Guild Wars 2

if the E spec really receives anything thats based of Distraction, then I could see for an melle based martial artist only mechanic improvements.

Like the E-Spec becoming able to not perform only Shadow Steps, but to perform instead Shadow Walks, that aren’t just only quick teleportations, but instead phase shifts in which you create over time Shadow Clones of yourself which will distract your foes from you…

something similar like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhB97Mu8vDA

Recklessly fast shadow stepping, that it is similar to stealth, but, you can be seen sometimes, but you won’t know, if that what you see is currently the real one, or just an afterimage/shadow clone of yourself that will only distract you.

Disctraction is then very effective, when you overwhelm an enemy with visual information, more visual information, than you can register with your eyes and that very fast, if the Thief Elite Spec would get this fast and reckless, just a tiny bit in that direction, then i think its a kind of distraction that will work with an martial artistical themed class and make thief finally again king of agility

Finally, it was about time ..

lets just hope this E Spec doesn’t end up with the unfitting high concept name of Daredevil with a mixed up design and gameplay of somethign completely differrnt that was intended, like it was the case with the ridiculous Dragonhunter, while its name just sounds like that too as if it would be just a meaningless title that practicalyl everyone can have, because everybody can be reckless like a daredevil – its absolutely nothing special

I hope that the Spec gets named either Dervish, or Skirmisher, because thats what the concept art look like with a little touch of Ninja, but thats just only the equipment skins of the Head Gear mostly only.

I hope that the gameplay will be a defense orientated Counterattack DPS/Crowd Controler, because thats a gameplay mechanic, that practically exists yet not in the whole game and yet is shown so far in only 1 single Underwater Thief Skill that is Ninetails Strike, that is a defensive Counterattack Multi Hit Burst.

So this E Spec should rely itself alot lesser on Stealth, but alot more on Evasion, having very good synergies with the Acrobatic Trait line to bring it up back, so that you can say in the end that the death nerf of Acrobatics was kind of needed, so that it would be overpowered later with the synergies from the E-Spec, turning Acrobatics basically into a Synergy Trait Line.

A defensive counter attack based E-Spec with more access to all of the missing defensive boons like Protection, Stability, Resitance also especially and Aegis to gain alot more accesc to Blocks and options that make this E-Spec alot better and HOLDING places and defending themself, turning the attack forces from enemies agaisnt themself, resemblign the fighting style of the gentle fist, also known as to have its chinese origins under the name of Baguazhang turning the class into defensive counterattacking combat dancers literally with their stafs that the whirl around in martial artistical moves far beyond the acrobatic level of a deadly blossom, being with their skilsl able to repell incoming forces, having alot of mechanics that can also reflect ranged as like melee attacks

I see the Steal Mechanic to get changed out into, if it would be Dervish into “Mysticism”, and if its named Skirmisher, then into “Forbidden Arts”.

If it gets Dervish, then the defensive Counterattack gameplay of the E-Spec woudl be based on Boon Sacrifice, which enables them to perform enormous recklessly supernatural martial arts with the staff when they sacrifice Boons to fill up their “Mystic Force” that will be a secondary Initiative bar that fills only up on Boon Sacrifice and is practically an “On Demand Initiative” that you need to build up first for becomign able to perform then some very recklessly impressive counterattacks.
Utilities are then Mystic Arts, a unique form of physicals, that work also similar like weapon kits, allowing the class to exchange the weapon skills out with throwing daggers, large shurikens or a chain sickle to get weapons with slightly bigger range that are further good for crowd control and defense in a different way..

if it won’t be anythign of that, then I hope that the thief wil lreceive these thigns with upcoming elite specs, both Skirmisher and Dervish would make up for every good Thief-E-specs, but Dervish would fit best currently, due to Staffs having also Scythe Skins and there existing also a practically dervish outfit – combinign everythign together would make it possible, that people can get their dervishas back practically with a melee based combat style that would suit to it, without that anet needs to implemented scythes as new weapon type by just using the martial artistical thief elite spec that uses the staff and combining this with scythe skins.

Thats my personal view..but with this crap of daredevil beign datamined and seeing that basicalyl everythign that got data mined became later also true…I’ very sceptical and when it realyl ends up as thsi crap daredevil with a gameplay, that doesn’t change at all the gameplay of the thief and does something against the massive weaknesses of the thief class in certain things like defense and condition removal, then i’m personally really peep ed

bomber, first read, then talk … i changed absolutely nothing on these box rewards ..so you can still earn the skins for the achievements with pvp …/facepalm

PS: in fact, i even improved it by allowign you ber track to either earn 3 weapons, or 3 armor parts, instead of earning 3 weapons and only 1 armor part, thus under my solution earnign all the skins would go practically faster

PS: i also changed nothing on the Tokens..you’d still earn 240 tokens for a run on a track ..rolleyes

yeah, these skins shouldn’t be tradeable, but I think they should be earnable, as like also WINABLE in the game for your efforts…

Like every 500 WvW ranks you should receive as reward like 7 Back Lion Tickets, so that you can buy either some of the older more costing skins, or use them to buy more skins, when a fresh new set is there that temporarely costs only 1 ticket per skin.

tickets or scraps should become, part of achievement rewards more oftenly, so that you can earn them through hard effort.

currently the supply of many skin sets is waytoo low, none of these black lion skin sets should have any skins, that cost more than 100 Gold… if theres any skin that is so rare, that players want to have for it like 350 to 1000+ gold is a dramatic sign for it, that the supply of these items is way too rare.
Some skins currently are even so rare, that the supply is 0, nobody selling them in the trading post last time i checked.

By opening up black lion chests with keys players should alsohave the chance to directly win skin unlocking tickets with that they can directly unlock an intem skin that ius currently not unlocked for their account to have a way, with that you can directly bypass all this ridiculous ret peep ticket grind, making this way buying and earning keys more worthful, if you can get this way easier the item skins that you want to have, withoput putting tons of senseless time, grind and paywalls first in front of you to decourage you to earn these thigns normally

PvP reward chests should not have any blue or green items at all as reward..

The whole reward tracks shoudl get overworked to provide better and more overall interesting rewards, than these blue and green junk loot

Example for a good reworked PvP Reward Track:

Citadel of Flame

1 – Bag of Flame Tokens – Rewards you with 60 CoF Tokens
2 – Bag of Destroyer Slivers – rewards you with 5-10 Slivers
3 – Transmutation Charge
4 – Tome of Knowledge
5 – Bag of Gold – Rewards you 50 Silver
6 – Bag of Karma Consumables – Rewards you with 2500 Karma
7 – Bag with Obsidian Shards – Rewards you with 2-5 Shards
8 – Bag of Dungeon Materials – Rewards you with Map Specific Crafting Materials
9 – A Mystic Forge Recipe for an Unlock Item for an earnable Citadel of Flame Finishing Move – changes after first aquisiotion into a Bag of Luck that rewards you with 500 Luck
10 – Baelfires Equipment Box – Choose one exotic Citadel of Flame Weapon or Armor Skin
11 – Bag of Flame Tokens
12 – Bag of Destroyer Fragments – Rewards you with 5-10 Fragments
13 – Black Lion Key
14 – Tome of Knowledge
15 – Bag of Gold – rewards you with 1,5 Gold
16 – Bag of Dungeon Materials
17 – Bag of Karma Consumeables – Rewards you with 5000 Karma
18 – Bag with Tier 7 Materials of Choice
19 – A Mystic Forge Recipe for a craftable legendary Citadel of Flame Back Item, changes then after that into a Bag of Great Luck, rewarding you with 2500 Luck
20 – Baelfires Equipment Box
21 – Bag of Flame Tokens
22 – Bag of Destroyer Shards – rewards you with 5-10 Destroyer Shards
23 – Random Item between Black Lion Salvage Kit, Bank Express, Vendor Express , Mystic Forge Stone, Mystic Coin Bag, Bag of Laurels ect.
24 – Tome of Knowledge
25 – Bag of Dungeon Materials
26 – Bag of Gold – Rewards you with 1,5 Gold
27 – Bag of Karma Consumeables – Rewards you with 7500 karma
28 – Bag with Mystic Clovers – rewards you with 1-3 Mystic Clovers
29 – A Mystic Forge Recipe for a uniqe craftable Citadel of Flame Glider Skin, changes after that into a Bag of Blessing – rewarding you with 5000 Luck
30 – Baelfires Equipment Box
31 – Bag of Flame Tokens
32 – Bag of Destroyer Cores – rewards you with 5-10 Destroyer Cores
33 – Black Lion Ticket Scrap
34 – Tome of Knowledge
35 – Bag of Dungeon Materials
36 – Bag of Gold – Rewards you with 1,5 Gold
37 – Bag of Parts needed for a new Set of sellable Mystic Forge Recipes for Citadel of Flame-Minipets
38 – Bag of Destroyer Lodestones – Rewards you with 1-3 Lodestones
39 – Tome of Knowledge
40 – Godly Baelfires Equipment Box – Rewards you with either an Ascended Baefires Weapon Chest or Armor Chest of Choice.

There was once the idea here in the forum for more horizontal characte progression, i think it wasalso mentioned in the CDI alot, that players could receive as part of their progression new Character Portraits and Frames.

That your Portait could receive also on your “career” on the way first a Veteran Frame, then Elite Frame, then Champion Frame, then Legendary Frame and as last one a unique Ascension Frame that is a silver golden mixed one that looks more impressive, than the legendary frame, maybe has some kind of little animation. like a very subtle shining effect.

I think also it would be nice, if we could create our own Character Protrait manualy and add to it an own background color and such things to add in total to all of it a bit more components for customization.

and i suggested this basically already years ago and nothign happened, and? Do i complain about it now? No…

I find it just nice, that the general idea has found back through someone else into the forum, that this stuff basicalyl hasnät been forgotten, that it could be a great chance for Anet to make money and to give us players at the same time a great new tool that makes it possible for us tpo get more character customization through Skill Skins

its a significant part of general WVW balance, that needs to get changed finally.

Players that are in towers/keeps should receive a “Home Advantage” boon, that is not removeable, which protects them from AoE damage and increases damage agaisnt enemies, that are standing on a lower position, as also increasign the maximum range of ranged attacks due to your higher position.

GW1 already provided this gameplay as total normal gameplay mechancis, so why the hell can’t they simply add this also too into GW2??? its a simple reward for positioning and its realistic, that you shoot your arrows wider away, when you are on an higher position, than standing on the flat ground.
In GW1 you dealt increased damage against enemies, if you attacked them from an higher position than their own.

Walls on which defendign places stand should be ground targetable, they will finally remove the idiotic AOE spam, that makes it completely impossible to defend at all your places, because you get spammed with this aoe crap so fast to death, that you had absolutely no chance at all to do anythign to defend your place, which is the freakign riodiculous reason, why people came up with such braind dead solutions like using Catapults/Trebuchets from behind the gates to defend their place,s because thats the only idtioc way how you can defend your places without that the enemy zerg can kill you or destroy your defensive siege weapons in a matter of seconds!!

Seriously, whoever thought in the design process of WvW that it is OK, that players at defense shold be able to killed on from the walls in a matter of seconds and that there basicalyl should be no safe spots for siege weapons that can’t be easily destroyed by enema ground target aoes like meteopr shower also in seconds, should really think about it, if he/she is right for this job, because this decision was definetely utterly a huge fail design.

When people use siege weapons for defense, the nemy should use the right counter siege weapons to destroy them and not destroy them and all nearby players just in seconds through stupid ground target aoe spam, what makes using own siege weapons totally obsolete in most cases..

When you defend a place, you should have a clear Home Advantage as defending player from your higher position and it should be also possible for defendign players to stand on the walls and actually defend their location efficiently, without having to fear, that you get nuked to death in a matter of seconds, because like a douzen of enemies spam their tons of meteor showers, necromancer marks, cluster bombs/choking gasses, phantasms/mirror edges and what not all at you.

Standign on these walls should negate automatically like all incoming damage by like 90% and should reduce condition durations on you also by 90%, so that you can actually get also a chance to be able to defend your place so long, until your allies have a chance to arrive in time, before its already way too late and the nemy zerg stormed into the lord place and killed it off/claimed your spot, before your own allies are even there…

Zergs have it currently way too easy to claim things too quickly, while defending places is way too hard and unrewarding. Thats something, that should have been fixed together with WvW achievements already from begin on.

But anet absolutely neglected WvW totally after year 1 to the point of totally abandoning it and not caring for it anymore..since after the release of EotM we have until today total content drought in WvW…

11) The Undermanned Buff needs a serious rework, so that it actually really helps people from sides that have not enough players on the map to come back.

