They don’t make a “trade” for this. If you don’t take merciless hammer then I pity you.
Last stand is unnecessary. Calling the common trait choices a “trade” is hardly justifiable to consider the build as a whole completely fine and not overpowered. You trade EXTRA stability (the build already has one form of stab) for far more damage and far more CC. The build already has absurd condi clear with cleansing ire.
I understand why you’d respond that way to hyperbole, but a large majority of the guys points still stand and can be gathered into one build. You can even get multiple forms of stab with either lyssa runes or dropping bulls charge for dolyak sig…
As for saying Last Stand isn’t a trade, look at this thread. What’s the complaint? Stuns, and damage applied during stun. There, at least for warriors, is a trait that completely shuts all that nonsense down once a fight and turns that OP hammer warrior into a 500 damage tickly feather, and you’re going to say that’s not a trade? Of course it’s a trade. How could it not be? Look how hard everyone’s raging about stuns. C’mon.
Do you know that the hammer AA is the strongest DPS source of warz along with Axe autos ( only if you land the third chop, otherwise Hammer is way better) ?
Just to inform you.
except for the amount of coutnerpressure they can put on exceeds that which a large majority of classes can take. Only the few with stab can really deal with them effectively.
“Bursting” a warrior is extremely hard to do. I find it difficult to believe that people still believe this is a counter to a longbow hammer war.
Bursting a warrior with conditions is difficult compared to other classes. This is true.
However, focus-pressuring a warrior works, guaranteed. It’s the exact same concept as burning through a guardian’s cooldowns; like peeling an onion, first you force the guardian to use up their walls and shields, force out their block-heal, then they use up all of their aegis CDs, all virtues, then they invuln elite, all virtues again, and THEN…ONLY THEN, do they finally die.
It’s the exact same thing with warriors now. First you force out their stances, and then they die. Simple and balanced with a coordinated group.
Do you know this was the exact same argument used to justify bunker eles in the bunker ele meta ?
I bet ya remember it, that double-triple ele meta where there was no way to kill the kitten ele.
Yeah, that one with trapperz and broken empa bond.
Balanced.
You never admit faults. No comapny does that.
I think you have never studied any marketing class at all.
“Customer always has the reason”I have my bachelor in business communication, but whatsoever. In reality you never admit faults, which can’t be proven fully.
Leaderboards not working have been proved dozen of times.
I agree with you on the basis, but aNet has no escape from this one: they can’t admit but still they can’t leave it like this, because it’s one of the greatest things killing competition right now.
The only way is to fix it as soon as possible, of course without admitting anything.
If anything, if they don’t do it they should really start questioning their priorities.
It’s not about “more people playing unranked, like any other game”, it’s about that the very system is designed to reward you better if you don’t play the way the game should be played.
Glory gives you rewards, glory is obtained via killing. Conquest is not about killing.
tPvP has no real rewards aside few easy accessible skins, there’re no rewards for playing the game and you’re rewarded for not playing ( leadeboards).
You’ve no incentives to play the game competitively, while you get incentives ( more glory, chest, finishers, bags) to play the game NOT ONLY not competitively, but ALSO in the most wrong way possible.
I know that I’m in a minority, but I play for “fun” not “rewards” in general.
Fun is pleasure, pleasure is rewarding. I don’t find “in game rewards” inherently “fun”.
Trying builds, playing a close game, winning a fight against a good player is fun. I don’t care if my character is wearing a shiny sword or a wooden sword, a cool armor or kittenty armor. It doesn’t make those fights more fun, it only makes my character look better (this is only the icing on the cake for me, and I am happy to build up a better looking character while I’m having fun).The reason to play hotjoin is for a quick game, without worrying too much about consequences, playing seriously, using original/troll/unique builds that wouldn’t do well at all in ranked games (where people with optimised builds would roll over me).
I find it fun to play all sorts of classes, all sorts of builds and try different combinations.
The reason why I play ranked games is to get a good challenge, a close game, and feel that I’ve had to fight to win (hotjoin feels unchallenging, chaotic and random – which is also part of its fun).As for the OP, I will probably try some new builds/skills in HJ it they change stuff significantly.
i can understand it.
The point is that if you want to develop a healthy PvP community and system, you need rewards and incentives.
If those are present, even an awful balance can be sorta “overcame”, since the PvP can be competitive and you’re rewarded for it.
This is not the case with Gw2 of course, and since rewards are not there, balance issues become prevalent too. Even if rewards are added, balance issues will still be prevalent since we’re not used to the good infrastructure and our “perspective” of the game will still be " the game is not enjoyable anyway".
So now they need to do an huge work with balance, infrastructure and rewards in order to sort things up, unless it is really too late ( it has been more than a month i’ve not been playing anymore, so i don’t really know how the situation is, but i bet it’s been getting worse).
It’s ok to cather to casuals, but the infrastructure for the game to be competitive HAS to exist ( rewards, working features, decent balance) otherwise the game will die.
And the game is dying.
Every time I go on these forums Its only to get even more depressed
This could be part of the problem. If you enjoy GW2, play it. If you don’t enjoy it, stop.
The only option that doesn’t make sense is kind of enjoying it, but then going to the forums to talk about how bad it is, then logging in and playing for a bit, then logging out and going back to the forums.
So you mean ppl that write stuff here, enjoying the game? The majority of us is still here because the game has potential and there is some little hope left, which have been completely shattered by the development for several times (that’s why ppl tend to write cynical and negative)
I’m being completely sincere. If you don’t enjoy playing the game, don’t force yourself to stick around just because it has “potential.” That’s a waste of your own time.
If it’s not fun for you without _ (better leaderboards, balance tweak X, etc) it won’t be fun for you with _, either.
Nevir, you are one of the few people on the forum with a good sense of perspective.
I am not even sure what most of the people who say “the game had potential but Anet ruined it” want. What will make the patch good enough for the whining to subside? I just don’t see the answer from the crying here, it just seems like mindless mudslinging most of the time, outside of a few people who take the time to write out exactly what they think is an issue with the game.
80 % ( maybe 90%) of PvP population plays hotjoin ( in prime time, when i was still playing, there were dozen of HJ servers FULL), this means HJ population was constantly around 800-1000 every minute.
Meanwhile soloqueue takes 15 minutes to find a match for me, and when it does i’m matched with people not even on the leaderboard ( as former top 300, but it is just an example, i had only 4 days to climb the ladder before leaving).
Of course nobody joins solo queue. Team queue is even worse.
Meanwhile 800-1000 people per minutes play hotjoin, not playing the game as it had been designed ( killing each others randomly) OR glory farming OR doing dailyies.
.
I think this is a really good observation and we, or rather the devs, need to think about why its happening.
It’s very simple to understand why it happens.
It’s not about “more people playing unranked, like any other game”, it’s about that the very system is designed to reward you better if you don’t play the way the game should be played.
Glory gives you rewards, glory is obtained via killing. Conquest is not about killing.
tPvP has no real rewards aside few easy accessible skins, there’re no rewards for playing the game and you’re rewarded for not playing ( leadeboards).
You’ve no incentives to play the game competitively, while you get incentives ( more glory, chest, finishers, bags) to play the game NOT ONLY not competitively, but ALSO in the most wrong way possible.
Again, the whole system needs to be rehauled, and the fact they’re not doing it has also a clear answer: since the biggest part of the PvP population plays hotjoins for these very reasons, removing them would make this “spoiled” population to stop playing PvP, basically showing how the system was broken from the start and how unhealthy the PvP part of this game is, since without hotjoins all the people left would be those few hundred people playing tPvP for the lulz ( since nobody high ranked plays anymore).
