Guild Wars 2

Last time they did something big that everyone disliked (changing the pew pew sound effect on Predator that everyone loved) there was a small revolt and they reverted it.

I don’t like Meteorologicus too much, but I agree that with stuff that takes this long to craft, they shouldn’t make changes that could annoy the players that took so much effort on crafting it.

I think the old ones should come back. They’re “completing” the set, so it makes sense that the whole set is available (and also during following updates in adition to anything they want to add, as those are iconic for SAB).

They’re adding even more weapons (inspired on the 2 current bosses).

Well, SAB is quite different from other regular activities. It keeps increasing, gives special sets of weapons and you don’t compete against other players. I don’t think it fits the bill for regular achievements.

Something like gemstore permanent access (you buy a console bundle that on use allows you to access it whenever you want) would work though.

I really don’t mind SAB as an ingame joke (one that had great development), but despite I wanted to see more of it, I think it should remain “the official April’s Fools” thing.

What if next one they release something that players lover too? Will we constantly get joke updates from each of them every 2 or 3 months?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In my opinion, the “Living Story” is slowly and surely killing the game. They should have stuck with only holiday updates and expansions.

I’ve said in other threats how LS is slowly burning players, and how it seems like a good thing to get profit fast as you get players all the time in the game with new things to do, so for sure they’re right now getting excited with those numbers, but that in the long run, it is a bad solution, players are already getting burned, some are leaving, many are realizing that they don’t care anymore about keeping the pace.

And to add to that, what you said is true too. Lore isn’t getting as much progression as it should because of how this works (and the lore we get is a bit… well, not everyone is loving recent stuff).

I hope they realize soon this isn’t a long term solution and we start having expansions to continue the real story with real content and further explaining unanswered lore questions. There is no way we’ll get as much permanent content with just 1 new map (that they needed to feature twice in LS so people go there) per year. If during the first 2 years of the game we don’t get something like Cantha (in terms of adittions to the game) and we still are forced to rush updates every months, things will go downhill.

I think he either means that:

a) He bought it and was waiting for the price to rise to get a lot of gold, with this the price will normalize as it is avilable again (the longet that times passes from an update, the more expensive its items get, check the Greatsaw).

or

b) That he will feel his GS has less personal value as everyone will be able to get it (though to be honest, everyone had one before). Probably this isn’t the case of OP, but there are players around that if someone can get what he got, they get mad at the world because it makes them look less pro /shrugs.

I’m happy they’re returning, and I’m waiting to see the new designs to see if finally my pistol will be SAB or Aetherblade (or if I will wait even more)

I don’t get why people though there wouldn’t be both.

Current Ascended trinket don’t have them BUT they have stats equal to having the jewel slot used by a Jewel of the atribute line (or other), only that without the ascended jewel (as there weren’t ascended jewels).

That means that technically the infussion slot is just added to the weapon properties. As not everyone used just jewels on their weapons sigil slots, it’s a given that there will be slots to use.

That and as said before, a dev already confirmed the sigil slot is in.

At least it seems the skins for the new weapons aren’t horrible like current craft lvl 400 pearl weapons…

I guess they they released ascended weapons before armor because it seems to take them more time to create armor and adapt it for different races, sex, and sizes (same reason why we’re getting a lot of new weapon sets but not too many armor sets).

mexay.3902:

Harsekyugan.4672:

Just tested – I put sigil for lightning strikes ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil_of_Air ) to my offhand and used only mainhand (that has sigil for +5% dmg) – lightning bolt triggered, so Mexay, you are wrong -> sigils apply for both mainhand and offhand skills (although 2 sigils of the same type do not stack)

This is news. It may just be certain sigils then, because I recall a thread on guru experimenting with this.

I guess I’m wrong then. They need to fix sigils. My bad.

Still, infusion needs to be right too.

It has been like this since I can remember (before game release). +damage sigil is for everything, + condition duration is for everything, on crit effect are on everything, etc…

As others said, this wasn’t a problem with sigils.

2-handed weapons average damage is naturally higher too than 1 handed weapons to compensate (so it is like they come with a damage sigil).

2-handed weapons are usually better balanced than 1-handed weapons too as they don’t have to take in mind all the different combinations. This is why Shortbow is the only Thief weapon where you use every skill.

Higher natural damage and usually better balancing compensates enough for this IMO.

I keep hearing how the meta is full of unkillable “condi bunkers” from every profession and that’s making things harder… yet I haven’t noticed it much :S

When I see that kind of opponent I tend to eat him for breakfast (and I’m built for support), but I guess it’s related to me being P/D with loads of Poison too so most times I never even notice that 4K armor as my damage is done through conditions and sometimes leeching armor ignoring damage through venoms (and I don’t even use caltrops, just P/D in a venom sharer setup) and I cancel a great chunk of their heals with poison (starting a fight with steal traited for poison and Spider Venom keeps it up a huge lot of time).

It has merit that you didn’t want to change your build and still managed to find a way to defeat him (I also refuse to change my build), but the Thief has multiple ways to eat those guys alive. Thief doesn’t need to be a zerker all the time, from my experience we can excel at conditions and at team support despite how many players sniff at that idea.

