Guild Wars 2

NPCs have largely North American accents.

I don’t understand why they don’t use the pronunciations “gole-emm” and “why-vern”

The current ones would make sense if they were largely British accents, but the only British accents are sylvari, who inherit all of their language cues from the other, older races.

UI design tip:

If two design elements are supposed to denote two different concepts, the difference should never be subtle.

I don’t know how “blue circle” and “slightly different blue circle” got past QA.

You can also get guaranteed clovers simply by logging in. If you really hate RNG crafting clovers, and refuse to PvP, just stop crafting them, collect all the other mats, and know you’ll finish your legendary in X months.

Your first error is caring when other people complain.

Hostile reveal should have never been a thing. Reveal was designed as a balance for repeated stealth attacks. Those skills should all be changed to an effect that allows the user to see stealthers. Countering stealth should be a defensive buff, not an offensive debuff. When it’s offensive it too heavily disadvantages the stealther, as his stealth is now countered for everyone, rather than just the anti-stealther and it doesn’t adequately serve the function its desigend for in the first place: preventing suprise attacks.

Tspatula.9086:

PopeUrban.2578:

If there’s one thing I’d fault HoT on it’s the rewards. I really do think they should settle on a standard of one or two complete armor sets per map and use that standard for all future expansions/LS additions. There are far too many outfits far too frequently and far too few armor pieces added with HoT.

Also, the absolutely garbage drop rate of ANYTHING good in favor of map currencies. I may be wrong, but it seems like now there really is nothing to be had of any real value from drops or chests, just more greens and blues to salvage. Meaning, you either grind for specific items (of which there are almost NONE in all of HoT that I am interested in) or fill up your wallet with endless quantities of each map currency… This is what makes re-running the HoT maps anymore than I already have done (all professions to full elite spec) rather unappealing….

Agreed. In GW1 each region had a number of common skins specific to that region, and a few region specific rare drops. Since hoT maps (and GW2 open world in general) is about map event completion, there really should be some more drops that just RNG from the meta boxes/map chests. I really like the keys and chests implementation, but I’d like it more if there was occasional cool loot in them that I could only get in that manner.

Your greatsword isn’t being “held hostage”

It is a reward for completing specific content designed to present a challenging barrier between you and that reward so that the reward has intrinsic value as a result of the required challenge

This is perfectly fine for an optional prestige reward that is completely cosmetic in nature

or, you know

Add crystalline ore to the Guild Trader

So, to summarize, raids are hard, and PUGS have a prefered meta composition.

The PUG meta you can’t get around. If content has a relatively high challenge (and thus fail rate) there will always be a perceived “best party” regardless of whether or not it’s actually necessary. This is because people that PUG such content want to have a familiar experience each time, which means filling the party slots with largely the same characters so that each individual has roughly the same job even though they’re always with different groups.

Some classes could use a bump in viability, but even if they were all perfectly balanced in such a manner that you could randomly assemble any number of classes, there would still be one and only one PUG meta for this reason.

The difficulty is working as intended.

GW2 raiding isn’t about gear acquisition so you can eventually just faceroll through it. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to stay hard a year, or three years from now. The fact that most people don’t already have it on farm indicates its working as intended. It’s a small part of the game crated for the part of the player base that wants really hard content that they can’t just finish easily no matter how many times they do it. It’s literally the point of raiding that you have a hard time completing bosses. That’s what makes the loot valuable and the experience worthwhile.

I think it’s fine now.

Map metas are this game’s “casual” content and should be much more about having enough people in the right places using the right mechanics than having a meticulously designed strategy that you need a highly coordinated guild map for the simple reason that open world maps do not offer you the ability to pick and choose your teammates and thus simply having enough teammates, and everyone playing reasonably well individually should grant a reasonable shot at meta completion

I get it. I like hard content, but I also agree that the high end of challenge should be in raids where it belongs, and not out in open world maps where you’re on a team full of people you don’t know, and that you can’t control. Simply having a map full of people that know the mechanic, play individually at a level sufficent to do content in the map normally, and want to complete the meta should usually be sufficient to complete the map meta.

I think the idea is that the reward for not having any masteries left to put xp in to is that you have all the masteries, and thus don’t need to worry about XP until the next set of masteries.

Also, they don’t want to encourage people to not buy HoT, so offering rewards for being 80 without it seems silly.

In stead, they should offer spirit shards for map completion and getting crafting to various ranks. There are already an adequate amount from pvp, dailies, and mob killing.

Sinbold.8723:

Starter zone bosses like Maw and Shadow Behemoth (which already had a make-over) shouldn’t be made any more difficult because they are in starter zones. You really don’t want to discourage people in starter zones by constantly downing them.

I’ll cast my vote for Claw of Jormag.

Actually, I really do. I remember fire elemental at release, and I remember how hard it was. It let me know that this big boss was a real boss, and that real bosses existed, and that I had reasons to come back to the zone later.

In the process of leveling at the time I really enjoyed that something so nasty existed even right there at the start. It provided me with a defeat that I was able to look back on later with my eventual victory and go “Yeah. I did it. I’m more powerful now” in a system that doesn’t do that a lot because of level scaling.

I’m not saying i disagree with level scaling. I think it’s a good system that GW2 needs. I do, however, disagree with the idea that just because a massive towering world boss is present in a starter zone it should be easier. A challenging world boss in a starter zone is a great way for new players to stumble upon veterans and interact with them, and a good way to create a miniature grudge match with the environment.

As long as it’s just one world boss in the whole zone, I think it’s valuable that it should be on par with any other world boss.

Matter of taste really.

I agree about the bugs in Hearts and Minds, but most of the other stuff you’re listed as negatives are the things I felt GW2 lacked.

I like the increased teamwork in the open world, the increased difficulty, increased waypoint distance as death penalty, and the inclusion of more long term goals. If there’s one thing I’d fault HoT on it’s the rewards. I really do think they should settle on a standard of one or two complete armor sets per map and use that standard for all future expansions/LS additions. There are far too many outfits far too frequently and far too few armor pieces added with HoT.

Rare loot is rare. The game needs more rare drops, not less.

I think the rubber stamp system is detrimental to the long term health of scribe as a profession TBH. I agree that decorating should be an investment, and i agree that it should require a skilled craftsman, but a wardrobe system would make it extremely flat and one dimensional, and kill a large part of the sense of accomplishment that comes with decorating your hall.

