Guild Wars 2

Shakkara.2641:

2) I’d like to further develop my character/account from each living story arc I participate in, in a way that goes far beyond wearables. Something over-arching. For example, I’d like to acquire reputation with factions of choice for each succesful event participation and after a few months I’d like to get awarded with a minor noble title with the faction I contributed most to, and get a side-questline for the personal story from that.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

A long-term way to build status within my chosen Order leading to a title I can proudly display after a substantial amount of service in line with that Order’s ways and means? Maybe even two or three levels of title/hierarchy to ascend over the length of a year or more for typical players? The whole initially gated behind a modest level of completion of the Personal Story arc?

SIGN. ME. UP.

Oh, and let us earn an account bound mini-pet of our Order Mentor, and then the Order Leader.

There are people who will climb over a mountain of broken glass on their lips to get a mini-Tybalt (not kidding). Miraculously neither the Mentors nor Leaders have been done as minis yet.

Random brainstorm:

I would DEARLY love to have a map set up on a table or wall at Fort Trinity that updated after every chained-DE in the zone that told me how the assault on Orr is going – give me a one-stop sign post to where I can go to make a difference and do it with in-setting flare rather than as a UI overlay. If the Pact is supposed to be a competent military body, they need to look like it and they need to be able to direct special forces like returning players efficiently. Show us, rather than telling us.

I suspect there are other long chain events (not just in Orr) that could be the made the focus of similar dynamic maps. Each of the orders HQs could be made significantly more interesting with a map that guides you to the pivotal points in the action on their map (the Order of Whispers map would need to be in the cave leading to it rather than in the closed instance to avoid being kicked to overflow if the zone was full, but frankly putting that sort of guidance out for all to see, but only their agents to understand completely reinforces what’s cool about that group.)

BrotherBelial.3094:

I’ve never done that event as I’m not a big fan of Orr. Maybe I was not being as creative as I first thought.

Entirely the wrong thing to be concerned with . It’s not important that your proposed sequence be unique… It’s important that it be appropriate, both to the environment its in and the experience you want to evoke. It sounds like a solid, rational scenario. Layer it with a few branches/second chances and look to where you can incorporate event types that aren’t driven by combat in a few more places and I’d cheerfully log in to blow an hour or two on your scenario.

People regularly fall on their faces trying to be revolutionary, when what’s needed is solid evolutionary development.

The DEs that already exist offer a whole palette of tools. Combat is only the most common, and not always the most compelling. Check points. Timers. Working with a kit. Working while transformed. Defense of objects. Defense of NPCs. Harvest from nodes. Harvest from kills. Mounting a fixed weapon (catapult/trebuchet). Event the most linear meat & potatoes ‘fight scene’ can benefit from adding spice!

Established you side has dug in and begun bombardment? Make the heroes run forward to chip and dig their own cannonballs out of the ruble accumulating at the bottom of the wall to bring back and be fired again – and do it while a nearby tribe of skritt has suddenly burst onto the field, making it a race to grab all ‘the shinies!’

Ronah.2869:

How about rewarding the players who do this brainstorming? Ok, suggestions may come free but brainstorming activities should be rewarded, right?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Ronah,

Your idea of rewarding CD participation is interesting and we will discuss it in the next phase after the topic threads are closed.

Chris

Oh… now that one’s EASY, and again an example is already present in-game:

The fractal mid-boss Siegemaster Dulfy.

I will tell you true: if one of my specific examples for a second chance were to be implemented, I actively invite the Devs to browse through my stable of characters, find the name/look for one that seems setting-appropriate, and add them to the world somewhere. Major bonus points for using that name/look for an NPC in one of those events.

Being added to the game’s canon is high on my list of ultimate cool. Being added in a way that draws a direct line to how I pitched in? mega-transcendent cool

((Stares into the eternal alchemy… goes a little batty))

Dolphin!

(what? we could use more variety in underwater pets…)

Snorcha.7586:

One that attacks when you tell it to.

And can hit a moving target? Or is that just crazy talk?

Try standing IN the path of the breath weapon – people will chase you right on in there .

