Guild Wars 2

Shortbow has seen nothing but buffs since the game’s release, it honestly amazes me how its still subpar compared to even other condi options — not to mention the zerk alternatives.

~ Kovu

Xenesis.6389:

You only get credit if they are holding a siege blueprint at the time of death unfortunately.

That shouldn’t be an issue due to the other bug that has players always holding a siege blueprint, even when they’re not.

~ Kovu

April 1, 2017

• The team that controls Stonemist may now send invaders into other worlds’ dungeons and raid instances. Invaders will be represented by a red glow.

What do you guys think about this update? Do you think this’ll convince a few people to actually hop in and play this gamemode?

I think its a good change, encouraging people to actually represent and defend the worlds which they play on in some way. IMO pve’ers take it for granted with how much effort we put into defending their right to smack AI all day. We died for their magnetite.

Thoughts?

~ Kovu

kitten it, you’re right, we’re not going to agree on this.

~ Kovu

What, would you like me to pull every single power-based attack in the game and cross-compare them with ranger’s power based attacks? I have better things to do for the rest of the month.
By cherry picking I (of course) mean picking one of ranger’s harder hitting abilities and comparing it to something on another profession that doesn’t hit as hard. My examples aren’t perfect (most of those auto’s have some other small effect) but it’s within the ballpark of being comperable and at least I’m citing some examples instead of making blanket statements which clearly aren’t accurate.

~ Kovu

What game are you playing again?

Guardian: 323 (.8), 323 (.8), 484 (1.2) (2.5s)
Warrior: 282 (.7), 282 (.7),363 (.9) (2.5s)
Ranger: 222 (.55), 222 (.55),290 (.72), (2.56s)
Mesmer: 3x 219-381 (.54-.945) (1.4s)
Necromancer: 403 (1.0), 484 (1.2), 565 (1.4) (2.88s)

I’m not going to cherry pick weapon skills from different weapons as all of the professions play differently, but I pulled the basic auto attack chain from each profession’s greatsword.

~ Kovu

No, every profession needs to set up for a combo in some respects, but its more prominently required among ranger weapon skills as they generally have lower base damage and coefficients to make up for the damage their pets theoretically do.
Sure you don’t need to invest in power for your pet to do damage, but your pet’s damage alone isn’t winning you any fights and rangers get less out of investing into power than professions that don’t have some of their damage coming from an entirely extraneous source.

In that regard I actually agree with OriOri, I’d like to see pet damage be based more on the ranger’s stats so that the damage my smokescale delivers would matter more against a heavy profession if and when I invest in glassier builds.

On a potentially related note, I wish more power-based ranger utilities were offensively-oriented.

~ Kovu

OriOri.8724:

No class should be able to wear bunker gear yet have the main source of its damage not be impeded in the slightest. Yet that is what happens with ranger pets.

My post got deleted, too. It’s a real shame. =(
I’ll go back down and hang out in the ranger subforum, Anet pretty much ignores that one so I’ll be safe. =p

~ Kovu

Anyone with a lick of ability to play this game even moderately well doesn’t care one way or the other about this.
It was a stupid build. Not overpowered per se, but annoying to deal with and (as I understand it) not even that fun to play.
People can probably still “ghost”, but to maintain the build the condition bomb won’t be as heavy. That is, even less viable.

~ Kovu

Turk.5460:

Yeah 10k for Smoke Assault was an exaggeration. It generally hits me, a medium armor wearer with no toughness, for 1200-1500 a hit, which is still an absurd amount for a Ranger who puts 0 power into their gear. Spike Barrage, however, I’ll reiterate – as a melee player, who must keep the ranger close, and likely has used dodges, blocks, etc earlier in the fight – it is ridiculous the amount of damage a simple F2 can do.

This would be acceptable if the ranger was in berserker-style gear with moderate crit chance, but is insane that they are able to do so while slotting things like clerics or trailblazer, or anything else that has no power/precision.

If a ranger manages to stack 25 stacks of might, trait for & then proc Remorseless while running beastmastery, proc’ing the active on SotW AND utilizing quickness so that the spike barrage can’t simply be sidestepped — AND if the opposing player has used up their evade & block frames and aren’t paying attention to the pet — they deserve to be insta kitten. Not that that the stars align frequently enough for it to be overpowered, its just memorable when it does happen.