It’s entirely cosmetic, and as such I think its perfectly fine to have to build individual items to place them. I’m even okay with certain epic level decorations being extremely expensive.

I also agree that schematics should be tradable, which would allow guilds to forgo scribing if they want, or allow young guilds to invest in some nice decorations before they get their upgrades.

I think there’s a scale at work here, and that the basic bones of the system (scribing, the aetheric assembly, and the concept of upgrading basic deco in to fancier deco) are solid, and that the cost reduction needs to hit the primary cost inflator: the scribing kits and sandpaper.

Scribing would be in a great place if they just removed a zero from all the pigments and sand costs, making the primary limiter being resonating shards, which are acquired from guild activity, and thus spent on the guild’s scribed decorations and consumables.

I also really like the idea of putting the 0-100 tier of decorations on the random table for the guild trader. This would allow non-scribes with decorating rights a much wider array of possible items, and create an interesting, if random cost reduction on scribing as well as further enhance the value of the trader so she feels like less of an arbitrary limitation to get wood glue and more like a cool merchant that gives you cool stuff when upgraded.

Well…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB1r3gBC-pA

Well, if you really want to get in to it.

Guild hall decorations aren’t exactly considered canon.

The plot recognizes guilds and guild halls, but the specifics of your decorations will never factor in to the plot or lore of the world.

It’s just aesthetic preference really. If you think floating boxes look dumb, don’t use them!

Shadow Behemoth.

He’s such a big imposing model and such a wet noodle of a fight.

I mean yeah, he spawns portals, but they’re just filler. The fight would work better if controlling the portal spawns was a key element of the fight, preventing a “critical mass” of shades before SB wipes the map or something.

I’d also like to see more world bosses get fail changes for the maps they’re in, like triple wurm and teq.

The reason given for the decoration radius limit is rendering power. However, Guild halls are private spaces. If everyone in my guild runs a rather high spec machine, shouldn’t I be able to take advantage of that and create more aesthetically pleasing environs? It’s not going to block any sort of play for other players, and as it’s our space, shouldn’t we be held accountable if we build things that make it unplayable for our guild members?

I’ve played several games with similar decoration systems, and while I realize total decoration limits can be a result of memory and server limitations, I’ve never encountered a game with such strict proximity limitations.

It seems far too restrictive for far too much of an edge case. HoT itself is unplayable for the lowest end of GW2 machines. I’ve got some people who can’t even play in VB when they’re forced to use their laptops, but run all of core tyria on the same machines just fine. If the map designers at Anet are allowed to make such massive performance impacts, why aren’t we?

How about letting us be responsible for the performance limitations in our private spaces? Change the limitation to a performance warning. We can identify and fix those mistakes ourselves if they’re actually problematic for our respective communities.

Just picked up the stream where Rubi remarked on Anet’s agreement that, now that the economy has settled, that scribing is too expensive, and that you’re planning on addressing it.

As a L388 scribe, I’m wondering if there are any plans to compensate those of us that early adopted the system under the old costs, or if we just get to be proud that we were there first.

Personally, I’m fine with either, but if the cost is significantly reduced, making a 120 gold item cost like 10 gold, that’s a massive change. There are good arguments for going either way. On the one hand, when crafting changes were made in the past to reduce costs on things there wasn’t any compensation. On the other hand, I can see the possibility that scribing may be cut more drastically than anything ever has been, easily halved or more in cost. That may be significant enough that it merits something to even the field given the small number of individuals, the large cost, and the number of people that contributed to their guild scribes.

Personally, I’d be fine with some stacks of soulbound materials, a title, or even an economy-friendly big stack of resonance, and I’d understand if we got nothing as well.

I’m wondering how scribes, non-scribes, and the folks at Anet see the issue.

I’m pretty sure you just double click them.

Orpheal.8263:

A rant about “cosplay characters”

Or, you could try not copying things from your favorite cartoon shows to place them in a fiction they don’t belong in anyway, and try to be original.

You do realize that the entire concept of “cosplay characters” is against the EULA in pretty much every MMO in the first place for legal reasons, despite not being enforced. A quick cease and desist from the company that actually owns whatever anime nonsense you’re attempting to replicate would have you changing the character name anyway, which is why that policy exists in the first place.

Asking Anet to make changes to the naming system specifically so you can violate a third party’s intellectual property is not a good way to argue for what you’re trying to get.

Sweal.4659:

Ayrilana.1396:

Sweal.4659:

Ayrilana.1396:

Sweal.4659:

You can change stats on Asc weapon too with some things that cost like 10g top in Mystic Forge. On top of that you will use 90% of the time your primary stats.

Changing stats was a new thing added. Refer to the other thing that I mentioned which is skins.

3000g for skin is pretty expensive O.o

None of the legendary weapons cost that much if you craft them. The older ones rarely go above 2000G. In some cases, they go much cheaper if you craft the precursor. The HoT legendary weapons are around 2300G. That said, people have felt the cost to be worth it as many people have legendary weapons and plan to make even more.

I’m just feeling that Legendary should stand for the top rank in the game. The best items you can ever get and it has to worth a fortune and a lot of work. Here it’s just skin… When you say legendary it should MEAN something.

They did this, specifically, so that legendaries are optional, rather than percieved as required because they’re BiS.

GW2 isn’t a game where it’s supposed to be inordinately challenging to get BiS gear. The game expects every player to have BiS gear, and is balanced around that fact. In fact, at launch exotic was BiS gear, and the ascended tier was only added because they determined that they though “finishing” your gear should take more than a week and didn’t want to nerf crafting and drop rates for exotic with so many already in people’s hands.

This same ogic is the reason behind HoT not adding new tiers of gear or additional character levels, both of which would have been easier and taken less development time than coming up with the mastry system.

Legendaries are optional, and they come with a guarantee that once they are acquired, you will never, for any reason, ever need to spend another dime on that gear slot again. That’s the point. They’re overpriced vanity items on purpose, not something everyone is expected to acquire in the process of building best in slot gear.

Also keep in mind that, unlike some other games, Character names are global for your entire server cluster, not just one server. You can’t be “BobTheDestroyer” on Tarnished Coast, and have someone run the same name on Gate of Madness for instance, which makes a single name unique across all US or EU or Asian servers.

They’d have to nerf hook strike.

