Guild Wars 2

Shadowstep.6049:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I’d like to specifically address the bolded before I start:

Hyperbole weakens arguments. Nobody has even implied this.

Cheesy yes. Easy to play , yes. Broken ? Not so much. The class is stacked right now because it is easy to get kills and because it does not rely heavily on team composition to be effective. That doesn’t mean that the class itself is broken. They have incredible utilities for setting up damage on a point they control, but to get that they suffer against range pressure and mobility.

You have to play a little differently than jumping in to melee range, but it’s doable.

Sry, the class is broken simply due to their mechanics and nature of conquest.

As far as other statement goes: if you can’t play certain class due to other classes being broke and forced to reroll, yes, you don’t have to delete the character but effectively it is deleted character since you never play it. Also, some people like to play only certain class, when the class is not desired in game due to bad class balance then some people that main that class will simply quit the game (which happened when HoT came out and thief players experienced all time low so a lot of them quit the game all together).

Moonsinn.5382:

However, I have faced many DH heavy teams as thief, and you can be successful by outrotating, +1ing, interrupting key skills (WoR), and in general not staying in melee range for long periods. This is Thief 101 stuff. Also, DH is heavily reliant on heals, Choking Gas can be wonderful in team fights while you wait for your kill shot moment.

Nobody argues about that but it only works when there is only 1 DH on enemy team which is not the case in many matches atm. The more DHs there are on enemy team, the more pressure there is on point not to mention they all heal, buff, peel and rezz each other. You can’t outrotate DHs when there is 2-3 of them on 2 points.

Moonsinn.5382:

1. Guard has always been a tough matchup for thief, it’s best not to 1v1 them unless you are a much better player.

2. Dodge traps, it’s easy.

3. Stability is from using headshot on DH to trigger Fragments of Faith. Then set it off, giving the DH stability. Then steal that stability using Bountiful Theft. This also lets you proc your Basilisk Venom. Much harder than just dodging the traps and Deflecting Shot/Spear of Justice pull. Takes a while to kill a DH as thief, hence #1 point.

1. you will be forced into fighting DHs when there are multiple of them on enemy team which is normal atm

2. dodging traps doesn’t remove them from point nor you can dodge instant passive traps

3. stolen stab lasts for like a second, DH has plenty of survivability to wait it out…. Once again, gl vs multiple DHs camping 2 points.

Like I said, DH are hard for thief, but you can still play against 3 DHs and win. I do it. They are so slow and easy to play around. Honestly, I would have a harder time against a team with 2-3 high burst/mobility classes like thief and prenerf rev because they can shut you down if played well.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Moonsinn.5382:

3. Stability is from using headshot on DH to trigger Fragments of Faith. Then set it off, giving the DH stability. Then steal that stability using Bountiful Theft. This also lets you proc your Basilisk Venom. Much harder than just dodging the traps and Deflecting Shot/Spear of Justice pull. Takes a while to kill a DH as thief, hence #1 point.

This is an example of the kind of foresight I’d like to see squishies take advantage of when it comes to fighting Dragonhunters.

Since DHs are stationary targets, watching their visual cues to see where and when they put down purification, when they’re about to tether you with justice and what trap lineup they have (note: The more damaging ones have a half second spring time, which is enough to dodge if you’re prepared for it) can allow you to work them into downstate with reasonable quickness.

And even if you arent capping the point, a guard that knows you’re going to eat him if he meets you 1v1 (assuming you find him at home) is either going to pull help from mid or go there himself. which (surprise)! is your goal.

Another good point.

Also, if your team has advantage (more capped points), thief is great at harassing the lanes (i.e. fighting off point to either kill, make them use their cds, or delay getting to a point). You have to use what skills your class has to win the match, it’s not always about killing people on a point and capturing that point. Spawn camp, man, lol.

However, I have faced many DH heavy teams as thief, and you can be successful by outrotating, +1ing, interrupting key skills (WoR), and in general not staying in melee range for long periods. This is Thief 101 stuff. Also, DH is heavily reliant on heals, Choking Gas can be wonderful in team fights while you wait for your kill shot moment.

