Fun story, I was running towards green corner on EB, thieves were still the most hated class in wvw, ~20 enemies came towards me, I popped my SR but they ran over me nonetheless. Was downed but stealthed, wrote in chat that they were running towards QL and tried to rez myself. A single enemy came along, saw me downed, did some AA. He must’ve informed his zerg cause they came running back all the way from QL to finish me off. But in the meantime my zerg arrived and killed them.
I called that my special elite: summon a zerg.

https://youtu.be/Ed5Bh_DbHPU

Rank = Skill
But it’s good that you leave a lot of roadkill. You should ask metabattle if you can rewrite their page.

Silverstone.4539:

well I don’t know what you’re doing or how your playing so can’t judge.

Only roamers I don’t like. Are the ones that use food buffs vs people that don’t use them. Start the fight, but run or stealth if they look like they are going to lose, but keep coming back to catch me off guard when I’m hitting a camp. That to me is a dirty roamer… but I don’t know, maybe that’s what a roamer is meant to be nowadays? if so, that is a sad state of affairs indeed.

Your whole post is kind of ridiculous: “I’m without food and capping this camp and if anyone comes and attacks me, he is a dirty roamer”.
Maybe wvw isn’t the mode for you?

Dawdler.8521:

How would they secretely “fix” population issues? Murder people in their sleep?

Because I seriously doubt someone would go “hm, why am I on Sea of Sorrows today when I was on Yaks Bend yesterday? Well, guess its just a visual bug that happen to everyone, np”.

lol

Aenesthesia.1697:

Jana.6831:

Anet, could you please stop this nonsense by balancing your game?

I’m sick of the daily “THIEF ADVISE” threads written by noobs who think they can tell a thief how to play because they’re really good in this faceroll meta – slowclap

the problem is not the balance.

It’s that 9 out of 10 thieves don’t know how to play. How do i know this? because 1 out of 10 thieves completely destroys my necro. Of the rest, 1 tries but ends up fleeing, 8 die.

while i do a decent necro, i am not even close to great, so if regular thieves cannot kill a decent necro with no life force, chances are they cannot kill anything. The fact that some thieves not only can kill, but completely destroy me, means the average thieve sucks.

play this game for a bit longer and then come again =)

SB = somebody, in this case.
Otherwise it’s shortbow. But if you’re on NA: English natives come up with a new abbreviation every other minute.

MadRabbit.3179:

Jana.6831:

You really didn’t notice that you used numbers all over the place and didn’t explain where you pulled them from and that I asked over multiple posts where you got them from? (It’s now edited, but that was basically our conversation).
It’s nice that you try to explain it to me once more, but we already did this

Then what was the point of your post other than to criticize me?

Honestly, one, I am doing this out of my own good will to help people out. Two, I’m taking additional time to answer to clarify. Three, the math is detailed and being human, I’m rather prone to writing less than perfect communications.

So maybe, cut me some slack, huh?

Oh my.
If you’re in school or at university ask your teachers/profs or even boss if calculations with random numbers make any sense – it took us now 10 posts to unravel it.
Of course I’m cutting you some slack I just explained why I asked what each number meant because it wasn’t clear – I got what you meant with them now but I had to ask and I explained why I asked which you took as me criticising you which wasn’t my intend.
Are we good now? *begs

Anet, could you please stop this nonsense by balancing your game?

I’m sick of the daily “THIEF ADVISE” threads written by noobs who think they can tell a thief how to play because they’re really good in this faceroll meta – slowclap

You really didn’t notice that you used numbers all over the place and didn’t explain where you pulled them from and that I asked over multiple posts where you got them from? (It’s now edited, but that was basically our conversation).
It’s nice that you try to explain it to me once more, but we already did this ;)

Fat Disgrace.4275:

my thief has sandals… so there!

Sandals with socks…

MadRabbit.3179:

Jana.6831:

MadRabbit.3179:

The 453 is the base healing it gives at 80 with 0 zero healing power.