• it should increase the Maximum Health of Players so that they have permanently as much Health, as if Siegerazer would be with them, so Constant NPC Commander Buff
• Undermanned Side Players should receive 10% lesser Damage
• Undermanned Side Players should lose not per second Health when being downed and revive 10% faster downed and heal 20% stronger in Downed State, while doing also 20% more Damage in Downed State
• Undermanned Side Players should have permanent Super Speed and receive a Break Bar
• Remove the Crap with increased Exp, karma, Gold blah blah, thats no help…at all and iwll also never be a help to gain back your spawn tower easier ect. and to defend yourself easier against anti social Spawn Campers
• Undermanned Side Players don’t lose their Buff Effects from Gear and WvW traits after their Death!! – means, if you had like 25 Stacks of Bloodlost, you will still have them when you respawn, as long as the Undermanned Buff is there…
  if you had 5 Stacks of both WvW trait Buffs and you di,e the U-Buff is therer, you will keep them then when you respawn!!
  Thats the absolute most important thing, that needs to happen!!!

12) The Event for sending out the Siegerazer NPc ect needs to get changed..first the npcs should move alot faster, it takes freakign ages, until they are finalyl at the tower..seriously, anet, increase their movement speed by 100%!!
Make the event UNSTAGNANTABLE… often enemies just kill the dolyak only and leave the commander, because the stupid commander alone does NOTHING, this prevents your side from progress, because you can send out only maximum 1 npc commander – seriously!!?
If the dolly gets killed, then the commander should simply spawn a NEW ONE… also the Commander should get protected by some seriously upleveled Lvl 84 Mercenaries, that protect the commander, because the commander alone is simply SOLOABLE..just takes time, but its doable, if you don’t get disturbed for long enough.

13) It takes also way too much time to get the siege weapons spawn, reduce the time, players need to stand in these idiotic circles, to get the siege weapons spawned, and those sieges should be also ready INSTANTLY with Barrier Field, that ALSO lets enemies not get IN to melee atack the sieges, so that players using the sieges are as long the barrier field is up protected from ALL atacks, so that they need to focus on attacking players that don’t use any sieges – and all that without that you need to waste supply on them to build them up

14) Players that defend places, should receive significantly better rewards, defendign a place should be alot more rewarding, than claiming something and not vice versa..because thats the total idiotic crap, that leads in first place to this silly karma train mentality, because quickly claiming things is alot more rewarding, then defending places… its ridiculous!!. The reward for winnign a match needs to become significantly better that the intention for why you want to claim quickly stuff and win the match, for the end reward..but meanwhile should be defending places the much better rewrdign thing to ensure, that you don’t lose points.
it must get out of the heads from the people, that they simply abandon their claimed tower instantly for example, because it is currently more rewarding to claim it like 10 minutes later back, than to defend it for those 10 minutes.

15) Street Guards need to get overworked, they are way too weak,m they are essentially totally useless, because killing them gives your side nearly absolutely nothing and having them gives you also absolutely Nothign at all.
Strret Guards need to receive an overworked skill set, they need to become UPGRADEABLE too and owning them should provide for nearby players also some buffs while being on their protected streets, like for example that enemy thieves have on protected streets instead 6s of reveal instead of 4s. Like Enemy Elementalists on protected streets can’t change so fast their attunements.

Street Guard Upgrades:

• Oversight – Enemies on protected Streets receive class specific Debuffs, while allies receive every 10s seconds random boons
• Increased Street Patrol – Hire more Mercenaries that will patrol on your protected Streets and make alarm if they see large enemy groups. This Upgrade also buffs Dolyaks that move on protected streets to move 100% faster and receive lesser damage.
• Elite Patrol – Increases the Stats of the Street Guard, gives him better skills
• Patrol Reinforcement – You have to fight now against 3 different builded Street Guards, before you can claim the Streets
• Street Bunker – Improve the Street Guard place into a little Bunker that needs first to get destroyed, before you can attack directly the Guards, that provides also some Siege Weapons to defend the place on large range. The Street Bunker will provide Charr Technology Machine Guns, Sniper Rifles, Grenade Kits and a Mortar.

WvW needs a heck load of completely different Balance and Gameplay Changes, not something like this what the OP suggest.

1) Remove all Buff Items from WvW.
The only Buffs that Players should receive in WvW should come from the Shrines, Gear , Guild Claims/Banners and WvW Traits, so WvW’s form of Character Progression. With Buff Items usable in WvW, the Shrines are so meaningless.
Would be there no Buff Items in WvW and the Buffs of the shrines would be significantly more meaningful, then you’d see instantly alot more constant fighting around them, how it was basically intended by the design of them, that all sides should constantly try to fight for them. Each Shrine should provide a different Buff Effect.

2) Players hsouldn’t be able anymore to damage Gates at all, only Rams, Ballistas and Golems should be able to deal Damage to Gates, not Catapults and Trebuchets anymore, they should deal only Damage to Walls. Therefore the Damage of Catapults and Trebuchets to Walls gets increased.
The Limit of how many Siege Weapons a Side can place gets for all sides reduced significantly. Siege Weapons are a strategetic good and thus should be used very wisely and not be spammed like crazy to get Gates/Walls super fast done…
In frotn of Gates and Walls there wil lbe placed now invisible limited SLOTS for the maximum amount of how many Rams/Catapults ect. you can place at specific places.
Siege Weapons won’t be possible to be placed whereever you want, their locations will be more preset now.
Means, in front of a gate you can place now only a maximum of 2 Rams, not anymore more of them to speed up how fast you can break the gate.
In front of Walls will be the maximum of Calapults 3 now, more than 3 can’t be placed then anymore and the game notifies you at the moment where you try to throw a 4th one, that the maximum limit for siege weapons at that location has been reached already.
The only Siege Weapon with no limits will be ACs, but they deal anyways only damage to Players, Rams, Ballitas and Golems, where the Damage versus Rams should be increased

3) There needs to be introduced a new type of Item in WvW aside of Traps and Tricks – Tools. There need to exist Tools that help you out in WvW Defense as like Offense.
There needs to be a Tool, that can remove the effect of the Siege Disabler.
There needs to be a tool, with that you can repair Mortars, Cannons and also upgrade them to that they receive significantly lesser damage, and protect the player also better, while usign them from conditions and aoe spam

4) There need to be added more,better as like reworked upgrades for Camps, Towers and keeps that make it better to defend them, especialyl against large Zergs to be able to buy your side enough time, so that reinforcements can arrive, before its already way too late and the lords have been killed already minutes ago, before a large enough own zerg can help out to defend the place

5) Mostly all of the WvW Traits need a complete rework/rebalancing and hsould get also finally advanced to the point, that they provide all 10 tiers of effects, so that also all those people, which have already maxed out everythign since ages finally receive something new to spent their tons of earned rank points on

6) WvW needs improved Class Roles, the Game mode is in a dire need of receiving finally Class Based WvW Traits, so that all classes in WvW are useful and can do in it something unique with that they can help out their side to win, like for example Thieves having it alot easier to infiltrate places, to gain enemy intel that will be useful to know for the Commander and so on.
Like Elementalists becomign the only class, that will be able also to deal significant damage to Gates and Walls, like Guardians having some unique options with that they can defend places much better, than any other class and so on and so forth

7) WvW needs the most direly general Game Balance of the Conditions, mostly Burning, Confusion and Torment..these conditioons are since the last patch completely out of control and where it already partwise before of the last patch, due to buff items and stuff like perplexitiy runes ect that need nerfs..seriously Confusion every 15s on interrupts and the same time 30% increased confusion duration increase together with the last buff of confusion is just nuts..the ICD needs to get increased
to 30s
Effect 4 can get its IDC reduced from 25s to 20s, if the Chance for activatino gets also decreased from 25% to 15%
Tons of other total useless crap rune sets and sigils should get some buffs to make them finally viable and competitive compared to the current standard meta runes and sigils

8) The Ressource System of WvW needs to get split up from just only Supply to have more different sorts of ressources that you need, so that Players are alot more forced to split up, so that zergign gets lesser encouraged and that the huge zergs split up due to this into more smaller groups.
Supply should get splitted up into 4 different ressources:
1. Energy Crystals – Delievered by doing specific WvW Events, like gettign help from ogres ect., and they reward you with them, if you recruit them/help them and doing other new added events
2. Food (Meat, Water, ect.) – Delievered by killing the Wild Life on the map
3. Metal Ore – Delievered my mining on (respawning) Metal Ores on the Map
4. Wood – Delievered by chopping off (regrowing )Trees in the WvW Map

9) Protecting and Guarding Dolyaks needs to become more important.

10) WvW NPCs need to receive serious reworks, so that they become alot more useful, especially the archers that defend keeps/towers..they should learn finally also to use also cannons/mortars when no players are in the near to manually use them

fix forum bug >.< 15 renamed Dragonhunters

I’m pretty sure, this “backlash” of which you speek pretty sure wouldn’t hold for so long and woukld be currently one of the biggets threads in the while forum, if it would be just only something about people misinterpreting Anets words.

The point is, the same person that is responsible for this huge DH backlash, is also responsbile for the Thief E-Spec… so its kind of naturally, that alot of people are right now very sceptical about the outcome of this E-Spec, esecailly for people like me, for whose class names are very important and play a big part for the general game immersion…

If there would be some kind of “Custom Class Name Display” as feature under the options, all of this would be an absolute non issue, but as long as these unfiting terms get forced upon us and there exists also the risk, that these silly terms get even used in the voice acting, there will always be people, which will cringe at names and terms, that will be immersion breaking for them personally

Daredevil is so interesting as a term, like a farting flea..sorry, but I was absolutely not thinking at all about stuntmen or the stupid marvel hero about which I have no associations with at all.
Its also nothing at all, with that I would associate any real martial artitic moves with.
With Daredevil I only associate one thing with – reckless fighting

There are other synonyms for Daredevil, that would sound even much better like:

• Swashbuckler or
• Gambler

while giving the class even a complete new unique touch that I’d like to see with a Thief as Elite-Specialization (but they sadly don’t suit to the Staff Weapon, would be more something for the Focus in case of the Gambler and Offhand Sword in case of the Swashbuckler, so maybe somethin for the next E-Spec xD)

http://atma.lost-edens.com/albums/userpics/10002/Fanart%20ff10%20Rikku%20Gambler.jpg

I think the absolute most awesome thing that could be made with the staff wielding thief could be my proposed number 5.
The Dervish fits soo good into this role and gameplay design and it is absolutely a much better and unique term, than Daredevil will ever be ….

PS: but I guess you haven’t played GW1 at all …

I think a unique option that could give the thief elite spec some great effect would be simply to allow it this elite spec as only class to have 3 Weapon Sets instead of 2.

That way you coud then swap your weapons between say Staff, shortbow and D/D, or S/D or P/whatever.
This would allow the thief player to become in combat more versatile by simply gettign more access to diverse skills in combat.
That way this Elite Spec would profitate also a bit more then from on weapon swap upgrades/runes, because you would have then a weapon more onto which you can swap on to receive the benefitial effects from the upgrades at the moment and it would suit to someone, who fights recklessly to swap alot weapons around, more than anyone else.

It would make the thief player also a bit more unpredictable in combat, if they would have in combat an option more to swap between weapon sets.

sebradle.7034:

While the name is not my favorite. I can’t really think of any other names that would suit it. Assuming the daredevil is in the acrobat trope the only names I can think of are acrobat and stuff that has to do with the circus.

God, this shows me, how uncreative the community is (nothing against you personally!!) , how should be the Devs under the face of this creativity blast from us be there only better..

There exist ways to give this Class names, that are short, that are catchy, which do fit to a theme of an martial artist that wields a Staff, that is a term with that players can identify themself with and that are unique and nowhere to be found in other MMORPGs before, without having to give it a classical name..

I can think of easily of 5 names, that would work:

1) The Ascetic, which would be some kind of martial artistical Staff wielding Monk, without the need of calling it Monk to prevent confusions… simply a Thief which atones for his sins and chose to follow the Path of the Empty Palm instead, using Mediations to become able to perform theuir supernatural looking martial arts to gte this way in harmony with themself.