I tend to use a skill with similar recharge rate (traited spider and devourer venoms in my case, though since the CD reduction Steal recharges faster than venoms) when I start my chain, so when that skill is ready, I know Steal will be ready.

But yeah, this is kind of a problem (what I said is just a sugestion to help with the problem, not that I think it is fine).

If they ever implement the pockets system, they could let Steal be its own button (even become a non-stun break shadow return after use for some seconds so ranged thieves that need to keep distances can safely use it) so the cooldown is shown in a different box than the stolen items.

Orion Magus.5348:

I would just like to see a trait to increase pistol range from 900 to 1200. Something like this already exists for the warriors longbow, why not pistols.

Honestly, I don’t see Pistols as a long reach combat weapon. I think we will have to wait for the Rifle to get our first 1200 range weapon.

DreadRaven.3046:

I was planing on going wvw.But the pve tips will help for lvling me up

For leveling up, as you explore the map and complete hearts use S/P and surround yourself with mobs, then only use initiative on black powder and keep auto-attacking (take multiple mobs so you kill them faster as the sword strieks multiple targets, and keep reapplying the smoke field when the blind goes away instead of when the field ends, as many times they land their next attack some seconds after).

This doesn’t work against Dredge as they’re inmune to blind.

For group events take a Shortbow and start auto-attacking and throwing bombs and poison fields to “tag” a many opponents as possible so you get experience from all of them.

Until you define your build that’s a great setup for levelling on early PvE.

After that it’s up to what you want to do (you can mix some weapon sets and utility skills while leveling and see which ones make you more comfortable).

Personally I run a support Thief P/D + Shortbow in all 3 enviroments with great results so far, so the Thief can excel at more things than zerking.

Daecollo posting a good, not OP idea yay! (too bad this has been sugested like thousands of times before… but I don’t want to spoil it, let’s see if he keeps the streak)

The problem as others pointed is that it should also cancel you current attack (and if a projectile is flying it will be very hard). Maybe something like 1 second inmunity to revealed to avoid that… though it could cause bugs if they start touching the code for stealth just for this.

But the best solution as others said is to simply remove it.

Something like putting Infusion of Shadow as the 5pt trait, with just 1 initiative gain instead of 2 would be good.

As you don’t consume a trait option and only need 5 pts the amount gained is reducted to compensate, which in one hand gives you a lot more of freedom to pick stealth traits (if you had doubts between initiative gain or condition removal from that tier… now you can have both!), and on the other, deals a little bit with some cases that might be getting too much benefit from that 2 extra initiative on each stealth

It also goes in line with working with the profession mechanic on the minor traits, like stealing to gain initiative, criting for initiative or giving poison to steal, and most importantly removes the pain that is Last Refuge from the game without needing programming headaches to stop projectiles already fired from removing your stealth.

So basically:
- You no longer have to worry about Last Refuge.
- If you had Infusion of Shadow in your build, you will get 1 initiative when stealthed instead of 2, but as a compensation now you have a free trait slot to increase your build effectiveness.
- If your build didn’t include it, you just won 1 initaitve everytime you stealth and no longer fear for Last Refuge.

If someone really reaaaaaally misses Last Refuge, it can be an optional trait replacing IoS position… though it would be better if it was destroyed and a new useful trait created to replace it

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Really? Where?

Though for Scarlet, the centaurs wouldn’t offer much except for cannon fodder and earth magic at best. They have no tech, which is her area of interest, and I somehow doubt that earth magic would be a good proponent in magitech (unlike fire and lightning, rocks don’t give good energy, I guess).

Of course the Centaurs are a much less likely scenario and it’s not really clear when their leader is really killed, but about their tech, Flame Legion lacked it too and that’s why she teamed them with Dredge.

Earth magic can be a very good way to get metals and minerals, idk, there are always uses you could give to anyone talent. But probably a less likely scenario (I think that part could see more exploits during a possible bandits+WM storyline instead).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And in all of these: the Inquest, Flame Legion, and Dredge all lost their leadership

I knew all those points in your post before… but I never stoped to think that those 3 are the ones whose leaders we killed so they were easier to control for Scarlet than factions still leaded with big ego villians obviously not leting Scarlet take their credit and their troops being loyal instead of desperate for new guidance.

Even 2 parts of that worked together when they had their leaders.

Technically the Centaurs would count too (and burning Kryta sounds like a good offer), but unlike the others where the leader falls during a Dungeon (which happens before Zaithan), Ulgoth is always being fought and killed in the present due to dynamic events.

Good observation, it makes sense that she got the lost herds of armies we beheaded and used them for her purposses given how it should be easier.

Thank guys for the support, I really hope a-net realizes they’re doing too much for people with not so much time for the game to keep up, and we love Tyria.

As I said, when the critic is that you work too much, you can take it as a compliment as the problem is not how much you’re working. But I think if they dedicated more of those resources to other needs (and there are still many things requiring attention since release) and just slowed the pace of LS it would be great.

havoc.6814:

10k+ achievement points means nothing. We have someone in our guild with that many points and he is a terrible player.

