Guild Wars 2

@Ksp

That statistic about seeing the Thief 90% of the time, even if fighting somebody…

Let’s go through this again.

Stealth.

I’m not like you, feeling down and saying it’s my own fault when I get killed by a Thief who was invisible and did over 10k dmg.

I don’t think to myself, “Well, gee, that invisible Thief wouldn’t have killed me like that if I just learn to play.”

No, I say, “Well, not really much I could have done there. I couldn’t see him. Why can they do this much damage again?”

And the reason I ask this type of question and make this kind of statement is because, having played numerous other PvP games, I have never seen anything like the Thief in this game. And there’s a reason all the Thief defenders make ridiculous statements like yours.

You are not under powered.
Your skills are not terrible compared to the other classes.
You have the best defense mechanism in the game, Stealth. A lot of it.
You control the fight.

Sabbathius.1465:

Merciless, I especially like the kill report on the right.
Thief kills mesmer.
Same thief kills ranger.
Warrior kills elementalist.
Again the same thief kills necro.

Hilarious. And that 10k backstab isn’t even close to the highest backstab I’ve seen. Just wish I had a picture to share.

Lol, you know, I didn’t even notice that until you mentioned it. But what can you do? You gotta make yourself laugh at this kind of absurd kitten.

And for those wondering, that’s a tPvP match screenshot.

I see your team composition and raise you

I named my Warrior “No Nerfs For Me”.

GTX 680 with 3770K processor. And I mainly use the computer for GW2. And Shogun 2. I feel like I could do more with it. Lol

You say, “Dodge”, I say “I only get 2”.

You say “Get Toughness”, I say “What about my Vitality?”

You say “Get Vitality”, I say “What about my Toughness?”

You say “Get Soldier’s Amulet”, I say “I still get hit for over 5k (Eviscerate, HS) and 10k (Backstab)”

You say “Watch out for the Thief.”, I say “He’s… invisible.”

You say “Stunbreak!”, I say “As a necro, I get 3 utility stun breaks. 2 of them are on a 60 second CD, the 3rd one is on a 90 second CD”

You say “Use Death Shroud!”, I say “Just prolonging the inevitable.”

You say “You can kill bunkers.”, I say “Yes. But it takes too much time, effort, and manpower to focus down 1 player at 1 point in a game type where mobility is one of the most important factors.”

You say “MOA’s not bad. You can dodge it! The cast time is forever!”, I say “Trying to see a Mesmer MOA casting is like trying to find Waldo, except everybody looks like Waldo. And the whole screen is purple for more than half the fight. And they can cast MOA in stealth.”

You say “You shouldn’t be able to bring a repair kit through a portal.”, I say “I agree.”

You say “Take Quickness out of the game!”, I say “I agree.”

You say “Bunker Elementalists are impossible to kill!”, I say “I agree.”

Seriously, I really can’t kill a bunker Ele.

That’s all I’ve been seeing lately, is teams running 2 Thieves. And believe it or not, most of the time it’s either them on top of the board or the teams’ Mesmer.

So please, stop spreading false statements as facts. Thieves are still very much viable in tPvP.

1. Why is it that when you dodge while you were channeling a skill that skill goes on a 4 second CD? This happens a lot when I cast heals.

2. Why can you be knockdown chained?

3. Why, in a game where you have 4 stats to choose from, and most of the time you’re forced to choose between Vitality or Toughness + Power and Prec, and only up to 30k HP, are there skills that can do over 10k dmg?

4. If I see my condition dmg tick on a stealthed player, why can’t I target them when I’m looking directly at them?

5. If a channeling skill gets interrupted, it goes on full CD, like my Life Transfer while I’m in Death Shroud. Should it be like 4 seconds or less? Or do you guys feel like your opponent should be rewarded for interrupting?

6. When I down my opponent, why am I still getting hit by magical swords and phantasms, who then proceed to down me and end my life while I slowly die inside because I know I just outplayed my opponent but the A. I. helped him win? :/

7. When I feel like I did my best against a bunker and I threw everything at him, and I see his health bar, and… it’s still above 80%. It’s such a “I give up” feeling… but I still keep playing. Lol

Hundred Blades is like a channeled skill. Backstab is a 1 hit wonder. Big difference in reaction times.