2) The Skirmisher, a much better fitting unique sounding one word class name, that actually represents alot better the gameplay of what a Daredevil could ever stand for and would be the best alternative design option over the Ascetic, if the Class should be not looking as if the Thief went the path of becoming more of a monkish martial artist, but rather stays under the thief and works more like a roguish cunning and reckless martial artist instead, that is not based on meditations, but instead rather on raw physicals simply

3) The Brawler ..a term which already exists in Guild Wars 2
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Brawler
So why not make out of it a martial artistical Elite Specialization for the Thief.
Brawler would be just a different working synonym for Skirmisher, one, who goes recklessly into any fights, using physical prowess on first hand, beign very good and specialized at melee combat and holding your place, whats exactly somethign the thief massively lacks in …

4) The Bandit, another term, that already exists in Guild Wars 2, and could easily be used to turn it into an Elite Specialization, somethign that would work as simple upgrade of the theif, that would be more defensive and lesser based on stealth and therefore more specialized on stealing, disarming, boon stripping, skill removal and such things and controling foes via stuns and launches.
a good term, that could be used, instead of using the classical “Rogue”, (I like personally Rogue more, but thats just my opinion xD and bandit is simply a very rarely used synonym for Rogue in MMOs)

5) The Dervish
It would be an easy task to let Dervish return as staff whirling Combat Dancers (eh, Capoeira anyone?? oO).. staff already also provides a Scythe Skin.. I can easily see the Dervish as a staff wielding Elite Specialization of the thief that uses the staff for a fast rotating kind of reckless aoe melee combat style that is alot about alos retaliation and defensive boons like protection, stability, resistance and regeneration, while also stripping off boons of foes or sacrificing own boons to be able to perform a special form of martial arts, so called “Mystic Arts” as new unique type of Utility Skills and this one would bring back even nostalgia back to the game. What would you guys thinkl ,how many people would absolutely freak out, if the Dervish would return to GW2 as Thief Elite-Specialization, when you could combine that with a Scythe Staff skin and the dervish looking outfit???, especialyl when it would use as utility skilsl something special as like mystic Arts as the thief’s unique form of physical skills … while the Steal mechanic symple gets turned into “Mysticism” with that the thief could consume his boons to be able to perform for some time secret Forbidden Arts, that are some kind of devastating martial attacks for that you need to sacrifice your boons to perform them, for that you need to sacrifice more than just only 1 boon, like in the case of weaker Mystic Arts.

Forge is absolutely ok, its a god darn working trustworthy real profession, iits nothign different, than calling the class a Smith, Blacksmith, Whitesmith whatever.

Have you never played Ragnarok Online? There is a Base Profession, that is called simply Merchant, which had as Sub Class the Option to become Blacksmith, able to wield also Maces, Axes, Great Axes, Hammers, Shields…
the Engineer is by design pretty much very near to the whole design of that games class, only the Melee Fighting Components are missing.
Guess what was another Sub Class for them? Right.. the Mechanic, which was pretty much what the Engineer is

Forge is just a different word for Smith (but I’d call it practically rather Forger, to make a different between a Smith, that is the profession and a forge, that is used to smith and create something)
The Hammer is the weapon of a Smith…

However, such idiotic unfitting names, like Daredevil, Revenant, Tempest and most especially Dragonhunter imo have no place in this Game…

Berserker is awesome, but in my opinion by implementing the Berserker, should Anet rename the Berserker-Prefix Upgrade from Berserker to Barbaric or Brutal

The Reaper is currently so far the only fitting class name, that has in the game a LORE BACKGROUND that is fitting, but personally I’d rather see that class to be named the Occultist or the Marauder instead, because I think the game would be better not to have any lore based class names at all, but instead Elite Specializations, that do fit all to the theme and design of the Main Professions that resemble all names that look like and fit to trustworthy medieval fantasy professions, that could actually really be professions and not just some weird titles for practically everyone.

Professions, that feel unique, that give you the impression, than only you and your character’s history of profession career could become X and nobody else and that these Specializations provide unique gameplay Elements, that only these specializations can do and nobody else that are fundamentally gameplay changing.

But Dare Devil (aside from the not proper English again similar to the high conceptual Dragonhunter junk) is just immersion breakign same as much as like Tempest, Dragonhunter or Revenant and the Herald has absolutely nothing at all, that makes it feel like being a real propheting Herald.. its nothing but just a massive tanky boon spreader and nothing else….nothing real unique, what a good defensive Guardian already provides.

Sometimes is LESS much MUCH more and in regard of this saying, it owuld be much better for the whole game in my opinion, if all Class Names of the Elite Specializations would simply follow the same style and theme of naming, like all other professions, which means simply:

• No Lore Based Names
• No idiotic High Concept Names, that are used to insult the community for not understanding their backgrounds..cough DH, #neverforget
• All Class names have 1 Word Names that are easy to understand, which fit to the Design and Theme of the Main Profession and thus feel like right Elite-Specializations of them which follow their styles and not try to turn their origins by 180° into something totally different like wannabe 3 in 1 concept mixes of things, that don’t fit together, like the Dragonhunter tries to be at the same time a Witchhunter, Archer and Light Magic based Trapper with the Theme of an Wannabe Angel like GW1’s Paragon..just missing that they have also their Wannabe Bard Gameplay with hymns integrated >.> That would have been the most absurd top of the iceberg then…

You know, Elitw-Specializations like Chronomancer and beserker show it, that it functions, simple, easy understandable Elite-Specialization Names, that do fit perfectly to the Themes, Style and class designs of their Main Professions from which they originated from, without that they need to have total absurd unfitting names, which coulkd have come right of the mind of an like 5 year old child (the exception are lore based names, but lore based names are stupid, because they make professions like like, as if they would be something super special compared to a class name, that hasn’t any lore on which it is based on, thats why I absilutely dislike lore based class names, because they make people think their classes are some kind of special snowflakes)

Why do you think most MMORPGs out there always mostly always short and easy understandable class names, and don’t overwhelm peopel with super exotic junk just for the sake of havign something “unique”?
Because its much easier and better to identify yourself with a short termed and easy understandable class name, than with a long double worded exotic thing, that has its name it has only for the sake of soundign unique.

Calling the Elite Specialization of the Guardian instead of Dragonhunter an Inquisitor or a Seeker or a Warden instead, would be much more fitting, it would go alot easier over the tongue for everyone and it is an alot catchier name, than Dragonhunter, while at the same time giving you also the impression of beign a trustworthy profession with that you can identify yourself, instead of gettign a silly titulous name, that pretty much counts for everyone, like Dragonhunter or Daredevil…

A Daredevil is absolutely nothign special, everyone can be one, just like everyone and their mum can be a Dragonhunter…

I absolutely believe, that the Developers that are responsible for the Revenant, but more especially for the Tempest, Dragonhunter and now likely too Dare Devil absolutely lack in the understanding, of how fundamental it is for MMORPGs to provide catchy sounding short and easy understandable profession Names with that players are able to identify themself with, which are well known words and terms for practically everyone, instead of coming up with weird exotic word abominations like the dragonhunter or Dare Devil just to get sure, that there are some unique names under the list, that make sure, that they haven’t been found anywhere else before in a MMORPG’s sake, when in fact the there exist much better short and easy terms, which fulfill this exactly also too, without having to be such a word abomination.

I pretty much believe in it, that this is the sole purpose, why we get these idiotiuc names, because Anet/NCSOFT just wants to get sure only, that GW2 gets some unique names into the game, with that people should associate automatically GW2 with…

The other reason is, in regard of D, its a forced upon us all term, because we get Brahams motives bend on us, cause he wants revenge only for Eir and becomes a “Dragonhunter” and the whole suddenly implemented new faction around it is just retconned into the game to give that stuff a stupid reason for existance, or don’t you find it weird too, that these mystirious Dragonhunters now just pop up in masses out of a sudden when we go against Mordremothß
Where the hell was this faction please, when we went against Zhaitan???

Thats the problem with lore based and especially “high concept” classes, they will always create alot more problems, than they will solve any at all.
Its always best to go only with short and catchy generic sounding names.
Yes, that may be soundign for some people perhaps liek the more “boring” option.

But better more boring sounding generic names, with that you can easily identify yourself with, than lore based and high conceptual junk, which causes only problems in the lore, feels beign retconned into the game at worst case like the Dragonhunter and doesn’t let you really identify yourself withthem, because their names are so extreme titulous, that theres absolutely nothing unique about them, because you are just someone, who everybody else is in this game too.
This shouldn’t be the real goal of good class design, that you receive at the end the silly feeling, that your class is nothing special….

Linfang.1087:

Putting a space between Dare and Devil prevents Marvel Studios/Disney sending a cease and desist to NCsoft/Arenanet.

Lawyer dodge roll

You know, instead of doing such a bull -peep and coming up again with such onsensical high concept like names, that in this case again would make only again more or less sense, when it would be written at least in proper English, it could be simply all circumvented by giving the Eliter Specialization a much better fitting name, that suits to an martial artistical Staff Wielder that recklessly attacks foes, waitign for their attacks of a foe to surprise the foe with precise blocks and parries to counterattack them then and turning the force of the enemy against themself out of a sudden.

You know, even such terms like:

• Ascetic
• Brawler
• Fighter
• Rogue
• Skirmisher
• Bandit
• Monk

would have been much better fitting terms in regard of how the design would be in the end, if just subtle martial arts, then a more roguish design would fitt better, if full martial arts, then a more monkish design woudl fit better

But Dare Devil? it makes me practically as much puke and cringe, as when I read the word Dragonhunter, that is no class, but just a simple title that everyone has, same as like Dare Devil…everyone can be reckless like one and the jerman counterpart is same as silly, as like the German word for Revenant…

I seriously just hope, that some classes see before the final release some name changes…. never seen before in a game so many bad names that are somewhat worse chosen, immersion breaking and incongruent with the rest of a class design, seriously.

Where everything began good with the Chronomancer, everythign after that went down the gutter in regard of fittign names to gameplay design decisions.
Only except to that is the Reaper, because here it fits and suits to the whole gameplay design, because the Reaper is here clearly a decision, thats based on the games LORE, that exists based the 7 Reapers of Grenth practically.

So theres nothing idiotic high concepted about it, thats a name, like Chronomancer, which has hand and feet.

If Anet wants to make some kind of reckless alternative version of the thief, I hope they rename it to Skirmisher, that would be a term, that is unique, has alt more style than Daredevil, anet hasnt to be feared of any stupid copyright crap about a stupid movie and what not all and its a term, that would be concruent for a martial artistical reckless combatant that wields a staff to counterattack with it in melee combat recklessly ferociously incoming attacks, to counterattack them with the force of the enemy attack or even stronger than the original back to their source, giving the Thief something, that this class is direly missing, a on defense build up DPS gameplay, that allows the thief to play alot more control and beign at the same time not so extremely reliant anymore on Stealth, but using instead Blocks and defensive boons like Stability, Resistance and Protection to survive better in melee combat and that way becoming finalyl also better in regard of SPvp for holding places, so that an on the Elite-Spec changed Thief actually becomes alot better for holding places, where the current thief sucks totally at this job, because the class simply lacks in the defense part massively and has not enough options to be able to go against CC’s effectively, cause the only stability we have comes from a more are less useless nerfed Elite Skill, that is for its AoE style of damaging way too unprecise, deals crappy damage against enemies, cause its damage dealign is way too slow and is since the stability nerf way too weak and easily completely interratable by a single stupid skil lthat just needs to remove your stability to interrupt your elite instantly….making this skill basically a total wrothless jok,e that lost absolutely all its value to be called an Elite Skill >_> But thats an other topic

I’m not able to be at PAX, but should my entry “win”, I’ll give the “PAX Ticket” off as gift free to anyone by random chosen from Anet and I’d like to see then as personal little win a Miniature Llama instead Would make me happy then too and would be something, from that I have something instead of that ticket

So heres my entry:

I’m exited about Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, because an idea of me became now a major feature of this Game. See Signature.