And I don’t get this obsession with stomping – it only takes an occasional hit to keep them down if you’re that butt-deep in enemies, and people cuddling up to heal a downed target is when something like the multiplied breath works best.

Besides: They’re FIXING the stomp limitation.

Try hitting Signet of the Wild ( +25% damage, 8 second), Signet of the Hunt ( +50% damage, next attack) and then f2 on a drake.

Yeah. They’re for bursting .

As a D/D super unicorn I use C&D when I’m bored, not as a survival tool or DPS spike. The only increased initiative trait I have is +3 for stealing, which I use more for positioning than for the initiative (return to the fight after roll for initiative, which went untouched), so its a loss, but not one I’ll feel keenly with the increase in base rate.

I essentially lost nothing and gained more initiative overall.

Does “nothing but buffs” disqualify me from claiming “untouched” status?

0/10/30/30/0 sword + horn/longbow w/regen banners

More power from defense 25, faster cooldown for spiked armor, improved rez-might from tactics 25.

If you were just sort of minding your own business rolling group/zerg support, this patch will be downright generous.

I don’t blame the gear – I blame the content design.

And as Mojo suggest, there is content out there that MOCKS the use of zerker.

Miss me completely – they like that I play support.

I run a sword/horn banners support warrior. The horn gives tons of group condition clears, so I can run a fairly aggressive armor load, but not pure Berserker.

My experience running alongside that breed of warrior, is that the more you gear to berserker, the more completely flawless your dodge skills have to be. And the more they benefit from one good support character somewhere in the party to look out for them on the rare occasions they do goof. “Support” not always meaning heals. Group condition clears can be the difference between a trivial boss fight and teeth-gnashing chain-wipes.

If you are the pointy end of the spear, know which classes can clear for you and how you need to behave to gain that benefit. Take a moment to get into a healing spring or cleansing flames if one is offered, even if the placement isn’t ideal. Likewise keep an eye for opportunities to complete combos that will heal or cleanse and know intimately which of your weapon skills can close those loops. When a Guardian drops a wall of reflection on an all melee boss’ toes, he’s not an idiot, he’s trying to give you a field to chain off of – circle to the appropriate side and USE IT. For me, it was recognizing that horn 5 isn’t just a good AoE debuff, it’s a 100% blast finisher that should be strategically brought to bear in different types of fields for different jobs (water field heals, fire field might stacks, etc.).

If conditions are truly your bane, you might look into a Sigil of Purification (or the more powerful but vastly more expensive Sigil of Generosity). It’ll let you stay on task (crush your enemy!) while periodically taking those conditions off. It’s not on the same level as a controlled clear, but it will reduce the pressure you’re experiencing.

Soilder.3607:

It’s a good idea but I feel like the pet would get overwhelmed with enemies. He’d constantly be transitioning from targets and even with a speed boost he’d waste several valuable seconds of dps.

The pet is always looking for what’s closest to you – if two enemies share range enough to make the pet ‘jitter’ between them they’re almost certainly both in melee with the ranger and the pet is likely to be in range of both of them anyways – and it splitting its attacks amongst them isn’t the worst thing, as that would give it a chance to pull both NPCs off you – pretty much the purpose of ‘warding’. If it’s switching targets because something is chasing you, then it’s absolutely working as intend. Envision a moving battle, something gets close to you, your hound pounces it, and rather than screw around with that enemy, it selects another enemy that was more successful in keeping pace with you. Basically its targeting not based on helping you with your target, but engaging and thwarting whichever enemy is most likely to threaten you with melee attacks.

If the class balance Devs eyes haven’t glazed over by now, I have a suggestion for Ranger Pet AI that would GREATLY enhance their performance in WvW and some boss fights.

Where Rangers currently have a toggle choice of Passive (pet does noting, lingers in immediate vicinity of Ranger) and Aggressive (pet changes targets to follow the target of the ranger’s attack unless commanded otherwise with f1) I would like to put a third mode into the rotation: Ward.