@Shadow: Ok, so switch the off hand sigil to Superior Bloodlust, or a better 1 if you can suggest one.

Using a Staff at range is kind of counter intuitive to the Plague Signet, as you kind of need to be in the kitten to absorb conditions from your team mates. But like somebody mentioned, it seems to be broken. I wonder what the range of it is going to be when it is fixed?

The last 2 I like. Thanks for helping out.

In a game where it’s hard to get over 25k hp without sacrificing other things like Toughness, Precision, or Power, a skill that does over 10k damage is OP.

Sorry. Don’t get used to it.

So, if Backstab wasn’t an insta kill skill, and your Heartseeker was nerfed to where you couldn’t spam it so easily, what would a Thief do?

Uninstall.

@Dibrom: Really? :/ I could have sworn I was absorbing my teammates’ conditions. And by broken, I’m assuming that it doesn’t work at all? lol

@Eviator: Yes, the -25% Cond duration helps out a ton. I wish I could add more, but *shrug

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.5.2.4.21.18.0.0.0.0.106.118.109.110.130.3.3.22.302.0.0.317.324.327.0.0.0.347.350.0.0.0.0.15.30.0.20.5

Hey guys, the point of this build is to take conditions from your team mates on to your self and clear them either with Consume Conditions, Plague Signet (which you’ll mostly be leaving on passive), or Well of Power.

The Superior Rune of Melandru has -25% Condition and Stun length, which helps speed the process along, and having 29k Hp means you can afford to absorb more from the passive Plague of Signet.

MH Axe: Superior Sigil of Purity – 60% chance to remove a condition
OH Focus: Superior Sigil of Nullification – 60% chance to remove a boon

MH Scepter: Sigil of Intelligence – After weapon swap to this weapon, 100% chance for crit (Feast of Corruption)
OH Warhorn: Sigil of Superior Bloodlust – Gain +10 power after killing a foe

I have found this works very well when helping a bunker (like Guardian) defend a point, or when your mid point is getting zerged.

Your team mates may not know it, but they should be giving you a hug at the end of every match.

So let me know what you guys think.

Thoughts or other tips. ^^

K/D ratios only belong in a death match type game, because that’s where they matter the most.

And if this stat seriously strokes your ego, that is a personal self esteem issue.

@Wolfe: Which is why there should be separate balancing for PvE and PvP skills like there was in GW 1.

@Schwarhrheit: L2P comments are… unnecessary here. This is a clear discussion about a class mechanic, not how to beat it.

Personally, imo, I don’t agree with the comments that because of the Initiative system that Thief skills are weak or not as good as other classes’. That, to me, is a bit of a ludicrous statement, because, as everybody has seen or experienced, there are a lot of Thief skills, most of them spammable (unlike a 10+ second CD skill) that just plain do a ton of dmg.

Eduardo.4675:

Proelitor: ur post as nothing to do with my post; second, thieves are almost useless now, any organized/vent team with non backpedalers will beat any team based on ur composition any day of the week,just because this game revolves around… reaching 500 points first, wich is, and ever was, about holding down at least 1 more node than ur opponent. Complaining about 1v1 is useless, thats not how you win the game, bacstab (a proper one, with sin sig) has a 36 sec cooldown, in that time a competent guardian will have earned…18 points, against 5 from the backstaber. Crazy thing,i know. And add to that the fact that a engie or a ele can do the exact same thing, and there u have it, 3 profs that earn more points than any egocentric-built thief. I once also thought that thieves were more usefull, but now… not so sure anymore.

Holding points is more important than kills, but that doesn’t make the kills useless or pointless. They do, after all, award you 5 points per kill towards that 500 goal.

And since I know you watched my video (thanks!), you saw how easily a Thief turned the tide of a battle between x vs bunker.

In a game where we have x amount of boons, conditions, CC’s and stun breaks, the Thief class is an anomaly in that it does insane amounts of dmg to effectively end a battle before you can recover from your jaw drop.

Seether.7285:

I like how Merciless has demonstrated his opinions have no value at all but then still comes around and parades them as fact.

And yet you and all the other trolls never posted up a video to counter my points. Keep trolling away with your valuable opinions.

And Winterfell, for most of your clips it was you + 1 vs a Guardian taking him down, or, like in the second video, you Moa’d a Guardian, runs away for a bit, comes back, and still takes forever to take him down. And… you play a Mesmer. We don’t all have access to kittentorms, shatters, and iWINmoa.