I can tell you this guy is a great player, faaaaaar from terrible (the kind of guy you WANT in a run through Arah) Idk about the guy in your guild, but normally with so many points, a player should’ve gotten some experience at least. I can confirm this guy got a lot.

About the comments saying “he burnt himself”, no he didn’t he already got a ton of points before the madness began just by playing the game because he enjoyed it, but the way all this content is being thrown at us, instead of just being there so we can set our own timetables and pace ourselves to enjoy the game.

And while I started the thread because seeing this great player in my guild taking this decission (at least we will still have him for our sundays missions) fueled my already existing thoughs on the matter, this is something that has been brought up before, it’s not just him.

I’ve heard many others not enjoying how we’re constantly receiving tasklists at an increased pace. It feels like work instead of the way we have to forget about work, and that simply isn’t right. I know many people is starting to realize that they no longer care about this exhausting succession of frenetic updates and are looking for other games as they don’t see the situation changing.

As I said, I can speak from the perspective of someone that completed nearly everything in GW1, and that game (and GW2 during the first months) felt like the perfect formula. You didn’t felt obligated to keep with the pace of the game, yet you have multiple things to do with your time playing it.

I’m fine with adding to the living story gradually, it’s a good idea to explore, but Flame and Frost was the way to go, this is getting too frenetic and this is potentially very dangerous to keep your core of players. It’s what I said with the cows, they’re seeing a lot of profit for today, but it is very dangerous for the future.

Amanda Whitemoon.6173:

what about
jan/feb/march new map + story
apr/may/jun new map + story
juli/august dragonbash/aniversary in the 6 cities, just party stuff, no evil happeings
september small story
oktober halloween
november small story
december wintersday

and most of it permanent, then even if you go away a bit for a few months you can come back and do the new maps on your own pace

daily and monthly still stays.

This seems right, as long as they don’t continue with the update + 2 weeks only aditional update with all the hard and time consuming stuff in that part madness we’re getting lately. Hard content is great, I love it (I know I loved beating Mallyx and the Hard Mode of Titan Quests and Winds of Change with my 7-hero team), but hard and time consuming content inside temporal updates with a timetable is bad :S

Atherakhia.4086:

I can’t watch the video at work. But I imagine each tick of well procs a new torment?

The rune has a 20 seconds cooldown. Even then it’s supposedly just on heal use like other runes, but with the cooldown it wouldn’t matter.

We really apreciate all that hard work you’re putting into the Living Story, it is a compliment to say that you’re working TOO MUCH indeed, but the thing is, you’re doing it to a point where you’re burning your players, including some great ones like my guildmate that I’m starting to miss in the game. I won’t label myself as great, but I can speak from the perspective of a GWAMM, which means I got experience at completing hard achievements, and you’re putting too many tasklists in the game and it feels really wrong. Not to mention that you’re also puting hard content on short time frames (hard + temporal is a bad thing, hard is great, temporal is fine, both are super bad, imagine needing to complete Mallyx in a month).

You know what I really loved about GW1? That because it didn’t have monthly fees, I could stop playing for 2 months as I didn’t have to amortize it, and then return to it when I felt I wanted to. Of course you would have to work a bit after returning to keep up with other players, but you could do it and you could set the bar where you wanted because you wasn’t limited by constant tasklists. But now all this LS thing is giving a sense of missing the game experience if you don’t play a lot every month.

As I said, that is a good thing from a business perspective, but please, take into consideration that you might be “killing all your cows” for a big feast now, but you’re not considering to separate some of them to breed and have more cows in the future.

The system is already burning players, including many of the good ones that are the ones keeping the community going like this guildmate I told you (there are many other players that will play for a while, follow the trend, then jump to a different game, but you’re losing guys that were really dedicated to the game and loved it).

Please, strongly consider slowing down the pace, I’m not saying “no more LS”, it’s how you wanted to do things and it’s good to see our impact over the world, but I would like to return to the pace of events and achievements of Halloween and Flame and Frost. We have work to do and we want to enjoy the game because we LOVE Tyria.

Don’t eat your cows so fast, if you take care of them you will have more and bigger cows in the future

PS: About the “cows” stuff… english isn’t my first language so I’m not sure what kind of refrains you have, but I think the idea is clear :P

I’ve said before that I think a-net is working too much on LS for their own good. That the system at first might be the best way to keep people in the game as you constantly make them work toward new tasks, but that on the long term it would burn players as the pace of LS and achievements are starting to feel more like tasklists with an end date than a game. When we finish working hard in the real world, we don’t want to work more in our free time.

There was a time many months ago (too many now) where the pace was about right. You could dedicate some time to it, and the tasklist wasn’t so big (Halloween was the way to go, or the F&F that was divided in 3 full months instead of having all arcs in the same one, which also gave a sense of world progression instead of a rushing story).

But right now the pace is too fast, we have things to do and hard work in real life and when we play we want to relax, not to be in tension to finish our task list.

