LOL…it’s not a balance patch if thief doesn’t get nerfed.
I’m curious if I’ll see more thieves in zergs – I somehow guess I won’t. I’m usually the only one in my zerg.
But then again, thief got nerfed heavily with this patch and I don’t really feel like logging in anymore.
In the end; Venoms being baselines helps mostly PvE players who think they need venomshare in raids – I wouldn’t be too afraid of it in wvw – because a) thief still is dead with one hit (ask a hammer rev to come and focus any enemy thief) and b) all venoms were nerfed heavily with this patch.
I would be surprised if anything would happen at all, it’s like the “Oh noz thief auto attack got buffed, now thief completely OP” everybody was running thief for a week – I haven’t seen many since.
Interesting that they would think that they need venom share in raids… most raids won’t allow thieves even if they are running venoms because thieves in raids are absolutely useless.
I hope you enjoy being hit by five 1.5 second unblockable stuns applied by any damage skill whenever a Thief is in the area! Have fun!
Well, if it actually worked like that… right now they are only working about half the time, and when they do work just pop your condi cleanse or stun break…done. The executioners trait is actually working better than basilisk venom or devourer venom.
When you get blinded by the veteran scouts at camps and such, rather than missing the next hit, you miss the next 4 or 5.
Also, if you’re a thief and you miss that 1st hit in stealth, you don’t lose stealth but you’ve got to count 3-4 seconds before you can activate the skill again. I understand there’s a 1 second delay now on stealth skills, but it seems to be making that 3 or 4 in some cases.
Lastly when working siege weapons, while hitting the door it’s bugging where the timer will show that you’ve activated the skill, but there is no animation and no damage shown to the door occasionally. Thought maybe someone was repairing the door, but problem resurfaced at other keeps where you can see if people are running about inside but were empty.
Fortified Garrison in Sorrow’s Furnace looks like there’s some freaky giant mole underneath throwing wood everywhere. Particularly over the outer doors.
All the dolyaks in all the maps are “teleporting” . It looks like they are near the camp…but then they suddenly jump 1200-1600 distance away and continue walking… if you hit the ghost you won’t get numbers. This is occasionally happen for players too, and is causing confusion with some of the guardian marks and such that people should run into and get knocked over…instead, it’s like the mark doesn’t exist.
Was running WvW 4:45 PM today… was noticing that my devourer venom and basilisk venom was not having an effect on players.Thought they may be clearing them quickly, so tried on basic mobs like harpies and sentries… still no effect 50% of the time.
I agree that cloaking waters should be nerfed hard… No more of this being able to waypoint and still be cloaked and if you leave SMC…no more cloak. Like the sands in the desert b.l.
Chilling fog is a good effect, can turn the tide of a fight if employed correctly. If any fixes are suggested my input would be to reduce the duration slightly.
The airship… ridiculous. Maybe it could be something that floats around SMC at the same level as the mystic forge, has to have a pilot (trained in masteries) to fire (with major cooldowns), and can be shot down with a ballista, treb, catapult, mortar, or by having an enemy hop inside and tear the thing up…. upon which there’s a timer for him/her to escape back onto a platform before the ship crashes, damaging friend or foe when it lands.
I do use stealth and shadowstep. As for being on a team… I tend to roam because we tend to have 2-3 people on any given map at any given time. As for your reasons for me dying… great to see you over my shoulder…oh wait you’re not. A ranger can send his super fast pet across like half the map which can follow you through a stealth and shadowstep— instadown. I’m getting one shot since patch by classes that historically can’t do that, like ele’s, and necros.
Black, DARK green… tags that we can see on the map and when surrounded by enemies as the current tags blend in with the objectives and other team colors.
Timidly hopeful that this will help. Although my server should link up with 3 or 4 others since we rarely have more than 2-3 people on any given map.
Wondering how other people are finding the latest balance update in terms of thief. Personally finding that although we got a “survivability boost”… in reality it’s a net loss. I’m being one shot more often than EVER before.