Zachariel.5463:

I actually hate thief. Got my to 47, played him to rank 10 in sPVP…hated the play style and most of what you have been complaining about only really works on noobs.

And if you read many of the other posts by players. You would see plenty of advice to kill a Thief. What you want is an iWin button that instantly kills them. Its called the yes button on the uninstallation confirmation screen. You win every time. Unless you forgot to back up that copy of microsoft office before you went to do a fresh instal. (face palm)

TLDR: Search button comes in handy. Use it and read with an open mind. Plenty of advice already.

You are a fool. The post didn’t mention or ask anything about how to kill a Thief. And if you don’t main Thief, why are you bothering posting?

I blame the Mesmers and Guardians, Aragiel. :p j/k

Zachariel.5463:

You cry a lot about thieves. Why don’t you play tPVP. You rarely see them in there if you are having issues with them. Stop making pointless whine threads as this horse has been beat to death enough. The game developers have said they won’t listen to people whining on the forums about a class. They have their own system of review that they will use. This horse has been beat to death enough. Let it rest already.

Yes, coming in here and saying “Whine, whine, death horse” is productive and helps my argument even more.

How about you help everybody out, as a Thief player, and provide some counter arguments, thoughts, pros and cons about what I said? These are, after all, the forums.

So… Where did you get this idea that Glass Cannons own Bunkers?

With all the CC’s, Aegis, Retal and the other boons that bunkers use, how is a Glass Cannon so effective? I was under the impression it was most effective to strip boons and use conditions on bunkers.

Which Glass Cannons can strip all boons and kill a bunker?

When you look at your skill bar, unless you’re a Thief, you’ll notice that some of your pretty awesome skills are on a 30+ second CD. The Thief class does not have this problem.

Initiative regenerates at approximately 1 per 1.11 seconds, traited. They can literally spam any skill that they so choose, until they’re short of Init, and in less than 7 seconds, they can use that skill again (the largest Initiative cost for a skill is 6).

Combined with Stealth, a Thief does not have problems waiting for Initiative to regenerate so that he can return to spamming a skill.

So how do you balance a class mechanic such as Initiative + Stealth?

Decrease Init regen rate, increase init cost for certain skills, or do not allow init to regen while in Stealth.

Any 1 of those would bring a Thief more in line with the other classes’ cooldowns.

Bunker Build<<<<<<<<<< Everything Else >>>>>>>>>>>> Glass Cannon

This is the range of the classes in the game right now. The 2 outside points are way too strong at what they do.

Are some other builds effective? Sure they are. But not to the extent that bunkers and glass cannons are.

Reikou.7068:

nerva.7940:

so then everyone will be playing the same or similar builds in tpvp? is that ok?

Yes. Then it becomes a matter of who plays the build better, or “skill” if you will, which is the whole point of GW2 PvP.

Yes. Let’s all watch, on the grand stage that is E-Sport, who can pull off more shatters, Mesmer #1 or Mesmer #2.

Or which bunker Guardian dies first. Or which Thiefs’ Backstab misses.

How exciting.

People keep saying that if you see a Guardian on a node, and you’re alone, just go somewhere else and try to capture another.

Uhh… how is this OK in any way, shape or form?

The point of a Guardian bunker should be to keep the point longer than somebody built for damage, not needing 2+ people to take him down.

If you go up solo against a Guardian, it should take you longer to kill him. But not so long that you feel like it’s pointless where he just has above 80% hp the whole fight. That’s where the problem lies with these bunker builds.

Chesire.9043:

If it’s all about skill, why doesn’t someone who considers themselves more experienced grow some balls like the OP and post a video show casing just how exactly they deal with these mechanics?

Everyone keeps bashing his play skills but not a single person has posted a video showing how “it should actually be done”. Any class but a Thief would be fine with me.

It’s been almost 20 hours since this statement, and all you hear are crickets in the background.

Arm chair quarterbacking is easy.

Targeting a player who is in Stealth who is about to down you is impossible (Single Target), which is why Finishing and Reviving while in Stealth should be looked at more closely.