Worst part is that now with the 2 weeks content updates, they make the harder part of each story last less than the easier one (4 weeks for jubilee, 2 weeks for scarlet, 4 weeks for dragon bash, 2 weeks for aetherblade dungeon and its hard achievements, etc…).

But I’m starting this thread to share the story of a very good player on my guild. More specifically, a guy that already has 10K achievement points, so you can’t say he is a bad players, a newbie, someone that tried the game but wasn’t much into it or anything else. He is a great player and it’s great to have him in all kinds of content.

A couple of days ago, I received some mail from him with very valuable stuff for me and what looked like a goodbye text.

I asked him about that and he told me he would still connect for our guild weekend missions and things like that, but that LS had finally burned him, that he was expecting the game to go in a very different direction and that he works too much time a day and he simply didn’t want to keep doing tasklists. He was disappointed with the direction the LS is taking throwing so much content our way and expecting us to finish it like we didn’t have works and projects to do too. We’re talking about a player that didn’t mind to dedicate a lot of time to the game before all this happened, so much that he had 10K achievement points because he was having fun with the game.

And while I’m trying to convince him to stay, I can’t say I don’t share at least part of his thoughs. Even I have though about it, about just ignoring LS because it is burning me. In my case I’m a GW1 God Walking Among Mere Mortals that finished all elite areas and all hard mode quests like the HM titans or winds of change. I am a completionist and I’ve proven before that I can excell at it (GWAMM isn’t exactly an easy task), and with all that, I’m starting to feel the need to rest from this game too.

“Rest” from this game. That’s a big problem. A game should be what you do to rest from work, not more work that you need to rest from.

Continue in next post.

2500 is a huge lot. It would break sieges soooooooooo much.

Btw: I think it’s not fair bringing the Thief so many times considering the Thief can’t throw a projectile at more than 900 range (previously they had Cluster Bomb that you needed to wait like 4 hours for it to land, and even that one was nerfed to 900 range).

Some professions have better range or more kite ability, others have better gap closers (btw not too many thieves trait for the 1500 range Steal as not too many invest on Trickery and in that tier there are other traits that are more popular). If you start giving professions more range, other professions will start to get ways to close bigger gaps as they balance the game. If that starts scaling too much it might get crazy.

atheria.2837:

Lokheit.7943:

The video is nice, but it’s not like your performance would be too different with or without the runes.

Basically you apply “3 bleeds” when you heal. Keeping 3 bleeds on your opponents (once you use the first heal as you don’t want to waste it at the start of the battle) is nice, but there are better rune setups IMO that would benefit you more.

If you are going to attempt to “correct” another, how about saying WHAT runes you would use and why.

You are either QQ’ing or you just don’t feel that the person who posted deserves to know your reasoning…???

Woah woah, why the hostility here? O.o

I wasn’t attemping to “correct him” as the build and video are nice. And it isn’t like I showed any reason to believe that I think I’m over him to not explain it or anything like that. In fact I told him why that rune set wasn’t making a big difference if you read that post. I wasn’t being prepotent here or QQing (why exactly would I QQ about this…? it isn’t like it negatively affects me at all, I don’t understand your logic for that), I just noted that the runes themselves weren’t a real difference maker in that video. His build and skills were making it. He could kill all those guys with a different runeset as the rune set wasn’t of a great help.

I already said why I though other rune set would be better (not one in particular, but a lot of them would be better for that kind of build, in fact what I said is that without a runeset at all his performance would be very similar, except maybe for a little bit of condition damage, but mostly won’t change):

That set simply increases torment duration by 45% and applies 2 torment when he heals. That set is useful on a Necro as the previous poster said, a Ranger could benefit more from something else.

Considering that’s all the torment he gets, and that 2 torment equals to 3 bleeds (not too much considering you’re using a whole runeset for those “3 bleeds”), there are multiple rune sets that are more viable, specially for a profession without natural access to torment.

I don’t know why you jumped on me like that. Having a bad day or something? :S

The video is nice, but it’s not like your performance would be too different with or without the runes.

Basically you apply “3 bleeds” when you heal. Keeping 3 bleeds on your opponents (once you use the first heal as you don’t want to waste it at the start of the battle) is nice, but there are better rune setups IMO that would benefit you more.

Changing it this way is very tricky (we are managing burn AND unconditional stealth on 2 iterations of the same skill, that’s incredibly tricky and really hard to balance). It may have potential to help P/P in some ways, but in any possible form it will damage D/P (and S/P, while it didn’t stealth before, was a good set for PvE as the field+auto-attack made you cut through a lot of things), and with the second version P/P is still really bad. At the end there are other ways to balance P/P without hurting other sets (something we have to consider always with non 2-handed weapons, 2-handed weapons are perfect from a balancing perspective as there are no extra scenarios, this is why our Shortbow is perfectly done and you may find yourself using any of it’s skills at any time).

I think this skill should be treated differently. Making it ground-target instead of field+shot would be a simple and great solution, as the problem with this one is only that it is bad for P/P as it’s not worth 6 ini at range by far. S/P and D/P will still use it as always (taking a little more effort to correctly place the field, so that could be enough to “tone down slightly” the set, with a change that only asks for player ability that good ones should easily overcome and even use in their favor placing it where they will land to get 2 combos without needing to turn the camera while running away for example), but P/P can offer great ranged support to teams in every enviroment, being able to throw blind fields in choke points without jumping inside it. This way BP is worth 6 initiative for P/P and its use won’t change that much for melee sets.