I would be scared too to take any action, thus they do nothing.
And we complain as usual.
Every time I go on these forums Its only to get even more depressed
This could be part of the problem. If you enjoy GW2, play it. If you don’t enjoy it, stop.
The only option that doesn’t make sense is kind of enjoying it, but then going to the forums to talk about how bad it is, then logging in and playing for a bit, then logging out and going back to the forums.
So you mean ppl that write stuff here, enjoying the game? The majority of us is still here because the game has potential and there is some little hope left, which have been completely shattered by the development for several times (that’s why ppl tend to write cynical and negative)
I’m being completely sincere. If you don’t enjoy playing the game, don’t force yourself to stick around just because it has “potential.” That’s a waste of your own time.
If it’s not fun for you without _ (better leaderboards, balance tweak X, etc) it won’t be fun for you with _, either.
Nevir, you are one of the few people on the forum with a good sense of perspective.
I am not even sure what most of the people who say “the game had potential but Anet ruined it” want. What will make the patch good enough for the whining to subside? I just don’t see the answer from the crying here, it just seems like mindless mudslinging most of the time, outside of a few people who take the time to write out exactly what they think is an issue with the game.
80 % ( maybe 90%) of PvP population plays hotjoin ( in prime time, when i was still playing, there were dozen of HJ servers FULL), this means HJ population was constantly around 800-1000 every minute.
Meanwhile soloqueue takes 15 minutes to find a match for me, and when it does i’m matched with people not even on the leaderboard ( as former top 300, but it is just an example, i had only 4 days to climb the ladder before leaving).
Of course nobody joins solo queue. Team queue is even worse.
Meanwhile 800-1000 people per minutes play hotjoin, not playing the game as it had been designed ( killing each others randomly) OR glory farming OR doing dailyies.
If these are symptoms of a healthy game….
This question reminds me of the patch that was hyped to be “the” pvp patch that would change the game about 6 months ago.
tbh, it EFFECTIVELY changed the game.
Necros, wars, S/D thieves, spirit rangers.
Aside S/D thieves and (MAYBE) wars the skill cap for these classes was ridicolously low, they had broken mechanics ( Inf strike, Healing signet, Condi bursts, AI) paired with other “softier” very strong mechanics ( condi spam, AoE spam, evade spam, CC spam), making them ridicolously broken and favoured in favor of high skill cap prfessions ( mesmer, ele, engi, burst thief).
It completely changed the way this game was played.
If they’re capable to do it again, hoping this time will be in the right direction, than: YES, 15 october patch will change the game.
How it is going to be, i don’t know.
One other thing, just changing class/build balance is not going to radically alter the game.
Balance changes just shift the balance around. Outside of a few extremely OP builds that have been toned down, I don’t see the balance now as having dramatically improved from day 1. It is just that different classes/builds have the ascendancy. That will be tweaked as a matter of course and different classes/builds will become OP.
Changes/fixes/improvements to things like skyhammer farming, leaderboard issues, pvp rewards, asura size, no spectator mode in tourney, new pvp game modes, aoe, overload of effects and the like are core issues; balance changes are just a given and not something to particularly fixate about, especially in this kind of game.
I was just nitpicking.
I believe that only a massive overhaul to the reward system will change the way this game will be played ( competitively talking).
The point is that even with the massive reward overhaul this game needs, it still won’t be enough to cater to good players, since the most rewarding ones are still faceroll, with the only difference that now the best comp has removed the only good skill cap build ( engi) with another faceroll one ( war).
This will simply make good players leave, since any random scrub will be able to face on par a dedicated PvP player ( i don’t want to talk about MLG and Denial, otherwise i will simply go again into EU vs NA rubbishness, but we know what the best team comp is and WHY it is).
They need to happen both at the same time, balance and rewards. And 15 october will probably be the last chance of an already dying game.
This question reminds me of the patch that was hyped to be “the” pvp patch that would change the game about 6 months ago.
tbh, it EFFECTIVELY changed the game.
Necros, wars, S/D thieves, spirit rangers.
Aside S/D thieves and (MAYBE) wars the skill cap for these classes was ridicolously low, they had broken mechanics ( Inf strike, Healing signet, Condi bursts, AI) paired with other “softier” very strong mechanics ( condi spam, AoE spam, evade spam, CC spam), making them ridicolously broken and favoured in favor of high skill cap prfessions ( mesmer, ele, engi, burst thief).
It completely changed the way this game was played.
If they’re capable to do it again, hoping this time will be in the right direction, than: YES, 15 october patch will change the game.
How it is going to be, i don’t know.
You can play, but you shouldn’t care about rankings since they tell you nothing useful. If there is still anyone who takes leaderboards seriously he is just hurting himself.
A lot of truth to that. It’s a random queue. You could get a top 200 player who has no idea what he’s doing, because it’s random.
I also hold to the fact that the higher you are on a leaderboard, the harder it is for a matchmaker to work properly. If you’re ranked #1, you will have a 100% chance that all four of your teammates have a much lower rank than you. If you are rank 10, you’ll still have a very high chance that all your teammates are lower; rank 100, slightly lower chance; etc. There is simply no one higher than rank 1, so…who do we expect to be ranked with?
The whole leaderboard system is arguably wrong.
It should be done based on rating, EFFECTIVE rating, not some random number like 100, 130, 200 on the ladder.
For all we know, there could be a MEANINGLESS difference between rank 1 and rank 100, and even more meaningless between a rank 200 and a rank 500.
For all we know, the difference between a rank 200 and a rank 500 could be a 0,3 coefficient, explaning why you get paired with “apparently” much lower ranked players, when in reality there’s no really that difference.
Basically those numbers on the leaderboard simply cause rage, since you “think” you’re paired with very bad players when it could be really not the case.
The point is that it effectively seems to be a really huge difference in skill even if the difference is only of a 0,4 coefficient, and this is seriously an issue, since it means people DON’T PLAY and ELOs flat consequentially, especially for mid ladder leaderboard.
when there are no players that match my rating/skill level?
I don´t wanna play with noobs when i play serious, all they do is they mess up my rating
because nobody plays.
Why would they play and risk to lose their rank when they can simply not play and keep it ?
Why should they play if there’s no rewards in doing so ?
I lost 400 ranks before quitting in 5 matches ( was around 300, got around 700 than raised a bit before quitting) due to being matched with people not even in the leaderboard.
And lol, i’m sure iìm still there in the leaderboard after more than 1 month without playing.
The system is broken, period.
Just don’t play.
hi, let me take a second to commentate whats happening in the video u posted.
first of all u waste 2 dodges for fun, then u use ether renewal with 99% hp. puts ur heal on cd and makes u unable to dodge the initial longbow madness.
all that followed up by a pretty darn messed up air burst into protection, the updraft looked good, since it braught u in perfect position to wipe his spirits.
but what u actually did is – u phoenix, ring of fire + firegrab 3 spirits without dodging them and u got oneshot by them.i fully agree with u when u say spirit ranger is one of the easiest builds in the game, while being very effective, and it still need some tweaks.
but seriously dude, ur video just shows that u should prolly spend some more time on ele and on spirit ranger aswell.ele is in a bad spot and things need to be changed, but that video, seriously? no offense tho
valar ~~
That was simply a show of how powerful the AI is .
The ranger was CCed the whole time, the only skill he was able to land was point blank shot.
Regarding the burst, there’s no way to avoid bursting into protection against a spirit ranger, since as soon as you build with forge runes, you’ve perma protection.
