Guild Wars 2

tluv.5821:

Thief killed me in less than 4 seconds. Had 26k hp. Imbolized, poisoned and bled me, all while being stealthed. I couldn’t even get one spell off. That is OPed.

Let me guess, he was perma-stealth, was dual wielding greatswords, used pistol whip and backstab at the same time that each applied 12.5 stacks of bleeds and poison then ran off without taking any damage

Anet, please nerf dual wielded greatsword thieves.

Played S/D last night for a good 4-5 hours, was quite a lot of fun. Infiltrators → CD → Tactical strike for dat daze is really good.

Piriel.5197:

Glass cannon builds are just as the name says. The tradeoff is not nice. Also backstab doesn’t constantly crit, and personally I’ve never hit 15k (11k max – maybe I’m doing it wrong ). Even with the 15k, considering the setup it needs just for one hit, where you basically need to pray for a crit and the fact that if you don’t crit you can be extremely easily picked off after all the preparations, I’d say it’s ok.

While i understand what you mean, you’re wrong in the praying for a crit, with the 100% from steath crit trait.

I agree, quickness 100b warriors need a nerf.

It feels like with pub hotjoin matches, free play pub tournies, paid pre-made paid tournies and private servers for scrims that each (general) level of play is catered for, if a little sloppily. So a ranking system doesn’t feel quite as urgent.

Also what other esport focused game has no option for a private match? The answer is none, as the private server is a staple of any esport.

Just hopefully they can get it all out asap so that people with an esports/spvp focus dont move on.

Berylex.4198:

Paranoid — I agree that option #1 partly deals with that problem, but it does it in a way that is much slower; and still lacks the benefits of a ladder. In fact, I suspect we’ll still see a whole lot of mismatches within the paid tournament system if we don’t see some sort of match-making system implemented.

Simply put, all of it is needed. We all know that all of this stuff is needed. It’s down to prioritising.

If they are focused on an esports scene, then they are going about it the right way. To get more fans watching their esport, they need dedicated players. To have dedicated players they need tournaments and winnings (not just gems). To get these you need a tournament structure and/or private servers.

Next would be observer (for casting) and matchmaking.

I bet you any amount of money, if they had of annouced that they’re working on a ranking/matchmaking system, people would be screaming murder that there is no esport development. Demanding private servers and tournament facilities.

Berylex.4198:

Right now, casual players are joining tournaments solo; and are getting stomped by elite teams. Add a ranking system and this won’t happen.

Or put in a paid tournament system where you require a premade team to enter.

Oh wait, that’s part of #1.

I’m all for a ranking system and leaderboard, but they are taking the right steps. Next up would be observer mode so that these higher end matches can get more exposure.

Or ladder/leaderboard then observer, if it wont take much time to implement.

Pray.9751:

i’d really like to see jon get fired over this, unfortunately for the game he probably will not and the bs’ing will continue

Wow you need to settle down.

For anything esports related, private servers for scrims is a top priority/must have. For this reason alone I’m going with #1.

BobF.3509:

I’m afraid I’m done with this game.

Cool, cya.

@Blog
Lookin good, be speedy with these, the sooner this stuff is out the sooner people will see higher level play and realise that the game doesnt revolve around glass cannon builds!

Ezekeel.2837:

So if I want to make some duels with a friend I need to rent an arena server?

Or just going into an empty server like I was doing yesterday.

NinjaEd.3946:

BIGGEST THIEF WEAKNESS? prolly the fact that you can get channeled dead on while entering stealth and it only lasts 3-5 seconds. Not saying perma stealth is a good idea, but we do need a slight bump in duration. (6-10 seconds, excluding shadow refuge)

Wow that would be broken. Stealth duration is fine as is.

NinjaEd.3946:

Thieves get too many nerfs as is…

Am I just missing something here or have we done pretty well in regards to nerfs.

Pretty much just heartseeker (was needed), a stealth on falling trait and this pistolwhip/BV.

Is there others that are making people feel like they have a target on their back?

Dee Jay.2460:

With my current burst build I can gain an extra 14 stacks of Might (2 Singets + 2 Venoms) before going in for a Backstab. That’s kind of a lot.

I think ANet…if they do intend to nerf our burst, would do well to address all these Might-stacking traits rather than nerfing the actual damage of abilities.

Idk man, using 3 utils and your elite for 1 strike seems like quite a trade off… Just sayin’

Maybe not drop someone in 1 swing sort of power, but you should get a kitten big boost to your damage. Assassin’s signet is probably what needs to be looked at here, might stacks (imo) are fine.

Edit: Granted, the might does stick around for follow ups too.

@ Bazeleel

I think he’s saying that warriors are Anet’s love child. Even though they are pretty mediocre for most everything.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Well buddy, in PVE time is money, and killing things half as fast as you used to is costly.