And screw that.

Hook strike is boss.

They gave staff a stealth skill because it’s a thief weapon, not because it’s a stealth-centric weapon. It’s meant to be an opener, not a chain skill.

I’m guessing that when they release new fractals they reassign all current ranks so there’s less repetition.

Keep in mind that it seems, canonically, that the pact is “all but gone” according to the end of Hearts and Minds.

It appears that killing the mouth of mordremoth was a pyrrhic victory which may have been utter defeat without the Commander’s efforts in Hearts and Minds. Canonically the events that transpired in Dragon’s Stand represent a heroic push by the remainder of a pact that is no longer equipped to fight the remaining elder dragons, and may have failed without the assistance of the jungle’s indigenous inhabitants, and the intervention of the commander.

If any of the remaining EDs were to strike at this moment, the results would be devastating. There aren’t enough pact soldiers left to mount an effective defense on yet another major front while still dealing with cleanup in Orr and holding the line against the remaining mordrem in the silverwastes.

Anything moving forward is likely to be extremely fellowship-inspired with a major focus on what’s in the egg.

The extremely ham-handed and anticlimactic secret of each ED having a “weakness” is likely to be the focus of future plotlines, as Tyria seem to have exhausted its stock for pure martial power after facing down two Elder Dragons already.

It was adjusted because there are far more salvaging sources of leather than other mats, and because leather is used less in crafting recipies overall than cloth or metal.

Basically, leather was overly cheap to utilize, so they adjusted it. Time will tell if it was adjusted too far, but it’s still pretty darn cheap.

Straegen.2938:

Venom Share makes most thieves individually less effective while adding a group buff that is almost solely reliant on running with a bunch of condi builds. So if roaming, it sucks. In large fights, it mostly sucks. In skirmish it sucks unless a team is built around it.

Venomshare scales on the thief’s stats, not the people he shares the venom with. Running with a bunch of power builds doesn’t reduce the effectiveness of venomshare.

Getting a potato thrown at you hurts about the same amount, no matter how you pronounce it.

I just like to say “sticks”

I’ve successfully done it with 3, but we SUPER minmaxed it and had to get really lucky with the spawns due to having lower DPS.

If you’re looking for reliable clears, I reccommend 9 people, which is the maximum amount of players you can bring while still only fighting one event per cycle. It’s certainly possible with 3, but I wouldn’t reccommend it unless you’re desparate, as you’re going to have to restart a lot of times and be really on the ball with team composition with vurtually zero room for error.

Ranger – Scout

Weapon – Rifle
Mechanic – Animal Aspect
Utilities – Call

The Scout does not equip and travel with a persistant animal companion. The scout in stead gains a pair of animal aspects corresponding to two equipped pets, and a set of “call” utilities that will temporarily call these animals as allies to perform various functions or attacks.

Thematically, the scout is a more clandestine alpha strike character, less reliant on pet synergy and more reliant on smart use of multiple pets in bursts and increased personal capability from his animal aspects. The scout has not forgone his animal allies, but in stead relies on them to lurk unseen (unspawned really) at the fringes of combat, ready to leap in and assist him for devastating surprise attacks and support.

The scout is archetypally based upon the GW1 marksmanship ranger, with the additional flavor coming from old school Otyugh’s Cry (when it called surrounding animals to attack your target)
Aspects (F1 and F2)
The Scout’s aspects are functionally similar to guardian virtues, granting a passive effect based upon the animal in the slot (to make up for the lost pet DPS), and grant the ranger the ability to perform that animal’s active ability himself (with alterations where necessary, e.g. bonfire in stead of flying in circles breathing fire for a fire wyvern) and, like virtues, will lose the passive effects during their recharge.

Call (F3 and utilities)
Call skills summon avaliable pets for a limited period to enact a specific task, but will place aspects on cooldown when used, and may not be used if both aspects are on cooldown.

The F3 ability simply places avaliable aspects on cooldown and summons the pets for the duration. The utilites summon the pets in enhanced of tactically altered fashions.

Traits that modify pets do not modify the ranger, but in stead modify pets summoned by the Call skills. Traits that trigger on pet swap in stead trigger on Call skills. This lends the Scout two primary build options, a largely pet-free build path with at most one call to take advantage of minor/auto pet traits, or an all-in “pet bomb” build that focuses on repeated use of call skills and exploiting pet swap traits.

The scout’s rifle is a primarily condition oriented weapon, to function as an alternate option to the longbow, with a heavy focus on debilitating conditions. Its skillset is derived from GW1 backline disrupt/pin down rangers, with a hefty helping of cripple, immobilize, and daze.

Example Call Skills
Call of Protection (heal)
Call your animal companions to shield you from blows. They remain close to you, intercepting ranged attacks and striking foes near you for 10 seconds, and then depart. You are healed X when you use this skill, and Y for each companion alive at the end of this skill’s duration.

Call of Aggression (utility)
Call your animal companions at your target’s location. These companions will doggedly persue your target, and strike it each time you do. Your companions depart after 5 attacks.

Call of the Pack (elite)
Call two of each avaliable companion. Your companions engage nearby targets for 25 seconds and then depart.

Example Traits

Sharp Shooting – Rifle skills 2-5 daze enemies for 1/4 second (5s ICD)

Rifle Mastry – Rifle skills apply torment. Rifle cooldowns are reduced 20%

Menagerie – Your call skills always summon both companions, even if one is on cooldown.

Symbiotic Bond – Your called allies grant you X health with each strike.

Eyes Everywhere – Your aspects passive effects also make you immune to blindness.

Swoop – If you are disabled while an aspect is active, that aspect’s companion is summoned, stuns your attacker for 2 seconds, and is placed on cooldown and departs.

Wildfire – Your aspect’s passive effects also apply burning with every 4th attack.

Hunting Hounds – If you have 2 or more Called companions, those companions can see through stealth (They do not grant you this ability, nor do they reveal their targets)

Scout’s Retreat – When you use a call skill, gain 1s of stealth for each companion summoned.

However, the halls already scale quite well for small guilds. My guild has 5 or 6 actives most days, and we’ve slowly upgraded things over time. We’ve got pretty much all the T1 upgrades, t2 market, mine, and war room, and we’re pushing guild level 33. This took a few months, and our accomplishments felt earned.