Oberon Vex.1389:

Perhaps they could modify the #5 so that instead of the current skill, it deals aoe burning for 3-4s, then chains to ‘black powder’ which is an aoe blind and stealths the thiekittenda like a reverse ‘Prestige’

Spamming of either of these ideas wouldn’t be an issue due to the initiative cost. It would not be beneficial to spam either scenario, you would be too vulnerable being reduced to auto attacks just to get burning on the target.

That seems interesting, though it may affect too much certain playstyles. But I think I can see certain potential here. Let’s analyze what it would mean:

Depending on if the second part automatically stealths you or not, I would make the total cost something like 5+6 (or total of 10, substract one from any of them) if it’s autostealth (autostealth with no pre-conditions is too good) or 4+5 if not. Make the first shot be a projectile that burns a target (AoE burning even in iteration to avoid spam would be too much I think, it should be tested, maybe a very small 100-130 radious around the target might work).

Then after a fiery projectile, we get a second iteration of the skill, Black Powder (which makes sense as firing a flaming projectile will cause an excess of smoke inside the Pistol that you have to clean), that lasts around 8-10 seconds (like when you use Infiltrator’s Strike) so if you want to shoot the flamming bullet again you have to either wait or waste a ton of initiative (making it a 4 seconds burn that if you want to manage more than half your ini bar you can only use every 10 seconds and even then have a very decent initiative cost so it isn’t abusable and can be used to try a condition spike).

Then we have to consider if it is the regular version of BP, or what you propose of it automatically stealthing you.

This is very tricky, because 9 initiative (with potential to be “reduced” to 7 through Infussion of Shadow) is what many players pay for just the stealth (D/P combo, /D stealth is conditional and you have to touch your target), without the burning, and in this case you’re stealthed without possible counters (the projectile part should be removed as it hits after the skill and depending on distance it may hit sooner or later, so to avoid programming headaches it should be removed along with any direct damage, do BP just consistd on freeing the smoke inside the pistol at your feet, the projectile was very low damage anyway but you would lose the potential blind at range for non melee thieves). The combo stealth is counterable if you jump inside the smoke, this one wouldn’t have a counter.

If it stealths you, the cost should be raised to 10 or 11 total after using both iterations (considering you’re already burning your target and getting a stealth without possible counters+smoke field).

It would be good for P/P to being able to focus on conditions (same as D/D can chose to focus on direct damage or the acrobat bleeder), and wasting 10 to 11 initiative (with potentil for 8 to 9 with trait) for burning plus 5 bleeds and blind as Sneak Attack always combo through fields (more or less automatically putting 13 bleeds and a blind on target) seems a right price considering you can’t do it twice in a row. You’re wasting a ton of initiative, so unlike P/D that distributes it better over time, you’re very vulnerable to condition removal (you should get some venoms to cover conditions with more conditions), but on the other hand you can quickly spike someone with a lot of conditions, and it synergizes with the auto-attack (something that Unload doesn’t).

Problem here, is that it would affect S/P and D/P VERY negatively. Those sets don’t invest on condition damage, so the burning won’t be so good, and with this way, D/P is wasting more initiative on getting the stealth than what they would with the current version (and as I said, we can’t give a total cost of 9 initiative to a burn+automatic stealth+combo field, it has to be more than that in total), so you’re really damaging one of the most used sets (and while it’s debatable if that set might need some tuning as it is too popular, this will infuriate a lot of people for sure).

Then let’s say we make the BP part as current one (it doesn’t automatically stealth you). It still has to have a higher ini cost than the original one. A minimim of 8 total.

With this D/P still suffers from a cost increase without getting much benefit from the burning, and with no stealth here, P/P remains a bad set, and if you invest on conditions you’re limited to a burn aplication every 8-10 seconds, and your auto-attack, which limits it a lot compared with the previous scenario that had flaws against heavy condition removal, but had potential too.

Continue on next post.

Blast Finishers break stealth if they hit and this also has a projectile so it always hits. You will be stealthed and automatically revealed as the projectile hits the target (so basically it gives revealed instead of stealthy if you’re in combat).

As I said in other threads we can’t have spammable burning on weapon skills (unless there is some sort of fake cooldown like with Infiltrator’s Strike to avoid perma glue or Cluster Bomb to avoid throwing 6 blast finishers at the same time, I’m asuming you mean this to be the second part of Black Powder given how you need it first), but 9 initiative for 3 seconds of burning and automatically getting revealed is too much to pay to access burning (we already got a 7 initiative skill and it made the Thief avoid water as much as he can).

It’s the problem with burning or strong CCs in our weapon skills: it either is too abusable or you have too pay way too much. We live and die with initiative. It makes the Thief fun and dynamic, but also hinders him with this kind of stuff.

About using it for Body Shot, problem is that because of initiative system, we can’t have certain things on weapon skills.

