Guild Wars 2

4. When the enemy’s health is low

The Guardian generally has a tough time keeping up with foes running away, and this is where Virtue of Justice is perfect to use. Usually foes will have already spend all their condition removal by the time they are running away, and that makes the extra seconds of burning hurt a lot.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Kasama.8941:

Could we please stop calling sPvP an eSport, when it has nothing to do with eSports. At least yet. I mean, it can barely be refereed to as a popular game at the moment, so it really just comes of as sounding ignorant. It’s equivalent to calling yourself an NBA player, after you’ve played basketball for a few months.

There’s no point in hijacking a thread to make a complaint. Popularity is one thing for an e-sport, but all you really need is competition. This effort is trying to build a community of competitors who actually enjoy this game and want to get better regardless of many pending balance changes that may or may not be needed. I am sorry if your personal preference differs than most in this thread, but if so, just don’t ever click on it anymore. But if you want to connect with friendly pvpers who want to get better and eventually partake in e-sport competitions that are being held soon then feel free to join.

I’m not questioning the effort, just the choice of name. If you want outside people to take this seriously, you need to be realistic about the state of the game, instead of promoting it as something which it’s clearly not ready to be, yet. That is all I’m saying. eSport is a label that is earned, and that has a sense of prestige attached to it.

PearlGore.7419:

The problem is we have no quickbar space for active skills. Hence – Passives.

As long as none of the active skills are meant for combat, this isn’t a problem. You would just open the WvW window, double click a skill, and close it again. They could even make a vertical sized window, specially for the active skills, that fits the side of the screen.

What bothers me the most, is the wasted potential. They could have done a lot of things, but at the end of the day, these pointless passive skills are what they chose to spend their time on. It’s rather frustrating. They should have ditched these passive skills, and focused only on active skills. Like a short swiftness AoE skill, a Swirling Winds type skill to destroy one siege projectile, a healing skill that only works when using a siege weapon, a quickness type skill that increases build speed, and so on.

The more I play Guild Wars 2, the more I begin questioning ArenaNet’s ability to create valuable content for three different game types.

Could we please stop calling sPvP an eSport, when it has nothing to do with eSports. At least yet. I mean, it can barely be refereed to as a popular game at the moment, so it really just comes of as sounding ignorant. It’s equivalent to calling yourself an NBA player, after you’ve played basketball for a few months.

Rangers have weak burst damage, Guardians have a ton of survivability. Best thing you can do is avoid them, unless you have someone helping you, or change your build to inflict more condition damage.

The builds have always been there, they just haven’t been popular, because most players insisted on using bow burst builds. But now people have caught on and realized that melee is a far more viable option for the Ranger, and that bunker and condition based builds are far stronger then burst builds. However, the problems are still the same as before. Burst power builds for the Ranger are still weak, the pet still can’t hit consistently unless you use snare skills, spirits still die too easily, the Ranger still has next to no way to affect allies, and traits are still a mess.

Death Shroud should be where the Necromancer gets his survivability from. Right now it’s too focused on damage, where it should be more on the lines with the Guardians Tome of Courage. Everyone uses Death Shroud for defensive purposes, so the skills you get should reflect this:

Life Blast – Blast a foe with accumulated life force, healing yourself the more life force you have. (deals fixed damage instead, healing should be from around 80 to around 110, unaffected by healing power, and only work on a successful hit)
Dark Path – Send out a claw and gain stability. If this attack hits a foe, you teleport to that foe. (the Necromancer already has plenty of ways to chill targets, 3 seconds of stability would be a lot more valuable)
Doom – Make your foe flee in fear. (fine as it is, as it can be used both defensive and offensively)
Life Transfer – Damage nearby foes and steal their life force. Gain swiftness for each foe hit. (should give 3 seconds of swiftness for each foe hit, meaning a maximum of 15 seconds)

I feel like it makes a difference. Using 115% magic find in fractals, usually means I come out with three to six rares, where other players might only find one or two rares. The same goes for cores.

Leveling a Thief will improve your overall mobility skills, so when you go back to playing an Elementalist or Warrior, your survivability should improve a bit. This is because the Thief survives by being evasive, while other professions have an easier time standing their ground and taking a few hits. However, that is also what makes the Thief hard to play, as it takes more “work” to kill a foe.