The base healing of sigil of blood is 451 which you listed correctly in the same sentence, so I still have no idea where your 453 comes from.

Oh yeah, sorry. I missed this one.

There is like three different sources that list the base healing as 451, 452, 453. I may have used the numbers interchangeably at some point, because honestly, no idea which one is actually correct.

I think the two sources I listed have it at 451 and 452.

It doesn’t really matter whether or not it’s 451,2 or 3 – I was just trying to understand your calculations and the numbers just stood there without explanation, that’s why I asked.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

scarf’s in thieves. pff

The Dreamer thieves pff.
Also; my thief is primarily a Piranha thief – top that!

@ Anari: Oh a shrink.
I didn’t read all of what you wrote nor do I intend to – but: This game is watered down because of “casuals” who complained about everything and also because of mismanagement.
A lof of the “hardcore” players have indeed left, mostly gvg guilds in wvw (yes, we’re dependend on pvp balance as well).
Also: Anet announced that they don’t really intend to do balance anymore (that they didn’t say literally) but want to “shake up the meta” every 4 months (this were their words). Google it – it was in some news around June last year, maybe a bit earlier.

I already have everything I want – I chose sigil of fire because I have incinerator and that weapon will stay like it is. I chose bloodlust because I like stacking sigils, I chose blood because I had it. When 2 handed weapons got a second slot I also got sigil of energy. That was the only real choice I made with my sigils. But if any of the others had turned out to be suboptimal I had replaced them – I know that air deals more damage but I like fire better because of the very visible fire proc when hitting a stealthed enemy.
Before June this was the best setup I could get for my purpose and it will likely stay the same, whatever may come on april 19th.

I just want to know how exactly the damage is calculated and not having the “ideal setup” because of my gut (which works pretty fine apperantly, but still).
ETA: I got my valk armor because of my gut as well – I didn’t really have any idea about the stats back in the day. See that’s why I’m so rich, I always stick to the first gear I got.

My sigil of choice is actually sigil of bloodlust ;)
Maybe you have a point but I haven’t seen big numbers with sigil of fire since they nerfed it ~1 year ago. Will observe it further.

Thanks for the calculations although it isn’t always clear where all these numbers are coming from :P

ETA: And the damage calculation seems to be a big mystery on GW2 – the site now lists the weapon coefficient, it hasn’t in the past, I think – I have been on reddit pages, blogposts etc. to find the numbers for daggers.

MadRabbit.3179:

Blood has a set damage amount that’s based on your level which is 451. That 451 is increased by 7.5% of your power. The OP had 2555 power so its 451 + (2555 * 0.075).

Ah, alright, you took the power of the OP – ok.

MadRabbit.3179:

The 453 is the base healing it gives at 80 with 0 zero healing power.

The base healing of sigil of blood is 451 which you listed correctly in the same sentence, so I still have no idea where your 453 comes from.

MadRabbit.3179:

0.565 is the coefficient for the Flameblast skill.

Ok.

MadRabbit.3179:

The wiki for the Flameblast says it cannot crit, but says nothing about whether or not passive damage modifiers apply. In the absence of the wiki saying otherwise, I assume they still do apply. I’ve never found anything that says they don’t apply to sigil damage procs except in certain cases like lifesteal.

Then have a look at all the traits thief has got: more crit chance, more ferocity (which only applies on crit), damage increase. The latter might increase the damage of sigil of fire, but I’m certain the others won’t. And the damage increase is marginal at best.

Where do the 0,565 come from?
Also I’m a bit confused if your blood damage is from you having put a number into power or if you calculated it with healing power and I also don’t know what the 453 really mean. Base heal – isn’t our base heal 1?
Fire only scales with power and the only trait I know off my head that increase this stat is revealed training.
And of course if you gain might with signets of power and thrill of the crime.