Ward: Pet remains at your side until you attack or you or the pet are attacked (the same trigger conditions as aggressive). It then attacks the red nameplate closest to you within a maximum range of your current weapon(s) [or a fixed value of 1,000 if this is not possible with current technology]. After each action/attack, it again checks for the closest enemy/red nampeplate to you and focuses its attack on that target. This behavior is overridden by a direct command to focus target via f1 until the focus target is dead or beyond pet leash range from the ranger.

Essentially the pet focuses on harassing and repelling enemies closest to you, working outwards, allowing you to attack enemies at range without your pet immediately launching itself deep into enemy territory. This logic would allow better pet behavior in complex multi-target boss fights and be an enormous boon to managing your pet in zerg vs. zerg encounters making the pet is more likely to join the line and switch intuitively to dedicated bodyguard action when opponents break through.

To keep up with the current blue & red color coding for passive/aggressive I would give ward a yellow or black/yellow (hazard warning colors) icon.

If the class balance Devs eyes haven’t glazed over by now, I have a suggestion for our Pet AI that would GREATLY enhance their performance in WvW and some boss fights

Where we currently have a toggle choice of Passive (pet does noting, lingers in immediate vicinity of Ranger) and Aggressive (pet changes targets to follow the target of our attack unless commanded otherwise with f1) I would like to put a third mode into the rotation: Ward.

Ward: Pet remains at your side until you attack or you or the pet are attacked (the same trigger conditions as aggressive). It then attacks the red nameplate closest to you within a maximum range of your current weapon(s) [or a fixed value of 1,000 if this is not possible with current technology]. After each action/attack, it again checks for the closest enemy/red nampeplate to you and focuses its attack on that target. This behavior is overridden by a direct command to focus target via f1 until the focus target is dead or beyond pet leash range from the ranger.

Essentially the pet focuses on harassing and repelling enemies closest to you, working outwards, allowing you to attack enemies at range without your pet immediately launching itself deep into enemy territory. This logic would allow better pet behavior in complex multi-target boss fights and be an enormous boon to managing your pet in zerg vs. zerg encounters making the pet more likely to join the line and switch intuitively to dedicated bodyguard action when opponents break through.

To keep up with the current blue & red color coding for passive/aggressive I would give ward a yellow or black/yellow (hazard warning colors) icon.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Four. He got to Guardians and Mesmers.

Given he’s going alphabetical order, we’re next.

I realized I’d seen the little guards chat right after I posted. I hadn’t noticed the alphabetical progression.

Nice.

Oldbugga.7029:

It also amazes me that other classes actually have dialog on their abilities and direction ….compare that to their communication on the necro!!!

Just chill. He got to Engineers after that and still has over a month to make the rounds to all classes. There’s six still waiting, it’s not like Necros got singled out.

JonPeters.5630:

Math wise you can now sit in the symbol for 3 seconds with boon duration and end up with 9 seconds of swiftness which is more than you would have had before. I do still think it may need to be 5 seconds to account for the fact that you only get it every second so by the time you get the second one you have lost 1s of the first one. Jon

And 9 second of +33% swiftness will be just enough to catch up to the other guy that walked right past your symbol without even entering it and kept on going instead of screwing around standing still for 3 seconds in your puddle. Meaning that for cross-country travel, you’re better off never having cast it at all than trying to wait for multiple pulses. And that’s if the 9 seconds started from when you left the circle. They don’t. Instead you’ve already burned 2 of those second twiddling your thumbs.

This is one symbol that allies shouldn’t be lingering in. Unless the swiftness per pulse goes way up. Way, way up.

JonPeters.5630:

I think we have a pretty good understanding of the mesmer scepter auto attack problem. I would really like to design a chain of auto attacks here that end with something good, and then allow the clones generated from scepter to also do that thing. That being said, we are trying to avoid just condition spam overload with that weapon because that would be greatly compounded by clones spamming as well.

An interesting effect that fits within that criteria might be for it to spread one condition already on the target to a random nearby ally of the target – essentially a 1 condition, 1 target micro-burst version of Epidemic.

It never puts additional pressure on the primary target, but it can force opponents to be leery about clumping up around a potential condition donor and lets the clones work much more synergistically with your own conditions and any being applied by your allies also.