That said, many rangers that roam would only have their pet damage be improved if it was actually based off the ranger’s power, precision and ferocity. Even on a somewhat bunkery build (many roaming rangers usually use at least 2/3 of Guard, Protect Me and SoS) for actual ranger weapon attacks to do anything noticeable to the heavy armored professions they need to run at minimum 2,300 power, 50% crit chance and 180 critical damage before might. Otherwise the heavies can simply cycle through defenses and outheal more effectively than the ranger can do damage.

Condition-based pets would need a heavy rework, too, if pet condition damage was based on ranger’s stats. This would also affect some traits.

~ Kovu

I run a 25 might stack power boon rotation build and I’ve never hit another player for 10k with either smokescale or bristleback. Even when the attack(s) actually hit. And yes, you can simply sidestep a bristleback’s f2 along with most other pet attacks. Its super annoying. Smoke assault is an exception, its nice when my pet rotates into that. Can’t control the timing on that for a coordinated burst, though.

~ Kovu

Lol. If only.

~ Kovu

Because its kittening funny watching my ranger toon shift orientation on the spot as the thief bounces and teleports around trying to dodge the channel instead of simply using one of their many interrupts or their 12s c/d block.
Once channeled skills have a bead on you, you have to deal with it. That’s a reality for everyone in the game. As a ranger I’d love to swap out rapid fire for true shot any day of the week.

~ Kovu

Lol @ people who die to ranger pets.
Seriously, sidestep the pet. You don’t even need to dodge.

~ Kovu

This happens to me often enough that I’m starting to think its an actual Mesmer mechanic.
And yes, the fall damage has killed me.

~ Kovu

You’re unlikely to lock down a decent acro thief, especially if they’re also running daredevil. They have lots of ways to break soft & hard CC and can fill their bar with stun breaks.

Your best bet is to outsustain their initial dodge/dps spam with abilities such as guard, protect me & SoS and then counter with whatever power-based weapon you’re using before they’re able to stealth away. If you do manage to lock them down for even a moment they’ll melt quicker than anything else in the game — all of their defenses are active, not passive.

Let me reiterate, unless they’re a bad player condition-based ranger builds will not kill acrobatics thieves, especially those running daredevil.

I’m fairly new to thief but I eat all rangers outside of druid/bunker for breakfast. This while dying to most other thieves.

~ Kovu

Many games would make you clear the “home” area before exploring other regions, fortunately with Guild Wars 2 you can simply use the Asura Gate in your race’s home city to travel to Lion’s Arch and from there make your way to the region you want to explore first.
You’re hardly forced to play Sylvari because you want to explore Caledon Forest first.

That said I don’t think you get anything extra for popping the item on a character that is already level 80. I could be mistaken.

~ Kovu

Dawdler.8521:

Open your god kitten chests.

Hi Jekkies,

Thanks for the reply. Just for some clarification is there an internal cooldown on rune of the reaper? If not that sounds super overpowered, I’m almost consistently shouting at my computer screen.

Also, that particular combo indeed sounds powerful, but also a little difficult to pull off. I don’t want to be bursted in the time it takes me for me hit ‘enter /cower enter’. Any advice on that front?

Thanks for the advice.

~ Kovu

Alright, so I picked up thief a couple of weeks ago. I’m a ranger main, and after not particularly enjoying necro I thought I’d give thief a try. Turns out I quite enjoy it.

I primarly play wvw, though I’ll be hitting up map completion on the toon to deck it out in glorious legendary swag and once I’m a little better at what I’m doing I’ll sneak into pvp, too.

I have two questions. The first is the viability of thief in raids. I don’t raid a whole lot, but when I do I’m on either healy druid or condi ranger. I rarely see thieves doing raid content.

The second question, as the title suggests, I’m looking for good full damage burst zero-to-dead rotations. I see plenty of videos of thief players catching the opposition off guard and bursting them from full to nothing in a matter of a couple seconds.