Burning or medium duration CC are among them. Burning is like applying 8 bleeds, so it becomes much better than other condition build ups like P/D 5-1-1

Even if our skills are balanced so if we abuse one, we don’t use others, there are certain things that they can’t allow us to spam. This is why Headshot lasts 0.25 seconds or Pistol Whip roots you for example, this is also why there is a “fake” cooldown on Cluster Bomb where if you press again you shatter it, which can be beneficial, but avoid throwing 5 or 6 blast finishers at the same time at long distance, same for Infiltrator’s Strike being divided in 2 parts (the second part again is benefitial to compensate) so you can’t become glue by spamming a teleport+immob skill, and instead you have either to waste more initiative on returning (which also prevents you from following a running target) or waste for the duration to go.

Burning is something that we may have under utilities in the future (though this one doesn’t seem to fit in Thief’s theme, the guy is some sort of paladdin of light and sun, not a sneaky Thief), but not under weapon skills because of initiative.

Initiative is what makes the Thief special and feel so dynamic, but it’s also the cause of most things we can’t have and this is one of them.

Dendail.4896:

I was thinking Body Shot is one of P/P’s better skills. Combined with with Ricochet and its a really nice ability with a lot of group synergy.

Body Shot is mathematical garbage. If you take damage/initiative (plus augmented damage), you’re much better just spamming Unload (not to mention Unload benefits more from certain traits). Even in a group of 5, Body Shot is trash. Not worth any single initiative point you use on it.

The only arguable situation is agains mega-bosses where multiple players will benefit, but here we have 2 problems:

- In those situations the cap of 25 is there most times.

- Since the change to 10 Vuln but less duration, bosses won’t even notice you used it as it expires in a blink on them.

Don’t fool yourself, we all want to play P/P because it looks really cool, but the current set is bad (mathematical wast of initiative on Body Shot, Black Powder only effective with melee sets and most effective setups consisting on 33333333 which lacks synergy with auto-attack and isn’t even that great compared with other weapon sets and professions).

When I saw that, I thought it was more about showing kids being killed in videogames (I didn’t even see Logan protecting him, just assumed he survived the explosion because of that).

For example, in Skyrim you can attack mostly anyone, but you can’t kill childs.

My personal theory (just a theory) is that she got a very special Wyld Hunt, that required giving her an incredible intelligence and knowledge of many things, so she was created as a super intelligent being to be able for her task.

Somehow in the way, so much knowledge and intelligence drove her crazy and she twisted the way she was supposed to perform her Wyld Hunt (probably in its origins it would be something like using all that knowledge to make the world a better place, but she twisted that and is now following a new version of the plan). Or maybe she didn’t twist it, but she was destinated to make the races stronger to fight the dragons by giving them a wonderful opponent to keep them active.

PS: The wiki states that it is believed she was trained by the six gods… where is this stated? I didn’t found that in dialogues :S The edit stating that part is done by an IP with no other known contributes so I don’t know if it is trolling.

So… Scarlet and the announcer have the same voice actress? It was her playing games and watching us all the time

There are many conditions that don’t follow their tooltips durations around the game.

Top of my head White Wolf Chilling Howl, which makes it subpar against other canines as the duration of the chill is lower than stated.

Necromancer scepter chaing states that the 2 first strikes apply 4 seconds of bleed, but the first one applies 5 instead (positive bug).

Inmob is supposed to be a stacking on duration condition but it doesn’t.

I think someone should get to the list of things that aren’t working as intended and dedicate a week or two to solve them.

For “next time” I would make this a separate PvP lobby so you don’t need to do this constantly and you can also get any equipment set without needing to forge full exotic sets of another atribute line just for this and then forget them.

It solves all the problems here!

Rissou.7213:

I agree, throw gunk is just like last refuge, sometimes useful, but more often it ends up breaking stealth pattern and gives you reveal debuff.

I don’t understand how you guys are randomly breaking stealth with throw gunk.

It only breaks stealth if you use it when stealthed (same as any possible attack you use while stealthed), you save it for the next rotation, while waiting for revealed to go you throw it, then CnD and combo through it. The pulsing doesn’t break stealth (like choking gas and caltrops pulsing). If you just can’t wait to push f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1f1 then it’s not the item’s fault. Last Refuge is umpredictable chaotical garbage that can kill you, Throw Gunk gives tactical advantages and only breaks stealth if you (intentionally) use it, like if you hit CnD a second time for example, if you break stealth because you kept attacking it’s your fault, not the skill.

I admit that during the first days many times I used it while stealthed, but it’s just learning that you use it before CnD and that’s all.

I use 3*Afflicted Runes, 3*Krait and 2 sigils of agony, which gives 50% extra bleed duration (and I have another +25% from deadly arts) and still give a good amount of condition damage thanks to each rune giving its tier3 bonus (as opposed to using 2 afflicted, krait and centaur). If you try to aument condition duration, remember to always go for full seconds, as 4.5 seconds of bleed will do the same than 4 (it will last 0.5 more seconds, but won’t tick a fith time).