Shadowstep.6049:

Moonsinn.5382:

Shadowstep.6049:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Shadowstep.6049:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Shadowstep.6049:

Moonsinn.5382:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Sun Lian.4075:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Stop trying to face tank the damage. Traps are fine, stop standing in them doing nothing about it.

The problem with that is, they will just hit you with longbow which also deals a lot of damage, or pull you in if they can.

There’s nothing right about not being able to get near someone and still getting killed, while there’s nothing you can do about it except sitting it out and waiting till the traps are done.

No other class can do that and it’s been going on for long enough, either traps or longbow damage needs to be nerfed.

Then take a ranged weapon your self. It’s not like the long bow is an instant kill weapon.

Agreed. It’s hilarious when I slam a trap DH with symbol of punishment and aa with scepter while they stand there on point, not wanting to leave their traps.

Cool, so only way to fight them is another DH……

Or any class that has a ranged weapon. I’ve seen thief with pistols take out DH, LB Rangers, necros, warriors, well everyone. It really is a l2p issue. The only time a trap DH is a problem, is when he’s on a point with a class that can heal him.other wise he should be a free kill.

So give up point to the DH, ok got it, this is how you lose games though.

Not to mention pp thief gets murdered by literary everything else in this game.

Lol, where did I say give up the point? I said if he’s on point with a class that can heal him, like an ele. But really, trigger the traps, eat the DH, give him the obligatory “RIP”. Really trap guards are not that hard to deal with. Unless your lacking in skill. What division are you in? Bronze? I’m almost T1 gold, one.more win should do it, and I’ve not played trap guard at all because of how easy they are to beat.

I am not talking about full trapper DH and i am in plat. Maybe do some research before trashtalking.

If it’s not full trap don’t even worry about the trap. ToF does mediocre damage up front. You just have to worry about the push/pull through the blades. Use stability.

use stability… as thief… ok… which one was it? I am kind of new to thief apparently.

1. Guard has always been a tough matchup for thief, it’s best not to 1v1 them unless you are a much better player.

2. Dodge traps, it’s easy.

3. Stability is from using headshot on DH to trigger Fragments of Faith. Then set it off, giving the DH stability. Then steal that stability using Bountiful Theft. This also lets you proc your Basilisk Venom. Much harder than just dodging the traps and Deflecting Shot/Spear of Justice pull. Takes a while to kill a DH as thief, hence #1 point.

megilandil.7506:

BennyKay.6139:

megilandil.7506:

Ryan.9387:

Look at their winrates. If you can pull a 70% w/l then you could be up there too.

The people up top generally belong there. If you reset MMR all you will get is a week or two of the same players curbstomping randoms as a duo. I’m sure you wouldn’t find that fun.

no, the extreme win rates of top players are a system fault, duoq + low population + playing in hours less populated+ infesting the top ranks whith their alts (that makes top players not playing versus top players) , if sistem works properly, top players had to play againts top players and get a win/loss ratio of 50-60% ( the win loss ratio of a player siting in his place must be of aprox 50% a little higher for better players a little lower for worse players )

higher winratios only may exist in new players whith skills, that fasclimbing the ranks or missplaced players by the placement matches

Im having a little trouble following your logic. Are you saying that top players sitting around for days is unfair. Do you see how volatile the top 250 is. You can not even sit around for a day or you will get bumped. So if you are ranked top 250 your Rating wont change for 3 days but you can be sure your RANK will. Listen, if you can not win more than 50% of your games you should be in silver and bronze. If you can bump that up to 55-60% you will be gold and higher. Alot of the complaining is because people are losing matches or are stuck at a 50% W/L. I started in S3. I did not play last season so i could not benefit from the previous MMR. Now im G3/P1 and will probably be around there for the remainder. I dealt with the grind just like everyone else. I had bad players. But i never allowed myself to lose more than 2 in a row. Individual mechanics as well as q’ing with someone WILL help. If you are unwilling to make that effort than the climb will be impossible. And as for the placement matches… I went 6-4 landed in gold 1, then fell a little, then gained more. So its not impossible to rank up, you just have to stop blaming everyone/everything else and look inward