Assuming you can’t earn due to having small numbers is incorrect. Stating that you shouldn’t have to due to having small numbers is just entitlement to something you have no interest in earning.

If you’re looking for a fair treatment for a “guild” of less than a group’s worth of people, I encourage you to rethink your definition of what a guild is. That said, once you’ve managed to get together 3+ people to claim a hall, there’s nothing stopping a single player from acquiring every single guild hall upgrade in the game eventually.

The concept of “scaling” guild halls doesn’t work.

You don’t want guild halls. You want personal housing. For the record I think some form of mini-hall that only offered the bar upgrades (for the same cost) would be acceptable, however the assertion that things should be cheaper becaus you are willing to spend less people’s time and effort on it is fundamentally flawed. Guild hall upgrades don’t scale with member count. They scale with Effort (guild mission) and Investment (crafting mats) It is unfair to expect large groups of players to pay what is in effect a penalty just for being large groups of players, when they are already paying exactly the same amount for upgrades as the smaller group.

Be prepared to work a little harder for it than before HoT, but even without a hall you can have a 50 slot bank. if your family unit is 4+ players, you could easily claim a hall and slowly upgrade it for an even larger bank (as well as having a private space to decorate and all that jazz)

Likes:
The ability to do one fractal at a time rather than a set of 4 makes it very easy to pick up and put down on any achedule without modifying the challenge or inherant rewards.

The legendary backpack collection adds several interesting challenge modes and time trials.

The post-patch implementation of the new rewards system is great. I never feel like I got totally shafted on a fractal run.

The slight alterations to enemy scaling and other things in the new difficulty scale system.

Dislikes:
The ability to choose your own fractals damages a crucial component of what made fractals interesting. Making it easier to select specific fractals should have never been a design goal. It is antithetical to the core principals of fractals being content with a high degree of replayability due to scaling challenge and randomizing factors. This should have gone the other direction, by penalizing rather than rewarding this behavior. Skipping to roll starting swamp was done because a 4 fractals run was a significant time investment, not because people love to do swamp. Remove the “pick 3” dailies, and replace them with a randomly numbered set in the difficulty range each day.

New instabilities are boring. The old instabilities started with an outlandish and noticable challenge, and ran through several permutations of pure insanity. The new instabilities are overly weighted against bland condition and boon modifiers. Wasn’t the point of static islands that you could add crazy instabilities tailored to the island to create unique challenges? Instabilities could be so much crazier and more interesting in the new system, with island-specific effects.

No incentive for “full runs” once you’ve cleared achievements. There really should be a repeatable collection or achievement award for doing scales in sequence, to award and encourage running the entire gamut. Bonus gold, achievement points, credit toward a unique title, or something else. Currently there is no reason not to just repeat the same scale (and thus the same exact fractal) over and over again once your dailies are finished. Repetition should not be more rewarding than playing within the difficulty-climbing spirit of the content.

@Deciever
I see what you’re going at here, but the perception of the build as a one button wonder is only correct in the opening ten seconds of any given fight, assuming the user actually spams all their init down to nothing. In practice, 3 is a cor skill (just as CnD is a core skill for power builds) but I can’t wrap my head around what exactly you’re after i think.

Here’s the simple version of your proposal as i understand it:

1 – Increase poison via dagger training, e.g. every strike. leave trait unchanged, or possibly disabled for other dagger skills.
2 – Unchanged, has fundamentally valuable conditional properties that make it worthwhile on either build.
3 – Remove bleeds, making it less valuable for condition builds, making its value unchanged for power builds.
4 – Add bleeds, making it fundamentally better for damage. on condi builds and unchanged in utility for power builds
5 – Unchanged, via the argument that it’s valuable when it hits, and this justifies its function/cost.

Now, please correct me if i’ve misread wht you’re all about here.

The thing is, I think that the moderate condition damage deathblossom deals is a core function of the skill. I’ll also agree that blanket buffs to dagger training may enforce rather than discourage spam.

However, given its current function I don’t think DB needs changed at all, specifically because of the highly conditional nature of its damage, which is objectively worse than a dodge and situationally superior as an AoE. What I’m saying is that Deathblossom doesn’t need a nerf because _it isn’t that powerful compared to your opponent’s condition damage options.

I liken an all-deathblossom build in effectieness to an all-CnD pemastealth build. It’s trolly. People did it. It wasn’t ever really effective. having played condi D/D before hoT This was precisely the state condi thief was in.

Lotus was purpose built around condi d/d. Every single developer preview played lotus with d/d. I don’t recall ever seeing a pistol equipped. over multiple iterations and dodge fixes all of lotus’ properties were formed around its interactions with d/d.

Again, your assessment of Deathblossom is off the mark. It’s a worse version of lotus dodge at this point, made valuable because it uses a separate resource pool. It’s in a good place balance-wise. It doesn’t need to be fixed. It has the same situational value on a power build as cnd has on a condition build and that’s okay in my personal opinion.

You and I both, however, agree that the things around it need fixed. The big deal here is dancing dagger. Adding more condition damage to it does a disservice to power builds, so I don’t really view that as a valuable option. Its primary utility is closing/chasing and multitarget utility so I’d rather see it changed from that perspective. As a closer, it is phenominally weak, due largely to the laughable duration of its cripple. As a damaging ability it is useless. Its only saving grace is the situational property afforded by its multiple projectile finishers. How do we make it less situational as a damage ability, but not make it the new centerpiece of a 2 button condition build? Simply moving the bleeds from 3 to 4 doesn’t change anything about your issues with the build other than which button gets spammed right?

Here are some basic ideas that have added value for all */D builds off the top of my head, mix/match and adjust init cost to suit your personal comfort level:

Dancing dagger copies x conditions from the first target hit to all subsequent targets (so it’s a weaker version of epidemic in a sense) (damage, also makes it very interesting for p/d)

Dancing dagger “upgrades” conditions on a target (ex. if the target is crippled, it immobs, if a target is bleeding, it torments, if a target is dazed it stuns, etc.) (damage/utility, good in groups)

Dancing dagger bounces back to the thief after all targets, returning end for each hit. (sustain)

Or lowers steal cooldown/hit (utility)

Or grants HP/hit (sustain)

Or steals a boon/hit (Sustain/utility/groups)

Dancing dagger reflects projectiles along its path. (sustain/utility/skillshots)

etc. etc.