EoNxBoNx.9213:

This steal item is not good, but its not bad. Chaos armor, and confusion are great additions to condi builds for thieves, the only problem is that you can just sidestep “Throw Gunk”. No one in their right mind is actually going to sit in that gunk. In sPvP/tPvP I use it on downed bodies and its a lot of damage.

Well, you can always be the one standing on it to get the combos.

And nice idea about throwing it to downed bodies! I didn’t though about using it that way. It’s like throwing poo to someone that is bleeding to death in the ground, soooo cruel :P

infantrydiv.1620:

I think thief should be able to summon a nuclear missile which just blows up the whole map and permabans any opponents.

Ok, but let’s balance it so it isn’t so OP. Just make it Shortbow new Stealth Attack. That way it should be fine!!

Green because she is Sylvari.

Red and Black because of this:

I’d like this to happen. There are some cool accesories that simply won’t work for your build but you may like to have them for the meaning they have.

Why no love for Skales and their perma-super-regen? (They’re the bane of many low level players that don’t have enough power to kill them, not to mention NPC allies will mostly be destroyed by them in the open world).

There is even a Charr event where you tame an army of them and send them against a separatists camp!

“Spirits Rangers are OP!”

Some months ago this statement would sound crazy. It is true that lately I’ve seen some good rangers doing it in PvP. But honestly I didn’t found them OP at all to be honest (though it may be because of my build, continue with this after the quote).

Is it good now for PvE too? I always wanted to make my Ranger a “Spirit Herder”, but it seemed a bad idea. It’s a good time now to start leveling him with that in mind? I’m looking forward to play it a lot (currently I’m veteran at Thief and experienced Guardian).

Durzlla.6295:

Hybrid thief shreds spirit rangers, found this out last night while I was spectating a friends game. He used P/D and I think S/P, he had 30 in trickery for the daze on steal, and had a good amount in the top tree too, I know he had the poison venom (god that’s redundant) and the torment venom, think he had thieves guild and needle trap (I remember the 3rd utility skill was weird and I never saw it used before).

So thieves can counter spirits, most just don’t.

This is true. As I said I usually have it easy against Rangers because my build takes a lot of advantage against them. P/D is amazing against them.

I don’t even use 30 trickery or Caltrops. I’m a Venom Sharer (meant for support but very able in duels) with Spider (poison) and Devourer (inmob) venoms (honestly the only good ones). The Torment venom is still really weak (they are introducting Torment in bits, fearing it may affect the meta too much), you guys have a better version on Sharpening Stone that works exactly like a Venom (the eles have another “Venom”).

Here is how I fight most Rangers:

- Steal+CnD pre-cast.
- Deposit the healing tree. If I see the fight is too big, summon Thieves Guild while stealthed.
- Break Stealth with Sneak Attack (for 5 aplications of water field combo, which means regeneration during the whole fight).
- Keep the traditional P/D rotation. As his pet will follow me, and in the case of Spirit Rangers, there are a lof of extra objetives, I can keep it up all I want as I will always have something to hit with CnD.
- Let conditions eat him alive (I can put Poison for the whole fight, a bit of Weakness that was nerfed recently so it’s just a bit to cover my other conditions, lots of bleeds, Cripple and Inmob, even Torment sometimes if I finished Sneak Attack close to him).
- In case he is particularly resistant I will sometimes switch to S-Bow and start spamming bombs all over the place.
- If somehow I screwed the fight, use Shadow Refuge, then if I think I can win, reapply Spider Venom that should be recharged for the leeching trait, and combo Sneak Attack through SR Dark Field for more leeching and try to surprise the Ranger.

Depending on the Ranger the strategy might be harder to perform (Longbow Rangers traited for extra range should be harder if they see you soon enough, but if you didn’t lose too much HP by the time the process starts, you should kill him). But I don’t think a Thief (at least a P/D Thief) should have so many problems against a Ranger that holds my favorite stolen item.

I admit they seem to be very good (some time ago when the trend started I asked the first one I saw about his build as I found surprising to see spirits being used in an efficent build), but I don’t think they are OP or something like that. Maybe other weapon sets and professions have a harder time against them, IDK.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

btw there is no better way to learn to fight with some class than play a while with it and spend some time to learn their strong and weak parts

This is one of the best advices you can give to fight any possible class.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

So in other words, when you see a thief activating D-storm, you’re supposed to just run away? I can see a thief guild go full d-storm against a zerg now..

Or even better, a Guild of Thieves using the Elite Skill Thieves Guild, and all summoned Thieves being able to use this version of Daggerstorm!

Rottaran Owain.6789:

Daecollo suggestion thread. Nothing to see here.

And here I though his period of silence (at least I haven’t seen one of this in a long time, at least not in this section) meant he learned about his mistakes…

I’ve said it in other threads (including one near this one :P):

Carrion curbstomps Rabid, specially on a Thief.

For direct damage Power is so superior to Precission that if you had to distribute 1000 points among them, the derivate for max average damage says that you give the 1000 points to Power, and then take very few extra poits from Precission (resulting on a very small percentage of negative crits that heal the target instead of damaging it) to achieve the highest direct damage average.