Surely ostrich should have dodged spirits burst, but the fact that a player can do this while not even having the control of his char, is definitely broken.
Just like ele air burst, since it happens the same way ( while CCed, while dodging, whenver he wants basically).
Spirit ranger needs to disappear from this game.
This is actually a nice list which describes the problem with
inifiltrator’s strike. Furthermore Infiltrator’s Strike + Shadow Return is a very good expample of the Risk vs. Reward Problem in GW2 already addressed in this thread:
Risk vs. Reward1.ignores Line of sight in spots,
2. ignores the Z axis
3. has no cool down,
4. no counter play
5. Pretty much spamable
6. removes a condi,
7. causes immobilize,
8. can be used to completely negate stuns ( not stun break but you can give enough distance to stop stuns)
9. Low cost initiative
10. The opposing player has no idea where the port back spot is.
11. Other classes have to waste utility slots with 30+ second cds to have this mobility."The 4. point is imo the most important, “no counter play”, but it is a
little unspecific. Why does Infiltrator’s strike not allow counter
play? Well mostly (but not only) because it has no animation and is
instant. Additionally Shadowreturn functions without target and even
if infiltrators’s strike misses. As an counterexample let us look at a
quite well designed skill (from a couter play perspective): Magnetic
Grasp + Magnetic Leap, one of the gap closers of the ele
profession. This skill has an animation (and Magnetic Leap only works
if Magnatic Grasp hits the target), therefore it can be dodged or
blocked and thus you can prevent the ele to close the gap and reach
you. => counter play (simple isnt it.)If Infiltrator’s strike + Shadow Return would function similarly, if
Infiltrators’s strike gets an animation and Shadow Return only works
if Infiltrator’s strike hits than counter play would be
possible. Because now the opponent could prevent the thief from
closing the gap and moreover the thief could not riskless engage into
the fight because shadow return would not be available to teleport him
away simply with one button press.=> counter play => more options and decisions for the thief and
opponent => better Risk vs. Reward
Too much.
They should simply put range requirments on Inf strike so that if the thief is not in range for the attack, it should fail its teleport and put shadow return under thief’s feet.
Like this the thief would no more be able to jump from a tearget to another without counterplay.
In this case, range would be the counterplay: keep the range so the thief won’t be able to reach you.
Again, this would be a HUGE nerf, and the point why most thieves don’t want Inf strike to be touched is because, with current power level of this class, any Inf strike nerf would completely remove thief viability ( basically any ranged prof, like power engies, rangers etc etc, would literally crush S/D thieves in 1vs1).
Inf strike needs to be balanced in order to allow counterplay, but this needs to be done with consequential buffs to the whole profession ( OH dagger, traits, pistols etc etc) because the thief currently NEEDS those uncounterable stuff in order to be viable.
Just like Fresh Air eles: without that insta burst with no counterplay, they would be trash.
So they need to remove the chesse and buff all the non-cheese, otherwise we simply have an inverted power creep that will remove the thief from high level PvP.
noone is using roll for initiative and you have 30% boon duration as thief
also s/d thieves don´t use any points in trickery
(I´m refering to the current meta build, not random builds palyed at low levels)
no doubt thieves have too many evades and you can´t reliably hit them, on the other hand they need surviveability, but they should take away vigor and help thieves to survive by using stealth
4s revelead up from 3 disagrees with you.
Thief mechanics will always be frustrating: evades, teleports and stealth are HATED by people, stealth in primis.
So if you buff thief stealth, people will rage even more.
There’s no way to stop the QQ, because aside proper balancing issues ( S/D is too strong balance wise) people will complain regardless.
Just like they still complain about mesmers.
What will be the next thief skill you guys want to see get nerfed into oblivion after IS is beyond crap? I’m curious.
just shut the kitten up lol. Stop kittening overreacting the skill is op and need a slight bump in initiative needs to stop ignoring line of sight. This way you have to use it wisely and actually keep track of your initiative.
bumping up ini cost won’t solve anything.
the skill needs range requirments, like shadow shot.
THIS will fix and prevent spamming withiut making the set clunky.
ah, and would rise the skill cap, of course
wholeheartedly agree.
too much fuzz about the thief when inf strike just needs to be “shaved” in order to allow counterplay and to not be spammed mindlessly WHILE still being effective.
and if they do this, they’d better start buffing us too.
Just took the last post, sorry.
I wonder … if you see thieves as a class, that should be able to get in the battle and out again … isn’t that the case, for every GC-build (or at least the ones, who can roam … which is again another issue)?
Yet, I haven’t seen any class, that can do it with so little effort. I can’t help feeling, that the escape/engage-opportunities need some kind of timing, instead of being spamable.Else it should be given to everyone (and mind you, be out of reach for all other GC-builds as well), and that would just be a mess.
I hope you understand what I am trying to say; not sure if it is very clear, else I will try to elaborate.
infact i agree with you
take a look at my last posts, you’ll see that i want it nerfed and balanced like any other guy with a bit of common sense.
but we need to balance it in the right way, and still thieves are not in a very great shape (design wise) so they should indeed rebalance the power among our skills.
D/P is the perfect example that any thie weaponset shoukd follow.
wholeheartedly agree.
too much fuzz about the thief when inf strike just needs to be “shaved” in order to allow counterplay and to not be spammed mindlessly WHILE still being effective.
and if they do this, they’d better start buffing us too.
So does S/P wtf are you talking about. When is the last time you played S/P,in the alpha? In April?
No.
Pistol whip is not as reliable as FS. You can clearly see it in MLG, where Guts tried to go out with S/P instead of S/D, with the result of losing almost any 1vs1 against Vanish.
And no, Vanish is not better than him, they’re pretty much on the same level.
And this even accounting that S/P should be a sort of “counter” to S/D: the set is simply not on par.
In January Rangers were blowing up the spot with traps. Positioning was knowing to use Inf strike outside of trap range, instead of blowing yourself nilly willy right into them and giving a ranger free pressure on you. Not throwing your inf strike so far back that if they CC and force you out, you aren’t trying to run back. Well technically they made it easier to get away with overextending your Inf strike by limiting your range, now you don’t have to worry about getting too far removed from the fight and losing time.
I understand your point. Infact i pretty much believe that the thief should be buffed in almost every other aspect: i would recall that S/D has basically a whole useless weapon attached ( dagger OH) where you’re basically wasting ini 99% of the time if you use those 2 skills.
But simply because the thief has been designed during a sabbath orgy, it doesn’t mean that skills like Inf strike should be kept as OP: if your opponent has a ranged weapon, it’s RIGHT that he’s able to withstand your teleports. You can still use LoS to play with him, as long as you’re in the range needed.
Range restrictions are needed for this skill in order to be balanced.
Cough what? If you want to troll the treb you’ll always be able to do that with Shadowstep, and stealth. Theres so many ways to blow that thing up, on any prof.
You won’t have anywhere near half the results. With Inf strike you can sit down the treb and spamming Inf strike, spamming some attacks, shadow return, rinse and repeat, without your opponent being able to do ANYTHING.
That’s the same when any other proff ( ele and mesmer especially) use repositioning skills on long CDs to find a safe spot just to find out that you can follow them with a single skill, which can be spammed.
Again, z-axis fix and range requirments are required in order for Inf strike to be balanced. It’s fine if it ignores LoS, it’s not fine if it travels in Z-axis or ignores range, because this leads to abusing.
If anything, they should nerf what is needed and kittenING buff the rest.