You rez off veteran mobs, yes, not usual mobs anymore and yes it has affected my playstyle – I don’t even try to kill mobs in PvE.
But when flipping the hyleks I’m extra careful, so I usually don’t die there anymore after it happened once.

I tried but self heal isn’t shown.
But we already have numbers for it:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Blood

ETA:
And if anyone could unravel the maths for me I’d be really grateful – but be careful; I said the moment I can calculate the damage in this game will be the day when I’m no noob anymore. I’m still 70%+ noob.

Nyta.4769:

snip

Those very high ranks I’ve seen in wvw were easy kills – I saw one of them for some weeks and he was always playing the same class and was always an easy kill. I’m running around with all of my alts (which I usually faceroll as I can’t really play them) and I’m never that easy to kill.
I don’t doubt that there’s very high ranks in wvw as well, without EotM it’s a hell of a lot more work which was my point.
Even if you farm people in EotM, because you know how to play, you rank up way faster than in usual wvw, because people in wvw are there to fight and not to farm PvE mobs.
I’m in no way jealous, my own rank is high enough, just that it isn’t worth anything thanks to EotM. It’s just like you did your PHD and someone else got it for free.
I’m not upset I find it unfair and useless. Which wasn’t the intend when EotM was launched, granted, but anet should’ve looked into it a long time ago and should look into it now again.

Edit: Grammar

Nyta.4769:

Jana.6831:

That Diamond player was an EotM player – No wvw player has got a Diamond rank and if, I shouldn’t be able to beat them.

Loads of regular wvw players have diamond ranks, so no idea what on earth you’re talking about. Saw them and upper mithril all the time back when I was in t1 a year-ish ago. I’m in t2 now, and barely touch wvw at all anymore, but when I do, I still see at least one each time. I have noticed that most of the rank 1k+ players have either quit the game or quit the format, though. Most enemy groups I see now are just bronze/silver with a few golds, when they used to be silver/gold/plat with a few mithril and diamonds. So maybe that’s where your confusion’s coming from.

If you chose to quote and refer to me at least read what I wrote: A “natural” diamond rank in wvw won’t be killed with 2 strikes by the weakest class and weakest build in game. In fact the situation was a bit more complicated – I was solo capping their Ncamp which was 250. Not all npcs were dead and he came as an OP mesmer (pre hot) and died to me while his buffed npcs bashed me.
You got plenty of wxp in EotM and still get more than in regular wvw so you will rank up way faster than any regular wvw player and that is sad as in regular wvw it’s usually some sort of skill indicator but now it’s “oh a ridiculously high rank = easy kill” because those are most likely EotM players.

Doesn’t fire ignore armor as well?
I’m using both sigils – fire on my dagger and blood on my SB which I use mainly to cap camps or in zergfights. Against a lot of enemies it heals nicely (daggerstorm) (did I mention that I love daggerstorm?) (although clusterbomb spam is fine too) – but otherwise I wouldn’t rely too heavy on neither blood or fire – it doesn’t really matter in the end whether or not you get 1k health off an enemy.
I’m trying to get a combat log in which it says for how much it heals.
But: maybe you can get a friend to duel you in pvp to test it yourself – as I can’t guarantee I will be full health at any point.

ETA: Come to think of it; that maybe depends on your playstyle – if you’re spamming a lot, blood might be better, if you’re relying more on BS then fire – but I’ll test it in the next zerg fight.

Generalizing is the very concept of a megaserver.

Swagger.1459:

Now you know why I made those points.

No, I still don’t

Swagger.1459:

There you go generalizing again… Maybe they are not a great pvp player, but they love eotm and spend all their game time there.

That’s great – I just don’t see why they’re rewarded better than wvw players or why these two modes are still tied together as they’ve got nothing to do with each other – in theory, yes but not in reality.

Swagger.1459:

So that’s makes they are worthy of “ktrainer” insults, judgments and generalizations?

What?