I would like to see the symmetry “Allies get X, Enemies get inverse X” we see on many Mesmer skills get extended to veil…

Veil: additionally, Enemies passing through this zone gain revealed for 4 seconds.

This could create some interesting counter-play not just against Thieves, but against other Mesmers (by dropping your veil square in the path of advance from theirs…)

It doesn’t ‘suck’ to do champs. You still get the mats and the gear. They remain fairly rewarding, especially at the rate your typical zerg pounds them into the dirt. What it does is cut down on the swells of gold rolling through the game because of them.

Champ farming remains efficient, just not overwhelmingly efficient compared to all other alternatives.

Grumpdogg.6910:

Well there goes my viable option for a legendary.

Seriously? You thought you were riding the champ train harder than everyone else who wants a legendary and were getting ahead because of it?

The prices were going up as fast as you were making money, because the people building actual value (the T6 mats, precursor, ect.) knew perfectly well you and all your sort had more money to fleece.

Switch to Deathshroud, rip 10% of their face off, return to normal mode and commence condition pwnage?

There isn’t a necromancer in the game who doesn’t have direct damage skills. It’s built into the class.

I’d say its less bad, but people’s usual minimum requirements for a rating of ‘viable’ tend to be more “is it the single best option or outright godmode?”

Its still not the single best weapon option, but it’ll be less faulty that it was.

I’ll still be using axe and shortbow for my ranged needs after Dec 10.

If you are looking at longbow in WvW, you still have a very long range that you can, with care, capitalize on in zergs where you have 10+ people screening for you and your high-damage-at-max-range can be used to discourage the adventurous amongst the opposing group. The change is more if something slips through the lines you can actually punish them a bit without swapping to your melee set.

I would like to remind the Devs working on the Dec. 10 balancing pass that a little graphical love of this sort would go a long way…

Looking at my highs and lows for the Living Story releases:

Favorite story/activity: The Frost & Flame arc as a whole, and the early parts in particular. I know most people found the opening stages dull, but I for one relish the opportunity to display heroism by HELPING PEOPLE instead of just bonking yet another monster on the head.

Favorite moment: BY FAR the single best moment in all of the Living Story for me was during the Zephyr Sanctum. I was having a grand old time using the new skills to chase after the shards of wisdom, working out puzzles and chating with folks and getting help when I needed it from friendly portal-mezers all interspersed with occasion monster events (so we are already talking a pretty fine day in-game) when I suddenly realized…

There was more than enough shards of wisdom to finish the achievement even if I just couldn’t crack the puzzle for some of them.

The sense of lightness, the freedom to just enjoy, was breathtaking.

(Contrast to the current event: 24 shards exist to be transcribed and 24 are required for the achievement. If you’d had 30 in-world and required 24, awesome. If you’d stuck with 24 but only required 20, awesome. But right now there is no room for error, and that stinks…)

Worst features: It all comes down to 1 word: Scarlet. She’s actually not terrible when she’s on screen. I don’t mind fighting her directly. I find her dialogue faintly witty. The problem is everything attributed to her off screen is poison to my enjoyment. ‘Crazy’ people DO NOT BUILD EMPIRES. They occasionally inherit or seize control of an empire and the first thing that happens is THEY RUN THEM INTO THE GROUND. You have a fundamental mismatch between character archetype and their use in the plot. I could go on, and have elsewhere, but to sum up, if my disgust with the support writing for this character were a game effect is would be an 11k damage tick every second called “acidic bile” and its killing us all.

You cannot divest yourselves of this character fast enough.

Otokomae.9356:

I don’t remember seeing too many people complain that “Warrior is OP!” before Perplexity Runes were introduced…

Hahahahahahahhahaaahahahahah ((inhale)) hahahhhaaahaahaahahahahah!

Wow! A skill point that acts like a skill point.

If you thought it would reset, you were deluding yourself.

The long term gain in functionality is that your quartz-harvesting alt no longer has to go anywhere else to combine the 25 quartz they dig out every couple of days.