As I’m new to the profession my build is fairly standard:
- Dagger/Pistol, Staff
- Marauders armor & weapons, zerk trinkets
- Air, Bloodlust, Generosity sigils, Pack runes
- Endurance regeneration food, power wrench
- Channeled Vigor, Shadowstep, Shadow Refuge, Infiltrator’s Signet, Basilisk Venom

I’m still experimenting with traitlines but so far I’m partial to Trickery, Critical Strikes and Daredevil. When running with others I’ll swap Critical Strikes for Shadow Arts, (I find I need that bit of extra sustain).

I’m pretty much willing to swap anything around. Thanks in advance.

~ Kovu

Namer.9750:

SoS has no OCX…

SoS has plenty of no-life NAers to cover that area I’ve noticed, though. =D

~ Kovu

Revs don’t have underwater skills?
Lol.

~ Kovu

Control-based conditions (blind, cripple etc.) should act like stun/daze and not be affected by expertise, and should not be blocked by resistance.
That said, resistance isn’t supposed to have as long of an uptime as protection. If resistance were as prominent as protection I do agree its effect should be a reduction of condition damage, not a negation. As it stands that is not the case, however.

If protection negated damage entirely I’d roll an ele and never look back.

~ Kovu

The counterplay to pistol 5 is that you have to leap over it to gain any stealth giving the enemy plenty of time to smack you. You hardly drop that much initiative for a couple of pulsing blinds.

I do agree ghost thief needs to be looked at.

~ Kovu

Warlord.9074:

Also Adjust SoS and FA Glicko and give them more points becasue both of these servers can easily beat JQ and TC. Stop rolling SoS into T3 it makes zero sense at all.

FA barely has the coverage to best SBI under the current links. For anyone paying attention.

~ Kovu

Choppy.4183:

Sure, but only if my big power hits can also break your bones so your movement and skills are cut by 66%, puncture your lung so that your healing is reduced by 33%, and cause brain swelling so you take massive damage when you try to use skills.

Oh, and I need to be able to take vitality as a gear stat instead of ferocity with no loss of crit damage.

Sound fair?

Oh hey, another epidemic thread.
Now taking bets on how long this one will go before its closed. =p

~ Kovu

Yeah, Chaba, be nice. :<

~ Kovu

I, too, am offended by people who burp on teamspeak.

~ Kovu

I feel like the raw sustained dps boost you’d get from Steady Focus & Lead the Wind will outdo any Remorseless bursts you could manage with that build. That said, if you’re going with that build pick up Two-Handed Training so that you’re actually getting small Fury ticks more often. Runes that grant Fury never hurt, I find I’m not above 90% health as often as I’d like to be for the Scholar bonus.

Stats are decent as far as I can tell. I would never personally pick up an assassin’s weapon before berserker’s. I might suggest swapping that and then swapping out some vitality for precision. That’s some nice critical damage you have there, it’d be nice to see it proc more than half the time.

Don’t forget your damage food, too. =)

~ Kovu

There are plenty of less competitive gamemodes for “slower” fights.
That p/p thief doesn’t care that you’re 51 years old and have poor reflexes. He’s using the tools available to him. Heck, I’m 29 and my reflexes have always been poor. I freely admit I win fights with superior builds and knowledge of mechancis. Poor reflexes are hardly reason to nerf a profession.
~ Kovu

kefro.9312:

Probably because siege counts as population

I lol’d.

~ Kovu

Oh hey, FA finally got linked with its farm team server, IoJ.
Lol @ JQ getting two links and YB not getting any.
Anet must be #pro at dungeons and dragons, ’cause they love rolling the dice.

~ Kovu

Wolfric.9380:

I would halve the radius but remove the target cap ….

That’s a hilariously bad idea, but I’d love to see the youtube video with a couple of condi necros dropping an entire enemy frontline on their regroup.

~ Kovu

No amount of trigger happy aoe group cleansing will save someone from that sort of 2 tick insta down, and even if that character could break the fear and throw up resistance (which they probably couldn’t) its unlikely they’d be able to clear the conditions within a few ticks.

This in an aoe and on a 20s cooldown (without the trait), kids.

~ Kovu

I’m just here for the ‘x’ is op thread of the week.

~ Kovu

Shadowstep was up. Albeit just. It breaks stuns and teleports. I’d have been mashing that button.
On a point of interest I’ve downed thieves with lb ranger from 2,700 range~ away because they shadowstepped after I show the arrow but before it appeared to connect. I don’t think the time of actual contact is entirely synced with what appears to happen.
Hilarious, though. They were probably salty about how op lb ranger is.