@Cirian: I don’t believe ICD is appropriate on thief skills. Flip skills are borderline unacceptable in the first place. The core design of thief is all about having a very limited pool of init, but being able to do whatever you want with it as long as you have it. Thieves are not revnants, and I don’t really believe thieves should be taking design cues from revnants due to the fundamental difference in how initiative is regained and spent versus how initiative is gained and spent.

CnD:
perhaps cleanse is too strong, but to be honest its core mechanic of ‘hit person, get stealth’ isn’t sufficient to justify its cost specifically for the reasons you mentioned. The changes in today’s cast do muddy things significantly, however.

Bleeds, DB vs DD:
That’s just it though. Shuffling lackluster bleeds over to DD completely changed the feel of both skills. At this point your just turning condi DD in to a ranged weapon. Would it be effective? Probably. But would it be fun? no. The entire point of deathblossom is that it piles bleeds while evading. Taking the bleed makes it worse on condition builds, and no more useful on power builds. Having the bleeds on dancing dagger doesn’t make it more useful. It just means you don’t have enough initiative. Lotus training didn’t happen by accident. It was purpose built to synergize with deathblossom because being able to play all in defense while applying moderate condition pressure is what makes that build unique amongst its peers What you’re proposing is taking an insteresting skill, and making it boring, and taking a lackluster skill and making it necessary. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have to make a snap decision between evade and three bleeds. It’s only three bleeds The entire point of the spec, which was deliberately reinforced by the design of daredevil, is that is can spam evades whilst applying aoe conditions. What it lacks is compelling and useful reasons to hit the other buttons. not requirements to hit other buttons. What you’re proposing isn’t a choice. It’s paint by numbers reactionary skill design. Hit this button to evade, hit this button to deal damage. Those are choices but they’re not valuable choices. They’re predetermined outcomes that over-emphasize initiative management with little user input, and make the most reliable damage application on a melee set a ranged skill. Further, it then becomes a carbon copy of playing a sword build, where balancing between heavy DPS and evasion is the centerpiece of the playstyle. I see no reason to homogenize weaponsets in this manner. The way deathblossom functions and what it does is unique, valuable, and fun.

As for the interface, I’d honestly prefer to completely avoid ‘ground targeted melee rush’ It’s awkward in every skill that uses it, and in the case of thief who has the ability (and thus expectation) to use it multiple times in succession it’s unnecessarily cumbersome. Imagine attempting to do a chain of three deathblossoms with a ground targeted skill. You need to select a precise ground target, while in a motion that accelerates you upward and through the air. Ground targeting for abilities that use it is specifically done in a manner that doesn’t require rapid camera shifts like that in most cases because it’s not just slightly, but massively more complex from an input perspective than other options. There is no reason to make the class even harder to play than it is. Staff doesn’t suffer from, this because its ground targeted ability is, smartly, an ability that delivers its damage at the point of impact. Abilities that deliver damage along a line, like deathblossom, are extremely cumbersome if you have to use them multiple times. Personally I think the current targeting is just fine. There’s a limitation there that makes it slightly less usable as a dodge. I merely posited new targeting since you seem to have a deep distaste for the core mechanism of deathblossom in particular, and the core gameplay of condition D/D in general.

I get it. You don’t like spamming evades while applying dots. I do. people that play condi D/D do. That’s literally why we play the build because being evasive,not stealthy, and killing through pressure rather than spikes is fun. Splitting the skill in two fundamentally changes the core play of condition D/D in to something unrecognizable and I don’t think that’s acceptable.

We don’t need to move the bleeds off. We don’t need to make deathblossom objectively worse. If It were that horribly OP, thieves would be highly desired right now in ranked play and raids. They’re not. What they need are buffs to underperforming skills, not nerfs to existing ones that actually good enough to use. What you’re proposing is a direct nerf to initiative utility, and a massive shift in the playstyle of the build.

We need to make power D/D better. We need to give condi D/D more compelling reasons to hit the other buttons. Gutting deathblossom and making the most effective condi application a ranged ability do neither of those things. They just take a fun spec and make it an initiative management nightmare while replacing what made it fun with something that displays an even less coherant identity than it already has.

I see your primary problem with deathblossom and we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I’d agree with you in a game in which the majority of abilities were skillshots, but the fact of the matter is that every non-aoe skill in the game is by default target seeking, and melee skills are target seeking and cones.

Deathblossom’s low innate damage is the tradeoff for its evade utility. The damaging condtion (bleed) at only 3 stack applications per use is easy to mitigate. If Deathblossom was in stead a highly bursty white damage skill I’d agree with you that it doesn’t have sufficient drawbacks in realtion to its strengths. What you find "boring’ and “unskillful” many people, myself included, actually find fun. I took the time to really dig in to the build. I have played it in PvP before HoT, when it was far worse.

It’s not a strong meta contender, and you can cheese with it, but it’s not equipped to cheese in high level play. It’s not as simple as “hit button get good damage and evades” if you hit deathblossom for an evade, and you deal less than two strikes of damage, you have wasted initiative. Your view of the build versus the reality of playing it is an insurmountable obstacle to this particular conversation.

I’m going to drop it as many of your views seem to be asking for thief to have less situational skills. That’s the point of the initiative mechanic. It allows thieves to repeat skills for specific effect. Initiative exists to allow spamming. A well designed thief set has five extremely situational skills, which can be repeated in the situations they’re good at. The assertion that condi d/d has nothing to offer but deathblossom is just plain false. The assertion that condi D/D relies on repeated use of deathblossom as a core damage skill is true.

You see that as a problem. I don’t. I feel that with some slight alteration d/d typifies what a good thief set should be. It has adequate tools for damage, stealth, evasion, and access to debilitating conditions.

The specific numbers and application? yeah, you and I agree they need a bump to get up there with D/P, which means that their primary issues are in skills 3-5. We also agree that 3 is an extremely appealing and useful skill. This leaves 4 and 5 as the problematic options.

Offhand pistol is typified as a highly defensive weapon. You’ve got an interrupt and a blind field. So how do we make offhand dagger attractive, without placing it in a largely homogenous and uninteresting role? My thought is that it should be primarily offensive.