Swagger.1459:

Players aren’t there for the super awesome rewards, there are much better activities for that.

Yes, but still they’re rewarded better than regular wvw players although the very concept of EotM leaves not much more than a karma train (I listed the reasons) and although the majority of EotM players agreed to use it as their farm and leveling map.

Swagger.1459:

Players are using it as the pvp mode provided. Eotm is holding up pretty well too considering the state that wvw has been in with all of the problems. Go figure…

No, not really, they have scouts to avoid fights – in most cases-
EotM is a farm, not much more, and a megaserver – you yourself said that “megaservers are that much better” but in fact all it does is giving you an illusion that something is doing well. And it would turn wvw into another EotM and I’m very much against that.

ETA: And again – I don’t want to shut EotM down, I just want it to be seen as it is: a PvE farm.
Honestly, sometimes I really think that real wvw is the only game mode in which people are really killing each other, every other “pvp” mode is just running away from each other – class/balance should be measured on wvw.

And with that I’m out – it just turns into an endless loop of me repeating the same things over and over

Swagger.1459:

I responded to specific things in your post. One example… You killed a couple diamond players, so I say players there can kill you too.

That Diamond player was an EotM player – No wvw player has got a Diamond rank and if, I shouldn’t be able to beat them. Do you have an idea just how ridiculous the EotM rewardings system was and likely still is?

Swagger.1459:

The overall problem is that you and others generalize too much and forget the eotm is still a pvp mode.

What I’m “complaining” about is that you people aren’t using it as a pvp mode.

Edit: Typos and stuff.

There are bosses that focus the ones attacking them first – Tower Lords and some PvE champs/bosses.

I think that especially the Dominator skins are something new. You can only redesign a bow to an extend, otherwise it wouldn’t look like a bow anymore. But I actually think that their masterpiece is the staff.
I got it for my revenant who’s staff animations I always liked better than my thiefs’ who I don’t play with staff. Also my thief should have everything in black and the dominator skins can’t decide which colour they want to be.
Long story short: Thief staff animation looks soo much better with Dominator’s staff. I hope to find something similar in plain black some day. But really – that blew me away.

Swagger.1459:

Go to SW and find out about loot and karma trains then. Go farm fractal 40 and get tons of loot and 3,000 karma every 5 minutes.

Eotm and wvw are both pvp zones, you cannot spin it any other way.

There are inexperienced players all over in every part of the game, even in wvw.

There are players in eotm who could kill your character too.

I’m almost rank 900 from casually playing and most of those levels were from wvw. Not a noob to competitive play either, but I just play for fun now.

The pvp community would be healthier if many of you looked at things from a broader view.

Mulzi just said it and that’s what I think of EotM players and maybe that’s like most of you are: Casuals who don’t want to work together – the very opposite of wvw (although there are servers like that out there).
And just saying: No one ever told me not to run with their zerg – And there would be a lot to complain about – glassy thief, never in TS – But I can read the movements of both zergs, so I push when my commander is pushing as otherwise it would be no group play. And even if I loathe the current commander, I’m playing in a team alone by capping camps and scouting – everything in wvw is a group effort.

To you:
I don’t get any of your points: Yes some occassional player could possibly kill you.
900 ranks in 2 years isn’t too much (what has that to do with anything btw?) (Ah, you meant they were from wvw – ok. I remember that you said you hadn’t played regular wvw in over 2 years – So you haven’t played EotM the past 2 years either then apparently).
EotM was meant as a pvp map but isn’t played as such.
And what do inexperienced players have to do with this now?

But again: I don’t want it closed – I just want it clearly separated from wvw (you could do that by giving out little wvw rewards but more pve rewards). And that is maybe too late. And if it’s too late, then give a good initative to try regular wvw.

Daggos Skelito.2910:

Jana.6831:

So, what great change was there with HoT? Did you guys get gliding?