Everyone seems to be forgetting that this nerf has FAR more impact in PVE than it does in PVP.

True, seems it might be a bit hard on the PvE builds. Thems the breaks I guess, P/D sustain build here, lets have a slow kill competition.

Blacksarevok.8104:

The only other worthwhile ability is Black Powder, and P/P + D/P both supply it as well. People go S/P for Pistol Whip, not for anything else. Now that they made it more-or-less do the same damage as the #1 attacks, there’s no reason to play it. That’s not the fault of the players, that’s the fault of the developers making “one trick pony” kits that rely on a single ability to make it viable.

I think it’d be pretty viable within a decent team, which is what I think Anet intended it for.

Figure a reliable way to geting into stealth and you can keep someone daze locked for 3 seconds in a sword build, which oddly enough is enough time to recloak and daze lock again.

All theorical of course, it just seems the general mindset atm is “I must kill things, NOW for the kitten!”

Knyx.5926:

@bwillb It is a bug,
Any self root on ANY ability on a class designed for MOBILITY, let me repeat that for you in case you forgot your glasses; MOBILITY based class, is a bug. No dev with an IQ higher then a chimpanzee would add that, so considering they can obviously post on the forums and make statements with real sentences I am going to guess they can dress and feed themselves as well. Ergo self root is a bug

Now you stare at the grass for a moment

You need to learn the definition of the word bug in this context. Self root on this attack was intended and is working as such. Perhaps “Poor design choice” would be better used.

Perhaps this is a way of Anet putting forward that this weapon setup isnt about the instagib but is about control having dazes, stuns, blinds, cripples and immobilizes.

It might cause people to use pistol whip in a more situational way instead of it being practically the only thing used.

Probably stacked conditions. I dont have much (if any) condition removal in my current spec.

Hard CC is also not favourable, usually makes me need to leg it.

Umm, I dont know if it’s THE MOST survivable build, but works quite well for me

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#czkMzc9cMnFvoMnFvo9MxGGoRqMkVk8khG7khE7070M7kG270M7kuB70M7owZ70m

Stealth abilitity is powerful in WvW because generally people are increadibly unobservant. Stealth to the back of a pack and shoot them from behind and most people dont even notice till they are about to go down.

Also I suppose it might vary from server to server, as I dont notice more thieves than any other class, probably even less. We had about 30 people in our guild online last night and I believe we had 4 thieves total.

Nicomachiavelli.3046:

It’s a series of skills, from what I understand. Whoever designed the thief underwater combat almost certainly did not intend for this to happen. The skills were probably just meant to have evasion with no regard to how they might be used together.

They were probably designed for PvE purposes, with only minimal thought for PvP, like every other under water kit. Underwater combat in general is broken and stupid.

I’m aware that bugs and exploits are different, however one example of exploiting is using a bug to your advantage ala. arrowcart keeplords.

Put your sensible pants on, reframe from crying exploits (unless it legitimately is) and leave capricorn to join firefoe like every other sane person.

Nicomachiavelli.3046:

It is an exploit, plain and simple. I will not apologize for calling it this. It is not acceptable.

Needs a change? Prossibly.

Exploit? No.

The devs did intend for those skills to function in that way otherwise they wouldnt have those characteristics. However they may not have tested it/seen how good it could be as water combat in this game is a gimmick at best.

This isnt a bug or a mistake that people are taking advantage of, its skill sets that you could argue require a change.

Selling items made mostly of karma items to sell for massive money is an exploit. Buying level 60 rares for 21 karma is an expoit. Shooting keep lords with arrowcarts for unintended places is an exploit.

Using your weapon skills in a certain order is not an exploit.

It’s not an exploit, it’s the spear attack 5 that does a series of attacks, however you get “evade” for the entire duration. There is also a guard/block move and a flanking strike type move that also evades.

It does probably need to be changed, however it’s not an exploit, please learn what you’re talking about before calling exploits.

It is both.

TeoH.2098:

Also if they’re useless and you ‘roll them all day long’, why are you arguing that those builds should be kittened out of existance in this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Thiefs-Discussion-Thread-Merged/page/6#post329998

?

Oop you caught me, I really should hide my posting history better.

I actually get kitten all the time by those thieves man. Or maybe I have no problem facing them but can still see that they have a bit too much?

Boy is it rare to see a thread that says that necros are very very powerful.

So you’re primarily crossfire/bleed damage? Necro have large health pools and eat bleeds. It’s not that they are really really strong, it’s just that their toolset is good for going against your weapon choice.

Elementalists and thieves have a lot of gap closing abilities, as a ranger you need to keep your distance to be at maximum effectiveness. Again, seems it’s a toolset clash here. Although many will say thief is op because it’s a thief.