NOT the complete annihilation of the skill point economy.

Somewhere around $400-500 I would guess. I’m not prone to buyer’s remorse. All but maybe three of my purchases met my expectations quite favorably.

I bought all possible bank space within maybe a week of getting the game installed. I have full infinite tools on 8 characters and 15 character slots total. I’ve used gems-to-gold on several occasion to finish a big project or buy a dye from the TP I felt I would enjoy for the rest of the life of the game. I’ve only bought black lion keys maybe twice, and as I was principally looking to stock up on the boosters they frequently include, the fact that I’ve never gotten a super-rare gee-gaw doesn’t bother me.

I spend $70 on a tank of gas. I’m not going to flinch at the occasional $20 splurge for something permanent and non-random within the game.

I can explain it, but I’m sure no one here wants to hear it:

The difference is because it’s in the Arcane line – the line doesn’t natively provide the Precision required for the trait to proc, so its positioned as a selectable ability choice (if you have Precision from elsewhere, you can CHOOSE to leverage it with this trait) rather than as a minor trait that could be complete crippleware for many builds.

The Mesmer equivalent is in the line the provides Precision. Obvious synergy. “You like crits right? You like things that proc-on-crit too, right?”

The Guardian one is not – but look at the other 2 minor traits in its line – the entire line is about dodge, dodge, and dodge again, even if you aren’t being threatened you had better be dodging!

Dardamaniac.1295:

I wish we could take Signet of Beastmastery, Enlargement and Bark Skin…Unstoppable Greatsword Ranger..Even without the empathetic bond when you have 50% damage reduction with stability,25% more dmg and a Maul that hits like a truck in 5sec CD…you are a beast

I have to agree. If Hulk Out! (pardon, Enlargement) was a 20-pointer in Survival rather than Nature Magic that would be a rockin’ combo.

Ariete.6509:

Quick disclaimer: the thread got to a point where it’s hard to go through the entire thread and check if this has been addressed.

Beastmaster bond i honestly don’t feel the reduction on the cooldown is enough. It still feels like an ability one can’t rely and manage in a practical sense. I mean if the cooldown was let’s say 20sec i would be able to tactically aim to trigger it on every pet swap…

Wiki says it automatically recharges on pet swap. Is that not your experience?

pho.9412:

I don’t think it’s global. They didn’t say anything about other class’s vigor being halved to 25%

That’s not vigor. That’s a continuous bonus to endurance recovery rate – same effect as vigor AND it stack with vigor. Similar to how a Guardian’s virtues give you a continuous self-heal tick that’s the same mechanic as Regen, but stacks with it also.

To all and sundry who thought I was oblivious to Guardians, Mesmers, & the occasional Elementalist getting off with their 5 seconds of vigor on a crit traits untouched… believe me, I noticed. I run a might-granting all-crits-all-the-time Guard, and I checked for a similar change to their vigor-generation engines. Its absence is curious, as a simple change to say 8 seconds of internal cooldown rather than the current 5 seconds would inject some choppy waters into the near permanent vigor up time my Guardian enjoys.

Those three traits were passed over. Perhaps the devs thought they were already erratic enough? Or maybe the amount of support required in Precision-stacking they need seemed like a sufficient opportunity cost to using them? But all the automatic vigor/endurance traits took a beating in this balance path.

On the concept of making people branch out in their Elementalist builds, with less absolute reliance on Arcane, I have a counter proposal for the Devs~

General: It would be nice to see more synergy between the elemental trait lines. Give me obvious, tangible reasons to build 30 Fire & 30 Earth or 30 Air and 30 Earth. Make elemental “pairing” sing. There’s only 6 possible pairs among the 4 elements, go through and deliberately make sure each pair offers something (probably by way of their 25 point minor trait) that has specific utility and application if you have 25+ points in another of the 4 elements. Give us an incentive to break away from the tyranny of Arcane rather than increasing the opportunity cost of Arcane in the hopes that we’ll maybe give up on the cornerstone choices in that line.