Since the poor choices that HOT brought to WvW, seems there has been an influx of players that destroyed the K-train. There seems to be alot more fights over who controls the map.

Recently I noticed…..if outnumbered, defend keep at all costs

That’s nice, but the maps should’ve been populated all the time since it’s a megaserver system, so it’s a bit hard to believe that that much changed, but I don’t doubt it.
Problem is: At some point these guys will get bored and/or realize (if they haven’t already) that they are in fact fighting on the mother of the DBLs.

Swagger.1459:

It’s not complicated to justify its existence, and it does just fine providing a place to pvp and have fast paced fun.

Npcs and aetherblades… Ok, so npc shouldn’t be a problem for seasoned pvpers, and you have npcs defending stuff in wvw too.

It’s a mobile seige weapon, not sure where you consider that pve.

Plenty of fights happen all the time, perhaps you should spend more time there. Better yet, pop a commander tag and help players learn more about pvp combat and winning if you are that experienced.

“Ktrainers”… There is better loot and karma to be had in other parts of the game. Your issue is that rewards are not good overall in pvp.

Players are there for a more casual pvp experience and to find more population balance. Is that an issue? Last time I checked WvW has many casual players, major population issues, lots of players standing around and lots of people dueling around smc out of boredom.

I’m not trying to be negative, but you are spinning negativity around eotm just because you don’t like it.

I don’t want to get rid of EotM, but to me it’s just a pve karma train, I have never really been to the silverwastes but I doubt you can farm karma better there. But the main reason to even want karma was obsidian shards which are handed out in the silverwastes, I give you that.
Only 2 problems, well maybe 3, I have is that new players might get the impression that EotM is wvw which it isn’t, oh well, I’ve got 4 problems, with that EotM is in fact draining players from wvw, also that the rewards have been better, and are now the same, while all you guys do is to avoid fights. That I can kill a Diamond Legend, who somehow found his way into wvw, with 2 strikes (I’m playing the weakest class with the weakest build in game) and that anet thinks that all those cheesy stuff is something “real” wvw players want.

You guys said I should give EotM a try – in fact I did; as a Karma trainer, while leveling some of my alts and as part of a small guild group (10) killing 40 over and over.
Maybe you guys should give regular wvw a shot and maybe understand why EotM is anything but wvw. We did play it seriously until a month after it launched, it was interesting and some good commanders really could turn the match around, but still it was really imbalanced and after a while people just rigged the matches to get more loot. After that it was abandoned for a while until PvE players discovered it and I don’t think that anything has changed the past 1,5 years, so I bet it’s still a mindless karma train that has got nothing to do with pvp.

Edit: punctuation.

Daggos Skelito.2910:

Lord of Rings.5371:

Maybe some players commented before they have spent much time on a map.

It was a first impression.

I was thinking the same thing. They are talking about EoTM before HOT.
Go play a few hours then come back!

For me:
WvW = chasing tumble weeds
EoTM = Awesome fights

So, what great change was there with HoT? Did you guys get gliding?

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Jana.6831:

There’s no LS1 anymore because of LS2 which is what you want.

Okay, as you don’t seem to be reading anything I’m saying, I’m going to thank you for the conversation and bow out.

You don’t seem to understand what you want.
The stuff you want is too complicated regarding devs, players, time, effort, the psychology behind all of it etc. etc. that it could be executed.
“You want it all but you can’t have it.. "

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Jana.6831:

And I guess you’re paying the extra 100 devs needed to programm and invent all of this?

Well sort of, yeah. My gem purchases, the people I encourage to buy the game, their gem purchases. Then multiply that by every other player.

If the game had stayed at the level it was in LS1, with permanent additions keeping it constantly growing, then fewer players would have grown disillusioned, and they would have encouraged more people to buy the game, who would themselves have bought gems and encouraged others to join.

Whether the LS1 model could have been self-sustaining, I don’t know. But it isn’t like I’m suggesting the devs work for free.