This gap closing thing is also why you find engi/warrior/guardian easier. Because they are a lot more stationary type fighters, also sustain damage (i.e. you) are good against these particular classes. So these classes aren’t weak, it’s that your weapon choice does well against them.

TLDR; Rock is OP, Paper is balanced – Scissors

KogarasuMaru.7036:

Simple. Find another way to spam backstab. Grab the 10 points in the stealth tree for the 2 initiative on stealth, grab shadow refugee, voila full initiative after 2-3 sec.

Maybe so, but then you know where he is, that large red circle with the house over it. That kinda puts a damper on the surprise aspect of the build. That 2-3 seconds is enough to respond/heal/move/defend whatever.

The point was to allow to have that burst, but make the sacrifice for using it in having a much more delayed follow up, also lowering escape possibilities.

Keep in mind, using that also gives the thief 1 more backstab, and this time the target is ready and aware they’re being targetted. Also the second hit wont have assassin’s signet up.

I cant even remember the last time I was killed by a 100B warrior or PW thief.

Have come across maybe 1 quickness crossfire ranger. Caught me off guard the first time as it was so rare, however from then on it wasn’t so bad to deal with.

Oddly enough what I’ve been finding annoying recently is turret/rifle engineer. Dat CC man.

Why not put a rather large initiative cost on backstab, let thief have that burst but make them sacrifice more for doing it. Want a 13k 1 hit? Now you cant use anything else for a little while.

Say 4 init (maybe even 5)? Meaning a CnD/backstab combo blows 10 of 12 init.

Thief can now no longer SB tele to safety instantly after failing.

Thief now likely cant CnD again after initial BS failure.

Thief Can at Max use 1 Heartseeker afterwards (after lettering init recharge once giving time for dodge/whatever).

Want to go further? Have it use half the endurance bar. Less than half left when using? Delay endurance regernation for a few seconds.

Pistwhip? Change haste ability to only give a 33% or 50% or whatever increase in attack speed. Done.

Save your thief’s playstyle and mobility for PvP and run rings around warriors.

If not, shortbow does do quite will if all you’re doing is tagging large groups mobs in a zerg. Spam dat 2.

If you feel that your warrior is doing better at farming, just use your warrior? If you’re using MF gear you’re likely just farming orr for items, so what does it matter what class you’re playing?

(1) I think you might be talking about smartcast here, where you no longer have the green “Target” thing when using a targetted ability (bombs/infiltrators arrow). It simply casts it where ever your mouse is point at the time. I believe you can enable it in your options, but dont know where exactly off the top of my head, perhaps a quick google would help.

(2) Not quite sure what you mean by this, usually using a second LDB will return you to roughly where you were for your first LDB if your target hasnt moved much. As for you’re question, I’ve not come across it so far. Seems like it’d be kind of annoying tbh.

DeathMetal.8264:

Thanks man. If I can give you and dronin + points for reply, I would (some forum calls it Favor points, some calls it Reputation, etc).

Btw, last Q, with my 200k Karma to spend, is it worth it to spend on the Karma Vendors near Ara or should I shoot for other vendors in other map or just hunt in the Dungeon/buy in TP/craft?

Since you’ve decided on what stats you want, all exotics are exactly the same except for the skin. So really it’s down to what you want to look like or what currency you want to spend.

TP/crafting will be the most expensive gold wise, karma vendors will drain your karma and dungeons tokens require a lot of runs to get (1380 per set if I remember correctly).

Pick your poison essentially.

DeathMetal.8264:

Can you also share the Dolyak Reward? What event and where? I would like to do that to farm Karma too…

The dolyak reward was dolyak escort events in WvW. You’d get 250ish karma per dolyak escorted at 80. if your team held the whole map, you could escort 2 dolyaks at a time and get 500 karma every 6-7~minutes for walking.

They however removed all rewards because they were giving waaaay too much for the effort involved (there was often 30-40 people escorting 2 dolyaks in complete safety). They plan to put the rewards back on when they decide on a reasonable reward.

TeoH.2098:

Alternatively, you can Pistol Whip in a crit/power build for 5 initiative, and deal 9k+ damage immediately, and that damage is not removable. You can Shortbow cluster for 3 initiative and do more damage immediately than a DB, without even accounting for the bleed. You can CnD>Backstab for over 10k damage easily for a similar cost.

The advantage from going condition is that you dont have to sacrifice your sustain to get that damage, where as to get anything reasonable with PW/BS you have to build glass cannon and you likely also have to use up util slots to make them viable.

Condition builds allow you to be much more evasive and stick around a lot longer, in addition, PW builds rely exclusively on PW landing to do damage, stun breaks or a dodge mean you do 0 damage.

TeoH.2098:

Not only that, the Power/Crit build keeps its damage advantage across every ability or weapon that you may wish to use. A Condition build can stack Condition Damage across every piece of gear and all it gets out of that is a kitten poor Deathblossom that barely competes with the autoattack damage of a Zerker, and every other ability on your bar including your secondary weapon is kittened. You are kittened. Condition Damage is a wasted stat.