An Idea for an WvW Event on Halloween:

Resident Knee Ville
A Parody Event that mixes Resident Evil and Elder Scrolls Skyrim together

While this Event is up, everyone in the Game that joins into WvW will get first asked to choose 1 out of 3 Event Skil lSets, because while this Event is up, will everyone have the same 1 out of 3 possible Skill Sets

Set 1: The Archer
Equipped with a Longbow, you are an Archer, who hunts down Zombies and you will have these 5 Skills

1) Baptized Arrow – Shoot an with holy water infused Arrow, that will hit all foes in line, and heals allies also too in the line of sight.
2) Knee Shot – Shoot an Arrow to the Knee, that will immobilize a foe, and if the foe breaks the immobilize, will be crippled then for a much longer duration
3) Head Buster – Shoot an Arrow to the head, that will shortly after explode. Deals high damage to foes that have lesser than 50% health and causes Burning
4) Holy Rain – Shoot a Barrage of Holy Arrows, that creates at its Area an AoE Regeneration and for Foes an AoE Torment per Arrow
5) Final Judgement – Shot a stronger Version of Baptized Arrow, that stuns also foes and grants addtionally to Allies in line of sight for a short while Protection and Retaliation

Set 2: The Fighter
Equipped with Sword and Warhorn you hunt down Zombies with a fast mobile Melee Combat Style to slice them into pieces and support your allies with Shouts

1) Cross Slash – Strike a foe twice, has a minimal chance to daze a foe for a half second
2) Heaven’s Blade – Concentrade your Energy into your Blade to attack a fe with a mighty overarcing attack, that can split a foe in half, causing vulnerability and granting you for a while Fury, while hitting multiple foes in front of you with the Energy Blast of the Strike
3) Sonic Rush – Rush fast to your targeted Enemy to launch that foe at contact back from you.
4) “I will avenge You!” A Shout, that will grant Might, Swiftness and Retaliation based on every Zombie in your near (Max 5)
5) “Just A Fleshwound!” Grant yourself and your nearby Allies Aegis and Resistance for a while.

Set 3: The Cleric
Equipped with a Staff, the Cleric will support and cleanse Allies from a for this Event unique Condition called “Cursed”

1) Purifying Swing – Swing your Staf you cause a Light Wave, that will damage foes and causes Burning, while curing also with an ICD of 10s the Condition Cursed from Allies
2) Light Barrier – Creates a Wall of Light, that foes can’t surpass and that damages them if they touch it.
3) Rejuvenating Hands – Touches an nearby Ally to heal his wounds slowly over time. Removes also the Conditions Slow, Weakness and Bleeding.
4) Punishment – Strike a Ground Target Area with Holy Light that explodes after 3 seconds, to cause Massive AoE Damage, which meanwhile blinds per second foes that stand in that Area.
5) Ban Seal – Create an AoE Ground Target Trap, which immobilizes foes, that run into it, removes Cursed from allies in that Area and which causes foes to die instantly, if they have lesser than 33% health, if they have more than that, Ban Seal will then also cause Weakness and Vulnmerability and Immobilize will last longer.

While being in WvW and running around, you will see, that everywhere will pop up every now and then a kind of green mist, the so called “Miasma”, that if you get in touch with it, will curse you. That curse will turn you when its timer runs out, before you get it off into a Zombie.

Zombies will be players, that can then attack and kill other players of any Server Side, they can’t only attack other Zombies…being a Zombie makes you practicalyl for that time part of a temporarely new 4th side

Zombies are very slow, but they have significantly much more health, than living players. To be able to get practically rebirthed as either a Fighter, Cleric or Archer, a Zombie has to kill a living player and devour their Soul (what comes near to using practically a Finishing Move on them when they arev downed)

Zombies come with their very own Set of Skills, with that they can give living players many negative conditions.
Zombies alone are weak, but in masses, they become alot stronger and more mobile and more dangerous, so if you see one, you will want to kill them quickly, before they can get together and get stronger and faster

Zombies are equipped with Axe and Dagger, practically functinating like a Necromancer build with that they spam foes full with conditions (Bleeding, Poison, Cripple ect.) and with that they leech life, if they get to bite you.
They are very resistant to conditions, except to Burning to which they are weak too.

Keeps, Camps and Towers will have in that week a completely different role, what is important for a Side is to battle for the SHRINES, because the Shrines will be the only places that work like safe places, where you are save from the miasma and zombies and that side, which holds the most shrines for the longest time, will win the match.
However, whenever a Zombie will kill someone, the side will lose time on the total amount of time.

Keeps, Camps and Towers will be in that time zombie infested hell nests where Zombies spawn and other demonic creatures come from that will roam through the map which will assist Zombies and that give Zombies certain buff effects while they are in their near.
A side, hwich destroys such a hell nest from all of its demonic creatures, receives a bonus on their total time counter.
If the Miasma comes to these places, a ruins of the freed camps/towers/keeps will turn again into hell nests.
In regard of what you liberated, bei it a camp, tower or keep, the time bonus will be different big, but also liberating a big hell nest, that was once a keep is much harder, than cleansing a small one that was once a camp…

I know, its just a concept , somethign I had right now in my mind, but i would love for an ahlloween to have such a kind of cool Zombie Version of WvW, where simply the gameplay of the mode gets completely changed temporarely, where a different point system gets used and where we test out to implement with zombies a kind of 4th neutral side, that can interfere with everyone else and has affect on the point counter for all sides at the same time, in regard of whom they kill in a negative way ^^.. so that pojts don#t just permanently raise only, but that sides can now lose also points.

See, as I understood that programmer from Anet, they absolutely want to fix it – one day, but yet they have no plans for it naturally, because the top priority right now is naturally first bringign out Heart of thorns currently… and then there is this big data problem that he described to me that is the main reason, why they are currently for so long time “clueless” how to solve it…

So I think the overall best solution for everyone is by completely removing all the old WvW Achievements inclusively the AP we get with them so far, so as if they would have never existed under that old system and then implemente a completely fresh new and better designed working WvW Achievement Set that practically completely replaces the old one.

Yes, on first sight this would mean a step back for everyone, but I see it as the only way that allows it for Anet to make with it a fresh start that can be used as working foundation to build upon it from that point on then a better WvW Reward System on top of that too.

WvW feels already since 3 years like beign the neglected unwanted step child. Its about time, that the game mode finally gets the attention, that it deserves and just giving it a new Map Design after 3 years alone isn’t enough (I see EotM not as a big improvement)
WvW uses currently basically only like felt 10% of its maximum potential, that it has, the other 90% unused potential were wasted over the past 2 years so far, because ANet focused itself mainly in the last years mainly only onto PvE and did nearly nothing at all for the rest of the game. The first year was good, there they did more for PvP and WvW by adding constantly new Maps for PvP and adding new WvW Traits ect.

But that can’t seriously be everything!!
I just hope, that we will see with a futurous Feature Pack that is mainly focused for once on WvW some great improvements to bring back WvW to life and to brign it back onto the right path, so that it really feels like a game mode, that is more, than just only zerging, more than just only Server X with biggest population auto wins, more than a permanent grind for WEXp to get in the end mostly always only worthless junk as rewards, while even SPvP has a much better rewarding system, more constant WvW Tournaments, so that players who want them, can actualyl also constantly work towards the heroic mist skins and other unique rewards that you could earn only with Tournament Tickets, more nice refreshing Special WvW Events, that should be better balanced and chosen out, than Golem Rush, which also don’t count in that while then for Glicko Rating.

WvW Achievements aren’t the only thing, that needs serious improvements and more attention. There are alot of other mechanics and systems in WvW, that should get improved, or completely reworked or expanded to provide just more fun for all and to be alot more diverse in the end and not so fast boring…

It can’t be, that WvW sees just after 3 years first a complete new map!!
What WvW needs to give the player the feelign of beign an alot more diverse gameplay mode is multiple different maps of the size and design quality of the upcoming Desert Map which also have maybe different map mechanics implemented, so that playing also on the different maps feels being different, just like playing on each Spvp map feels different, cause they have different integrated gameplay mechanics, like one has that killable lord, while the other has trebuchets, the other again has killable npcs that give buffs, and the next one has nothing of that and is just a clear map where just killing players and holding points counts, without any side effects, so that WvW should offer also multiple different designed maps for different player tastes – and that at the same time, not playable only at a silly rotation or so

That would be a huge step already forward for WvW, if WvW would provide like 4-5 different map designs similar of size and quality of the new upcoming Desert Map Design, to which every player would have access to at any given time, so that you can choose to play on any of these maps that you like whenever you want.

Emtiarbi.3281:

So, they will be playing bowling with players? awesome.

More like playing Billard with Players

These packs are very good for anyone out there that:

A) is a Toon-aholic
B) hasn’t maxed out yet the Bank Tabs
C) is a new Player and hasn’t yet many Transmutation Charges to get with it instantly a small load, that allows it a new player to have enough Charges for multiple Characters
D) is a new player, that hasn’t unlocked alot of dyes yet
E) is a player, who has still Characters that have not reached their maximum amount of Bag Slots, and Bag Slots are naturally usefull for Farming Characters to be able to farm more stuff, before you have to run to a vendor to sell stuff to get free inventory space again
F) is a person that still has some Black Lion Chests ready to be opened but has no Keys anymore currently and in general is a person, who likes gambling, because with both, 50 dyes and the say maximum 15 keys you have a great chance to receive also something awesome out of these things that could bring you in alot of gold, like Black Lion Tickets/Scraps that you can turn to Tickets if you have already enough to buy with them Weapon Skins you can sell for alot of Gold and if you have luck with the dyes, you can make with them also a good amount of gold
G) If you buy both, you spare stil some gems…. 800 gems, instead of 1970 is 1170 gems spared…if you buy the other pack, that costs like 600 gems more, than when you would buy everythign single, and compare that.. 1170 Gems spared minus 600 gems payed more, its still 570 Gems spared under the line !!
So anyone who can benefit the most from these packs would be DUMB AS HAY, if you wouldn’t take the chance to buy these packs now, when among of these packs are alot of thigns, that you’d likely buy sooner or later anyways, like the Bag/Chest Upgrades, which alone are usually already 2k Gems worth normally

Before they make Grenth, I think we will see first Regalias of Lyssa, Melandru and Kormir.

Do you think, they should remove the Grenth Hood, if they ever make a Grenth Regalia..because personally I see no sense for the Hood beign in game, when they release the Regalia of Grenth as outfit, that automatrically includes the hood by design

I absolutel support this.

Skill Skins is absolutely something, what GW2 needs to receive an awesome new level of Character Customization that Anet can use to make money.

Minion Skin Pack would be the most awesome first addition Anet shold use to begin with.

Skeleton Pack: Changes all of the Necromancer Minions into Skeleton Skins and Skeletal Creatures, when activated in your Inventory.

Bone Minions = Become Skeleton Warriors
Bone Fiend = Becomes Skeleton Archer
Shadow Fiend = Bone Hound/ Bone Shark
Flesh Wurm = Skeleton Mage
Flesh Golem = Bone Drake
Jagged Horror = kittenats
——-

Elemental Packs could give Elementalist Summons alot more creative freedom in regard of how the summoned Elementals could look like and allow you for example to summon instead of Elementals elemental magical beasts and monsters, like for example instead of summoning a Fire Elemental, I could summon a Fire Imp or a Flame Lion or a Magma Golem and so on for those people, which like to summon rather magical elemental beasts instead of some elementals that look like nothing mostly all and where the elite versions are just boring bigger versions of the normal onees…

Thief Packs could give summoned Thief Guildies different Armor and Weapon Designs to let them look more special. You wanted to always summon Shadow Clones instead, letthe Thief Pack allow that and turn your Thieves could into Shadow Clones of yourself which use Shadow Weapons.

Ranger Spirit Pack could give Ranger Spirits some different optical designs to let them look more awesome

Guardian Weapon Pack could give the Guardian Spiritual Weapons different designs.

Engineer Turret Pack for unique customized looking Turrets ^^

Warrior Burst Pack, to give the burst Skills of the Warrior some more visual dramaturgy

Mesmer Phantasm Pack, to change the Design of the phantasms to something different

I think it would be great, if GW2 would receive alot more visual customization options for skills….

Want a Blue Fireball instead a Red One as Elementalist, it should be posssible somehow.
Want to have red or black lightnings instead of blue ones, it should be a possibility.

Skill Skins would be a great new level of Character Customization

Ive suggested a changed to the system also already some times.
I still think it would be best for the game, if GW2 receives DUAL EFFECT STATS.
Every Stat of the Game should have 2 Effect. This makes it alot more possible, that more Effects have some kind of good Synergies and not only the offensive Stats, but also the defensive ones.

POWER
Increases the Strengh of your Attacks that deal Direct Damage
Increases the Maximum Duration of your Conditions.

VITALITY
Increases the Maximum Health of your Character.
Increases the Healing Efficiency of your Character’s Skills

TOUGHNESS
Decreases incoming Direct Damage from Attacks
Decreases the Maximum Duration of incoming Conditions.