That’s how poor is Precission compared to Power. Even if you invest in Critical Damage (sacrificing stat points from a different stat), Power is still vastly superior to Precission (investing on Crit Damage and Precission is only worth it once Power already has a tremendous investment, you sacrifice all your defensive stats but as full zerker can clean most things in PvE it still works).

If you were a Necro, maybe you could use it (through the best necro condi builds still mix Carrion with Rabid and Rampager), but the Thief has very little benefit from crits on condition builds (and Sigil of Earth is far from enough to compensate).

Then the Vitality vs Toughness could be debatable (on paper Vitality is better, but over time Vit doesn’t affect the heal over time while Toughness does), but with the Thief being a low tier HP profession (and despite armors have a visual reason to give extra stats, HP tiers are bigger than armor tiers even if the physical form of your toon is the same) so any extra HP you get will be more valuable for you than for a Warrior or Necro. If you’re P/D you will already invest 30 in SA for 300 extra Toughness, so that plus the Vit from Carrion is a good balance.

So Carrion all the way.

Marduh.4603:

Iavra.8510:

In P/D Condi:

- Throw Gunk
- CnD
- Stealth Attack
-> 5 * 100% Projectile finisher resulting in 5 stacks Confusion

- Throw Gunk
- CnD
-Throw Gunk break stealth

+ very small radius

Except that once you throw it, it doesn’t break stealth (like SB #4 or Caltrops), you don’t use it after your first steal+CnD combo because it will break stealth, you use it as part of the wait for Revealed to go, then when you stealth again you combo through it. That combo is good. And Chaos Armor is useful too (Protection, Regeneration or Swiftness each time I’m hit? In PvP that’s gold specially for a profession with very little access to those buffs). And it keeps adding conditions (great to throw in the middle of a cap point).

Honestly, like other stolen items it may depend on your setup (I can tell you any P/D+SB Thief will LOVE Throw Gunk), and its results need more interaction than the Skull or the Axe, but it is far from a bad skill.

And giant glowy purple orbs!! Everytime I see an ethereal field in a world event I start spaming Cluster Bomb to make a lot of huge shinning orbs!!

We got 1 bad PvP stolen skill, and that’s the Ice Stab thing you get from Elementalists (a profession with a lot of ways to cleanse conditions and ignore movement hindering so even if you land it it won’t matter much). Most times I just use it against thin air so I can see the Steal cooldown. For a profession with so much thematic versatility stealing that thing instead of some kind of elemental shard with multiple effects feels really bland.

1) P/D, SB
2) 25/0/30/0/15 (Venom Sharer build)
3) PvE, PvP, WvW (I play all 3 enviroments but probably this is the order of dedicated time).

I’ve heard that if you’re human, Reaper of Grenth is great for the achievement.

Between Rabid and Carrion, always go for Carrion (mathematically Carrion curbstomps Rabid potential, specially on a Thief that doesn’t ven have the condition on crit potential a Necro would have, and even then the Necro is better mixing Carrion with Rampager and Rabid).

There are multiple builds where you can use P/D effectively. Most of them use 30 SA either for WvW roaming and all the benefits while stealthed, or for Venom Sharing builds.

As for good alternate weapon, Shortbow is always great to have, it gives a lot of team support, fast transport and is perfect for target tagging in events and WvW for more rewards and spamming 2 and throwing 4 benefits from your investment on conditions.

Elbegast.6970:

Scarlet = Ellen Kiel = Livia…..'s daughter!

For that to be true, then the father should be something like a rock so Kiel can say she inherited her personality from her father… she is sooooooo far from Livia (or most characters for that matter) that a rock or something similar should be the father to compensate.

Vlad.1739:

When they did the color blind update I started having problems due to colors not being solid anymore on circles, I got used to it but the textures in Liadri are terrible for me.

I didn’t know they did a colorblind update? If they did it didn’t solve much, I’m daltonic and I haven’t seen any difference from the start of the game.

Vlad.1739:

This is not QQ we do not want Liadri nerfed, we just want to have customization options that allow us to play the game in the intended manner.

This is the point. And not just Liadri, there has been other content before (like Canach mines). Normally we can just try our luck until it’s done, but when it’s challenging content, added to temporal content and then we add dificulty because of not seeing the areas well…

The suggested feature to personalize the color of each area is perfect as everyone will be able to adapt them to how they see things better.

Today I had time in the middle of projects to play a bit more and advance to Liadri and definitely THIS IS A MUST.

And personally I think being able to select the display colors of areas would be welcomed by more than us the daltonics. Everybody wins!

When I die, it’s because I was in the middle of the areas and I didn’t see them, I only see them when I’m downed as the angle rotates and I can see the moving bits. Dodging everything else isn’t that hard, but I can’t see where the areas are.

I’m forced to basically keep dodging with my Thief shortbow because I can’t pay attention to my surroundings AND the ground (and even when I pay atention to the ground most times I still get caught in the middle).

So I will keep trying until I manage to take 3 orbs with luck in my favor making me not being where the areas are so I don’t need to dodge them :S