~ Kovu

If they swapped lingering light out with a stability trait (much like ds necro) and revert the CA cooldown in wvw then tanky druids might actually be a decent option for heal-commanding. Decent, not stellar. As it stands, good luck on that front.

~ Kovu

Condition Ranger: Alright in PvP, trash in wvw, an absolute godsend in pve content. Increased poison & bleed damage is just great. I don’t think any other profession gets the option to boost the damage on two conditions. =)
Druids: An especially powerful team support player that can carry a team — but is often the direction of blame should that team lose.

Lets see what the balance patch brings. Hopefully they don’t murder CA access anymore.

~ Kovu

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We play on both European and US worlds.

That nite capping, tho. =(

~ Kovu

Its a shame the only concentration armor that provides healing power is toughness main. I wish they’d introduce a healing-power-precision-concentration set. I’d be set.

That said, would you really lose out on too much healing if you run healing as a secondary stat? Like settlers for example? I don’t do raids so I’m not exactly in the know but I feel like your CA abilities will still heal the group to full and you’ll have some condition damage to boot. Instead of dual staff you could throw axe/torch in there.

~ Kovu

Ranger longbow isn’t really an issue for thieves. Between shadowstep & evade gap creators any rapid fire burst tends to be just about mitigated. The ranger won’t be chasing without swapping to either staff or greatsword, the former of which has no burst and the latter won’t catch a running thief.
These days I’m only able to kill thieves if I make them think I’m vulnerable when they’re >half health so they engage and I can sometimes murder them.

I actually really enjoy fights with shatter mesmers — even when I lose. Dodging those shatters is ever so satisfying.

~ Kovu

My ppt hero. <3

~ Kovu

Siphon.8405:

Very very strong, I simply had to run because after slapped 50% of my health off me I was left with several conditions still to deal with.

Wow was he unstoppable.

I think that’s why a lot of people in this thread are irritated. Thieves can simply disengage if they meet their hard counter. The same is not true for other professions outside of warriors, mesmers and to a lesser extent engineers & rangers.
If necros get put in a tough situation, they’re SoL.

~ Kovu

I think we can all agree that Thief is the easiest profession to kill if they stand in one spot and don’t press any buttons. =)
I respect the fact that most of thieves defenses require some sort of action on the player, even if I disagree with the sheer amount of mobility they have.

I took a tower the other day and ran into a warrior that was at about 10% health due to fall damage. I am, of course, on my power build. The guy took 0 damage, blocked & evaded for like 15 seconds while passively regenerating health then whispered me telling me how bad I was for taking 15~ seconds to down a 10% health warrior.

I almost broke the palm of my hand over my face.

~ Kovu

By all means, move the cannons & oil to the backside of the wall.
Let me know how that goes for you. =)

~ Kovu

XTR.9604:

… that will force the condi players to play something that is a lot less tanky if they want to deal damage.

1. The ruins on DBL are a little too close to each other making it too easy for the defending server to defend their bloodlust relative to the two servers on the Alpine maps. Please improve this by deleting the desert map.
2. The Centaur event on the northeast side of the Alpine Borderlands map is a little too difficult, and takes a long time to complete. Please cut down on the requirements for that event so that loot and experience gain is more consistent with other aspects of the map.
3. There’s no way to hit the inner wall of Air Keep on the desert map with the same catapult used on outer’s wall like that of the Hills keeps on Alpine BL. Please improve consistency by deleting the desert map.
4. Asura characters are small and too hard to click on in a big fight. Please improve this by deleting those egotistical raisins.
5. Ranger pets break aggression on enemies too easily. For example, If I want to send my bird up at the guy using the mortar on the wall on green ebg keep while I’m afk making a sandwich at blue keep wp I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to? I mean birds can fly, it’s an easy hotfix.

I have more issues with the system, but these are among my biggest five. I hope some of these issues can be addressed in future balance patches.

~ Kovu

Nah, that fight was actually really fun.
I’m about 1/3 zerk, 1/3 marauders, 1/3 commanders with defensive shouts & signets.
I’d have run even glassier for pve, but I don’t feel like making a new set of armor and that one works well enough for the pve content.

~ Kovu