no, your logic is that the one is failing, rating an win/loss ratio not have any correlation
1)when i say siting im not talking of doing nothing, im talking on be stable in a position
2)when im talking of enormous win ratios im not talking of the 60-70 of climbing players, im talking about being in firts places(top 25) till the first days and having 70%+ win ratio
3)when i say top players i’m not talking of top 250, i’m talking of top 25, the cream of the cream
4)win ratio only indicates the sped with you climb in the ladder, when you reach “your position” the win ratio have to be of aprox 50% because the matches have to be with your “equals”, being nº 1 and having a enormous win ratio only indicates one of these two things:
-1) your skill is godlike and you are far better than the other “pro players” and can carry your team versus others top players
– 2) system is failing and you are not playing versus top players you are playing versus the low pros
5) the volatility in mid lower topranks is another provation of this, you get matchet againts top top players and logically you lose
an apropiate system will make for those players equilibrated matches playing ones versus others not “farming” “low top 250” and this is the reason that they have insane win ratios

I think the reason you are having trouble understanding the high win ratios in the top 25 (I’ll assume that’s correct), is that you imagine that those players are only playing against each other. At the top end of the rating system, the variance in MMR can be much larger than in the middle of the system because there are fewer players to match against. Thus they can play against and win against lower rated players more often than someone who is in a larger pool of similarly rated players.

Hard reset would be horrible for matchmaking. I detest this idea. I don’t want to be paired with people far below my level, and I don’t want to be facing people far above my level. I don’t want to play 100+ matches just for MMR to learn where everyone belongs. A hard reset will not help anyone. It would be chaos.

Shadowstep.6049:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Shadowstep.6049:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Shadowstep.6049:

Moonsinn.5382:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Sun Lian.4075:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Stop trying to face tank the damage. Traps are fine, stop standing in them doing nothing about it.

The problem with that is, they will just hit you with longbow which also deals a lot of damage, or pull you in if they can.

There’s nothing right about not being able to get near someone and still getting killed, while there’s nothing you can do about it except sitting it out and waiting till the traps are done.

No other class can do that and it’s been going on for long enough, either traps or longbow damage needs to be nerfed.

Then take a ranged weapon your self. It’s not like the long bow is an instant kill weapon.

Agreed. It’s hilarious when I slam a trap DH with symbol of punishment and aa with scepter while they stand there on point, not wanting to leave their traps.

Cool, so only way to fight them is another DH……

Or any class that has a ranged weapon. I’ve seen thief with pistols take out DH, LB Rangers, necros, warriors, well everyone. It really is a l2p issue. The only time a trap DH is a problem, is when he’s on a point with a class that can heal him.other wise he should be a free kill.

So give up point to the DH, ok got it, this is how you lose games though.

Not to mention pp thief gets murdered by literary everything else in this game.

Lol, where did I say give up the point? I said if he’s on point with a class that can heal him, like an ele. But really, trigger the traps, eat the DH, give him the obligatory “RIP”. Really trap guards are not that hard to deal with. Unless your lacking in skill. What division are you in? Bronze? I’m almost T1 gold, one.more win should do it, and I’ve not played trap guard at all because of how easy they are to beat.

I am not talking about full trapper DH and i am in plat. Maybe do some research before trashtalking.

If it’s not full trap don’t even worry about the trap. ToF does mediocre damage up front. You just have to worry about the push/pull through the blades. Use stability.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Sun Lian.4075:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Stop trying to face tank the damage. Traps are fine, stop standing in them doing nothing about it.

The problem with that is, they will just hit you with longbow which also deals a lot of damage, or pull you in if they can.

There’s nothing right about not being able to get near someone and still getting killed, while there’s nothing you can do about it except sitting it out and waiting till the traps are done.

No other class can do that and it’s been going on for long enough, either traps or longbow damage needs to be nerfed.

Then take a ranged weapon your self. It’s not like the long bow is an instant kill weapon.