Shortbow 5, and Shadowstep are broken. They can’t handle much of any change in elevation most the time, and sometimes it goes the opposite and is extreme. For instance in the Necro tower, if a thief is trying to get away from you and you manage to get him up on a wall… he’s dead. He can’t shadowstep or sb5 away. Likewise, on a lot of the map he can’t use his skills to get over a slight bump in the terrain. Going up the ramp to the nw camp is another great way to screw a thief. That said, put them on the south end of the map and they can suddenly go full range straight up the side of a cliff (taller than most tower walls). Same at Northeast sentry cliffs there are a couple spots where they can go straight up. Send them to fire keep…sb5 and shadowstep will work about 50% of the time. I don’t mind being able to go straight up, and in fact think that thief SHOULD be able to. To get stuck on basically flat terrain though, please fix.
Avoid Dragonhunters, the traps need another nerf still. Instant down for a thief. You can dodge through them, if you know in advance where they were set… if not you’re just dead. Toughness and Vitality won’t help you.
The whole “have a thief to burst a ele” is good in theory but doesn’t work since HoT.
YB…roamers??? That’s the best joke I’ve heard in at least a week.
My current build works ok for me in PvP though I tend to either wreck or get wrecked. There is no middle ground anymore. Current meta is scrapper, reaper, druid, or elementalist. Revenant’s too though you really have to know your rotation. If you’re considering a thief, I’d recommend going Rev instead since they are like thieves on ALL the steroids. With the right build these take 2-3 people to down one, and with only 5 people on your team it’s game-ending before it starts.
I feel for the warriors too as they need a lot of help too… about the only thing they have going for them is the rifle right now. That said, making them hit harder isn’t the answer, there is too much power creep currently, I think anet would do well to nerf many of the classes before buffing anyone else more. The game now plays like a book that got a contract with a publisher when only half of it was written…but the deadline was so tight they had to rush the second half (I think this applies to WvW too). Thief and Warrior for HoT were definitely second half classes.
There are wto basic attempts to fix the thief:
a) Nerf the op stuff, finetune some stats, make all weaponsets viable: we are fine. Not much to do here
b) Actually a complete rework of the classes mechanics, replacement of skills, full rework of weaponsets, heavily moving traits in and out the daredevil.
The second try might adress the underlying issues of our symptoms, but may aswell make everything worse.
However: whatever you want to do, if you are talikng about ‘damage reduction’ you are following the wrong path. Toughness, vitality, passives, protection. Everything that implies you get hit is for the weaklings’ classes. It is not what the thief needs. Our sustainability with well times evades, interrupts and good gameplay is at the very border. If they severly nerf some of the damage sources, they will also need to nerf things like unhindered combatant, or nobody will ever kill a thief again.
You are not supposed to survive a dh trapbomb. You are supposed to trigger all the traps with a dodge, and get out of there. In exchange, a good burst setup should be rewarded with melting soft targets aswell. Thats where we lack.
Can’t dodge a DH dutch oven if they aren’t standing it. You don’t see it coming and since it’s an instant down you have no time to evade. You can only evade if you’ve seen the dragonhunter standing in the immediate area. The experiment with damage reduction was more to see if there was a build that would allow you to evade that initial burst when you’re walking and set off a trap you couldn’t see. No other class has instant down traps. Mesmer used to but they patched that so now stun breaks or evades can get you out of it.
On the opposite side of things I’ve worked to maximize damage going full glass, to see if I could down a DH standing still as fast as they down others. the answer is no. Hence why I further think that they need to rework the class from the ground up. Even before HoT came out I was worried this would be an issue as Daredevil seemed to be an afterthought rather than fully fleshed out like Dragonhunter, Reaper, and Chronomancer.
I haven’t played since before the expansion came out so I just logged in to see my home server, Blackgate, losing by a mile when the opposite used to be true. And we’re losing to Yak’s Bend? WTF LOL! Did I wake up in the Twilight Zone or what? Where’s Beastgate?!