There’s no LS1 anymore because of LS2 which is what you want.
There are already 220 devs working on this game, I guess we’d need to buy a lot of gems to pay the additional ones needed.
Unfortunately megaservers and LS2 were brought into the game at the same time, I guess it would’ve been better if we had some more LS1 before switching to LS2 if switching to it at all. But yes, it’s probably easier to make LS2, although its still a lot of work, problm is that probably a lot of people left because of that because the game still felt like “dying” to them. But that’s just speculation – all I want is to have my thief and wvw back to about how they’ve been one year ago – I don’t really care for PvE content but I’m mostly glad when an event pops up so I can waste my time there instead of being grumpy in wvw as the game just isn’t what it used to be. And for that I like the content to be temporary as that “forces me” to play it now and therefore is a great distraction. If it were always there I wouldn’t play it. I probably would play dungeons if they were only here for a week.

Lord of Rings.5371:

Maybe some players commented before they have spent much time on a map.

It was a first impression.

I should’ve explained what exactly I meant with “complicated” – that probably confused you guys – but I now did, so I hope you allow me to have an opinion =)

Swagger.1459:

How is eotm complicated?

What is imbalanced?

What are these “too many pve elements” compared to wvw?

Players are there playing so how is it not being used as intended?

It’s complicated to justify its existence and to change it because the karma trainers won’t be happy about it.
The 3 parts are imbalanced – they are as well in wvw but not as bad as we don’t have that many pve elements, like scorpions – another imbalance and one of the too many pve elements; like npcs actively defending your keep, the aetherblades in the middle etc etc.

It was intended as a pvp map and people avoid fights , so no its not used as intended. It’s just a gigantic karma train, which is even easier than most pve maps.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I’m not saying that LS1 should have been permanent and then they should have done what they did afterwards anyway. I’m saying LS1 should have been permanent and then they should have continued with the LS1 model.

Imagine if every two weeks from the start of LS1 we’d received permanent updates on the scale of the Molten Alliance dungeon, or the Marionette, or the Silverwastes. Heck, not even every two weeks, every month.

The game would be crammed with content. We’d have dungeons to run, SAB to play, the Queen’s Gauntlet to try, Fractals to do (remember they came in LS1 too), new maps to explore… Who knows what else we could have had.

Instead, we have very little from Season 1, new players need to buy a lot of Season 2, HoT was a disappointment, and the most exciting thing we’ve had in a year and a half is that they turned on content that they chose to turn off in 2013.

And I guess you’re paying the extra 100 devs needed to programm and invent all of this?
And I guess the reason why we had no content for so long was because they worked on HoT long before they announced it.
If you had that many content you wouldn’t have enough people to play all of it. Unless, of course, you want to play it alone.

ETA: I loved the Dredge Boss atthe “evacuation of LA” – I really miss that Boss – there’s no way he’s coming back, I know that but maybe that is one of the reasons why I think this game is great and why I would tell people who haven’t been there “that event was really cool, I hope for the next event, it’s always fun” – of course people want to relive it, but is it really that important? You can either have LS2 or LS1, but not both, so what would you rather take? For me it’s LS1.

EotM is pretty complictaed. It is imbalanced, it has got too many stupid PvE elements, the people don’t use it like it was intended to be used.
Unfortunately it has stayed as it is for too long, so removing it now wouldn’t do any good either.
And I partly agree – EotM players are a different breed BUT – there’s no reason to give regular wvw a shot and new players might think that EotM is in fact wvw and never give it a try. Also by removing it you would destroy the last bit of wvw a lot of the lower servers have got left (a friend of mine is on a dead server – he hopes for them to be green so he can at least play EotM) – That being said: EotM should be overworked and balanced too, but with a different mindset than regular wvw as the EotM plays have got different priorities.
And: The only thing that really bothers me is that EotM players have got diamond ranks.

And this is mine.
He’s super serious!