If you have a few gold, then just buy masterwork armor and tickets of the trade post, until you reach level 80. As you level up, look at your character and try to fill out the stats that you are low on. Then when you are level 60, you can start shaping the build that you want to make. That’s what I’ve done while leveling my characters up in WvW.

There were originally suppose to be a system like this in the game, similar to the rune skill system in Diablo 3, but it was change to the trait system instead. I think that if they were to introduce new skills, they might as well just attach them to new weapons. The last thing we need is yet another thing to throw professions off balance.

Cspence.6921:

And again its not just talking, its playing with other people as well. Doing things together, if I wanted to talk to random people who serve only as acquaintances I would chat people up on facebook or …join a guild.

Its like nobody truly understands.

EDIT: I would just like to make it clear because I’m noticing a pattern of people getting defensive. I’m not dogging Guild Wars 2. The game is very fun. I’m simply unhappy with the way the community seems to interact with each other.

Dungeons, sPvP, and WvW are where players play for a common goal. The personal story and open world PvE, is designed to be played solo. That’s just the way it is. The best advice I can give is; try harder. There are plenty of friendly people in this game, even more so the many other MMOs.

I still think it’s a great feature. Reviving an ally feels good, just like being saved by a friendly ally feels good. The tension there is when you have to stomp a foe, as his allies are running towards you, while you are low on health, is fun. The choice between killing a foe to rally an ally, or reviving an ally while getting hit by a foe, makes for great dynamic gameplay.

Mostly this is just a “state of mind” problem. A downed player is not a dead player. Meaning, you shouldn’t waste all your “energy” on simply downing a player, because a player is only dead when he is defeated. So when you are fighting another player, you must also consider the time it takes for you to stomp him. The downed state is part of defeating a foe, it’s not something “extra” you have to do. That is the mindset you have to have when playing PvP.

If you are the type of person that can only make friends, if you are forced into a situation with people, I can see why Guild Wars 2 could be “disheartening”. But I honestly find it very easy to spark up a conversation with random players. The thing that makes Guild Wars 2 different, is that no one are forced to play together, so just like when making friends in the real world, it becomes more about your personality, and not what your character can offer.

Arrow.3856:

I want a new race to bloom but nothing that is already in game. Something evil, something sinister, something that says I am evil and I love it.

The Largos already have that look.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have a linear leveling path, so that’s why you don’t see a lot of players around you. The story is also very much single player, so you don’t really need other players at any point. And when it comes to cities, most players hang out in Lion’s Arch. If you want to play with other players, then you need to talk to people, join a guild, and make friends.

Games make a lot of money from purchases today, and they aren’t nearly as expensive to maintain, as they were ten years ago. I also think a lot more people buy gems, then what is obvious, because there are plenty of things to buy that aren’t visible, like transmutation crystals, minis, or dyes.

Alekty.8706:

I guess I should take payment for teaching people to play now, but here goes…

The problem is, that if you do this, people can easily send one guy to run ahead, completely nullifying your tactic. So pathing… It works I have no doubts, but the funny thing about this is, you can’t do ANYTHING against it. If you have read up on your mechanics 101, you would know that you can use all instant casts while casting something else. Aka I can use my shadowstep 2000 range away, run in, in stealth, start planting, and the moment I start planting I teleport 2000 range away and the plant will still be right ontop of them (As showed by my lovely partner in the video on partner-cam 2 if I might add).

So they don’t see me coming, and unless they can kill me in 0.1 second it takes to use shadowstep, they are going to lose all their supplies.

The only way to counter shadowstepping thieves would indeed be to put up so many anti stealth traps that it would make the supply traps meaningless. And ofcourse that is if the thief runs into the traps, and doesn’t just infitartor arrows or shadowstep over them.

Thief OP yo.

No one is going to run 1200 range ahead, because everyone sticks to the commander/group leader. Which your own video also shows when the zerg is moving.

It’s rather biased saying that no one can catch you, considering that no one seemed to care about catching you, despite the fact that you were standing right on top of a lot of foes. No one even bothered to chase you just a little, once you were visible. Also, any skill you use, other players can use as well. So considering you just blew all your skills and most of your initiative on placing a trap, you are left pretty vulnerable, should anyone actually want to chase you.