- YB got guilds from T1 that lumped into an already PPT heavy culture
- People who aren’t happy playing against that are playing other games
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Blackgate culture didn’t drive PPT oriented guilds to Yak’s Bend. Which is why there is no longer anyone on BG to pull the PPT load.
Probably a combination of arrogance and elitism that killed BG. They will fall, and then they will blame Anet.
Mm maybe. I avoid the sever politics because well, I don’t care so much. Servers need balance, BG not having PPT groups is one thing but YB having virtually only PPT players is unhealthy as well because it creates a stalemate of nothingness due to bunker+PvD=EasyPPT. In a game where the winner gets diddly squat, this a bad news. Players will continue to not care.
Its a myth that YB only has PPT guilds. A myth propagated mostly by BG. The reason YB’s KDR tends to be low is because they are more welcoming of pugs than BG is. BG is so obsessed with KDR and PPK that they literally chase off pugs.
Played on and against both. I have to disagree. Other servers have observed the the same thing about YB. It is what it is.
Sounds like sour grapes. I imagine most of the servers that YB has steamrolled on its way up have anything kind to say about them. YB successfully uses the tools provided by Anet to win. Others are so bitter about it as to refer to an entire group of people as kitten.
Ha… more inline with reality, several guilds transferred to YB to break up the tier 1 cartel. Because of this they tend to have more numbers around the clock compared to both JQ and BG. YB doesn’t “use the tools provided by Anet to win”… they use blob of ants tactic (Outnumber your opponent at least 3 to 1 or run… 5-1 is preferrable… then drop as many red circles as you can). On reset night they come out in mass for a few hours, hole up in a keep for a bit, then log for about 2 hours until JQ and BG hit their down time, then they come back on and wipe the empty BL’s… rinse, wash, repeat.
Sounds like you want something that already exists… pvp. Personally, I like the idea of having to use the terrain and towers to your advantage. Unfortunately Anet has yet to solve the problem of blob. When they do, Yaks Bend is done.
by far… they only have 2 actually viable builds, which are both highly dependent on what the other team is running. You will either wreck or be wrecked. Honestly, you can be more thiefy with the other classes now.
I’ve been doing some experimenting in damage reduction, and having maxed it out, a thief is still a one hit down to dragonhunters fartbox traps (dutch oven if you will), also shatter mesmers, and rangers will one shot a thief with full toughness, condition cleanse, and 27% additional damage reduction.
It’s my personal feeling that they need to rework the class from the ground up.
As an experiment I took a daredevil, outfitted him with all the damage reduction I could find, loaded him up on toughness, and equipped him with vulnerability and weakness skills. I took him into unranked and pulled a dragonhunter aside. I threw on all the weakness and had him then throw his traps. Daredevil insta-down. Either boost the thief’s toughness and vitality, or rein the dragonhunters traps damage.
One other thing I’d suggest is making the dragonhunter traps more like the thieves… you can’t instadrop all of them, they each have a 1-2 second cast time with an animation of the thief actually setting the trap. That would help tremendously.
Honestly I don’t know how this can be improved. Last season I got to Ruby and was so over it I stopped playing the game for a month. This season I’ve again just crossed into Ruby, and again am over it so am likely to just drop off the planet again til next season. No reason to keep playing since the rewards are useless. Well, I like getting more dyes but it’s not worth it after a certain point. That and the shards or whatever are pretty much just taking up bank space. It’s going to take over a year to get the wings, and from the text at the vendor by the time you’re able to get them they’ll be something different you have to work for so all this work is for nothing.
Maybe next season PvP could be just that.. Player vs. Player… not Team vs. Team. Seems common sense that if you want to award individuals you do so based on their performance and not screw them with a broken mmr system.
Or completey forgot to toss Rev in there… another class that takes about 30 minutes to learn… but once you do it’s basically immortal. It’s gotten to the point where when a match starts, people are just waiting for the clock to go down while changing their character out because if you have a class that hard counters another it’s game over before it’s begun.