PRECISION
Increases the Chance to cause a Critical Hit
Increases Maximum Range of Ranged Attacks and Movement Skills

AGILITY
Increases Regeneration Speed of Endurance
Decreases the Maximum Duration of incoming Crowd Control Skills

COURAGE
Increases your maximum Critical Damage
Decreases the Chance to receive Critical Hits

CUNNING
Increases Maximum Condition Damage
Increases Maximum Duration of Crowd Control Skills

WISDOM
Increases Maximum Boon Durations
Decreases the incoming Maximum Critical Damage

Kaleban.9834:

They do have that nifty jumping move….

DRAGOON!

You’re welcome.

This at least would be a working name, if the class design would be alot more about being a classical “Dragon Knight” and lesser about being a 3 in 1 abomination that is partwise designed as Witch Hunter with a kind of holy punishing style that uses light magic traps to catch the evil, with only the absolute controverse style of beign a “big game hunter” at the same time, what is something completely different, than a Witch Hunter and mixed all that crap together then with an Elite Skill, that is designed after a Dragon Head.

Dragoon per se would work, its a working profession name, that actually sounds also like a profession, that is unique, where you can’t say simply that everybody is a Dragoon, unlike you can do this with Dragon Hunter, which is just only a stupid generic title for everybody.

But for Dragoon to work perfectly, Anet would have to change in my opinion the Class Mechanic from Active Virtues to Jumps, all of their Class Mechanic skilsl should be then different Jumps thta would give the class some good mobility which could be used also either as attacks, as support or as control effects based on which kind of Jump Skill you use.

And the Trap Utility Skills would have to be exchanged out, would give a Dragoon instead Stances
Also the Weapon weould have to be changed out, away with the Longbow and giving them Spears for Land Combat as Polearm Weapons…

in the end as you see, it would be all too much work to make a Dragoon possible, if you want to have in the end a Dragono Class, that actualyl works also like a trustworthy Dragoon and not like a Wannabe-Witch Hunter

It is way better and simpler, just to rename the Class to something, that fits already to the 90% consistent design of beign a GW2 like Witch Hunter and name it something like Inquisitor, Seeker, Keeper, Custodian, Warden ect.

and then change accordingly to this name some of the few irritating Trait Names that have to do with Big Game Hunting and completely change the design of the Elite Skill to something like instead of a Dragon Head appearing a huge Light Spear Head that impales enemies which run into that trap. and the whole class design would be then finally consistent like all others with:

• a Class Name
• Traits and
• Class Skills

which do all fit to each other by their design ,by their gameplay and their intention of what they should stand for as a Class – namely an aggressively holy pursuing Guardian, which seeks the evil nemesis of this world, to destroy it anmd that in an active way, unlike the Guardian ,who woudl do it in a passive way by waiting on the dragons, until they come, so that he can protect something, the Inquisitor/Seeeker ect. goes directly to the root of the poroblem and confronts it, before he needs to protect something, because his way of protectign the world is actively erading out the the problem from the world once and forever by seeking it with his light magic traps to destroy it then easily, while the target is caught in the traps.

If I would have to take only 5 things that I wish for I think its:

1) Every Class receives its second Elite Specialization
2) One new playble Race with the Tengu
3) Player Housing (Now that we get Guild Halls, wheres the Problem to bring also PH?)
4) One new Weapon Type introduced: Great Axe
5) Introduction of the Underworld as new Elite Endgame Content.

A general question here, because I’m also thinking about the upgrade now, cause its for a year free.

I currrently use a Win 7 64Bit version and as any interested gamer I naturally herd also about the performance improvements that Win 10 will bring.

But here now my question that I’d like to know beign answered by one of many PC experts out there that know alot more on the materia, than I do xD

Does it really make so much sense to change NOW over to Win 10?

I mean, does bring already just simply the change to Win 10 a performance improvement to the Gaming PC, due to it using Direct X12?

I think its useless to change now to Win 10, as long GW2 isn’t optimized for DX12 and doesn’t make use of it, am I right, cause GW2 still works and runs optimized for this silly stoneage old DX9 and ANet hasn#t even brought to us 3 years after Game Release even DX11 support??!

Or does simply changing over to Win 10 already bring a performance boot for the PC in say for example improving the performance of the Graphic Card by letting it better do its task via multi threading and making better usage of the cores of the PC ect pp.
Because if that is the case, then it would be already a great performance improvement for everyone with multi core pcs, like I am one, so that my PC could run the game better, without that my Graphic Card maybe runs so hot due to Win 10 relieving its work a bit with the help of the multi threading ect. and latest win 10 based graphic card drivers ect. pp for my Nvidia Card.

When I’m right with my thoughts here and already the change to Win 10 alone with latest win 10 based graphic card drivers for it is already an performance boost for my PC, then it would really make sense to change as soon as possible over to Win10…

But if my fear is correct and the change is senseless as long anet doesn#t support that changign by bringing out a new game cleint that supports DX12 for the game, then I can also let it be and stay at Win 7 for as long as possible.

Would like to hear also from people, who already changed over to Win10, if you immediately expereinced after the change any positive performance boosts, like better FPS, like a smoother running game in overall (less heat for CPU/GPU, less noise of fans due to lesser heat or whatever, anything positive that you might have experienced.

Because other than DX12, theres basically no other way, except of ANet bringing out finallly please also a 64bit client version out, how the game could get better performance for my PC

I think it would be a much better Design Decision to rename the Revenant to Herald and give the Elite Specialization a different name…

The whole Design around the Main Profession suits much better to the term of being a Herald – one who appears as an ambassador of the mists to be the connection between the Mists and Tyria and thus it explains it by itself, why they can speak with fallen Heroes and Villains from the past, whose Spirits reside in the Mists.

In regard of renaming the Revenant to Herald, I would give the Elite Specialization then rather the name of either:

• Prophet
• Visionary
• Augur
• Soothsayer

What do you think ?

I absolutely believe it would be a much better decision to call the Revenant Herald and give the Elite Specialization then one of these 4 alternative Names.

Would fit imo the whole concept and designed of the complete class and its specialization much better.

Healing & Utilities:

• Hide In Shadows: should get Cool Down reduced from 30s to 25s and should cure also Torment

• Signet of Malice : should receive on its activation the effect, that it steals your enemies Healing Skill instead and sets it on Cool Down. The passive Healing needs also a little buff of say 20% more. Increase therefore the Cooldown to 20s

• Skelk Venom: Needs its CD reduced to 30s its duraction therefore decreased to 20s Hits by Skelk Venom should heal slightly lesser, therfore shoudl deal Hits with Skelk Venom on the Condition Slow. Reduce the amount of charges from 5 to 3

• Withdraw should count as Stun Breaker also. Increase the Cooldown from 18 to 20s
  ——

• Merge of Blinding Powder and Smoke Screen with the CD of Smokescreen. Using Smokescreen blocks Projectiles and makes you go into Stealth then, when you place it directly at your location. Smokescreen is now a Ground target Skill

• Merge of Shadowstep with Infiltrators Signet by turning the active effect of Infiltrator Signet to exactly the effect of the Skill Shadowstep, that you ss to a foe and when you return to your positiion, you lose 3 condtions and then the Signet begins to recharge.

• Merge Signet of Shadows with Signet of Agility:
  Passive:
  Grants 25% increased movement speed and Precision based on your level
  Active: You gain for a short while Super Speed and you lose a Condition that you give to your targeted enemy. if you have at that moment no Condition, then you blind the foe.

• Assassins Signet. Reduce Cooldown to 30s like all other Utility Signets. Increase the 15% Damage to 20%, so that you actually deal also more damage, because you lose at the moment of the activation also alot of Power..so its kind of counterproductive to lose power for gaining more attack damage, when increase of damage doesn’t really outweight the lost power …
  You gain now also Fury on activation for 10s!

• Ambush is now useable under water and lets you directly summon for a while a helping thief npc that will use Spear Skills.

• In General are all traps now useable also under water, they turn into Mines when used under water, which automatically explode, if enemies get too near to them and deal aoe damage.

So: Needle Trap = Needle Mine
So: Shadow Trap =Shadow Mine that works under water a bit differently, then on land, here it will be an underwater aoe blindness with teleport to marked by it foes that let it explode
So: Trip Write = Shock Mine, causing foes to sink or getting stunned either

• Haste and Roll for Initiative: should get merged for that 60s of cooldown…

• All Venoms should be moved and merged to F3 and F4
  Skale Venom + Spider Venom = Neurotoxic Venom for F3
  Devourer Venom and Frostdrake Venom = Paralyzing Venom for F4

Elite

• Dagger Storm: It should give the Thief also besides of Stability either Protection or Resistance in that time to make it harder to remove Stability so simple to instantly interrupt that Elite with a single stupid boon removing fear >.< where Stability should protect you from this crap, so that a fear actually removes only the protection/resistance instead of the Stability.

• Thieves Guild: Improve the Skill Sets of them, let them attack faster, give them better A.I to evade attacks to survive better and most especially, let their attacks remove boons. Reduce also the Cooldown from 180s to 120s

• Remove Basilisk Venom from the game and replace it with a complete new Elite Skill, like one that resembles a bitt to the kits from the Engineer to allow it the Thief to exchange their weapons skills with Kunais, large Wind Spirit Shurikens and normal small Shurikens and so on, to pack out the “Assassin Throwing Weapons” practically, letting this Elite drop 1 of 3 random Weapon Kits, which you use then to exchange out with them your Weapon Skill Bar.

1: Shuriken Set = Medium Ranged Conditions
2: Kunai Set = Medium Ranged Critical Direct Damage
3: Dual Swords Set = Melee Ranged Hybrid with Mobility.

This way would the Thief receive some more Skill Versability and would become a bit more unpredictable, if they could use with that Elite some powerful Assassin Weapons.

And finalls use all the potial created by the skill mergesto fill in the end the created gaps with some cool new and useful skills that complement the Thief Class.

alot of them just to say…

• Ricochet needs to return to increase Pistol and Shortbow Range to 1200 and adding for Trick Shot 1 more bounce, while letting Bullets in general bounce once

• Cluster Bomb should not cause Bleeding, it should cause Vulnerability and Burning for an increase initiative Cost of +1 Its Damage portion when shootign it and not exploding it should get increased, so that it definetely deals more damage, than when you let it explode, because the Explode part is, when you want to cause Conditions rathenr that high direct damage.
  Remove the 1 Bleeding from undetonating and change it into a high stack of Vulnerability.
  So Undetonated = High Direct Damage and say 8 Stacks of Vulnerability
  Detonated = Medium Multi Hit Damage for 1 Stack of Vulnerability and Burnign per Hit

• Choking Gas should get changed from Poison to a pulsing Torment and should daze enemies for 1 second. Increase also here the Initiative Cost by +1, because all that choking definetely should interrupt a foe, exactly how it worked before in GW1. Pluss makign the Shortbow alot better at controling the enemy movements…like it should do

• Infiltrators Arrow: Should get reduced Initiative Cost by -1 and should reduce the Cooldown of Steal when successfully blinded a foe with it by a fix 15%. So when your Steal CD is 30 seconds and you blind a foe with IA, then your Steal Cooldown will get reduced by 6 seconds uprounded making it a very good move to use it to become quicker able to Steal again

• All D/D Skills have I described, how they should get improved in an other Thread, will post the Link with the Edit
  https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/What-if-CnD-had-shadowstep-in-it/first#post5371024

• Body Shot shouldn’t immobilize, it should launch a foe away

• Black Powder should Stealth a Thief also, if the Health of the Thief is under 33% health

Increase in general Velocity of all Harpoon Ggun Skills by 50%

• Piercing Shot: Increase Damage by 50% and turn Bleeding into Torment

• The Ripper: Increase the Damage of this Skill by 100% and let it deal also instead of 3 5 Stacks of Bleeding

• Deluge: Rename that Skill to "Wave Shot*

• Escape: Rename that Skill to Poisonous Retreat, Increase the Poison Stacks to 2 per pulse.

• Disabling Shot: Change it from Cripple into Daze and increase its Skill Activation from 1 to 1 1/2 second. Let it also Steal Boons that you receive then.. Increase Initiative cost by +1

• Ink Shot receives now like the poison Attack an Ink Trail that will stay for some seconds and blinds all foes that come in touch with it per second.

• Flanking Strike (Spear) Rename the Skill to “Elusive Strike”, so that finalyl not two different weapons share a same skill name anymore. Increase the Range of this Skill from 150 to 300

• Ninetail Strike: Reduce the initiative Cost, and improve the Skill, that it blocks all incoming hits and not only the first one, for its whole animation time and first then you do the counter attack. Increase the Numbmer of attacks from 7 to 8, so that the amount of hits with its final strike fits to the skill name, so that it has a total of 9 hits and not 8. Add Bleedings for each successful hit.