That is completely false.
S/P Had been the only Melee kit that was firing on all cylinders until D/P’s Shadow shot lost the root in the January update and became “complete”. If you want a kit that’s been off from Launch look at D/D and P/P.
In EU they stopped running S/P as soon as guards started running heavy reta bunker builds ( especially the 0-0-10-30-30 which was pretty common in the first times).
Moreover thieves were running full instagibs build, D/D ( pre Dagger OH nerf) with haste, so i’m not really sure why you ( and @Med) are saying that S/P was prevalent.
Infact, it wasn’t.
I played S/D heavily through Frees from launch until Jan before I switched to S/P when I finally bite the bullet that they wrecked it. It wasn’t just Tactical spam. Everything was getting used, including FS albeit it got used less than others, was far more “complete” then D/D was however, D/x was just outrageous.
It was surely more complete, yet Flanking was bad at best. Dazelock builds were prevalent and a very good alternative to instagib burst ( iirc even jumper used to run with some strange dazelock build at first times).
Reta doesn’t hard counter pistol-whip. It puts heavy pressure on it in a teamfight (a tad more than it should). PW is about as countered by Retal as blurred frenzy and Whirling strike. Not that it’s any fault in PW, what a shame that a skill has multiple ways to play around it, should make it an instant 5k damage.
With the difference that blurred frenzy is not the main damage source of a mesmer, same for whirling wrath ( which guess what, in teamfights is retaliation).
Reta has been nerfed too. In the past, a single pistol whip in a teamfight would have eaten more than half your HP.
If this is not a “hard counter”, then i dunno what else i can say.
S/ thieves always had higher visible sustain than D/ thieves. Half of these SOTG’s where they were talking about Thiefs inability to be in the fight were spoken at when D/ was the mainstay. A Daggers answer to not being focused in a fight is to throw Stealth or a lol worthy death blossom. It doesn’t work. If they don’t stop you during the initial waves, PW’s i-frames protect you, and FS used to be cancellable so you could whenever at the cost of your damage.
I’m not questioning Sword sustain. I’m saying that still it was not enough. With recent buffs to S/D, it has not been a problem anymore. Thus why Inf strike became a problem.
And no, you can say it as much as you want but Pistol whip is not a reliable source of damage.
Just by splitting the skill itself, forget boon steal, forget the switch of unblockable, forgot even the tracking, they made the ability to do damage on S/D increase because of the practicality. Previously , FS comes they may or may not dodge it, the wind up for the flanking stab happens, easy to dodge, most players did it as a reaction to flanking strike and conveniently ended up dodging the stab from their delayed reaction. Just splitting the skill they increased the usability. They then shifted the skills focus, improved tracking (understandably), and increased utility, and even decreased the cost of the evade itself which makes it taxing on your initiative. You dun goofed if you think S/D prominence came out of Inf-strike.
I’m not disagreeing with you, the point is that FS is not the source of the problem. FS->LS are 2 skills working as they should, if nothing ALL THIEF SKILLS should be like this.
Currently the only set were you’re effectively using all 5 skills at their best is D/P, which became mediocre at best after all the nerfs to thief burst.
If I was a designer, I’d ask myself these things:
Why was nobody complaining about this ability when it was 10 times stronger than it is today and remained as powerful for 10 months?
How seriously can one take player feedback given this little fact?
Exactly. Infiltrator’s strike is weaker now than it ever has been (much of LoS immunity removed, infinite range taken away). Why are people complaining about it? The thief’s role is to jump into a fight, deal damage, and jump out before it can be locked down and nuked. InfStrike isn’t overpowered, there’s just a MASSIVE prejudice against thieves on forums. The kids who post here simply do not want the class to be viable.
Nerfing infiltrator’s strike will NOT destroy the S/D perma-evade spec but it WILL kill the only other viable (but underpowered) thief spec: S/P
ahahahah i’m a thief from beta, simply i have enough understanding of the class to understand who is the culprit.
Again, we NEVER really had a viable Sword MH set: now that S/D is functional, Inf strike OPness is shown, and i agree a thief should be able to jump into the fight and go away at will, but we need SKILL for it.
As things stand now, without range requirment, you can jump from an opponent to another without even caring about being in range: just randomly press tab and switch to the nearest low opponent.
Because if any of these guys talking about S/D ever touched a good ranked match, they would know why S/D thief is so strong: because it can snowball low hp/armor classes thanks to strong sustained damage and ridicolous mobility, being able to switch target at will without your enemies being able to focus him.
Damage can’t be lowered AND SHOULDN’T be lowered.
Reducing the in-combat mobility is the only way to effectively nerfing the thief without gimpering the set.
And the only way to reduce the in-combat mobility without increasing ini costs ( which would simply make the set clunkier) is to put range requirments to Inf strike.
And guess what, putting range requirments would increase both the skill cap and the skill floor, since you would need to AT LEAST understand positioning in order to use S/D thieves ( right now people are rewarded for spamming with this set, you won’t really notice the different between a mediocre thief and a good one, only between mediocre ones and GREAT ones).
S/P has seen use at all times except for the 3 months after haste need. The delay didn’t matter when players were dead regardless. Still wasn’t commented on. Cruuk running that stealth heavy build coupled with inf strike having disengage for days, still not given attention to. Its not short term its reality for more then half this games lifespan inf strike was not in question even when the sets it is one were in arguably stronger states then they are now. PWs evade frames still take long to come out you can still be interrupted after stunning it has weaker burst then before still isn’t a reliable evade and its disengage is in question now that Inf strike doesn’t remove the stun? Lmao.
Yes as kits change it has effect on the skills around them. S/D used to have to put itself at risk for a counter attack after FS regardless of inf strike. Making FS super forgiving is just that. FS is really forgiving. Before if you cancelled your Flanking strike you lost your flanking stab. So your damage suffered if you wanted to play cat & mouse to this extent that and the utility was weaker and the damage not unlockable to make your life easier.
The delay change in PW is overrated, the change to FS practically changed several aspects of it and reduced the play around it. That’s not inf strikes fault however. If I make hundred blades mobile and immobilize on first hit so its easier to use that won’t mean rush is now broke because you can disengage with it. Means I made HB baby mode.
Inf strikes only gotten harder on its own merit to cover you defensively due to needs that is what it is. Undoubtedly the thief will always be complained about but FS going from a difficult to hit underpowered skill that’s hard to reap the full advantage of due to telegraphs to an easy to land skill with 2x utility easy to get advantage of and unblockable medium damage is probably more significant…
again, you’re seeing it wrong.
We have NEVER really had a fully functional set with the sword MH.
Pre-november nerf, thieves were using sword simply for Tactical strike Dazelock, otherwise Dagger MH was superior in every aspect.
Pistol whip was already overrated thanks to quickness and easily countered by reta ( something easily spammed in the old meta build ) so dagger burst was way better.
Inf strike has been broken from the start, the only issue was that the thief was not able to sustain himself in the fight, reason why nobody cared about Inf strike Opness.
FS → LS chain is nothing more than a functional skill: a good evade, good damage.
If you remove the evade and rise up the damage, nobody will care, S/D will still be used because it has a way to deal damage RELIABLY.
S/P still doesn’t have it.
The culprit is Inf strike, but it should be nerfed in the proper way, not by nerf hammering it.