Getting ‘stuck’ in ruby is a very important topic regarding how best league should operate. We changed matchmaking to make the ladder more prestigious and so far it has done that. Divisions are aligning with skill level much better than season 1. The product of this change is that the bulk of players who hover around the middle of the mmr curve should stay in sapphire and ruby. Win rate will level out at 50% because there are plentiful players of similar mmr in the same division.
Should average players be able to climb out of the middle divisions by grinding? This removes prestige and can make matchmaking worse within a division, but always allows a sense of progression.
Should average players stay in the middle divisions because that’s where they belong at their skill level? This retains prestige and only improving skill will allow climbing, but rewards and progression stop at some point through the season.
Is there an incentive that could be added to league games for players who have reached their appropriate division and can no longer climb?
Evan, The mmr system currently doesn’t function at all based on skill. It’s more about which team has the most “meta” builds. Even better if you class stack the most in need of fixing (Reaper, Scaper, Dragonhuter, Druid… the Mesmer is pretty op at the moment but at least someone has to know how to use it).
PvP is a mess, mainly because rather than playing Guild Wars it feels much more like we’re playing Dragonball Z. Whoever can say Ka-Mey-Ya-Mey fastest wins. Enough of the power creep already, not everything should be a one-shot kill. It’s killing the game.
The people who don’t want any sort of ppt basically just want PvP.
I’m all for fixing the BL’s… not removing them. I like the desert bl overall, yes it needs some work, but people complaining because after nearly year they can’t navigate a map that’s essentially the same layout as the old one is kinda sad.
Lol if you’re ever looking for a thief look me up. I’ve yet to be allowed to be in a raid because they’d rather have ANY other class.
I disagree with a lot of your thief nerf… particularly the dash clearing clearing conditions only 1 every 10 seconds. The entire point of a thief is mobility. Besides burning those to get out of a chill/stun etc burns our dodge which then needs to recharge. If we’re burnt out of dodges, we’re dead.
It’s your build. Don’t run full glass. Also, if you’re running in a zerg you are backline, you dodge in, you dodge out. Take out the weak. If you’re roaming, you need to be comfortable flipping a camp on your own, and know when you’re outmatched. Shortbow 5 is your friend.
What’s the fastest way to flip a camp with a Thief? Do you swap out D/P for S/P?
I actually run staff now… Dagger/Dagger or Dagger/pistol is good. I haven’t seen a sword on a thief in WvW in a long time really… I mean it’s ok if you’re able to go around alone and stack yourself in a corner for a camp, but if you run into another player… you’re likely meat.
If you understood clinical depression, you’d understand that announcing it to people in an online format could be a last ditch attempt to get some sort of help. Rational or not, it is what it is.
Oh also the Oasis Castle would benefit from the other shrines… so there would be lava, earth, and air effects (maybe the earth moving walls could be swapped out for just an extra wall) at both Earth Keep and Oasis Castle. Or it makes the existing walls and doors tougher.
Fire could be a moat of lava below the lords room which ties into air’s contribution…
Air could be the wind blowers… on the way to the lords room there could be 3 entrances that are bridges that connect to a large suspended platform. Air blowers on the bridges could blow people down into the lava, which they’d have to escape from limited exits quickly and re-enter the lords room and go over the bridges again. Once you’re across the bridge you there should be a short wall circling the perimeter so that defense would have to consist of more than just necro fear wells.
(edited by Link.1049)
Put away your pitchforks this is just an idea. I was thinking that maybe it would be cool if Oasis was changed a bit, instead of having a dead zone in the center of the map… or worse the current Oasis event each hour… why not make Oasis the Stonemist Castle of the desert borderlands?