• Tow Line: Increase its range to 1200 and add Immobilize to it instead of cripple.

• Shadow Assault: Reduce the Initiative Cost from 7 to 6 and add a Shadow Step function to it. Thief desperately needs more mobility with spear…

So much for the weapon skills

lol swinsk, you now that staff is an already existing weapon.. do you ?? >.>

So nobody is suggesting here any new weapons

1 Thief is High Critical Power Build, for the Direct Damage Bursts.
The other Thief is Condition Build with Venom Share, so that the second Power/Crit Thief can deal also some more Conditions on the fly to support the Condi Thief with more Stacks of Torment, Chill, Poison ect.

Toxity.. thats no good argument.. just think about it, that Anet will add in the future alot more Elite Specs. this argument doesn’t work, when you think about it, that will upcoming E Specs they will sooner or later have to reuse also those skill heavy utility mechanics, if they don’t want to give E-Specs completely new Utility Skill types to avoid this.

So if Thief gets for example not with its first E-Spec Kits, but instead for example 6 Signets or 6 Physical Skills or 6 Mantras whatever, theres chances that they will get maybe kits with the next or the overnext E-Spec in regard of it if it fits the E-Spec Design.

My personal Hope lies in the staff wielding Ascetic, which will receive 6 Physicals as a kind of unique “GW2” version of a Shaolin Monk thats practically a high specialized defensive Counter Attacker that uses the force of the foes against themself, to give the thief a completely different new role and an alternative gameplay over all the constant stealthing and evading, while providign at the same time also very martial artistical attack moves that are somewhat of a higher better level, and nicer to look at, than what we know yet from the Thief with only Death Blossom being its single only real martial artistic skill currently

As Ascetic, it has something of being a mixture between Monk/Assassins, fighting with a defensive weapon, without havign to name it actually Monk, because imo is Monk a Humans only thing …due to lore and only the humans praying to gods in the past.

But the Ascetic is a simple Thief, who wants to overcome his sins and therefore choose a different path to atone for them by fighting in a defensive way, that makes only usage of the powers of the enemy to turn their powers against them.

Its practially the martial artistic fightign style of the “Empty Palm”, also called “Gentle Fist” or “Juuken” for those that know Naruto, but the real chinese origin fro mthat is called Baguazhang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baguazhang

Many distinctive styles of weapons are contained within Baguazhang; some use concealment, like the “scholar’s pen” or a pair of knives (the most elaborate, which are unique to the style, are the crescent-shaped deer horn knives (Chinese: ???; pinyin: Lùji?od?o). Baguazhang is also known for practicing with extremely large weapons, such as the b?guà jian (???), or bagua sword, and the b?guà d?o (???), or bagua broadsword. Other, more conventional weapons are also used, such as the staff

D/D needs to become finally on par with the other Weapon Builds.

But lets compare first, what the other Builds have, where D/D lacks

S/D

• Strongest Cleave AA as it hits also 3 Targets and not only 2
• Cripple in AA
• On Demand Shadow Step
• Blind/Daze in Stealth Attack based on Positioning
• Integrated Evade Skill that steals Boons and is more effective, than Death Blossom.
  DB has only a f. ridiculous 1/4 Evade Time, while this Skill has a half second.
• Mid Range Multi Hit/Target Cripple
• Melee On Demand Stealth

S/P

• All the five first points above
• Heavy Damage Stun Attack that helps alot to interrupt foes in the right moments with integrated Evade that lasts longer than Death Blossom!!!
  this Skill lets you for 1 1/4s evade!!, so freaking 5x better than Death Blossom!!
• On Demand Blindness
• Medium Range Stun

D/P

• Weaker Cleave than Sword
• Poison on AA
• Mid Range Health Based Gap Closer Burst
• Unblockable 900 Range Blind with the Dual Skill with integrated Shadow Step
• Burst Damage on Stealth Attack when hit from behind
• On Demand Blindness
• Medium Range Stun

P/D

• Bleeding on AA, no Cleave naturally
• Multi Hit Medium Burst with Multi Stacks of Bleed on Stealth Attack
• Vulnerability/Immobilize
• Torment with Backwards Shadow Step to keep Distance
• Mid Range Multi Hit/Target Cripple
• Melee On Demand Stealth
  ——

Now, what offers D/D compared to that:

• Same 3 first Points as D/P
• Weakest Integrated Dodge Skill with Multi Target Multi Bleeds, that doens’t even last over its full Animation, so you can be practicalyl stunned in midst of being in the air of the animation!! Awesome!! GJ
• Last 2 Points that S/D and P/D also have.
  ——

So compared to all of this:

• D/D lacks Boon Control
• D/D lacks having a Hard CC with either Daze or Stun or knockdown whatever
• D/D lacks having a Damage Mitigator with Blind
• D/D has the weakest Cleave
• D/D Conditions that you can apply are the weakest, Pistols is much better at keeping up constant high bleeds, than D/D and the Posion from D/D is lauchable weak with its single Stack
• D/D lacks on the On Demand Shadow Step for mobility, Heart Seeker is not good enough as a Gap Closer with its ridiculous 450 range

So, to make D/D more on par with the other Weapon Combinations, I suggest to improve D/D this way via these changes:

• Increase the Cleave Amount from D/D either also to 3, or increase the Attack Speed of D/D by 25% so that you can complete faster its AA rotation.
• Exchange out the Poison from AA with the 2 Stacks of Torment from Shadow Strike, so that Shadow Strike deals Poison and the Dagger AA deals 2 Stacks of Torment.
• Change Heartseeker into a 600 Range Leap Attack, that lets the Thief also Evade Attacks
• Change Cloak and Dagger Vulnerability to Small AoE Blindness, which doesn’t pulse like Black Powder and reduce its Initiative Cost by 1 therefore that you need to take the Risk to go into Melee Combat for your Stealth
• Increase the Duration of the Evade from Death Blossom from 1/4s Second to the full duration of the Skill Animation. Increase the Number of Targets from 3 to 5 and let it Damage 5x instead of 3x so that it deals up to 5 Bleeding Stacks when DB is used out of Stealth.
  Death Blossom is called then when used out of Stealth instead “Night Blossom”
• Make Merges of some Traits, to create free space for a new Trait, that allows it Offhand Dagger Players to turn Dancing Daggers into a Skill with a different function that based on the Health Threshold of your Enemy does different things:

Trait: Master of Dagger Arts
turns Dancing Daggers into Merciless Daggers.

Merciless Daggers
You throw a Dagger for 3 Initiative at a foe, that will bounce between foes and if the bounced Dagger will hit the same foe twice, then that foe will get stunned. Hit that Dagger a foe twice that was over 50% Health, then that foe will also lose before the Dagger hits a Boon, making this attack unblockable.
If Anet just increases the Cleave only from 2 to 3, then this Trait should also increase the AA Attack Speed by 25%, when wielding 2 Daggers.

With these changes would be D/D more on par with the other Sets with one point receiving only, if you Trait for it to make D/D significantly better to give it a Hard CC, that it needs to be same as effective as, making it possible with Merciless Dagger when used at the right moment to practically hard cc with a Stun 2 Targets, if it bounces between both targets its full 3x successfully, while removing also that way of them 1 boon, for the cost, that the skill doesn’t cripple then anymore.

its on the works for that, when HoT releases, all Elite Specializations and upcoming ones will receive completely own class icons … has been also already officially confirmed, but can#t find the thread, as the thread is already like x months old …

I haven’t said anything about nerfing only Ele :P
I said also that Mesmers need the nerf bat also.. but personally I’m absolutely also for some nerfs in the thief meta, if therefore D/D becomes finally on par with the other builds and we receive finally some dire needed trait and utility skill merges as also a rework of the steal mechanism which is with 30s base recharge time way too slow.
Thieves need more options to steal boons, that would be a good help against Eles, if we could steal them their healing skill to set it onto cool down, or if steal would actually really disarm an enemy to disable as thief for a while that they spam their skills or change attunements like crazy.
That way we would have some counters to their control gameplay and would have with the ability to steal more boons and the healing skill a better way to outplay Elementalists, if used at the right moment right before we burst to prevent them from instantly healing them up back to full health again, so that our advantage of surprise don’t goes totally poof into thin air without any effect.

Sigh, to bring this to an end, I just hope, that the Thief Elite Spec will bring back some of the needed balance, so that we stay again better a chance against these Eles due to the Elite Spec traits that we will get. That anything will be among them that helps a D/D thief to become more competitve again.

Yeah, please don’t remind me on Mesmers, thanks Mighty xD lol I know, this absolute true fact.
Thats why I put them in regard of OP’ness on the same level as like Eles, because Mesmers make Thieves currently and especially in future with Chronomancers, if this game balance stays so, pretty much obsolete >.<

The problem is, you can’t counter these kind of bunkerish Eles with even a bunkerish thief..

Because

A) Anet destroyed our second half that made us kind of survivable agaisnt the bursts of an Ele completely by shredding Acrobatics into pieces
B) when going seriously for a more defensive Thief build to last longer againdst these high condition stacks of Burning and Bleeding, we absolutely lack the power to be even a threat to these Eles, because they can simply outheal everything, even our bursts by just using their heals..and even poison helps not this much, because with Evasive arcana and their constant condition removals that a Thief can only dream of, they basicalyl can constantly remove it, before it becomes even dangerous for them.

D/D Thief simply lacks in everythign to be really a danger at all for a D/D Ele…
Thats what I mean,t that the current balance of this game practically forces us into the S/D, D/P and P/D Meta, to be even competitive together with SA, because anythign else isn’t viable anymore at all …

Thieves aren’t meant really to +1.. yeah under the current game balance it might be so, because the Thief is now so underwhelming weak after pretty much all other Classes received with the last patch so much power creep, that its alot safer for a thief now to constantly +1, than to do duels, unless you play one of the thief meta builds that are competitive enough to roam with them around solo or hold with them points in PvP, cause of them not requiring so much Stealth to deal enough damage.

I’ve seen also very good thieves and I’m sure not as good at playing the thief, but that has something to do with my personal little issues with hand to eye reflexes.
However I still believe that Eles need a tone down. I see it here in the forums and also ingame, that I’m not alone with this opinion, but naturally the opinion how to tone them done is from person to person different.

My proposals may be in regard of the chosen numbers maybe a bit too much, who knows, but I’m sure, they go into the right direction. If the Ele receives then also some buffs at the same time at Scepter, Focus and Staff to make these Weapons a bit more viable, I think we would see then also alot more build diversity and not only practically everywhere D/D Eles running around in PvP and WvW, unless you’re running with a Zerg, where you find alot of Staff Eles naturally.

I’m also open minded enough to accept, that when Damage shouldn’t get nerfed, that it would be absolutely ok also, if ANet simply does something about the too good survivability or control at the same time. What exactly is naturally then their job to decide.

lol true facts.. I can also boast myself like you and try to tell people, that everythign that has been said is true facts..

And sure are my proposed changes in your opinion “crap”, because they would make your cheese build weaker, so that you can’t burst targets in practically a few seconds down to death anymore… true facts, I tell you, true facts!
Rocket Science for this true obvious argument /facepalm.

You know, other classes like the thief are far away from such insane burst possibilities, which require even to be first in the state of stealth that lasts only a few seconds and require to be self and the enemy within that limited time to be at correct positioning to be able to burst that much and even then we lack at all other things where the Ele is with his D/D build absolutely in advantage…

You say I have no clues of the game, play the thief and try to win against your ele build. Then comeback and tell me if you lost the fight, because I’m pretty sure, in 80-90% of all cases does the Ele under this current game balance let you win when a D/D Ele hits on a D/D thief …because they simply have this much better survivability, this much better control of the fight, once their rotation starter hit first successfully by launching the thief, cause a thief has sooooo much defense against hard ccs. yeah, Stability pretty much…(sarcasm), but oh who had thought this, its true facts!!
The most annoying thing about this superb survivability and control his, that they are at the same time also same as good in damage dealing, if not even better than thieves and don’t require for their bursts a gameplay mechanic first as preparation and don’t require that much of positioning therefore to just get a chance of bursting your target in a very limited time window.