It should fail if you’re out of range, setting shadow return on your feet. ( so that thieves will learn to position properly instead of spamming the skill whenver they want to change target).
it shouldn’t travel in z-axis ( cough cough TREB coigh cough)
This doesn’t change the fact that we need serious buffs in almost every other aspect, that ’s the reason why i want OP stuff to be toned down, so we can get the buffs we desperetely need as a PROFESSION, instead of ALWAYS going full cheese ( insta quickness burst, evade and porting spam, OLD pistolwhip stunlock to death etc etc).
Thief profession design is terribad at its core and we all know it.
the weakest proff in the whole game, probably the worst designed one.
One of the worst designed ones, perhaps. The weakest? No. If they were you would never see them in pvp. Just how in the beginning necros and to a degree warriors were very rare to sight in pvp.
Shadow refuge is the answer.
Group stealth is the most OP thing in the game, who cares if thief is the weakest profession ( even when mug was still critting and S/D thieves were non-existant, thieves were B tier at best).
The thief IS the weakest profession, especially now that wars have been buffed into oblivion.
When S/D will be brought down ( hopefully in the proper way, by fixing Inf strike), acro S/D will be the only one left, since they totally demolished any burst option from the thief ( and we don’t really have any other option).
1.ignores Line of sight in spots,
2. ignores the Z axisThese are the oddest things I feel the skill has. They corrected a ton of other stuff to respect line of sight, but this allows you to teleport directly through walls. One would expect to it function like any other blink, but it doesn’t because it’s not a ground targeted ability.
I’m pretty sure the guardian sword skill and meditation does the same. Could be wrong though.
But yeah, overall i agree this skill (and shadow refuge even more) needs a nerf. That being said this class also needs major buffs pretty much eveywhere else as a compensation but that won’t happen.
agree.
the thief is just kept alive by inf strike and fs→ ls chain, without those 2 skills the thief wiuld be in a horrible position, even behind eles.
I made a thread about nerfing Inf strike (range requirments in order to teleport to the enemy and no more z- axis porting would be enough, OP suggestions wouldn’t fix anything if not making the whole set clunkier) but still people need to u derstand thieves are naturally extremely weak.
the weakest proff in the whole game, probably the worst designed one.
YOU GUYS ARE SO STUPID WTF. A TRAIT SHOULDN’T COUNTER AN ENTIRE TEAM IN ANY CIRUMSTANCE. #BALANCEFAIL
That is the real reason why your comp is not good.
The only ones failing are you and your teammates, if you don’t bring at least a power build how can you deal against hard-counters ?
I can agree automated response is a silly trait, but you going full cheese condi-spam are not better.
low population
This si the issue nothing else.. cant fix that with gamechanges. If you make it scramble teams, players will qq on the forums cuz teammates are craaaaaaap as hell and winning becomes more rng.
Either way the game needs more players.
Also i met a guy the other day who said he doesnt play tourneys cuz he doesnt like all the waiting. Which i can totally understand tbh.
The population issue is created by leaderboards design.
Since you’re rewarded for not playing, you simply do not play.
I bet Azshene is still in top 20 with his 100% win rate on 14 matches without even looking at the leaderboard, AMIRITE ?
Compare that to smite. Look on smites reddit, for one you’ll see a LOT of positive happy people suggesting things. But whats even more amazing (not a smite fan boy just recently looked into it) the devs constantly respond and put in changes the players are requesting. Just a few days ago someone put up a lengthy post that got a lot of attention about wanting the old targeting images because they didnt like the new one on certain characters….a week later (ok patching in that option for ya). People didnt like a certain character thematicly and many threads appeared about sun wukong.. so they removed him put in another character in its place with that kit and within a month they will be re-releasing the character with the suggested abilities and themes the players wanted the character to have. You can read through it and literally see people asking for something one week, and within a week or two…sometimes within a couple days they put it in. And lots of times they will say “you all want this…we think its bad but here ya go we’ll test it” and then release all the data regarding it, including how it effected match length, surrenders, kills etc. Also just last patch people didnt like the lack of magic items with the addition of new physical resists, they just announced in a week they’ll have a new magic resist item.
So, while the game engine and stuff may do it for you…..they have a fan base and they’re willing to work on making them happy, which is why they are showing a huge jump in players…the game is getting better everyday and no one is leaving when they feel their needs are being met. Also, the company seeing this growth just hired on 4x the employees to keep up with the demands due to the player growth.
If GW2 was ran by hirez studios……it would be in a good spot. So while their engine mechanics may not have the ceiling of oppurtunity GW2’s does…their devs and resources allow ceilings to be met where gw2’s may take years to even get close to reaching its capabilities.
Also, as to everquest. While speculation is warranted. One thing we know about everquest next, is the team is open with their playe base constantly releasing videos and taking in input, even allowing players to develop many parts of the game, including lore and world design (with hints at dungeon creation tools for the players as well as possible pvp map creation tools). So at least we know they will be involved enough to listen and respond to player’s concerns. Also! Everquest is owned by sony and published by sony. Where GW2 is created by arenanet but published by ncsoft. There is a lot more politics and over head in a company like arenanet. Basicly meaning when the developers want to change something….they dont have many people to answer to that could slow down or out right hault a feature or improvement, the way it can happen with gw2.
Not advocating for these games. Just showing examples of how the problems made by gw2 are not present in other games and why they are not. Arenanet would have to change their system of handling gw2 spvp pretty dramaticly to speed up positive change. And while you bash the devs (which …may be warranted), its hard to say cause you dont know what they want to do …vs what their bosses allow them to do. Which lets be real….they’d lose their jobs if a requested change was met with “gee, i’d love to do that for ya, but my boss says you guys arent lucrative enough to invest in…so we’re not gonna do that”.
Again, i agree those games have very solide infrastructure and responding devs, in Wildstar and Smite it’s obvious.
STILL they couldn’t develop a game engise as solid as Gw2 one, altough they ’re releasing them AFTER Gw2.
I’m bashing devs because when they COULD implement stuff they didn’t or did it wrong ( svanir runes, guard block bug etc: stuff that made players EXILE from a game where gamebreaking bugs were left untouched;
on the balance side, they buffed spirits, gave necro burning and terror, buffed warrior to ridicolousness, nerfed thieves into oblivion just to create a build where you’re rewarded for spamming etc etc etc ) and this is the worst part of Gw2 development.
They basically killed their very PvP, and now the scars are too deep to be mended, unless you pay for a very expensive surgeon operation.
Now it’s time for the very expansive surgeon operation ( rewards rehauling, incentives, promotion, features working properly) and this means $$$$$$$$.
They need to pay for what they haven’t done in a year, and now it will be more costly than simply implement small changes but very frequently.
Unless their business men say otherwise: in that case we’ve only been fooled for all this time.
@zinwrath
Infact i was just saying that overall, Gw2 core mechanics are way better.
The whole game is better, the only game which is seriously tickling my curiosity is Everquest.
What is lacking is the infrastructure, and the fact that after a year this infrastructure is not even on the horizon, simply pushes people away instead of in, and it’s ridicolous that devs still have not understood it.
Gw2 devs need to change completely their politics about balance-infrastructure-features, having the first post discussing about future changes in a YEAR after game realease is ridicolous, and they’ve done it simply because they finally realized almost EVERYTHING they did was done in the wrong direction for the game’s health ( aside toning down quickness).
Things need to be done fast, because it’s already too late but there’s still a small chance they can save this game.
@ensoriki
I agree, but still Smite combat dynamics are terrible when related to Gw2 ones.
The point is nobody cares about this game PvP thanks to terribad devs decisions: i can bet you’ll find more people playing in a WvW server than the WHOLE PvP population of NA, and in EU it’s better simply because we have more PvP carebears.