The core function of CnD is crucial to any */D build, so that stealth needs to be there, but where can we go with it to make it as attractive in its role as black powder? I think the old damage coeficient was pretty great, but if we’re worried about damage blowouts… what about an immobilize? That’s a particularly nasty condition, but due to the way CnD works it’s not something you’re likely to spam. It’s interesting support as well. Another option is to make it cleanse debilitating conditions (but not damage conditions). That would make it superbly reliable, and give it a secondary function that adds dynamic usefulness to multiple sets and adds build diversity by potentially allowing */D builds to take something in place of where they generally get that cleanse.

The Core function of Dancing Dagger is a scaling AoE that exploits combo fields, but is a marginally effective gap closer against single targets. Problem is that it isn’t a great gap closer, and its mechanics (which are interesting, the bounces) prevent giving it too much love. How do we reinforce the offensive feel of offhand dagger while keeping the unique (to thief anyway) nature of its bouncing projectile finisher spam? Well, let’s make it unblockable for a start. Now, let’s also make it remove some endurance from the target, say 25? Since that endurance removal isn’t useful for PvE, we can special case that effect as a breakbar hit, giving d/d a solid breakbar buster, unique in that you can really go to town on multiple breakbars with it in the right situations. In PvP, endurance is a highly valuable defensive commodity to everyone. The ability to choose to open by shutting out dodges, thus forcing the opponent to dodge the skill, or open with damage is compelling. The ability to spam it at a fleeing target to ensure they’re open to a scorpion wire, stun, or other ability seems compelling.

If you REALLY must change deathblossom to require “more skill” (for the record, I still don’t think that’s a meaningful distinction compared to any other skill in the game) Simply make it move targeted, like a dodge. In this manner it becomes, literally, a skill shot, and has a bit more versatility as an evade on power builds while requiring “more skill” on condi builds.

I also really do think DT as an auto-poison is valuable, however it could easily be constrained to a 1s ICD to prevent it from overly buffing deathblossom. This would increase auto uptime effectively almost the same effect as adding it to the auto, but would also add a bump to the other skills for condition builds, and add much more powerful and reliable healing debuffs/cover conditions to the power kits. This would also buff D/P, true, but with the proposed changes the offhand dagger seems to have enough compelling pros that it remains a strong contender, if we simply bring down shadow shot’s damage a little, as well as its init cost, to reinforce its use as a gap closer.

Roundabout.1752:

WingLegacy.7159:

Go back to the Legendary Npc. There you can buy your unlock recipes with karma and with some gold. No need to go through support.

True and it’s not like 5 gold is that much, but, I don’t want to pay it, twice. This system is flawed and has needed fixing since the game came out. Would it really be so hard to code it so that when you open a recipe it goes to the toon that has the ability to use it? or simply fix it so that the recipe can’t be opened until it can be used? This isn’t a new complaint it’s something that should have been addressed long ago.

The system isn’t flawed. This was user error. If anything the system penalizes user error.

It hasn’t been addressed because, honestly, it’s the user’s fault when they use the item on the wrong character. They gave you a very cheap way to rectify the mistake that you made.

Pesonally I don’t like calls to idiot-proof things to the degree you’re asking for. What if I want to use the item on a character that doesn’t currently have weaponsmithing? What if I was planning to do the collection first, and pick up weaponsmithing after? What if I just wanted to consume to item (as I did) so that I can make gifts on my main, and then buy a second one for my weaponsmith to make the final item after I’ve made all the material components on that main, who happens to have huntsman leveled in stead?

It’s fine as it is. You made a mistake. You pay a very minor penalty for your lack of attention.

Attempts to completely idiot proof the game lead to stuff like having to click extra buttons every time I want to buy certain items, salvage certain rarities, force people to pick up very specific items or methods of play, and in general are a bigger waste of time than the benefit they pay out, as they only benefit inattentive and mistake prone players.

I’d rather the game run efficiently and let me make decisions and mistakes than hold my hand and bombard me with confirmation boxes and forced decisions to safeguard me from myself.

I’m an adult. I can own my mistakes if I make them.

They should just revert the fire elemental to his release incarnation. That was a tough but fun boss before they nerfed it to the ground. Give him his groove back, give him some unique loot, done.

I’d prefer to see more effective conditions on thief autos rather than just more damage. Like, how about lifesteal on dagger auto? How about adding cripple to pistol auto? How about slow on sword auto?

I think there are a lot of ways to enhance our autoattacks to make them more viable without just loading them with more damage in a way that would increase our sustain, but also optionally increase DPS depending on build choices.

We don’t need damage, we need sustain that doesn’t reuire us to blow out init. It seems like they get that we blow a lot of init for sustain, so how about putting the sustain on the auto in stead of more damage? if we go with the classic thief model of out sustain largely coming from delivering debilitating conditions to the enemy, it would also make us more desirable in parties maybe?

The whole point behind keeping gliders locked behind mastries (and HoT) is so that you need to level at least one character. It’s progression, like the other mastries, so that when you get it you can go ‘man, This was such a pain before, and now I can just glide over all awesome like’

Gliders are a skillset our characters don’t learn until HoT because before that point they don’t have a reason to even consider it. Addind gliding to central tyria is awesome, but it’s more a consistancy thing, not a QoL thing, so you can go back to these old zones with new things you learned from your time in the jungle and experience them in new ways, cut travel time in some places, etc.

insanemaniac.2456:

in terms of how many people youre bringing:

having exactly 9 people will make it easiest. more people to run around the map and only 1 breacher spawns, but when you have 10 you start spawning 2 breachers at once.

doing it with 2-3 people isnt really possible because the mobs dont scale a whole lot and you just wont have enough dps. 5-6 should definitely not be too difficult once you know how to get around the map a little, but 8-9 will make it easy.

False. I have done it with 3 people. You have to get really lucky on the breacher spawns.

Froptimus.6741:

PopeUrban.2578:

Condi D/D Daredevil with signet of malice and mad king runes already fulfills your criteria of area attack, damage mitigation and sustained recovery from wounds.

I can absolutely engage 15+ mobs at a time using the build, and do it frequently.

Sorry to go off topic, but would you please link the full build if you have time? I’ve been considering a condi DD for pve and I’d like to see how people are doing it before I go down that road.

Actually you’re ON topic!

Here’s the PvE build I use:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn8MBNPhFmCePB0PhlWCbeEuCfhaBgDwCwrMcHmDA-TRyBABAcIA2b/h+0H4lyP0PBA3fEAgUJoHPAANV/JAwBg5nf+5nf+mf+5nf+5DA-e

The jewelry on it is my “baseline” but I’ll often swap one or more pieces for settler or viper stuff depending on my party composition and what I’m doing for content.