It could be a large castle. I’m not entirely opposed to the laser idea, however it needs some changes. Perhaps rather than zerging over it every few hours to charge a laser that will completely level the map, maybe it could have a powerful effect that’s a reward for holding say 3 charging substations that are nearby (possibly underground with basically a cell tower above) for a period of time. Each of these three substations would need to be defensible outposts….like a fully upgraded camp with the extra security. When your team controls a substation, the tower above would send a continuous beam of light (of your teams color) to the top of the Oasis Castle, where it would charge the laser. If you controlled only 1 shrine, it’d take something like 3 hours to charge. If you controlled 2, 2 hours, and if you control all 3 then it’d charge in an hour. Timing of course could be changed through testing.
I’d suggest not having swords pop on the substations..but rather have a sentry be part of the guard… I would change all sentries so that once the sentry is dead, or you are stealthed the orange marker on the map disappears. If he can’t see you he can’t reveal you basically.
Once the laser is charged, someone could go to the top of the tower and go to a control panel to control the laser. Activating that panel would bring up a map of the borderland. Any person revealed by a sentry would show up as an orange dot. Otherwise you’re counting on your team/commander to give you directions as to where to fire (I.e… north door of the air keep, or if someone pings the minimap it shows up on this map).
The laser would have 3 charges you could fire anywhere on the map. Each of these charges would be enough to fully bring down a tier one door (it wouldn’t damage things or characters that belong to your team). If you concentrated all 3 charges on a tier 3 door, it would bring that door down. It would also destroy siege (unless your shield generator is on at the right time), and do massive damage to enemies. If your team was in the fire keep fighting the lord and got jumped by a huge zerg of the other team, if the laser has charges you could focus the beam in the lords room (perhaps on the commander tag) and devastate both the lord and the other team. Similarly if the commander is fighting a zerg out in the open… fire where he/she instructs to help turn the tide of the fight. Just remember, you have a very limited number of charges. The number of charges could be adjusted based on testing.
Also, the oasis castle would be worth ppt similar to smc… so it would be worthwhile to hold from that perspective. It’d be very difficult to keep both opposing teams out of both the substations and the tower. I think the substations would be best kept underground as they should not be places to siege other towers from. That said the Oasis castle should be out of range from the other towers… if you want to assault it…actually assault it.
Just an idea.
Please please please, remove the revealed thing when an enemy captures a keep. If they are too lazy to sweep they deserve to lose the keep in 5 min when people come out of the hiding spots or mesmer ports people in. Otherwise why make the keeps so large? They have all this square footage…some of which is only useful if you’re trying to hide.
Yes, WvW could use some work… though some of it can be attributed to a player base that doesn’t like new terrain. I like the new maps for the most part. Yes some things need fixed (thank Jebus for shutting the Oasis down), but overall it’s ok.
As for your what the fudge…sometimes when working on larger changes it’s fun to see some little changes.
Friday’s again would be awesome.
Engi/Necro, Necro/Necro, or Necro/Ele.
Recently I’ve perceived a large uptick of people in the PvP lobby treating other people terribly. I came out of a match earlier today to a group of people repeatedly encouraging a person to kill themselves. It’s disgusting. Sadly, reporting these people doesn’t have any repercussions for those that are reported, and they know it.
I responded to these guys today asking them to knock it off. What if whoever they were talking with is going through clinical depression and is right on the edge of self harm? Their response… I should kill myself.
Encouraging someone to commit suicide should get a person banned at least, and possibly a call from the cops if a person actually breaks and goes through with self-harm because of some idiots who hide behind “it’s just a game.”
It’s your build. Don’t run full glass. Also, if you’re running in a zerg you are backline, you dodge in, you dodge out. Take out the weak. If you’re roaming, you need to be comfortable flipping a camp on your own, and know when you’re outmatched. Shortbow 5 is your friend.
I agree that rev’s really need a hard nerf. I’d also suggest bringing necro, ele, and dh down a peg while at it. No class should be able to 1 shot another class. A fast kill, sure… but if you’re 1 shotting other classes purely by accident, it should be addressed.