Specific: Dump all-aspect recharge% from Arcane entirely. Rather than neutering it down from 60% to 30% for a whole line’s worth of investment, keep the current recharge times and ADD “+50% recharge% for that element only” to each of the 15 point minor traits for each elemental line in addition to their current effects. Do you want fast recharge for Fire attunement? THEN SPEND POINTS INTO FIRE! Splashing 10 is not a commitment. Splashing 15? Cool, you get fast recharge for that Attunement. 15 points is also a low enough number that you could see a “fast-swapping master” built on 15/15/15/15/0 with 10 points left over to mix it up.

But what to replace the class specific boost of arcane with? Make it a stat buff that varies with your attunement! Make it “double down” on the attributes already associated with that element as seen in their trait lines. A fully fire-traited elementalist in Fire Attunement with 30 points in Arcane should get a huge bump to Power and Condition Duration (the Fire line bonus). When he shifts attunement to Earth, that Power and Condition Duration bonus morphs into a Toughness and Condition Damage bonus (The Earth trait-line attributes). Make points into Arcane something that reinforces the flavor and playstyle of your other choices, rather than diluting them.

Less “I want to be a hydromancer, and arcane lets me get away with occasionally swapping through other attunements…”

More “I want to by a hydromancer and arcane lets me stack even more vitality and healing power while in water Attunment, making me a BETTER hydromancer!” With it built-in that being a 15+ point hydromancer means you can get back to that attunement quickly after rotating out to answer some specific need.

On the topic of making people branch out in their Elementalist builds, with less absolute reliance on Arcane, I have two suggestions~

General: It would be nice to see more synergy between the elemental trait lines. Give me obvious, tangible reasons to build 30 Fire & 30 Earth or 30 Air and 30 Earth. Make elemental “pairing” sing. There’s only 6 possible pairs among the 4 elements, go through and deliberately make sure each pair offers something (probably by way of their 25 point minor trait) that has specific utility and application if you have 25+ points in another of the 4 elements. Give us an incentive to break away from the tyranny of Arcane rather than increasing the opportunity cost of Arcane in the hopes that we’ll maybe give up on the cornerstone choices in that line.

Specific: Dump all-aspect recharge% from Arcane entirely. Rather than neutering it down from 60% to 30% for a whole line’s worth of investment, keep the current recharge times and ADD “+50% recharge% for that element only” to each of the 15 point minor traits for each elemental line in addition to their current effects. Do you want fast recharge for Fire attunement? THEN SPEND POINTS INTO FIRE! Splashing 10 is not a commitment. Splashing 15? Cool, you get fast recharge for that Attunement. 15 points is also a low enough number that you could see a “fast-swapping master” built on 15/15/15/15/0 with 10 points left over to mix it up.

But what to replace the class specific boost of arcane with? Make it a stat buff that varies with your attunement! Make it “double down” on the attributes already associated with that element as seen in their trait lines. A fully fire-traited elementalist in Fire Attunement with 30 points in Arcane should get a huge bump to Power and Condition Duration (the Fire line bonus). When he shifts attunement to Earth, that Power and Condition Duration bonus morphs into a Toughness and Condition Damage bonus (The Earth trait-line attributes). Make points into Arcane something that reinforces the flavor and playstyle of your other choices, rather than diluting them.

Less “I want to be a hydromancer, and arcane lets me get away with occasionally swapping through other attunements…”

More “I want to by a hydromancer and arcane lets me stack even more vitality and healing power while in water Attunment, making me a BETTER hydromancer!” With it built-in that being a 15+ point hydromancer means you can get back to that attunement quickly after rotating out to answer some specific need.

I enjoy achieving my goals. I don’t have to enjoy every single step of the process in a vacuum to still experience the pleasure of making progress.

Doggie.3184:

Why am I not allowed to survive stun, daze, fear, knockdown, etc as a Thief ? :o

Because every class needs a weakness. Necros are just as puzzled they have such a terrible glaring hole in their ability to escape/pursue.

You’ve identified your class’ hole. It’s not going away.

Using the 4 types of doubloons as tokens to play a minigame sounds AWESOME to me!