I don’t get your “vitality gained for dps lost” –
It’s basically simple – as a thief you can have full power and ferocity with some vitality. Since you usually have 100% fury uptime, you don’t really need to bother with crit chance. Even if it’s below 100, you likely won’t be able to survive a fight without disengaging and that’s when critchance becomes less important.
Also: It very much depends on your weapons and also traits whether or not you better run marauder or valk/zerker or even zerker.
That being said: Even for a “sustain” staff thief marauder isn’t the best choice if he still struggles to stay in fight.

reikken.4961:

Yes, valkyrie’s grants you higher potential damage—bigger crits—but the average dps is lower.

For some reason no one ever reads what I write – go back and read what I wrote in at least the last post.

Yes, but that trait doesn’t increase your critical chance which you said is boss!
Also I’m a D/D thief, I like my CnD’s to crit.

Anyway, since we’re now moving in circles (and probably did since at leat 10 posts) :
OP – you would only deal marginally less damage if you swap some of your gear for valk to get a bit more sustain.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

I was not in a party, but I was doing Dragon Stand Mordermoth fight…

Join a squad if there’s a commander around (Mentor can have no squad as far as I know). It works (if you dc) and you don’t have to ask someone if you can join, you don’t have to say anything, you can make your own subparty if everybody is targeting everything, or if you want to target everything, and you can leave without saying anything.

reikken.4961:

Ok, caveat. As long as your crit chance isn’t exceeding 100%
then marauder’s is better dps than valk

So at first marauder is better vit and damage than valk, now it’s only better damage, as long as you don’t have more than 100% critchance. Well ok then.
You trade in 2 main damage stats with marauder: power and ferocity. Sure you get more critchance but: My mix thief has got already ~60 or 65% critchance with his sustain food – it would be higher had I food which increase the critchance. Plus I have higher vitality, higher power and higher ferocity – that was my point. Marauder isn’t as great as you guys make it out to be.

ETA: I get additional crit chance from CS – so your comparison is all nice and stuff but we’re talking about thief who doesn’t usually tank a point. And if I’m behind a boss, tanking, 95% of my hits (AA) do crit – so..

reikken.4961:

also marauder is notably better than valkyrie for health gain per dps lost

I doubt that.

If you go staff, or even S/D marauder makes probably more sense – but you trade in power, vitality and ferocity in comparison to zerker or valk or zerker/valk like my thief (pic).
Thing is that you never ever have to worry about crit chance in this meta – so if you have got problems with marauder you probably should replace some stuff with valk. I bet it’s no damage loss ;)

Yes, but – I’ve been thief for too long to really say how I survive. Disengage engage is nice but the best for that is still stealth – and I’m mostly a stealth thief (OP isn’t). So, is it that easy to say “engage disengage” if the OP says he can’t get rid of aggro? Which implies that he’s already trying to disengage but for some reason can’t.
In most cases exotic is just as good as ascended – at least to test it. in fact I had 2 exotic gears when I was a noob – soldier’s for wvw and valk for pve. At some point I was comfortable enough to swap to my PvE gear for everything.
I think you got my point – this discussion is really nice but if I were the OP it wouldn’t help me at all.

insanemaniac.2456:

if they arent perfect, endless crying and kittening

No, although there has been a lot of rage because there were too many rangers at the marionette – it wasn’t pretty.

My point was rather: A buyable LS2 has got to be perfect, a LS1 like event doesn’t have to – but maybe I’m wrong with that – I don’t know which takes more work – the marionette sure seemed pretty effortful.

Dahkeus.8243:

Yes, there were definitely meta builds and there was information on strong builds, for sure. However, they weren’t all in one place, and it wasn’t as easy to tell a real good build from an overhyped mediocre/bad build.

The way I see it: There is only a few builds that are “worth taking” = OP – because the traits have been shaved that much in June that there is no real alternative.
I don’t think that anyone is really coming up with anything better than metabattle.