Going over your video, here’s what any other profession could have done, without using any skills:
0:43 – Place a trap on Durios bridge
1:00 – Place a trap on road at Quentin flag post
1:06 – Place a trap at entrance to Danelon

Hell, if you had thought about it just a little, you could had use that 2000 range movement to run ahead of the zerg, and place the trap yourself.

There have been hundreds of suggestions on this already, but ArenaNet are too afraid of making the Ranger overpowered, to change anything. The most ideal thing would be to balance the pet differently, depending on whether you’re playing in dungeons, open world PvE, WvW, or sPvP. But ArenaNet simply aren’t putting enough focus on balancing professions, so the chance of us seeing such a big change anytime soon, is very small.

You aren’t really doing anything special here. Any player with a little knowledge of pathing in WvW, can do the same thing. You see a zerg running for a supply camp, there’s a very big chance that they will double back. You see a zerg taking a tower, there a very big chance that they will go to the nearest supply camp, to get more supply. Zergs follow roads 9 out of 10 times. The fact that you decided to go into the middle of a zerg to place a trap, is actually a bad move, as you’re putting yourself in unnecessary risk.

A good rule of thumb is having at least 1400 toughness.
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The reason why there aren’t a lot of people the same place in Guild Wars 2, is because you have more then one way to level up. In other MMOs, you have a streamlined story quest, which you need to do to level up. This means that everyone are running the same places. In Guild Wars 2, you can level up from doing events all over the world, you can level up by crafting, you can level up from play WvW, or you can just play sPvP. This means that the player population of Guild Wars 2 is spread all over the place.

Thief.

They have superior movement and mobility skills, which makes them the best roamers. They have some of the best burst damage in the game. And they have great AoE damage with shortbow, that can apply a lot of pressure to a group of foes. Further more, the Thief is capable of adding support with stealth, by applying it to dolyaks carrying supply, or to golems moving from a keep to a gate.

The trait line you chose to go in should be based on which trait skills you need, the stats you get from traits are just a bonus. Stats comes from anything ells but traits.

There are many Mystic Forge weapons that not many people are using:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items

Tulisin.6945:

Kasama.8941:

I use pistol/pistol in a combo with the shortbow. Usually I deal condition damage with the shortbow, and then use pistol/pistol as a utility weapon set; Unload and Sneak Attack for burst, Body Shot when stacking damage with a group, Headshot for interrupts, and Black Powder when stomping. It’s a lot of fun to use, and also difficult, as you have a lot of options to be mindful of and only a limited amount of initiative.

The problem is that S/P does all the things you noted better than P/P. It can control range much better between Infiltrator’s Strike and cripple on auto, it has a better out-of-stealth attack (and dazes to boot!) unless you’re in a really heavy condition/stealth build. And it does all this without burning tons of initiative on Unload, meaning it actually has plenty to use on Body Shot/Black Powder for stomps.

My set up is usually to get in close range with shortbow, apply pressure by stacking poison and bleed, and then switch to pistol/pistol. With pistol/pistol I can then stack more bleed with Sneak Attack and Vital Shot, until my initiative has recharge a bit, at which point I can interrupt a possible heal with Headshot, or quickly finish my opponent off with Unload. Body Shot I really only use if I’m in a group, as the vulnerability is great against a lord, or a bunker build opponent, while allies apply the damage.

I use pistol/pistol in a combo with the shortbow. Usually I deal condition damage with the shortbow, and then use pistol/pistol as a utility weapon set; Unload and Sneak Attack for burst, Body Shot when stacking damage with a group, Headshot for interrupts, and Black Powder when stomping. It’s a lot of fun to use, and also difficult, as you have a lot of options to be mindful of and only a limited amount of initiative.