The game is collapsing, and surely waiting 4 months to change the HORROR they’ve done in june surely didn’t help.
Did i already talk about terribad devs decisions ?
Just a few in similar genre to gw2 spvp.
Everquest next is boasting ground breaking pvp, but refusing to release information so hard to say on that one. But with fully destructible environments and a GW2 style combat system allowing full customization of over 40 classes, it definitely could one-up Gw2.
Wildstar is being built around its pvp format, and thus should have an easier time balancing. Already boasts arena, battleground, and guild vs guild style pvp game modes and uses gw2 dodge and hotbar mechanics, but goes even further to add more skill shot based combat.
Smite is picking up its population (showing insane growth over the last 6 months in its open beta) and is soon to be launched next month. Features alikeness 3rd person pvp with already 7-8 game modes and adding another soon. Also has a very easy to use control mechanic with FULL skill shot combat. (does not have a dodge bar though)
“The Division” is getting some buzz as well for its hardcore pvp format….still mysterious though.
And yes there is Hearthstone, the Blizzard version of Legends of Norrath from the everquest franchise. (will no doubt be more successful as blizzard has a way of taking SOE’s ideas then making them more mainstream much like they did with WoW from Everquest). It will definitely steal some thunder from other games.
And of course the on going many major e-sport games that are planning add ons and expantion. ….league of legends, starcraft 2, counter strike, etc.
Wildstar and Smite’s combat system is terrible when compared to GW2, and this is obvious.
You may argue that Gw2 skills are not “skillful” like in Smite ( being full of skills shots) but the dynamic is way more entertaining and fluid in GW2 when compared to any other game.
Everquest may be interesting, but lacks of depth at first sight, it all depends on how devs are going to build the PvP system.
What is killing gw2 is how slow they are with updates, lack of promotion, lack of features ( EVEN BASIC ONES, we needed to wait for a year to have broken leadearboards and matchmaking while the game was slowly dying), lack of incentives and rewards.
They need to put those features FAST and promote the game like it has never been done before.
I’m tired to say it over and over, but the game is seriously dying.
lol no matters how many times we say guard has been the most ridicolous OP proff in the game from the start, nobody will care and nothing will be done to it since " THIVZ and MESMA TOO MUCH DAMS, PLZ NERF".
Link or it didn’t happen.
Lol shadow refuge is like the most OP utility in the game.
I could argue normal stealth is balanced, but long group stealth like shadow refuge is ridicolously OP.
I have played 6 classes extensively, no guardian or ranger. Warrior definitely.
Brb 20k hp, 3k armor.
Brb stability to counter bas venom
Brb hammer can 3-4 hit them
Brb instakill if they have no stunbreak
Brb see thief, pop stability, let him steal, dodge, hit F1, 5, 4, 2, dead thief pops up out of stealth
Brb brbbrb blind oh you used your f1? sorry.
brb stunbreak stability to counter stuns
brb instakill if they don’t have stunbreak(its funny because you said the samething)
brb how can he pop out of stealth if he didn’t even stealth
brb thief who don’t get out of range when stealth against a hammer.5 4 are 130 range, 2 is 150 range do you even thief.
brb spamming evades, evade all slow telegraphed attacks
brb thief win
or brb you must be bad.and why the hell you use brb in your sentences that doesn’t make any sense
longbow-hammer war always wins against thieves.
Any kind of thief.
Just the longbow is enough to kill any thief in a frontload 1vs1 fight.
Strange, hammer is like the most telegraphed weap in the game.
Quickness sucks balls.
If you really think so then I recommend you to watch this thief dude (forgot his name, but just look it up on youtube as thief PvP quickness), as if people didnt drop fast enough with thieves, pop a quickness and he was dropping them in a go, and it wasnt vs bad players…
Quickness is ok, only that we are in a conditionmeta, once it shifts towards bursting again, you will realize how strong quickness really is.
No thief in EU uses quickness.
If there’s some fool doing it, well i guess i’ve already said he’s a fool.
Just so you guys know:
We’re not entirely opposed to toning down auto attack damage in PvP (we could split some of the skills and leave PvE/WvW where they are, for instance). I think it’d be a great way to add more importance to the main bar skills, and, in fact, is something we used to have before ship.
There was a time in balance when #1 skills across the board were said to be “too ineffective” by many players to be used. So we made an effort to bump them up and make them more impact-full on the game, so that they didn’t feel like a waste of the #1 slot. There was also a time when most skills had higher recharges, and longer activation times/aftercasts.
From much player feedback, we found that by lowering recharges and cast times, the game FELT better for the person using skills. But, as you guys have said, sometimes it feels like you aren’t punishing by making someone waste a long-cooldown skill, or you aren’t rewarded for interrupting a powerful skill because it comes back too quickly.
Just wanted to say that we agree with you guys, but we have to balance the risk/rewards vs. how good the game feels to pay.
Thanks for all the great ideas! We’re definitely listening.
This issue is evident with wars and thieves. S/D ones, of course.
With S/D there’s no way to effectively punish the thief unless he wants to fight you.
No range requirments to spam Inf strike allows the thief to set the port back miles away AND he will still be able to close the gap, basically if things go wrong just port back, change to a softer target, rinse and repeat.
With evades you can still time your skills and use them in real attack time span: there’s no possible counter to a thief porting back at will ( coming from a thief main).
Same with war burst skills: the CD is ridicolously low, and skull crack is istant; a mace/shield war will ALWAYS, sooner or later, hit with its skull crack, and you’ll lose automatically the second time it lands on you.
Reason why the only effective counters to wars are mesmers and blind thieves.
There’s no good risk vs reward in these 2 cases ( especially) altough there are tons of more examples: do what you must, don’t nerf hammer abilities which have nothing to do about the OPness of cheese proffs ( like you said, shaving Larcenous strike boon stealing is a worthless move, won’t change anything).
You say you understand there needs to be a good balance between risk and rewards: show us.
Kill spirit ranger build, nerf S/D thief porting, perma stun wars, and necro condi spam. Give us a possible counterplay to burning procs or totally remove them.
These things by themself would balance risk vs reward without doing overhauls like the OP suggests.
No. The whole point of quickness is for bursting and making it so fast that there is little time for reaction. 100% was too much so it went to 50%.
The changes you are proposing would defeat that purpose and make it a mechanic for sustained DPS, which in this case would become extremely OP.
Think about the new Ele traits alone?
When you critical with an air spell, gain quickness?
Gain quickness when you burn someone for Fire Traits?
sure I would LOVE to have quickness on my staff ele, perhaps thats what it needs since the only real weakness is they slowness, but even trying to cover up my bias I can tell how OP that would be.
Quickness would go from burst to “building up”. n long drawn battle quickness might become too much. Perhaps it can be balanced around that fact, but I would much rather keep it as a burst option than a passive buff. But thats just me, I would complain if they gave it to staff ele though…..
it’s not a burst option anymore.
Nobody uses it, not even wars.
And Glass cannon power rangers use it simply to increase their already massive DPS output with Sword, simply to increase their SUSTAIN.
SUSTAIN.
Quickness sucks balls.
stop playing hotjoin.
Best idea ever
#swag
lol this may be the first time i agree with something this guys says.
Quickness meta was a lot better than this one, time to go back to direct damage builds and buff the kitten off quickness.
Problem is that sPvP rewards are too good. sPvP bags are like best reward in whole game.
Ya know what is sad ?
What you said is true, but only for A PVE PLAYER.
PvP players give no kittens about bags, they care about armors/weapons skin, unique rewards for your skill, titles, finishers, and most of all COMPETITION.