All an Ele needs to do is learning just the right skill combination and spamming it through as fast as possible and even for that there exist many black sheeps among the players, that use for this macros..but thats sadly hard to impossible to proof.. oh well , again true facts …

@laraley: I have to disagree. sure people won#t use other weapons, if the made changes on them aren’t good enough to compensate for the nerfs, but if Scepter, Staff and Focus woudl receive changes, that make them viable good alternative options over playing D/D, I strongly believe in it, that alot more people would change their builds, than you may think that people will do that.
But sure, if the changes are naturally in the opinion of the D/D Ele meta community not “good enough”, then it will come only under guarantee to a massive forum QQ wave for the nerfs of D/D..thats sure.. oh , true fact I have to say ^^

Supreme, I have no problems with it, when I lose to a good played Ele from a person, who maisn this class and plays it also very long, thus has experience with it, but don’t think that losing to Stealth and losing just to simple overwhelming DPS are the same thing…

If you lost to Stealth from a Thief, this simply means L2P, because you didn’t know, how predictable the whole Gameplay of the Thief is, most likely, because you don’t have ever played Thief self in such a case.
Thats the reason, why this argument gets brought out so oftenly.
But in case of too much DPS and Condition Spam paired together with too good survivability and CC all in one class, theres not much to do about it, especially when the only options that are left for you in case of the Thief force you practically to play this class after the Meta, if you want to stay with it competitive, otherwise you are in a heavy disadvantage.

However, maybe I’m just only struggling with Eles, because Anet destroyed completely our Acrobatics line and the fact, that we get forced to use SA if we want to have any serious competitive condi removal..

But practically the most annoying thing about this whole build that annoys me the most… that Eles which have this super good survivability and control through lots of CCs are able to easily deal at the same time same as much if not even more burst damage, than a Thief and that simply through spamming through their rotations of RTL/Updraft/Burning Speed/Fire Grab/Magnetic Grasp/Earthquake/Ring of Earth/Churnign Earth and then lightning whipping foes to death if somethign maybe has survived this, until they can repeat that rotation…
So if Eles should not lose anythign about their DPS, what I can understand, then there needs to be put the nerf bat at least either on the survivability ,or the control part…

I don’t care about it, if the Devs take my suggestions here now serious or not, in the end they are nothign else than inspirations anyways.
But what i do care about is game balance and as i have said, no class, regardless which one should be able to have any kind of build, that allows them to defeat players in like 5 seconds, without giving them practicalyl a chance to fight back.

Other people believe, the culprit alone is Burning, but I don#t think that burning nerfed alone woudl make of for such a huge difference… Eles would be still able to kill players instead of in 5 seconds maybe like in 7 seconds due to burning needign simply now a bit longer to get the needed damage over time done.

I think it really can’t be THAT bad to nerf D/D in favor of making Scepter, Staff and Focus more worthful to be used…
Its 1 nerf for the better result of receiving therefore 3 improved general more useful build options for using Scepter, Staff or Focus over D/D

Hey Supreme, ever thought about it, that each class needs also to have weaknesses and not only strenghs???

Because at the moment the Ele has nearly no weaknesses except of having not the ability to stealth and having no weapon swap, therefore that they are one class that has access to most skills in combat to swap elements out for versatility in combat, which works practically already like a 4x weapon swap for them.

I don’t know, how long you play already GW2, but I play it nearly since release and I can remember myself on times, where I had alot of tough fights agaisnt good Eles already, before they had all this power creep they have gotten lately.

Believe me, after some of those changes, you will still be good enough to fight against stealth spammers…just that you can’t mow them down in a matter of seconds anymore, what is likely what you want to defend here…
No fights, regardless of which class fights agaisnt which class whatsoever should be finishable in a matter of like like 5 seconds…
Any class that is able to do that, is absolutely overpowered and needs to get toned down.

Also ever thought about it, that it should’t be by design the task of Elementalists to deal with stealth spammers? The game has other classes, like the Ranger and the Engineer, which job it is mainly to do that… classes, that have skills to actively reveal thieves.

However, it surely could be an option for Scepter Skills to add to one of them a Reveal function, if it’s seriously needed to make it more viable, if the nerfs to D/D are then ok.

Phoenix could reveal thieves on its flight or Dust Devil together with reducing the Activation time of some of the Scepter AA to be nearly same as fast as the Dagger AAs, like reducing Flamestrike from 1 1/4s to say 3/4s
Or making Arc Lightning in its animation faster, that it doesn’t take 3 1/2 seconds anymore, but only 2 1/2 seconds to use it

Come on, don’t be so negative, only because someone wants to see some changes to your most beloved cheese build …
Theres always a way to come up with fitting compensations therefore that a weapon gets nerfed, when the only problem it is, that the other weapon options compared to D/D are too slow and your only problem it is to have a way to handle against Stealth

I think nerfing burning simply only wouldn’t be the right solution, because nerfing Burning would be a nerf, that hits far more classes that have nothign to do with it, that Elementalist is OP in general and that is not only the fault of Burning alone.

Why should suffer the Gameplay of an Guardian, whose only condition he has is Burning mainly by design, when the Elementalist is OP and not the Guardian?

Please give me a honest reason for it, why other classes that can use Burning should be pulled into the mud, when balance is mainly needed only currently on Mesmer and Elementalist the most? In regard of Mesmer its not even Burning, its mainly the insane combination of Torment and Confusion at the moment that they spam like crazy…

Sure, reducing the Power Scale naturaly already nerfs the base damage, but in a different way, than it does by just simply reducing the Base Damage without affecting the Power Scale.

By making a change also to the Power Scale, you affect with that all Players, that are heavily build into maximising Power, so for example Zerker Eles and Cele Eles that get through it also a decent amount of Power.

By just reducing only the Base Damage of a Skill, you don’t simply affect only specific Builds, but you affect this way practically all builds, regardless of your Stat Point Build the same way.
So by adding a change also to the Power Scale, you make sure that this Balance Change affects Power Builds stronger, than the other Builds and that was also my intention with that proposal that Eles that use Power Builds get stronger affected by this change, than a player with a more defensive Stat Build that doesn’ use so much power, but rather plays Condi Build instead or critical hit build over raw power…

If reducing both factors in the end is really needed, is just somethign that you can know only, if these changes get tested out to decide, if its already enough by just reducing the Base Damage, or if its better to affect stronger Power Build Users for the game Balance by reducing also the Power Scale in the Calculation, like proposed for Dragons Claw from 3,75 to 3,5, what isn’t really THAT much now …but could be simply enough to make the needed difference.

Part 2 for your other asked question.

The reason why a person should use after these changes Dagger over say for example Scepter is pretty simple.
The Dagger would be still the faster Attacker and would be still better at DPS, than the Scepter. All Dagger Skills still have faster Attack Activation Times after my changes, than the Scepter.
Dagger would still be the better option for Melee Combat, as Burning Speed would allow you now for its longer Recharge Time to have also Condition Remove and Swiftness from the old Windborne Speed being merged ito it and your Lightning Whipping would stay still strong, even if it doesn’t cleave anymore and deals now only 1 hit, but makes the foe therefore vulnerable, just dealing now slightly lesser damage to make the Fire AA more viable with its already cleaving multi hitting cone mechanic.
Theres no need to have basically the same function twice in a weapon build.

A little nerf to RTL is needed, because it made Eles simply too mobile, allowed them for too easy flees and is used together with a macro’ed updraft to use it also to instantly launch a foe, which is against the game rules anyways, because its an action that lets you do more than 1 thing per button press. To prevent this macroing, its neccessary that RTL gets nerfed with an automatically followed own daze, so that the character can’t instantly use after RTL updraft anymore.

D/D is used also compared to D/F, or S/F, because D/D provides Eles that insane healing options and the good condiremovals through Cleansing Wave, that you have only if you use an Offhand Dagger and only with offhand dagger you can have an on demand Frost Aura to increase together with protection your maximum damage reduction to 43%, what makes it alot easier for Eles to outheal incoming damage, especially when they weaken also foes, whats something they can do also too.

Evasive Arcana especially with the OP cleansing wave is one of the reasons, why eles have currently such an insane survivability… because they can cleanse and heal themself and allies on dodge, even if the skill of the weapon is on cool down, when attuned to water. It’s base healing is simply too strong for that and it should be only strong, if the player invests also alot into Healing Power.

Plus only when usign Dagger as offhand do you have under earth attunement a strong AoE knockdown and aoe bleeding skill with that you deal high damage and in regard of churning earths direct and condition damage currently too much, therefore, that it is an aoe skill that hits multiple targets and also cripples them.

That you ask me this just shows me, that my proposed changes are made at the right spots, because you immeditely believe, that D/D wouldn’t be a viable build anymore, cause I made all the other Weapons as build options a bit more more interesting…

D/D is kind of meta for PvP/WvW roaming, because no other build of the Ele is able to dish out so much DPS, while still beign able to have super high healing abilities and good condition removals and doing all this dogether also with lots of conditions at the same time due to Burning and Bleeding, while controling the enemy non stop with alot of CCs like Stun, Launch and soft ccs like chill and cripple and that in an unbelieveable fats spammy way that places all the fast gameplay of the Thief absolutely in its shadow, because it has absolutely no limitation and can be rotated through not stop, cause your skill recharge times don’t count for all your weapon skills, while Initiative is shared between all Thief Skills, what makes our spammy gameplay extremely limitated, where an Ele just needs to change in a second his attunement to be instantly able again to spam 5 new skills and that 4x in a row in under a minute…

Why is D/D so meta.. because the other weapon options aren’t really viable everwhere in the game and not as good as D/D.
Alot of the other weapons have too long recharge times, especially the Focus and the Staff to make them more viable build options, while the D/D set is simply a way too good jack of all trades option, especialls when used with Celestial Set where that Set shines the most, cause the Class makes the most usage from having all Stats increased.

You want a single profession,. which would not be able to destroy the best Ele Player.
Simpple… Thief…. because the Class is after the Trait Change Patch so insanely destroyed, that we would have even after these changes probably a hard time to defeat a really well played macro’d Elementalist that spams through his rotations, because we lack massively in many areas, where the Ele is absolutely superb in…

Thieves have no access to Skills and Skill Mechanicss, that allow them to receive 43% lesser Damage. No Protections, no Frost Armor
We have only a poor 25% damage reduction, and for that we need to be in stealth!!
So to get Damage Reduction we are forced to use Shadow Arts, because Anet absolutely destroyed completely our other viable defense option that was Acrobatics to outmaneuver incoming damage through alot of dodges.

Eles have much better usage from Healing Power, it effects them much better, than it does for Thieves.. I could have tons of healing power and I still would be able to outheal with my attacks the DPS spam of a nerfed down D/D Cele Ele. Don’t get me even started on trying to outheal the DPS from a Zerker Ele, simply impossible.

Eles have much better and constant Condition Removals, than Thieves, we have only viable good Condition removal again when beign in Stealth and our Stealth is ridiculously underpowered again, compared now to Mesmers and soon in the future to Chronomancers that makes them able to easily get up to 52 seconds of Stealth!!
This is already shown in the Thief section via Video Proof, how crazy the Chronomancer makes Thieves practically obsolete!!

General Game Design… and you take this as a sort of Rule, that can’t change with general Game Balance Changes? Seriously?
Don’t you think also General Game Design can change, if it the general Game Balance requires to make more of the Elementalists Weapons viable interestign options to choose them situationally over playing D/D. To create more viable Build Diversity that way and to break that way up a bit the D/D Meta that you see practically everywhere only, unless you run in a zerg and support it from backline with the Staff, because nothing else than these 2 weapon build options are mostly viable now?

Id love to see Tornado gettign reworked also with the tablet in mind, so that you summon the tornado and control it then. So tornado changes your Weapon SKill Bar into Tornado Skills

1) Move Tornado = Ground Target Skill, that lets your summoned Tornado Move to your Ground Target. Tornado will suck enemies that are in its path in and deals per second Bleeding Stacks
2) Thunderstorm = Adds for a moment a thunderstorm to the Tornado, letting in a area around the Tornado Lightnings Strikes crush into the area hitting foes, whenever the Tornado deals Bleeding Stacks to foes. Max 5 Targets.
3) Heavy Wind = The Tornado becomes temporarely so strong, that it cripples also the next time it deals a Bleeding Stack and the Bleedign Stacks next time will be stronger.
4) Protective Wind = Lets the Tornado move with Super Speed for a while and at its position when it stops appears a swirling wind, that blocks projectiles.
5) Engulfing Wind = The Tornado sucks in now even rocks, cows and anything thats in its way, so that sucked in enemies will receive now not only Bleedign Stacks, but also Poison from sucked in cows and direct Damage from sucked in rocks.

My kind of way, how I’d love Tornado to see it functionating.
A summonable controalable natural power.