Most Mesmers go in to Stealth and then cast Moa, for all those “pros” who like to say it’s easy to dodge. In the clip I provided, that specific Mesmer did not do that, but I could provide footage of a Mesmer in Stealth mode casting Moa, and you’d still hear cries of “l2p” “l2dodge”.

Bunker Guardians and Thieves dmg output is just redundant to talk about now, since so many other specific threads have been made about it.

The only difference between mine and most others is I provided video evidence. But obviously, that still isn’t enough for those who are in denial, or who consider themselves to be top tier players and are looking down at the rest of us mortals.

Of course I will learn to play. I am always learning. But so are you.

Now, because your specific class might not have trouble dealing with 1 or 2 things which I have specifically discussed in the video does not mean that the other 7 classes have it as easy as you.

Apparently, there are a lot of pros running rampant in the forums.

Nowhere in the video did I try displaying my skills as a Necromancer or at killing other players. If I wanted to do that, I’d make a montage showcasing my “skills”.

Necromancer is not my main class, nor was I trying to represent it in any way. If you hear at the beginning of the video, all that footage was recorded from within the last 24-48 hours of random tPvP.

It is easy to armchair quarterback anything from behind the keyboard.

I don’t understand why you’re stuck on the Guardian surviving “only” 10 seconds. If I put up a clip of a 3 v 1 Guardian, and it took us longer than 20-30 seconds to kill him, and I say that that is too long, you would say that we were all bad and it wouldn’t have taken you that long.

If I put up a clip of 1 v 1 Thief, with me trying to capture a node from him while he’s popping in and out of Stealth, you would again call me bad and armchair qb me. Instead, I showed you all what a single Thief was doing to prevent 3-4 other players from capturing.

It doesn’t matter who I go up against in a 1 v 1. The fact is, any Thief can come from anywhere and Steal + Backstab for major damage. I plainly showed an example of that when I was fighting the Guardian.

And apparently, a lot of you have never been MOA’d before or tried to kill a Guardian and failed or were fighting a player and never got Stealth killed by a Thief that came out of nowhere.

I find that very hard to believe.

A lot of you have seemed to miss the point of the video.

Anybody can watch the video and say, “Well, I would have done this/that”, “Why you no dodge?”, “Where is your stability?”, “Nothing wrong with Guardian/Thief/Mesmer, l2p”, etc.

The first 2 clips were showing Stealth stomps, which are IMPOSSIBLE to counter, which, in my opinion, and many others’, is an issue.

The 3rd clip, it was us 4 versus them 3 on that point, so that’s why all of us were there. If you watch closely, I finish 2 people myself. But the point of that clip was showing you how the Thief single handedly kept preventing us from capturing the point by popping in and out of stealth. Yes, my AOE’s missed, but honestly, that Thief was all over the place.

The 4th clip, referencing the Mesmers’ Moa skill, was just an example of Moa being used in a battle and how huge of an advantage it gives to the Mesmer. Yes, that Mesmer was owning me to begin with. Yes, I could have used a better clip; all I’d have to do is play tPvP for an hour and I’m sure I could get one.

The 5th clip, where it’s us 3 v 1 Guardian, I explicitly state that it takes way too long to down him as obviously the Guardians’ 4 other team mates can capture the other nodes AND come to help while he’s still surviving everything we’re throwing at him. I know the point of a Bunker Guardian, but that doesn’t make it less ridiculous. No, I was not complaining about the Guardians’ downed state #2, I was just explaining what was happening for those who wouldn’t know. But again, that obviously bought more time for his Thief friend to come in and help.

The last 2 clips are obviously showing what happens when a Thief comes from behind and how effective he is at turning the tide of a battle and ending it because of his high burst skills, which a lot of people are talking about. I could have been doing a 1 v 1 against any class, and the same kitten would happen from a Thief.

Other than that, I’d like to thank those who have offered tips on how to play better for my part. I can only get better from here. ^^

Oh, and it took some time and effort to get that bad boy up to 1080p quality. But it is eye candy once it gets there.