1: Have enough survivability to survive the initial damage. This means at least 1400 toughness.
2: AoE damage is more important then snare skills. This is your best weapon against a high burst melee Thief. If you see the Thief, you simply drop the AoE on him, and when he goes into stealth, you drop the AoE under yourself. This takes some timing and practice of curse, as you are limited to recharge times. But the point is, most Thieves only know one combo, and many don’t have patience or ability to think outside the box, so when you force them to break their attack on you, you disrupt their technique, which in turn makes them vulnerable.
3: Be mindful of your condition stacks. The Thief can remove conditions simply by using stealth, but usually only one condition at a time. So dealing bleeding and then following up with immobilize, will only cause the bleeding to be removed, should the Thief go into stealth. But usually, it’s a lot more valuable to get the condition damage to stick, instead of the snare condition.
4: Don’t run away, stand your ground. Turning your back to a Thief, usually means you’re dead. If you want to run, damage the Thief so he gets low on health. This will make him run away to heal, which allows you to do the same, without getting downed.

Each explorable dungeon has a chance to dropping one kind of core, and cores have a higher chance of dropping then lodestones. The cores can then be made into lodestones in the mystic forge, using this recipe; 2 Core, 1 Bottle of Elonian Wine, 1 Pile of Crystalline Dust, 1 Crystal. You can find corrupted cores in ‘Honor of the Waves’.

So far, Thief and Guardian. The Thief has superior movement, the Guardian has wards and durability.

I don’t know why it has to be all or nothing. Just put the game on hold, until ArenaNet figures things out, and then come back and see if you can like the game again.

It depends on the amount of evades and/or “deception” skills your build has. You can gain a lot of survivability by using stealth and teleportation, but you can also gain survivability by using smart clone spawning and shattering. The latter requiring more practice and skill of course. A good thumb rule when it comes to toughness, is having at least 1400. Anything less the that will make you drop too easily.

I’m really happy to be in T5 now. The Gandara sandwich in T4, with Riverside and Aurora Glade on each side, got old really quick.

Today, most people play for the “experience”, and developers have long found out that making easy games is a lot cheaper. So it’s a combination of these two things. Players want to play games with their eyes, not their mind, and developers are constantly trying to find ways to make more money, which means dumbing difficulty on games down so players don’t get frustrated.

But that’s why, when a rare game like Dark Souls come out, you should throw all your money at it :P

I can’t imagine it happening for at least another two years. Development is too slow, the general interest in Guild Wars 2 PvP is too low, and there’s not enough content there to keep players interested.

ArenaNet doesn’t have an endless staff of people, so they need to split up their focus between things. PvE has the most players, so therefor it gets the most focus. It doesn’t make sense to put a lot of effort into a game mode, that doesn’t have a huge amount of players. If the majority played sPvP, things would look different. But hopefully, paying gems for custom arenas will help pay the way to faster sPvP changes.

Rerroll.9083:

Oh you misunderstood me, or I didn’t explain myself.

I was trying to say that although “small changes” was the most expected answer, many people prefers big changes. It’s still a minority, but it’s growing in comparison with past surveys.

Well to be fair, it is hard to know where ArenaNet stands when it comes to balance. It has always seemed very different to the general stand point of players. For example, the Ranger getting a pet buff, when it was already a top tier profession. So maybe there is some fear involved in the answer?

Rerroll.9083:

Kasama.8941:

Rerroll.9083:

Kasama.8941:

I’m very surprised that the majority still prefers to have small balance changes, considering the ‘class balance’ votes shows the game really needs some obvious big changes.

Because small changes is the “obvious” answer. However it’s interesting that there’s a big number of people demmanding big changes.

How is it the obvious answer?

It’s politically correct. “Hey, let’s do small changes and see how the meta evolves, let’s not rush into nerfs & buffs and make mistakes” <— very valid opinion

However I think a few big changes should be made to certain professions & builds.

It’s a survey, not an essay. There is no right or wrong answer, it’s about personal opinion. If people answer what they think is correct, then there is no point in having the survey.

Well that was my point. People complain on the forum about a few professions that needs some big changes, which the votes also reflect, yet people still think there should be made small balance changes. Obviously, for the profession balance to be fixed, there needs to be some big changes to it. Wanting small balance changes would make sense if each profession had around 12.5% votes.

Rerroll.9083:

Kasama.8941:

I’m very surprised that the majority still prefers to have small balance changes, considering the ‘class balance’ votes shows the game really needs some obvious big changes.