@Mattmatt
Is it my problem, if you don’t use all of your skills?
No.
Is it my problem, if you don’t fight effectively by using all of your skills?
No
Is it really stupid to not use all of your skills?
Yes
Why is it stupid?
Because you waste your Damage Potential and as you describe it self, it can still be used to buy yourself time, until you can use again a Skill, that you think is more useful for you at the situation, while still doing constant damage and each of the Elements AA’s are useful in different situations…

- Fireball for Might Stacking when traited
- Water Blast for AoE Ally Healing
- Chain Lightning could need a little buff compared to Fireball
- Stoning is self explanatory, AA Weakness is very good and that on 1200 range
—-
- Flame Strike …AA Burning, easier can’t you keep your enemy permanently burning
- Ice Shards could need a little buff
- Arc Lightning is damage over time that hits multiple targets in LoS
- Stone Shards..AA Bleeding, very good together with Flame Strike for Condis
—-
- Dragons Claw is Multi Hit, thus has more chances to trigger Rune/Sigil Effects
- Vapor Blade is AA Vulnerability, essential good for all builds to increase the damage you can deal, especially now that Vulnerability also counts for Conditions, which is another reason, why Conditions are so OP now, thats somethign that needs to get reverted back.
- Lightning Whip is op compared to Dragon’s Claw, because it has basically the same power, with lesser hits and cleaves and thats I think the reason, why you say, nobody is using Fire AA, especialyl with a D/D build, sure, when LW does what DC does and that better..the reason why I see in WvW Eles only auto attacking with this …
The cleave needs to get removed and it should deal only 1 hit, not 2 LW should deal AA Vulnerability. Vapor Blade should get changed to AA Torment on second returning hit.
- Impale is AA Bleeding, could need a little buff in form of increasing its range from 300 to 450 and adding cripple to it, if you attack with it targets, that have more than x stacks of bleeding

This is another reason for why all the other Classes, especially Mesmer and Elementalist need some significant nerfs to get back down to earth, while the Thief should finally receive the buffs and a very good defensive working E-Specialization with the Staff to become with all the latest powercreep from all the other classes again competeable with having also some mechanics, in which the Thief is absolutely the best at….

But Anet kept on removing everythign what the thief made so special from patch to patch.. the only 2 things that are left is Stealing, which is ridiculously underpowered compared to what the other classes can do and the Initiative System.. which is also underpowered due to strogn Limitations, as Initiative is shared between all our weapons, compared to how fast an Elementalist can spam through their ret peep Macro Rotations (come on, we all now that alot of them do this and Anret doesn’t seem to care, in regard of how unhumanly fast they can spam through these rotations in under a minute)

Would Thieves receive on weapon swap again a complete full initiative bar, then it would be compared to Eles more balanced and it would encourage also players more to swap weapons in the mid of combat to profitate from that regain of initiative…
Either this, or Eles need to share their skill recharge times all also too finalyl between their Elements, means, that if they use for example Staff 5 on Fire and change then to Water, that their Water 5 Skill will then also be at recharge time …. this would be a simply change, that would finally stop this extreme spammy gameplay of Eles and would heavily balance them back to earth finally.

Thiefs need alot of Trait Merges to make space for better and more useful Traits.
They need more defensive mechanics and control. They should be the absolute best class in boon stealing and skill stealing.

Using Steal shouldn let us receive a class based different skill..
When we use steal on an enemy, it should shortly disarm them, so that they can’t use for a short while their weapon skills.

Signet of Malice needs for its active effect a remplete redesign, so that when it gets activated, whe use a shadow stepping steal on the enemy, which will make it for a while impossible for the enemy to use his heal skill, because we have stolen the skill and use it self on us, setting for the enemy the healing skill onto recharge time which would a best done short before we burst a target, what is eassitatlly important agaisnt these currently overpowered cheese build eles with their godmode healings to bring them essentially into dangerous situations, where they can’t heal themself back so easily to full health again, because we disable them their healign skill before, so that they have to rely themself on regeneration and healing fields or healings from allies…

Thieves Guild should get improved in letting them steal the Elite Skills of the enemies that they attack and use them instantly against their targets, disablign this way the Elites for enemies setting them on recharge time.
This way becomes TG not only finally a useful Elite Skill self, which should become also finally useable under water, but it would help us also especially in survivability, if the Thiefv would have its ways to stop people from usign their Elite Skills, like the ret peep I win button Elite of the Mesmer, that transforms you into a Moa or the very powerful Elite of the Elementalist that summons that fiery greatsword that Eles like to use either to flee with that easily out of combat or to spam you full with even more burning after their initial fire macro rotation spam.

Healing
- Arcane Brilliance can be used now also too under water. Recharge Time reduced from 25 to 20s
- Ether Renewal can be used now also under water. Reduced Pulses from 8 to 5. Recharge Time increase from 18 to 20s
- Healing per cast of Signet of Resoration reduced from 202 to 175
- Glyph of Elemental Power Recharge Time from 25 to 30
———

Utility
- Effect of Arcane Power changed to: Your next six casts let you gain for 2 seconds Fury. Recharge Time reduced from kitten to 35s
- Arcane Shield Recharge Time from 75s to 60s
- Range of Arcane Blast from 1500 to 1200. Increased Damage from 345 to 400
- Armor of Earth Recharge Time from 75s to 60s
- Reduced Curing Conditions of Cleansing Fire to 1 Condition per Hit Target. Not anymore 3 guaranteed cured conditions, regardless if you hit targets or not …
- Lightning Flash can be used now under water
- Mist Form Recharge Time from 75s to 60s. You heal now allies if you move in Mist Form through them.
- Glyphs of Lesser Elementals can be used now under water. Summoned Elementals will have now under water versions.
- Glyph of Elemental Power Recharge Time from 45 seconds to 35 seconds
- Glyph of Storms Recharge Time from 60 seconds to 45 seconds
——-

Elite
- Glyph of Elementals Recharge Time from 120s to 90s.
Can be used now also under water.

I see it coming too and its well deserved, together with hopefully some mesmer nerfs…
Theres nearly nothing, except stealth, that they can’t do..
Changes that I would do, that would be enough to bring Eles down to Earth again would be these:

Staff:
- Fireball Skill Activation from 1s to 3/4s
- Frozen Ground Recharge Time from 40s to 30s
- Healing Rain Recharge Time from kitten to 40s
- Lightning Surge Recharge Time from 10s to 8s and let it cause also Vulnerability
- Recharge Time from 30 to 20s
- Windborne Speed, replaced. Windborne Speed gets merged into Burning Speed

Hurricane that will cause at your place a strong hurricane, that will reflect projectiles and sucks nearby foes to your position for a while and that grants Fury when it reflects projectiles to you and nearby allies.
- Magnetic Aura that it grants you now temporarely Stability instead and lets you block the next incoming 3 Melee Attacks while its up
- Shockwave Bleeds and Launches now instead of Immobilize.

Daggers
- Reduce Dragon Claws Damage per Hit from 127 to 120 and reduce the Power Formula Calculator for 3,75 to 3,5. Increase its Range from 400 to 600.
- Burning Speed rechar Time from 15 to 30s and increase the Activation Time from 3/4s to 1s. Reduces the Range from 600 to 450.
Set the Base Damage from 679 to 500, Increases the Fire Wall Damage from 34 to 75. Remove the Evade Effect, add the Effect of Windborne Speed into this Skill, granting Swiftness and removing Chill/Immobilize.
- Ring of Fire Recharge Time s increased from 15 to 30s, Duration increased from 5s to 10s.
- Reduces Damage of Fire Grab on Burning Foes from 951 to 850, reduces its range from 300 to 180 and launches foes now away if hitting a burning foe.
- Reduces Healing of Cleansing Wave from 1302 to 850 and has now an increased Healing Power Calculator thats rased from 1 to 2
- Reduces Damage of Lightning Whip from 428 to 350 and its Power Calculator is instead of 1,26 reduced to 1,15
- Lightning Touch will get changed from causign Weakness to causing Vulnerability
- Shocking Auras Effect gets changed, it won’t stun anymore, it will cause now Weakness
- Ride the Lightning can be used now only when you have a target. Maximum Range is now 900. Lets you evade Attacks now, but after using it will you be dazed now for a second.
- Updrafts Recharge Time from 40seconds to 45 seconds. Removed the Evade Effect. Reduced the Number of Targets from 5 to 3
- Ring of Earth Recharge Time from 6 to 8s
- Reduces Bleeding of Churning Earth from 8 Stacks of Bleeding to 5 Stacks.
Reduced Damage from 1104 to 900 and the Power Calculator gets reduced from 3,25 to 3. Activation Time gets reduced from 3 1/4s to 3s

Scepter
- Dragons Tooth gets removed and exchanged with a new Skill called
Meteor Strike
Meteor Strike is an AoE like DT before, but it causes not burning, it knocks foes down
and causes Vulnerability, while also dealing slightly lesser damage than DT. 700 instead of 764
-Phoenix recharge Time from 20s to 15s. Gives now when letting it fly over Downed Allies them a significant Healing and gives these downed Allies a Fire Aura.
- Increases Damage of Lightning Strike from 408 to 475
- Increases Damage and Velocity of Dust Devil by 50%

Focus
- Flame Wall Recharge Time from 20 to 15s. Blocks now also Projectiles.
- Fire Shield Recharge Time from 40 to 30s
- Effect Changed from Freezing Gust from Chill to Immobilize.
- Comet gets removed and exchanged with a new Skill
Blurred Vision Deal Damage with Steam, which blinds foes and weakens them.
- Swirling Wind gets replaced by a new Skill now
Shock Arrow
You shoot in a line of sight now a lighting arrow, that ignores 25% armor of foes and deals damage to all foes in its LoS. Hit foes will get crippled.
- Gale Recharge Time from 50s to 40s and lets you gain a Wind Aura for 5s, which causes Bleedings to foes, that attack you.
- Obsidian Flesh Recharge Time from 50s to 40s and causes foes that attack you in in that state to receive Weakness.

Had yesterday a little talk with one of the Programmers that is responsible for WvW about the WvW Achievements and that they are for 3 years already unreachable placeholders, if there are any plans on fixing the WvW Achievements, once HoT has been released.

This was basically his answer in short lines of what I can remember what he said exactly:

• WvW Achievements will get fixed somewhen in the future, but he wasn’t naturally able to tell exactly when, because WvW achievements are currently a big problem for them.
• They are such a big problem, that he basically described the situation, that they are at the moment at a point, where they are “pointless” of how to solve the situation, because fixing all the other Achievements for WvW isn’t by far so easy, like changing those 2 other WvW Achievements, that have been cut down by required numbers.

• The reason for this is, so have I understood it is, its hard to make a decision to set up those new thresholds, because whatever new threshold they choose, there will be always people, which have then already much more points in certain achievements, and that would cause for the system a big problem, because then you would have for all these accounts, that are suddenly way higher than the new point threshold for the Achievements “false/wrong datas” in the system, that would cause Bugs and in the worst scenario could cause the data to be LOST

Thats a high risk naturally, if there exists the possibility, that by fixing the WvW Achievements everyone higher than the new threshold might lose their progression due to suddenly lost data in the process of changign the WvW Achievements

As I understood it, its a 100% pure technical programming problem caused by changing the data, that if peopel are suddenly way over the new maximum generates problems.
——

When this is all true, and changing the WvW Achievements means such a great risk for losing the data of progression and all…

Don’t you all think then not too, that it wouldn’t be the best solution then to simply delete for everyone the current WvW Achievements inclusive all gained points, letting everyone, who has reached already before of that change an AP milestone that ends on 000 or 500 for a chest don’t get a chest the next time they reach again that milestone.

And by doing this then implement say for exampel with the next Feature patch a complete new and oveworked system for the WvW Achievements to let practically everyone start from new there.

I mena, if everyone gets their old Achievements and progress removed for a complete new restart of WvW achievements, I think theres nothign frong with that, because nobody will profit from that, but also nobody will lose anything compared to other players, cause everyone will lose some AP.

Lets say everyone has currently in all Achievements Rank 2-3, k, we are generous, say all achievements rank 3.
Then this would be in total for the average WvW Player 219 AP that everyone would lose, some might lose a bit more, some might lose a bit less than this.

So chances that someone will fall under a current AP milestoen are pretty big for alot of players with that amount of reduced AP, which everyone will receive then later back with the new imprved and reworked WvW Achievements.

Sure, is absolutely no perfect solution, there are never perfect solutions, but I think its at least one, that will work out in a way, that it creates a working foundation onto which can be build up a new WvW Achievement System.