None of these are in the game, and basically the few things you can get can be achieved faster by simply glory farming in Hotjoins.
Welcome to GW2.
We’re changing it so that glory is only rewarded at the end of a match, which should stop the exploit where players leave and rejoin the match. We are also actively looking into other options to prevent this exploiting.
Thanks for the report!
Glory only to the winning team, if you care AT LEAST a bit about the game.
Show us.
It’s about time, the game is dying and it’s starting to be a “no turning back”.
DO WHAT IS NEEDED.
are we esports then ?
Can i name two? Cuz they go a little bit too well together. Skull Crack+100swag. Like what is the point of even having any other skills on GS and mace when your whole damage comes from a single skill like 100swag? On other classes you may be able to stun for 3sec and i say may cuz not even all classes can and have an extremely long CD on the stun. On war you get a 3sec stun per wut? 10sec or less? combine this with 100swag (the only thing you need on a stunned enemy while on other classes you need to use a bunch of skills to get even close to 100swag damage) and we get a lol combo by excellence. Of course there’s some other cheese like S/D but nothing comes close to healing sig/skull crack+shield bash/100swag spammers.
If your dieing to 100 blades as a thief, then you have a lot of problems.
first of i don’t play a thief and why is it every single time i write something in spvp section people always think the person (me in this case) is doing it to QQ because i die against it… Every single time lol its getting pretty funny. I don’t have any problems against stun warriors because Phase Retreat alone in a shatter build is a hard counter to SC/100swags spammers and mesmer is all i play, im just saying how stupid the combo can be against an engi, nec, ranger for example. Even on a thief, if you shadow refuge and run away then suuuuure you won’t die but if you keep the fight going you will lose large majority of the times.
Just let him be.
There’s no way for a thief to win a fight against an even decent war. Unless you play D/P.
Longbow-hammer is actually even worse.
I think I missed the memo where rank means absolutely anything at all?
armors, weapons,finishers.
All based on ranks.
Rank is the only thing a PvPer can get to make his character to not look like an idiot PvE scrub.
And guess what ?
This is a “cosmetic only” game.
Draw your conclusions.
Really? My character looks awesome and it certainly isn’t from being a high PvP rank. Rank really doesn’t matter. I can kill a r50 just as easily as a r1. Heck I’ve been owned by r5s before and roflstomped r50s, it makes no freaking difference. I play PvP because its fun and I’m good at it. Who cares what everyone else is doing? Good is good and bad is bad, rank doesn’t change that.
I doubt your character looks awesome with the terribad armors we have available till rank 40-50.
Take a look at frost weapons, and such.
This game is about cosmetics, so they’re important. The armor you can gain ( cosmetics) is based upon rank.
People farming ranks by exploits are rewarded more than people taking PvP seriously, without accounting they can buy chests, craft dyes and farm monesy ( if they’re patient enough) more than a serious PvP player.
I don’t really care about why you play, if it’s for fun or not.
Rank farming should not happen in any way, there’s no way people should be rewarded MORE than serious PvPers for playing the game in the worst possible way, unlike it was designed.
Rewards and HJ farming are one of the biggest reasons why no one takes this game PvP seriously.
This is a fact, think whatever you want.
shadow refuge, inf strike, zerk stance, skull crack, heal signet, stand your ground, signet of spite.
Pick up a random one, they’re all OP.
Because that thread was not enough esports.
Again, there’s no way to change it, it should be removed completely, altough i know this would nerf significantly the thief ( thief has always had a role in the meta exactly thanks to this skill).
If you keep stealth only while you’re in the refuge, you’re basically marking your heads with a big arrow telling your enemies " ehy guise, HERE".
You won’t be able to use it as a reset, nor as a ress, nor as an offensive tool ( since as soon as you exit, you won’t be stealthed anymore).
This is the biggest source of stealth in the game, reason why it’s totally cheese.
It should be removed and replaced with a better, less cheesy utility.
Smoke screen is also a totally useless skill, they could remove them altogheter and rework deception skills, since basically only shadowstep and blinding powder are actually balanced.
Just make the stealth after the refuge 3-5s whichever.
Could even up the heal to just shift the direction elsewhere.
in that case it would overlap with blinding powder.
Unless they make you refull while being in the refuge, in that case it would be OP.
It could pulse and remove conditions while healing substantially, but in that case it would just make S/D more OP.
The point is that there’s really no way to change it without making it overlapping with blinding powder or without making the skill OP for other builds: a pulsing AoE condi cleanse can be good for a D/P burst build but would just make S/D thieves even stronger than they atually are.
My idea would be to remove smoke screen too ( we all know it’s bad) and make shadow refuge something like a big AoE pulsing blind field absorbing projectiles ( if it’s not powrful enough you can buff it by removing boons or adding cripple).
We would gain a powerful skill ( an AoE fiedl pulsing blind of the same size of shadow refuge would be MASSIVE, especially if it will pulse 1 blind per sec) without being OP and we would also gain a free slot for a deception skill.
Problem solved.
Again, if we want stealth, blinding powder is over there: it’s also somehow better, being istant and allowing for insta stealth attacks.
Bugged Refuge – Yeah I can’t imagine the initial concept of the skill was for the stealth to persist after it expired. It just was a bug that was kept to make up for when they added the revealed debuff. It is an aoe vs dodge check. Have enough AoE to kill the thief in 4s? Good you win. Don’t? Too bad he got away. Definitely needs some tweaks.
It has always been like this.
Again, there’s no way to change it, it should be removed completely, altough i know this would nerf significantly the thief ( thief has always had a role in the meta exactly thanks to this skill).
If you keep stealth only while you’re in the refuge, you’re basically marking your heads with a big arrow telling your enemies " ehy guise, HERE".
You won’t be able to use it as a reset, nor as a ress, nor as an offensive tool ( since as soon as you exit, you won’t be stealthed anymore).
This is the biggest source of stealth in the game, reason why it’s totally cheese.
It should be removed and replaced with a better, less cheesy utility.
Smoke screen is also a totally useless skill, they could remove them altogheter and rework deception skills, since basically only shadowstep and blinding powder are actually balanced.
Seriously, what happened to the awesome community we had?
Exactly.
On topic: yes, a few of the issues mentioned in the OP are real problems and should be changed. No, they should not all be changed RIGHT NOW. That would just make balance even worse. Have we already forgotten the way we got ourselves into this mess?
We got into this mess because aNet listened to the wrong feedback: casuals.
UE UE necro bad pls buff
UE UE necro war pls buff
Etc etc.
It’s true some classes needed buffs but they were NOT that bad, but the community was crying so much that devs representation of the class was “omg they’re terribad BUFFHAMMER” while they jjust needed some fine tuning.
When engi was “fixed” teams already started running with engi+ epidemic necro for a reason, and that condi pressure team was very common in EU and pretty balanced: this clearly shows how necros were not as bad as the community was picturing them.
Now we need changes, FAST, because PvP is seriously dying like it has never been.
Even gw2pvptv now streams WvW and there’s no more interest in the game PvP: we need lame stuff to be DELETED and rewards reahuling, otherwise before i come back playing ( october) there will be already no one left playing PvP, if it’s not already the case.
I repeat : d/p thieves can re-stealth while stealthed so you block what? got no aegis, use protection and CC when? and dodge in which direction?
Basically I’m forced to do random actions hoping to catch off guard an invisible enemy that can remain invisible like forever…why this is not part of your “cheese” I dunno, if we expand the argument to WvWvW, there it is full of d/p thieves with shadow refuge, basically 24/7 stealth users…isn’t this cheese?Sure you want to remove all “cheese” from the game?