Agreed. It’s hilarious when I slam a trap DH with symbol of punishment and aa with scepter while they stand there on point, not wanting to leave their traps.

Elite trap does decent damage, but it’s an elite skill, so…

Test of faith does mediocre damage up front. You have to pull off push/pull or enemy has to walk through it. Justifiable damage…

Procession of blades does damage over time. If you stand in it, you deserve the damage.

TheMountain.6204:

Exedore.6320:

sigh

Please understand the system before you make false remarks.

Win percentage does not dictate rating. Rating is based on who you played when you won or lost. People with high win percentages are either improving or were initially placed lower than they should have been. Players near 50% win percentages are at the correct rating. Players with lower win percentages are ranked too high and are moving down.

Perhaps you don’t understand this yourself.

If 2 guys can go 6-4 in their first 10 matches but end up 500+ points apart on their mmr then something is wrong. At that point the guy who ended up higher could go 3-7 and the lower guy could go 7-3 and you end up with a big difference in W/L but the higher guy is STILL much higher rating wise. So what is the real problem? It’s the initial MMR placement.

It really boils down to how lucky someone is in those first 3-10 matches. I get how the common person doesn’t understand this I just don’t get why the guy running the PvP part of this game doesn’t get it.

You do know that everyone started their placement matches with different ratings, right? They basically put everyone closer to 1200 rating (and each other) and increased the amount that the initial matches would change your rating. The 2 people with the same win/loss in the first 10 matches get to different ratings because they started with different ratings that were based on their previous matches. Seems fair to me.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Mushin.3928:

I don’t think there is a problem with the rewards in PvP, or that you still get pips if you lose. The problem is that the rewards in other game modes are bad. For instance, many people are basically farming the same fractal or meta event over and over, which seems like an indicator of a bad reward system. So some people come to PvP, even if they don’t want to, to make progress.

Also the rating system should be designed to handle an influx of new players without causing too much disruption for established players. I don’t think it does that currently, but the fix should be for the rating system, not discourage new players from trying the game mode. More placement matches and a lower initial rating for new players might help the situation.

This is true. There are WvW players doing PvP simply to get free Ascended gear rewards.

I thought the pvp gear wasn’t usable in wvw.

Edit: nvm, I think I’m wrong and maybe stupid…definitely ugly.

kash.9213:

Moonsinn.5382:

kash.9213:

Knew what worked?

Need the video slowed down?

You can do that with a few things, do you need to be a kitten because I’m wondering why this is interesting? If there’s some patch notes or something then link to it. If you can’t do that anymore than it’s an unnecessary change along with the other ones in your next post but whatever, same ol same ol.

I was making a joke because you seemed to be confused about what the OP was showing when it’s already in slow motion. It’s funny because slowing the video further would be absurd.

Patch notes:
Thief:
Changed Heartseeker to no longer be used while jumping. Also, reduced damage by 50% and removed leap finisher. Reduced initiative cost by 1 to compensate.

kash.9213:

Knew what worked?

Need the video slowed down?

vove.2768:

Check the entire leaderboard, there are people in top 100 with 10 matches played and some of them are 50/50 w/l ratio.

But yeah, every one will repeat the mantra:
“they were playing against harder opponents than you” xD

And also started with a higher MMR than you.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Moonsinn.5382:

I think this thread is crap. It’s not all that fast getting ascended armor if you only lose, and I think people SHOULD be rewarded for playing pvp. Let them try something new. Increase the player pool. Some might be good, some bad. Some will like it and keep playing. Other’s won’t. There’s still more incentive to win, so people are going to try. The people who suck will drop down in rating. The people who don’t won’t.

If new players want to try PvP, there’s Unranked and Hotjoin. Right now, new or lower quality players are populating the mid to lower tiers. When they join my team, it makes it so much harder to climb the ladder. That has pushed me and countless others to a lower MMR than we should be.

To be clear, I’m ok with losing if my team was outplayed. But because of the rewards in PvP being rewarded regardless, it creates no incentive to give 100% effort in matches. Some losses end up being guaranteed due to this. So I’m not ok with losing due to bad decisions by pugs.