Inee.5371:

dont want to flame, but all things you’ve listed were your own fault.
e.g. first situation (starts at about 0:40) you’re showing. you’re wasting your putrid on a npc (and you dont even dodge him…) so you dont have it for the thief which is killing you from range while you backpaddel and do nothing.. placing your putrid mark on yourself would have given your teammates the chance to rezz you. (especially since there are 2 engis…)
next situation at about 1:48. do you really complain while there are 4 players vs 1 thief and all are standing afk looking on the point (no aoe or something). in this situation 3 players should have moved to another objective while one player keeps defending the point until the thief pops out again.
next thing i like to mention is your fight against the guardian. the guardian survives not long and you could have blinded him or used stability to stomp him.

the next time you make a vid complaining about other classes gimmicks you should learn to utilize your and your teams gimmicks.

Yes, yes, theory crafting with random skills and shouldadonethatderp kitten out of thin air, but you obviously have missed the point of the video. And you are flaming.

It’s plain as day, to anybody that watches, just what is obviously wrong with the picture. And I spell it out for you. But no, you focus on “Use dodge/stability!”, like that kitten’s on call 24/7 and infinite.

It’s just a little something I put together, showing what some of the classes do (Guardian, Thief, and Mesmer) and how they affect a tPvP match.

milo.6942:

Where’d you get this info?

Front page. The Halloween announcement.

Do you guys feel like, with so much work to be done yet in terms of balance and bugs, that it’s too soon for paid tournaments?

I know people are not patient in this day and age, and they strive for something different to do in PvP, but it just feels like more could be done before the release.

Do you believe they’ll use paid tournaments as a focal point to determine where and what to balance?

My problem, as a random, when I join a match, is losing to a team composition that is far superior to a random team, since there’s no limit to how many of a certain class can be on 1 team, like Seether pointed out.

My problem, as a random, is when I do get to the final map, Khylo, and I don’t have a Mesmer on my team to teleport the repair kit, and the other premade 99% of the time does, they win the game. Because of 1 skill.

So, I don’t see how a premade group would suffer if they were only able to hold a limited amount of tickets. They’ll still be winning at the same rate if they’re that good.

As it stands now, though, all they’ve been doing is farming the kitten out of the free tournaments. Limit it to 100 tickets per person, whatever. That’s still 100 paid tournament games.

Nobody said anything about premades cheating. I said that they’re abusing the current system in which it is nearly effortless to get tournament wins against pugs, which most tournament games are.

And shiNn, my girlfriend, please provide the source for your claim about 5 tickets per person for 1 paid tournament. That sounds completely wrong. 25 tickets per team? Enlighten me.

Immo.9217:

Its 1 ticket a person and it just sounds like your jelly, they earned the tickets don’t be sore.

Are you suggesting that they worked hard for those Tournament wins?

Why don’t you join a match, solo, be in a pug, and tell me how much the other premade team “earns” their win with their team composition and designated roles already when they dominate so hard and spawn camp your team because half of your pug left in the first 3 minutes.

Please, tell me how hard that sounds.

Imagine the market being flooded with all the gems everybody earns (and then converts to gold when they get a surplus) when each person on a premade tournament team has over 300 tickets (and I’m sure people have over 500 by now).

Let’s just say, hypothetically, that each person has 300 tickets. It takes 1 Tournament Ticket PER TEAM. That’s 1500 tickets for a paid tournament from 1 team. That’s 1500 chances for 1st or 2nd place.

Was this intended?

Limit it to like 20-25 per person. On a 5 person team, that still comes out to 100+ tickets.

All these premades that have been farming for the past month with their double Guardian bullkitten and abusing known mechanics, which you’re still fixing, have undoubtedly well over 300 tourney wins and tickets by now.

Even the playing field. They are abusing the system.

My example, which I can not quote, is a typical scenario that everyone has seen or experienced.

Any dmg over 10k is just too much. If they want to keep it that way, and you want to keep doing your gimmicky kitten and think you’re uber cool and awesome at this game, then double our Toughness and Vitality.

Your questions are pointless, Shukran.

If I had 50k HP, your little circus show wouldn’t be as bad.

You know what the best feeling in the world is when you’re playing PvP in this game?

Imagine, you’re doing a 1 v 1 against another player, say a Warrior against a Ranger, whatever. You’re both going back and forth, you’re both down to around 10k – 13k HP, when, all of a sudden, you’re downed. You’re like, “WTF did this Ranger do?” And then, a Thief comes out of Stealth in mid air as he’s stomping you. And you die a little more inside.

It feels like it only happens when a person dies by a Thief or Guardian. So… everybody shelf their Thief and Guardian, and see how much better this game becomes.