Event technology question to Devs:

Is it possible to enable NPC A to give a player a unique inventory “ticket” item via dialogue choices, then allow player to approach NPC B (likely in an entirely different zone!) and turn in/turn over that ticket item to NPC B to launch a Dynamic Event? (I’m presuming the dynamic event has a brief internal cooldown after completion and cannot be re-initiated while it is running – so players don’t trip over each other)

Why I ask: If this can be done, you can totally reinvigorate the non-LA home cities as places to go around and talk to NPCs in search of ticket items that will then let players open up/activate new activities out in the surround countryside. But even NPCs out on the land scape would have potential functionality as same-map or cross-map event starters that respect the player’s schedule. The event never starts unless a player has put in the prep -but other players can become involved and it creates the natural interplay as they ask “how did you start this?”

In some way I suppose it already exists in game: The matrix key puzzle used to unlock the steam ogre in the Thaumatova Reactor area. Since that works by advancing a series of unique items, I guess I’m primarily asking if the starting point can be an NPC dialogue rather than a item found on the ground, and would you consider similar permanent new activities that actually reached across zones?

pho.9412:

endurance nerf e.e’ wtf… a big one at that.

Its global – ALL classes are seeing less endurance/vigor.

If I had to guess, the PvE content designers had a little talk with the class designers that players have so much ready-to-dodge uptime they largely IGNORE all damage spikes which leads to berserker-uber-alles gearing because your actual defensive attributes and traits are MEANINGLESS compared to the power of dodging.

In a funny way, its a backdoor fix to our pets. When players can no longer dodge every single hit (like out pets), we might see start to encounters with less dodge-or-die design.

evilapprentice.6379:

So, what do we do? We make a stink.

You will NEVER make more of a stink than thieves made for themselves from the perspective of seven other class communities.

Perma-stealth needed to die in fire.

Off-meta builds get some love with faster general initiative gain and a few scattered buffs to traits that have nothing to do with stealth-heavy builds. Thieve experience more risk from certain types of builds while still remaining hands down the class most capable of disengaging from any fight at will.

The endless refrain to people driven to the brink of hysteria by thieves’ bloody IMMORTALTY via stealth has been “learn to play”.

Learn to play.

Cuteypie.7835:

Name 1 build considered meta where this change will make the thief have better init regen than before. Just 1

Which is EXACTLY the point. To bring up non-meta builds to a more competitive footing without giving the peak performers 1 iota more potency.

Silas.4817:

If you look at it in comparison to an engineer or elementalist who has a wide array of abilities we thieves just kinda have our stealth for our survivability.

Try Assassin’s Reward, Signet of Malice, and heal power gear. You can outheal all kinds of reasonable damage without ever going into stealth.

They’re even buffing Assassins Reward on this patch.

Zero Day.2594:

Just re-roll to a guard or warrior.

But not cheesey hammer warrior, since their most abusive build by far got (rightfully) nerfed into the floorboards.

Looks like nothing but buffs to my D/D super unicorn.

I’ll just mention that giving a stack of might to a ranger AND his pet is the same as giving a stack of might to a warrior – since the ranger’s damage is divided up across the two entities.

Ryan.8367:

Keep in mind you still can’t stomp players while this is activated.

Karl McLain.5604:

It’s in the works that this is changing as well, so that you’ll be able to interact with downed players while under the signet’s active effects.

Can I get a ‘booyah’?

BOOYAH! ((does the hulk-stomp on a nearby Toxic Courtier’s face))

Not posted to this thread, but possibly worth mentioning when evaluating the need for damaging condition removal – several other classes get their damaging conditions toned down on Dec 10. Necros had a stack of bleed shaved off here, and shaved off there. Some of the Guardian burns were converted to direct damage. It may add up to a (slight) change in the meta for conditions and condition removal.

To all the re-rollers: I get it. But rather than destroy your accumulated effort in a fit of frustration, check the proposals for Dec. 10 changes the Devs just posted.

While not the much needed fix to pet AI vs dodge-or-die encounter mechanics, there is a surprisingly large number of tweaks and changes that may breath some new enjoyment into the big old pile of XP you already own.