People do start in unranked. You have to be at least rank 20 to play ranked queue. I’m not saying rank 20 means you know everything about conquest, but they’ve at least learned some basics and developed a starting MMR. I honestly think that people are looking for a scapegoat for why they aren’t objectively as good as they think they are. I’m only at tier 2 silver, and I’ve seen pretty much 0 matches with people who don’t at least know the basics.

Meh, you’re just doing it wrong

I think this thread is crap. It’s not all that fast getting ascended armor if you only lose, and I think people SHOULD be rewarded for playing pvp. Let them try something new. Increase the player pool. Some might be good, some bad. Some will like it and keep playing. Other’s won’t. There’s still more incentive to win, so people are going to try. The people who suck will drop down in rating. The people who don’t won’t.

It already existed that way with reward tracks. More progress for winning, less for losing. This is just an extension of that philosophy. The thing is, you are not rewarding losing, you are rewarding for playing. Losing has a negative punishment (if we are sticking with Skinnerian behaviorism) in the form of 7 lost pips, and winning has a positive reinforcement.

Hmm, I guess they feel that if you can’t win more matches than you lose, you don’t belong at that level, or something.

They want people to experiment trying different parts of the game. Same thing with pve dailies. I usually just do the easiest pve daily (usually a vista) to complete the daily completionist.

sephiroth.4217:

No to stats simply because I’m the sort of player to let 1 person cap an empty node and I’ll keep rotating somewhere else….

Encouraging 3 players to cap an empty node is bad. Encouraging players to 5v1 everything for the sake of kills is also bad. Even this healing stat is bad because I’ve had too many games with Druids/Ele all heal spamming for that top stat which leaves my team with 0 DPS.

You don’t get any stats for capping empty nodes, only for ticks in combat near nodes (offensive for enemy controlled, defensive for team controlled).

One thing to be said for the discussion on mitigating MMR loss for top stats is that it should never encourage playing a certain way except to contribute to winning the match. Winning should always be the highest reward.

I already started a thread on this pic, but I still think this could be an exception. I wasn’t the one who lost this match and certainly gave it my all to try to win it, even when it seemed hopeless.

Honest John.4673:

You forgot to add that you’re in bronze and there should be more mmr gain for top stats.

Also if you admit that you’re far from the best yet still shouldn’t be placed with “bad teamates” you’d be golden.

Quoted for truth.

I’m so tired of the nerf traps bs. If I can wreck trap DHs on my thief, you guys can learn to counter them. I had one lay all his traps on point and stand there while I ranged him to death with scepter on my core guardian.

3 words: one trick pony.

I believe, but haven’t seen any confirmation, that the higher your MMR, the less you gain relative to how much you lose. This would make it so you would need a higher and higher win ratio to maintain a higher MMR. This also means you can’t grind to 2000 rating with a mediocre w/l ratio (like 1.05).

I was initially drawn to guard because of the versatility of being support or dps, and stuck with it because it was a very all around class with defensive, healing, and offensive traits. Many of their skills have a offensive and defensive quality at the same time, which I like.

I tried it for a while, but I never got any use out of it. There is a cast time, so unless you are standing still, it tends to miss you. Plus there’s all that stability flying around. I found that the increased passive heal and team condi cleanse saw more use.

Assuming you aren’t trolling us, don’t worry about it. If you aren’t hacking you have nothing to worry about.

And yeah I realize this is a necroed thread.

I always vote for skyhammer. My favorite map.

Tiefsee.3647:

Exedore.6320:

Tiefsee.3647:

I agree, but isn’t the main complaining about class stacking?

Whining – not complaining. People are whining about the rating system and placement matches mostly because they think they’re better than they actually are.

Duo queue is also the topic of many whines.

50% of the people will always be whyining, no matter what (except we replace the enemy team with NPC’s)

Lol they should give an option to play against npcs for the pve’ers. You lose 50 rating every win, 100 for loss, but you can get your precious rewards, lmao!

I think he means your team.

I agree. Good move.