I don’t usually run this in raids as it pays for its great suriviability and multitarget utility by being less good at single target DPS, so I switch to a venomshare build for raids so I can use most of the same equipment.

Important PvE tricks for the build:

Bunch up foes! Your Signet of Malice heals scale your survivability based directly on how many enemies you can bunch together. deathblossom strikes three times on up to 5 targets, which is a 2130 heal each use if you can get 5+ enemies together. Get melee to follow you on to ranged attackers, etc.

Be careful with bandit’s defense. Practice hitting and then immediately canceling it as letting it block and kick in large groups of mobs can get you stuck in the kick animation and killed. The low cooldown, however, makes it a great stunbreak. just practice dodging as soon as you use it to cancel the block so you can stunbreak without getting stuck in that kick animation in situations where it would be bad for you.

Your elite is a burst heal thanks to mad king runes. Each bird strike counts as an attack for the purposes for signet of malice. This means, like deathblossom, it is more effective at healing you the more targets are around. Swap to another elite if you want to use it more often, just remember the rune cooldown is 45 seconds, so you probably won’t want to use your 40s elites like BV right on cooldown. Personally I usually keep Daggerstorm on the bar as this is an aoe build, and daggerstorm is powerful healing and stability already. The MK runes also provide substantial bleed duration as well as a good source of power, which is going to make your backstab from stolen stealth worth using, and is going to make your heartseeker actually hit for damage worth their initiative.

This build has zero problems taking on up to 20 or so enemies, and is effective in pretty much any dungeon or fractal situation with very few exceptions. If you find melee to be a problem with some dungeon bosses and range it out. For bosses with shields like Thurmanova fractal you’ll want to keep a pistol in your bag, as you can’t deathblossom those targets, so you’ll want to play p/d for those encounters so you can still stack decent amounts of bleeds while using your dodge caltrops and lotus dodge daggers. You could also spam SB at close range for the same effect, but Its overall less single target condition damage. Provided you’re not in the zerg donuts in DS you should be able to solo most things with it. Feel free to vary up the sigils. I like the blight/purity sigils, but other people in my guild that have picked up the build use a variety of stuff for personal playstyle.

Good luck!

I play thief almost exclusively. I’ve played thief single early release, and I’ve repeatedly seen the same sort of ill fitting expectations on thief from both the player base and developers in terms of ‘skill’ and ‘weapon focus’

So, lemme get this straight. You’re campaigning for deathblossom to require ‘more skill’ than a dodge… but shadow shot is fine? You’re listing out situational uses of headshot without placing a corrolary to dancing dagger Basically saying "headshot is good at CC, and dancing dagger isn’t.

It’s good at combo exploitation. That’s its job. it’s not supposed to be good at CC.

Further, when you list ‘and thieves will just swap to X for Y utility’ you could use that logic to patch the weaknesses of any set.

Nobody is arguind that d/d is up to par. D/P is better than every other thief set. This has been true for a long time.

However, you’re still missing the point. "Skill is a nebulous concept that people like to bandy around like a badge of honor. No, it doesn’t take any more skill to any one skill than another. Don’t pretend it does. Using any part of D/P is not more challenging than pressing dodge or pressing deathblossom. You click a button. using any of the above skills is solely a matter of weighing the opportunity cost.

Your complaining that condition d/d is all about spamming deathblossom sounds like people who don’t play the class at all complaining about how easy it is for thieves to just spam 2 and win.

The fact is that simply spamming deathblossom is suboptimal for both survival and DPS. You can survive for about 12 seconds that way, and usually won’t do enough damage to kill anyone.

Since you seem to really want to turn this in to a PvP thread for some reason, I’ll bite.

Before HoT, I would agree with you. D/D was in dire need of help. With daredevil attached to it, it’s in a much better place. With a buff to auto damage and a buff to dagger training i think it’s in a good space. What you and every other thief that has ever posted on the subject fail to recognize is that every trait, and every thief skill related to D/D are all built, quite obviously, around running a hybrid build. You want enough power that heartseeker can push reliable damage under 50%, and enough condition damage that your bleeds and poisons can push it down that far.

Of course it sucks if you build it with nothing but power or condition stats. It isn’t and was never meant to do that. It’s purpose built as an attrition set. It just isn’t built very well due to multiple nerfs to the back end damage, lotus poison, lackluster dagger training, etc.

Playing deathblossom well in PvP does not permit you you simply spam 3. You’ll be out of initiative without much damage applied, and you’re literally only going to kill people too stupid to count to three. Playing deathblossom daredevil in PvP is 100% about evasion, and playing toward nothing but evasion. It is about reading your opponents and knowing which attacks are safe to suck up while you auto, and which attacks you need to evade with DB, or your dodge, so that you have enough endurance and init remaining to HS out a fleeing target, swap to SB and disengage, cnd to reposition, dancing dagger to lifsteal, cleanse, or apply bonus conditions, and a multitude of other factors. You need to track and keep enough reserve end to cancel out of bandit’s defense. As you said, anyone can just spam 3. The fact is that you’re going to suck if you just spam 3. This is true for D/D, and the only reason it isn’t true for D/P is because of the attached blind.

We don’t need some sort of extra trait to flip dagger skills, and the fundamental function of those skills is solid. They need some coefficient changes. Dagger training needs to be improved. Dancing dagger and CnD need a buff. Heartseeker is in a good place, assuming a buff to dagger training.

Before I respond, I’d like to note that the majority of your argument here is centered around sPvP and WvW, which aren’t the focus of this thread. Further, expecting every build to be functional or valuable in every game mode is flawed thinking. I don’t expect condi D/D to ever live at top tier in PvP, or even to be modified to require “more skill” because, quite frankly, that’s not the focus of the build, and “more skill” is out the window anyway considering that every projectile attack in the game is target seeking anyway. Deathblossom’s skill requirement is about timing, same as heartseeker, not about picking the right spot on the ground to click.

Dagger auto provides both endurance and (non-proc) poison application, both valuable resources to the condi daredevil spec.