Oh… for the siege that auto builds at a certain point… it should be useful. Currently manning a cannon or mortar, particularly in the b.l. is suicide. You’ll get bombed by every class… and a necro WILL fear you… and rather than fear you back into the keep, you’ll get feared off an edge directly into the mob of wolves coming for your tower. As for the mortars… in the b.l’s they are completely and totally useless. Why do they even exist?
Thieves aren’t welcome in raids. Roll a warrior for dps with more survivability.
1) Guild upgrades for camps and towers are too expensive. WvW already is horribly expensive if you’re commanding, the scribing profession makes that even worse.
2) In the desert borderlands if you’ve taken a shrine you should get that shrines bonus. You shouldn’t have to cap the associated keep first.
3) Fire keep should have more than one way into the lords room.
4) For the Oasis event, it shouldn’t blast every door of a keep or tower your team doesn’t own. Perhaps whichever team wins the oasis gets an instant upgrade to a random tower/keep. Or if they don’t own anything they instantly flip their breakout tower.
5) I personally love the varying terrain, however the borderlands right now is basically run like a clock because the center is more a wasteland than the parts of the map that are supposed to be a wasteland. Even when the Oasis event is running its…. eh… you run down there, hope the other teams are not running massive zergs, try to get the freaking laser…and then get back to the clockface.
In the desert borderlands there are several giant beetles roaming the map… Could Anet rename them after “The Beatles”? We already call one of them Ringo (the one on the south end of the Air Keep.
1) Test out a balance patch before the PVP season. All classes should be PVP viable. You can usually tell within the first 3 days of a season which classes are OP… rather than buffing the other classes, sometimes it’s good to trim the excess fat around the necro’s waist *cough *cough. With this adjust skills/traits so that each class has more than one “meta” build. It’s nice that we have some variety in the skills and traits, not so nice if it lacks utility. Balance conditions vs/ direct damage.
2) Get rid of class stacking. Once that trumpet noise announces you’ve been matched up, that’s it. If you’re thief, you’re playing thief, Necro=Necro, etc… Know that you’ll be the only 1 or at MOST 2 of your class on your team. If the matchmaker is slow, know it’s because too many people are playing whatever class you’re on and that if you change to a class not everyone is playing you’ll be matched up faster.
3) Whatever the heck is going on with the matchmaking system, fix it. Take the current matchmaking system and set it on fire then pee on it to extinguish it. Don’t give it the courtesy of a proper burial. Instead leave it in a parking lot with a sign that says kick me. Having a system decide you’re a “bad” player and deserve “bad” matches because it’s given you “bad” matches before is a “bad” system.
4) If you’re in the same guild, or the same party… you should be paired against other players that are in a guild or a party. Even if it’s just two of you… In a three point system like we have, you only need to hold two points, and two people can do that quite effectively. Assume that if they are same party, and especially same guild that they share a teamspeak connection, giving pugs a disadvantage. Thought this was fixed this season, was wrong.
5) A couple new conquest maps would be fantastic. Perhaps a labyrinth style map. Or a map where gliding, stealth gliding, etc… are helpful.
“Player culling” seriously? So they are wanting to lose players? Now a lot of what they are doing across the board makes sense…they don’t want players.
Regarding the “make a team” solution. Anet has also barred that in some ways. Keeping in Mind that I’m only tier 3 emerald, I couldn’t party up with a tier 4 amber. The message the game gave is that we were too far apart.
The elitists in this forum are still not grasping that many players will never get past this whole “oh give it half the season to settle out” thing. They ran into luck early on, and now ceaselessly brag about it, whereas many decent players are seeing the exact opposite of the system. It’s kinda like the American economic system. The middle class is getting pushed down, while the upper class is soaring. The end result being that the middle class is disappearing.
Last season for comparison I was happy making it to Ruby. Given that there are 6 divisions you’d think that average players could reasonably expect to fall somewhere in the middle there, so either Sapphire or Ruby. What I’m seeing is that many people are getting artificially pushed down at the entry gates.