I run condition and dont run D/D. Think outside the box. I roll PW/Berserker thieves all day long because they all have the sustain of cabbage.

TeoH.2098:

Bleed abilities themselves can be useful in situations where you are undergeared or have minimal damage stats due to wearing some crazy survivability kit for godknows what reason.

Because it allows me to kill anything and everything I come across, while holding cap points. Also you aren’t undergeared in structed.

TeoH.2098:

And that’s the only scenario where they are ever competitive with their direct damage alternatives.

I respectfully disagree.

42k karma is the cost of all exotic pieces from orr karma vendors, it wont be cheaper.

You can however get a set like this (Pow/tough/vit) from dungeons or from WvW badge vendors. Which dungeon I’m not 100% sure off the top of my head, go to lion’s arch and browse through the dungeon token vendors near the WvW portals (bunch of merchants all in a line) and find what you want.

Yeah fair enough, tone the mist form down a bit or as you say, a flash teleport of some kind.

Swap 2nd and 3rd downed skill.

Problem solved.

Fury.6248:

Exactly WvW is not a skill based pvp mode. Yet I see endless posts of people defending the people saying “HoD is so pro at pvp”. So myself being a pvper am required to chime in.. Because did you not just get roflstomped while everyone was at max capacity over the weekend? I mean that’s great you can come back and all when your server population can carry you.. but I mean why are you still bragging when your skill decided the outcome and you lost?

Individual skill of players does come into play, just not anywhere near as much as structured. Saying there is no skill in WvW is only partly true, however there is more to skill then just technical skill.

I do agree people saying that they are winning WvW purely due to skill are full of themselves.

Also, I’m not on the HoD server I’m on ET.

Fury.6248:

things

I think they were refering to you saying that WvW will never be an esport, when WvW was never intended to be an esport and nobody ever claimed that.

The esport was centred around sPvP. That is what makes you sound foolish.

This doesn’t seem to be the first time you’ve been in WvW. So you know that your tag is above your head. It wasn’t that you didnt know that the tag was there, you simply didnt hide very well. This isnt a flaw of the game but a flaw of your hiding technique.

Repair your gear and next time hide yourself better.

chanw.1934:

And i think you know why you don’t have the number to take garison even with 5 golems.

Yep, because it was almost entirely a guild push which had about 25 in total (maybe not even that many), 5 of which were in golems. The plan was to try and get in quick and hopefully cap before it was noticed and SBI forces pulled off of HoDs eastern keep.

Unfortunatly for us, it didn’t work out that way. 2 more minutes and we would’ve had it.

Samfisher.7942:

Come to HoD and see how many empty forts you find ^^

I can confirm this V_V

- ET WvWer

chanw.1934:

However, the overall result is all the major battle is happening on HoD territory and i don’t see why 1 would use 5 trebs to take down GL when they could have taken garrison easily using the resources on building 5 trebs

Our guild sunk a total of 7 golems into garrison, 2 the first time, 5 the next. We simply didnt have enough numbers to support them and stop the SBI swarm when we got close to the keep lord.

Saying we didn’t try for garrison is easy to come to from another server.

We participated in the 3 way epic fight on the eastern keep. Then while you were both distracted we hit garrison with 5 golems. 10% on the keep lord door and we got wiped, which I’m fairly certained eased the pressure off of your keep.

Don’t assume we have some sort of truce. It’s not there.

Vlaid.5790:

So you swap to a condition team, and they swap to a condition removal team?

I’d rather just see professions balanced and remove the ability to change your team/builds midway. Feels a bit silly to me.

Balance is all well and good, but I think the build/prof swapping between rounds to be an excellent Idea from an esports perspective. Great from a build-counter/strategy/mindgame perspective.

Edit: LoL champ select anyone?

I’d say dont go calling for nerfs on the most commonly used classes because this simply gets you labelled as a whiner. If you feel that those 3 classes simply outmatch everything else, ask for changes to other professions to bring them up to speed.

Do it in a constructive way that might actually be noticed and discussed beyond what we see here.

For example the necro is so often brought up in comparison, why not create a post where you state you are a necro, post your build and state what you want to achieve with this build in your structured matches. Explain how it falls short and how you think it could be improved.

I dont know much about nerco, but suppose you wanted to go an area control/sustain necro using those ground glyph things. Why not post your build, say what you want to achieve and your current results (keeping the cry levels down), then suggest possible ways in which they could be improved to allow for competition against other top area controlling classes.

This way you might actually get responses on how your build might be tweaked, or even noticed by someone that is in a position to make a change instead of being thrown in the “Wow, it’s this thread again” pile.

Just my 2c.