If you’re not using deathblossom since the last patch to free-evade ranged attacks, charges, and other such attacks, you’re playing suboptimally on the power build. You could be using that dodge for damage or condi cleansing in many cases. You yourself actually state ‘its basically the same thing as a dodge’

A 3 init dodge isn’t useful utility to you on a power build?

Dancing dagger is the weakest entry, and d/d’s analogy to body shot, but unlike body shot it is at the very least situationally useful due to its ability to proc 4 projectile finishers per use in rapid succession. This is handy for ranged condition application, panic self heals, massive condi cleanse, and a number of other uses. If you’re mostly soloing, then I can see how its multiple uses aren’t apperant. Situationally useful yes, but again, actually useful. I don’t dispute it could use some love, but it’s as good at situations it’s designed for as headshot is for what it’s designed for.

P/P is a massive comparative difference in design silliness. Unload has zero utility to condition builds. Zero. It provides no offensive or defensive benefit. It is literally a wasted button if you accidentally press it. Similarly, the auto’s low damage is completely worthless to power builds, which further compounds the initiative issues from P/P. You can actually deal damage with condi d/d by doing something other than spamming 3 due to dagger training, poison on auto, and dancing dagger. Hitting buttons that aren’t deathblossom can actually help you get to your target, or help you survive without completely flooring your damage or killing your attack chain becaue your attack chain relies on a very specific rotation of multiple initiative skills which must be executed in a specific order or your damage just starts to suck.

Body shot is just plain horrid due to its overly short condition duration for either build, and its utility simply doesn’t fit with p/p or p/d. Unlike dancing dagger, it isn’t even situationally useful as a slow, as if you’re running P/P you can already hit your target at its range, and if you’re running P/D you have dancing dagger if you’re trying to gap close. it’s apperant intended use is vulnerability application, but the vuln’s short suration and the skill’s init cost make it a waste of time. In addition, it only fires one projectile, which makes it useless for combo explotiation.

D/P has no better synergy than either power or condi d/d builds with a single exception, and that exception is black powder shot, which is a standout stellar skill and the only reason anyone picks up D/P. You’re not taking D/P for 3 or 4.

Headshot is just as situational as dancing dagger. You can’t spam it for damage, and its only value is as an interrupt. It has an extremely limited scope of use, but performs well in its intended role. Its dual skill is a working gap closer, which frees up initiative because you can ignore heartseeker until the Hp threshold it’s efficient, but even more situational than deathblossom.

I agree that dagger training could use a massive upgrade, and that upgrade alone would instantly fix a lot of things about D/D. Even from a power build standpoint the healing reduction of reliable poison would be extremely attractive. However, the primary fix to D/D is in making either dancing dagger or CnD stronger or cheaper skills, but not different skills. The ability to leap through a smoke field, hit a target, and still stealth, and the ability to borderline exploit the camera to stack stealth with no target are the only reasons D/P maintains its primacy.

Anet has left these behaviors alone because it’s all thief has left, but neither is intended design. if We’re going to leave D/P alone, I concur that D/D has to be brought up to its level, but at a core design level the functionality of d/d’s kit is just fine. Offhand dagger was simply reactively damage nerfed entirely too hard a long time ago and never reverted.

We’re getting damage coefficient changes to enhance autos, which means they’re seriously looking at initiative costs and opportunity costs. Bringing down the init cost of dancing dagger and returning the raw damage to cnd is really all the set needs.

Jana.6831:

Btw: Thief has been destroyed in June – the only spec still halfway viable was D/P – doesn’t mean it was good but it can avoid most damage and hadn’t had its core traits nerfed unlike every other thief build.

Let’s not forget that the only reason D/P remains viable is a borderline exploit stealth stacking technique which requires unintuitive camera work and was most certainly not designed to work that way in the first place.

Basically, the only working thief build is the one that can be used in a way Anet didn’t design it to work in the first place.

The best part is how they’re admitting that balance is out of whack, and has been out of whack for a long time, but decided to release an expansion with a bunch of new elite specs and a whole new class to balance anyway.

Shouldn’t this sort of stuff have been worked out well in advance of hoT, rather than waiting until afterward? most of these proposed balance changes have nothing to do with elite specs are are core balance problems the affected classes have had since the specialization update.

It’s sad it took the failure of an esports-based marketing stunt to get to this point, no matter how awesome it is that they’re actually bothering to try and get balance right.

Let’s hope this new ‘depth not breadth’ isn’t just empty platitudes, and these balance passes are presided over by some fresh eyes, as it’s obvious the people in charge of things up to this point have either not been seleted for design acument, or aren’t being organized in a manner that allows them to communicate and balance the game as a cohesive whole.

There has never been a time in GW2 where every class on offer actually had a valuable use in PvP. That’s telling. if this patch can hand at least one viable build to every class it will be a marked improvement.

The event must be incomplete when you start, and complete while your guild has the mission active, and you must be doing the same difficulty as the starting guild. Sometimes there are weeks where guilds with different preference settings have two different difficulty levels of the same rush, and that can result in not getting credit if, say, your guild activates a 30 minute version of a rush guild mission, but someone has already started a 17 minute version. You won’t be able to get credit during the 17 minute version.

Sadly, this is hard to check as the event as displayed doesn’t say what difficulty is currently being attempted, and you may show up with less than 17 minutes left on the timer and thus be unable to tell what difficulty is being attempted. The only sure fire way to check if your guild will get credit when another guild has started is to run someone to the finish line and see if they get their chest. if they do, your guild is doing the mission in progress, and can get awarded for completion.

There is an NPC that appears at the end of the rush once the target 15 players have crossed, and you can talk with him to instantly guild-complete your guild mission, awarding you the favor. You can even do this if you started the mission, but if you do the event will still run its entire duration so that anyone else participating has a chance to get their rewards as well.

Ayrilana.1396:

I’ve seen people saying they use the slots for their unlimited tools. Can you use them directly from those slots or do you still have to equip them? If you still have to equip them, how is this any different than getting a personal bank contract?

Generally the only reason people are using those slots for unlimited tools is for dedicated harvesting runs for rich nodes/permanent farms. You still have to equip them, but people like those slots for that use because personal bank contracts are expensive, but often people that regularly harvest daily perma-nodes camp characters at a specific place. If you’re only gathering one type of thing (say just plants, or just ore) then a 700 gem slot is cheaper than a bank contract. however, depending on exchange rates, 3 slots would probably more expensive (and less useful long term) for this purpose.