Exedore.6320:

Did you ask one of thieves to switch at the start?
Did you tell the thieves that their role is de-capping or picking off low HP enemies?

Unfortunately not even match is great and not every game can be carried. Hopefully in a week or two, player ratings will be better aligned; S1-S4 probably messed them up quite a bit.

Yeah I did, but…you know…

I was the only one who typed anything that whole match too or pinged the map. Like I said, though, fortunately this match was an exception.

Maybe situations like this shouldn’t lose rating? There were no afks or dcs. Just a horrible team that had no chance of winning. We had 2 thieves. They had 2 engis, 2 DHs, and a war. At one point, I saw both thieves going into a losing mid zerg when there was an uncontested far waiting to be decapped. Oh well, at least most of the games this season have been fun and competitive.

Drussthelegend.2630:

I wouldn’t play either one there are much better support bunkers. I never got the menders DH build some insist on playing it is weak against good players. It doesn’t have the support capabilities of an ele and is only a little harder to kill. Vanilla bunker guardian does almost zero damage and other classes bring more to the table again our friend the ele. I just dont see the reason to play a Guardian HoT or non HoT as a bunker or support if optimizing your success is your goal. You can do it and win but it will be against players worse then you are which to me is a poor gauge of success. You wan’t builds that can help you beat people your skill level or even a little better.

Are you speaking from experience or theory? Bunker guard’s healing is on par with ele, plus they provide a lot of stability, aegises, aoe stun breaks, regen…

I disagree that other classes provide more support. The stomp and rez securement alone does wonders.

Bunker is decent. I held out mid against 4 while we took home and far at beginning of match. I ended up dying just as the rest of my team showed up and took mid too. With 2-4 allies with you, the self healing is unreal.

I think the OP wants Endure Pain to prevent capture point contribution. If it did, I think you would have to give them immunity to control effects to compromise. No thanks.

DH got 0 buffs. Only buffs were to core guard. OP knows nothing. Move along.

Played a match recently with 2 staff shout guards. Other team had 2 necros, condi war, and condi mesmer. Easy win for us as we split the supports between home and mid, and the dps took out the trash.

If you’re looking at open world pve, GS/LB is fine, but typically in raids and fractals people want the most dps and/or utility. Those weapons no longer offer it. Warrior does have a GS meta build, though, if you want to try it.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Berserker_-_Phalanx_Strength

For pvp, I would say GS/LB is definitely viable in a meditrapper build.

I would like to hear from the OP about this, but it seems the original reference was to staff acro thief build, which uses bound. Not sure why we are even discussing the merits of dash over bound for a d/p thief.

I really want to like staff in pvp, and I’ve played many matches with it. I’ve even done quite well in team fights and 1v1s. However, I never feel as impactful to the match as I do when I play d/p. I can carry so much better because I can control where I want to be and where I want my opponents to be so much better. I have to agree with Sid. Staff is fine for solo q, but d/p brings the uniqueness of “Thief” into conquest matches.

Baseleader.4128:

sorry to be that guy, but the incorrect word of the use “literally” triggers the hell out of me. Literally, you can still play pvp. You just think it isnt fun atm.

I’m glad someone said this. I can’t stand it either.

Sounds like a bug fix, not a stealth nerf.

Not sure if it’s really worth discussing this, but it’s not necessarily about choosing to use bound instead of HS, you can use both.

I use bound with d/p in wvw. More leap finishers=more stealth, plus more damage with evades while in combat.

I remember when Bandit’s Defense kicked automatically, and it was horrible. You used it as a stunbreak/block, and you got locked into an animation that left you vulnerable. I would support a change to these skills to make them open a flip skill when hit. However, I think providing a continuous block would be a bit much for some of these skills. Perhaps a single block, the action stops, and you have the counter skill available to use.

@OP: There is nothing you can do, apart from trying to be more aware of where the thief is in a match. The thief was doing its job.

Nothing to see here…move along…

I would support this with a 3-vote minimum requirement. I’ve seen hardcore comebacks, and I don’t want quitters surrendering the game when there still is a chance. Maybe more than 200 point difference, and opponent has more than 350 points.