Because small changes is the “obvious” answer. However it’s interesting that there’s a big number of people demmanding big changes.

How is it the obvious answer?

I’m very surprised that the majority still prefers to have small balance changes, considering the ‘class balance’ votes shows the game really needs some obvious big changes.

That’s not true at all. Commanding takes some skill. The only thing commanding does on its own, is gather people. Actually winning against another zerg takes experience, coordination, knowledge, and map awareness. And if people don’t listen to the commander, or the commander doesn’t communicate, there might as well not be a commander there at all. I’ve seen randoms take out a zerg with a commander, plenty of times. Or bad commanders wasting zergs on silly things, because they haven’t got a clue about what needs to be done.

Honestly, most of the time people just need is a little encouragement.. All commanding really means is communicating. You don’t need to be a commander to write in the chat.

lol there is no golden child profession. ArenaNet just has a weird way of balancing. Instead of solving a problem, they tweak the balance by very little (like adding 4 seconds reveal) and then see how players respond to that. Even though the truth is, that the majority of professions needs a redesign. Like removing stealth from weapon sets, and adding more movement effects, or boons like aegis and protection. Taking slow steps when it comes to balancing can be a good thing in the beginning, but at this point, we’ve pushed the professions as far as they go. ArenaNet needs to stop beating around the bush.

I player a 0/30/10/15/15 pistol/pistol Thief build, which I enjoy very much, but I can still see why players feel the need to make backstab builds. Overall, the damage output of the Thief is less constant, because it’s much harder for the Thief to stay on a target, as the Thief is very squishy. And unlike the Elementalist, the Thief also has next to zero boon support, which makes all the difference. So in order to compete, the Thief needs good burst damage, to make those short bursts of attacks more valuable. But unfortunately, the damage just isn’t there for most weapon sets. Add to that, that stealth builds are also easier to survive with, as being invisible is a greater advantage, then simply being evasive. You can’t catch someone you can’t see. These two reasons; higher damage, paired with greater survivability, makes the backstab builds superior to other builds.

But I’m fairly sure that most Thief players would love more viable builds…just like any other profession in the game would. Well, maybe except for Mesmer.

Get some movement skills like Drawback, Roll for Initiative, and Blinding Powder, to compliment the movement skills you get from the weapons. You’ll want to get in (if you play melee), deal some damage, and then get back out again. Don’t stay still for too long at a time, as this will most likely get you downed. Try and get into the habit of using steal as well, as it can provide you with additional helpful skills. The shortbow is a must have weapon when leveling up, as it is your main source of AoE damage.

You kinda failed to mention how exactly this is a problem? The pet aren’t really capable of downing you on its own. You can easily outrun it with increased movement speed, or just avoid its damage by running in circles.

I’m not surprised by this at all. With the traits Restorative Mantras and Mender’s Purity, Mantra of Recovery becomes one of the best healing skills in the game. Not only because you are able to remove two conditions separately, or heal three times, but also because mantras can be activated on top of other skills. You can even use Mantra of Recovery while you’re reviving an ally. And with Harmonious Mantras, you can heal one more time, and remove one more condition. It’s brilliant.

Best part is, there is no drawback while your opponent is trying to kill one of your clones. Especially now that the channel time got reduced!

This is one of the things that should/could change in sPvP. It would open up a lot more builds, stat wise, and also invite more WvW players in.

The problem is not the huge amount of players, but the mindlessness of the actions you perform, when you are in a very large group. Run a long your allies and spam your #1 weapon skill, or your CC skills. That’s all you have to do, because your combined damage output makes all your other skills pointless to use. Further more, you can’t even see what the hell is happening around you. Zergs of 30-50 people clashing against each other have less of this, and these are what WvW should be focused around. Not blobs with 100+ players in them. Sadly though, after the removal of culling, blobs have become way too common.

Simply put, the game is just not build to have 200+ players fight against each other. Neither when it comes to the combat system, or lag.

The problem is the Thief’s ability to repetitively apply stealth, within a short time. If stealth only came from healing, utility, and steal skills, then there wouldn’t be a problem at all. But ArenaNet aren’t going to redesign professions anytime soon, if ever, so you are better of just equipping that AoE whenever you see a Thief. Some additional toughness also helps.