Great list. Unfortunately, dodge is not infinite, and most everybody’s skills that break stuns are at 20+ sec CD’s. So, more than 3 of these in a row, and you will get more than 3, you’re screwed.

I exaggerate. Of course I don’t go AFK and browse the Internets, but it’s come to the point where you start to wonder why you’re making a pointless effort.

Are bunker Guardians unstoppable? No, of course not.

Are they the reason most teams win matches? Yes, of course they are.

Even beating a bunker Guardian doesn’t feel like an achievement, because you know, after all your effort and time and team work, he’ll be right back in less than 20 seconds.

Sorry for the rage post.

on the Internet when the opposing team has 2 Guardians on their team in a tPvP match and you just leave your toon at spawn (like I do) because there’s no point in even trying?

I usually look at Google or Yahoo news, then browse NFL.com for the latest stories. Sometimes I’ll browse Reddit, or even just Google some funny cat memes.

But is everybody alright with the fact that this type of forced environment basically decides half your team composition to have the best advantage?

If 1 team did not have a Mesmer with Portal, they are instantly at a disadvantage for the rest of the match. Sure, you can camp the other teams’ portal, or not even destroy the treb fully, but that feels like a waste of manpower and time.

And AOE Ele’s are the most efficient and safest builds to destroy the treb and get away safely. I think Necros can do it very good as well. Then there’s also that random Thief who camps your treb in Stealth mode as soon as he sees you approaching with a repair kit.

Some of you call it strategy, but to me, it feels forced upon the teams to have a Mesmer and a good Ele or Necro just to keep up and have an even playing field. Not to mention a bunker vs bunker Guardian or Engineer.

And what’s up with the constant map loading? That’s obviously an unbalance if I have to Ctrl + Alt + Del my game and my team is down a member. :/

I am, of course, referring to the trebuchet on Khylo. No, this isn’t a QQ thread about the treb.

So many team compositions are revolving around either destroying the trebuchets fast and safely (like Ele’s AOE’s) or using Mesmers Portals to insta repair (pointless putting it on opposite sides of map).

Sure, it is fun to use it in Zerg mode (aka 8 v, but on the tPvP side, it is a major distraction, and at times, fruitless effort to take away a major weapon from the other team (via insta repair).

For a Capture the Point gametype final tPvP match, let’s say you have a treb user and a treb destroyer. That leaves 3 of your teammates to capture and hold 2 major points (safe to assume 1 of them is at least a Bunker build), which leaves 2 roamers, if that. Your team, of course, can be made of a different comp and can choose to ignore the treb completely, but that leaves you at a significant disadvantage against the team who does use it.

So, now what happens? It is literally a race to who can destroy the treb the fastest and most efficient and at the same time have the ability to hold down 2 major points. This kind of forced environment will filter out the bad team compositions against the good ones, thus basically seeing mirror matches later down the line.

Now, was it the point to design a final round competitive match around a WMD that takes almost as much time and attention as does capturing the points themselves? I don’t know, it feels wrong for some reason.

is by having actual competitive matches that mean something (read: prizes).

If you’ve ever played SC2, you’d know that once a top tier player found an exploit or was abusing the timings in competitive tournaments, which were usually for cash, a nerf was soon to follow.

Average to low tier players can come on the forums and bring up issues or problems with having to beat a certain class or getting beat by it. I myself have done this. Even top tier players (or those who consider themselves top tier) can come on and bring things up, but we can’t really differentiate between low, average, and top tier players.

I guarantee you, once real tournaments come up, the ones that actually matter, we will see multiple exploits and OP combos/skills that we have not even thought of or seen yet. The first couple of months in terms of sPvP once real tournaments are available will be/should be hectic in terms of nerfs and patches to follow.

So, a heads up, and some patience.

You and your friend… you and your good point… I hate Guardians.

Since the OP, and everybody else neglected to do it, let me have the honor of mentioning Guardians as a major issue affecting all levels of tPvP. In your extended PvP experience, I am sure you have seen or been the cause of the issues that Guardians cause in any given match.

If your competitive team runs 2 Guardians, and they’re good at what they do, you have a significantly higher advantage than the opposing team. This is true for Guardians only. No other class affects competitive game play as much as they do. An honorable mention goes to Mesmers.