Let’s start :
-clones
-stealth
-turrets
-spirits
-asura
-initiative mechanic
-perma CC
…and more and moreIs there cheese in this game? Yeah you’re correct, everywhere you turn there is a cheesy mechanic… but now if you want to change this game in the MMO version of Eve Online then we need to remove ALL CHEESE from all professions, including yours, then we need to go back to the drawing board and start anew with all professions.
And how would you differentiate one profession from the other?
You can’t possibly have 8 professions dealing the same amount of dmg, or that have the same defense level or support level because there would no point in having 8 professions then
you can make a game without cheese.
The problem is that “swag players” want swag, so they get swaggy stuff such perma-stealth, perma-evades, perma-ccs, instant burst so they can feel pro.
-clones are not cheesy, mesmer is like one of the best classes in game.
-stealth can be balanced, they just need to remove shadow refuge and problem solved
-turrets are not cheesy, they are just like wow shaman totems, also they’re not really viable so who cares.
- spirits= lame
-asura= lame
-perma CC= lame
Remove them or balance them. Why can’t skull crack have an animation ?
Why can’t air burst have an animation ?
Why U-skills like spirits, zerk stance and shadow refuge even exist ?
Why engies, rangers and necros have passive, unavoidable, procs of the most damaging condition in the game ?
All we need now is NERFING EVERYTHING.
Too much power creep, the game is dead and won’t be saved otherwise.
So d/p thief burst is a good example of burst..and let me see what would be the counterplay?
-random aoe on my feet?
-sit inside the aoe blind field?
-random back dodge?As thieves in this game can renew stealth ..while stealthed I’m interested in knowing your idea of counterplay, I found my own way…but maybe you can share your knowledge with the rest of us.
So you want to have an ele with 900 range sustained dmg weapon and the reason being?
So far you must have been the first guy who ever complained about ele focus and the reason is they can counter your build while you try to pew pew from distance with shortbow and they can burst from distance.
Once removed the burst, you’d have nothing more to fear from a ranged ele, so you’d be free to pew pew with your trusted shortbow, spamming cluster bomb? disabling shot?…as the ele become weaker and weaker, you’ll then proceed to jump on them with s/d set.
Now having nothing to fear from the ele in terms of dmg ..you feel confident..but oops the ele use obsidian flesh , ruining your day……quickly you run to the forum to complain : " ele defense on focus is OP ".
You see @Mrbig…you and @Lordrosicky play a single class and single build, pretty much you’ll come to the forum every time you get beaten.
-warrior stun lock…as they CC you at mele range
-spirit rangers …as they condi bomb you at mele range
- s/d ele…as they much harder to counter compared to d/d eles, with s/d you can teleport in and out against d/d eles making the fight one -sided in your favour.Maybe you should just adapt your build and tactics….
Since when backastab is a burst ? thief burst is no longer good, eles do it 10 times better and so do mesmers.
Backstab is nothing more than a hard hitting skill like eviscerate.
Counter? simple
Dodge away, D/P thieves are slow. Blocks. Protection. CC near you.
And lol wtf i never complained about S/F eles, i just said they’re strong and that eles complain too much.
I play ALL classes otherwise i would never understand this game mechanics and it’s not about what beats me and what not, it’s about “what takes skill and what takes not”.
All meta builds now can be effective by spamming, flatting out the difference between a good player and an average one.
I consider myself a very good thief, yet i have to struggle against spirit rangers spamming 1, against necros spamming AoE condies everywhere when a single grasping hands with burning proc will eat about half of my hp etc etc.
I still win them, but i have to UNNATURALLY struggle against them, and it’s ridicolous.
Even my thief is ridicolous, i feel bad for the mesmer-ele when they get me in their burst combo and i simply port 1200 range away because i used inf strike which has no range requirments.
I want cheese to disappear from the game. And accept it or not, insta burst is cheese.
No.
Yes. Unless you pack yourself with 4 stunbreakers, now or then the war will get you. Any build the war runs will kill you as long as he has cleansing ire and zerk stance.
Unless you build yourself anti-stun ( those 53% damage reduction engies are so proud about) becoming totally useless for your team.
Any engi meta build will lose to a competent war. ALWAYS.
I didn’t even tell that engi is viable in 5×5 or not.
After all,
1)you failed saying that immobilize and fear is one of the strongest ccs.
2)you also failed saying that berserker stance prevent you from kiting warrior.And that’s fine for me.
Overall i agree with point that warriors are very strong right now and that current “meta” is “broken”, but i just do not understand why it prevents people from being objective.
If you don’t think engi is viable in 5vs5 why even talking about wars vs engies.
Immobilize and fear ARE among the strongest CCs.
1. immobilize cannot be stunbroke. you need condi cleansing and not all condi cleanse are instant. Only shadowsteps are good against both: any other condi cleanse, aside guardian shouts , signet of renewal ( and engi elixir and mesmer mantra which nobody pick) cannot be triggered, while stunbreaks will do nothing.
Overall immobilize has always been better to set up a burst, so a lot more deadly.
2. Fear gets you out of position. Skyhammer docet. A good fear will put you into the AoE chaos at mid ( Nifhel, Khylo).
Fear can be chained and its duration will always be additive, unlike other CCs, since they overwrite each other.
I would argue that Fear is the strongest CC in game, balanced only by the fact it can also be condi cleansed.
So you’re wrong.
Lol..what are you on about?
The ele has always been about air insta burst, go play GW1 and educate yourself.
With : invoke – lightning surge – etc etc I was doing the same I’m doing in GW2, the dmg has already been nerfed on arcane skills ( by 22% ) but you were so taken by your blind hatred for eles to even realize that..go check the latest ninja nerf from Anet…seriously…so sadit’s not about nerfs.
It shouldn’t even exist.
Like S/D thief spamming.
Necro spamming.
Ranger spamming.
War stunlocks.And such.
Again, i would be again happy if we could just go back to “god mode” eles meta, at least that meta was skilled and the only class out of balance was the ele.
I’ve adapted..starting using s/f ele, suddenly I start winning against warriors, rangers and necros ( to a lesser degree ), and s/d thieves I can fight them even using d/d ele.
I simply don’t get it, we’ve been “trained” in instant mechanic since GW1, there I was playing mesmer and interrupting 1/2s cast skills..using prediction, that’s your counterplay, in GW1 my air ele used to kill any opponent with 2 skills..just 2 skills, this shows me that Anet got no intention to remove instant burst .Burst= instant
Burst /= hit harder
And Anet already stated in the past that while burst must not be over the top, it is also necessary to the game
1/2 cast time is enough to spot a burst.
0 cast time is not ( air burst)
D/P thief is a good example of right burst. Mesmer is a good example of right burst. 100 blades is a good example of burst.
instant cast burst is not. NOPE.
As I said plenty of times, i know ele is not that good currently, if the issue is sustained damage than fix it, rearrange skills, make it like the warrior, do whatever you want, but INSTANT BURST no, no NOPE.
Warriors are mostly fine, the only issue is skull crack which, guess what, IS INSANT.
Super powerful insta skills are bad. Skull crack is bad, Air burst is bad.
Mug was a good example of an instant skill : long CD, good effect ( 3-4k damage as a full glass cannon, 2.5-3k damage on sustained DPS builds).
You know that with fresh air you basicaly have old mug ( that one critting for 4k+) every 5 secs, do you ?