Guild Wars 2

Dahkeus.8243:

Chicago Jack.5647:

Prince.7198:

LOL COntroll Class? we have about 2 decent CC’s:

Yeah thief is pretty poor in cc. We have blinds, short duration dazes, and basilisk venom. That’s it. Shortbow has absolutely nothing but its stealth attack – and that is a huge investment.

Every class aims to control the fight with proper use of their skills – that’s not exclusive to thieves.

There is a reason why we don’t see medic thieves. And this is a big part of the reason why.

And of course, Scorpion Wire with stealth is one of the ultimate cheese CCs for skyham. =P

Lol, scorpio wire only works when you are already in combat with your target, otherwise the skill fails. So when i know a thief is fighting me on side points in skyhammer, and i see him leaving the fight, time to put stability, or even hide behind any summon/pet. + skyhammer is a fail of a pvp map/ why you think its not in tournys

better make a new one for thief bcs if this is all we get i’m out!

Quick problem sketch: Last refuge is a minor SA trait (for spending 1 trait point) and when using this trait line it is thus impossible to not take. The skills puts you in stealth as well as blinding opponents when at 25% hp. However, since it is a health based proc it will apply stealth without notice, and thus most of the times in stead of giving you the protection it was designed to give, it gives you a 4 sec of reveal at 25%hp. This means a dead thief. This issue has been around since launch and has been discussen many times.

7 months ago there was a reply of the Devs saying that they were looking into fixing it
(link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvX-Thief-Last-Refuge/first)

After seeing the skill bar for the thief profession updates nothing was mentioned about last refuge? Can one of the devs tell me if any progress has been made in those 7 months?

I realize that this isn’t teh first tread discussing this, but i want to reopen the dialogue in order to try and get this fixed. In that post there was a mention that they would like community input on the matter (replacement suggestions) which i would like to see in this tread.

My suggestion:
Last feature pack there was the introduction of traits triggering on reveal. This was a very original way of implementing new traits for the thief. I sugegst doing somethign similar for this trait as it should be stealth bound (in the SA traitline)

something in the line of: Grant 5s of protection when under 25% hp and getting teh revealed debuff

Implications:
when the thief is low he has 2 options. (1) Go into stealth and leave the fight (bringing a lot of stealth hate) or (2) continue the fight to try and get a down (risky). If reveal debuff applies protection on low health the thief can then consider to do 1 more stealth attack, and try to get the kill, while the trait allows him to be a bit more defensive in this case. This will allow the thief to stay in the fight a bit longer, and take that risk in stead off stealthing up and running away.

Many thanks for the consideration!

Mayama.1854:

Maugetarr.6823:

The double-edged sword of playing the class with the most potential, but not necessarily the most powerful class.

It doesnt have the most potential its just a 100% control class, which means it forces the enemy constantly into defense. The thief is usually always in control of the fight. His class skills allow that. Once you know that and play the waiting game thieves become alot easier. Thats the reason why engineers are the best class against thieves, you cant force all cooldowns and you cant predict everything a engi does which results in losing the control over the fight. Overall its bad class design, for the same reasons why frost mages in WoW are badly designed. Classes in mmorpgs that are build around completly controling the fight will never be balanced. That GW2 has two of them, thief and mesmer, doesnt make the situation easier.

Edit:
Deleted a big rant about how thieves are actually easy to play, would have only started a flamewar.

Ok sorry for that and I guess I overreacted a bit. So back on topic. They dont get what the thief needs, well no sorry they dont see what ANY class needs. Its really frustraiting to see such a nice system go down the gutter. I dont say that lightharded because I usually stay calm and watch what happens. Imo the thief needs, first and foremost, a bit of his play style removed, remove some of the stealth and dodge spam but make him a bit more out in the open fighterish (is that even a word?). That would make him alot easier to balance and if a thief could actually take a bit of beating traps and stuff might be actually worth taking (after fixing them too of course). I guess I watch the necro class changes cause its the last class I play that wasnt in a preview already and if they kitten him up too I just take a loooooooooooooong brake. I mean what does A-net care I never bought a single gem anyway.

LOL COntroll Class? we have about 2 decent CC’s:
-Baselisk Venom: Whic is a terrible elite
-Sleigth of Hand/steal: This is a GM trait so half of our traits for this CC.

Engi can be knocking you all over the place if your stunbreak is on CD (and im talking 3 to 4 consecutive cc’s) Same for warrior.
Ok thief can control a fight if he can get a good burst off, but if anything about that initial burst combo fails (which is easy to do, dodge/block/blind/invul/cc) he is better off leaving the fight since he wont have the resources for another burst combo before the damage of the enmyplayer will have driven him low enough to loose control of the fight.

I find my role as a thief in teamfights is indeed going for the enemys backline which will include the Ranged DPS (Power rangers, shatter mesmers, …). This kind of dps will likely also stay at the edge of the fight since they probably also will be zerkers (Power ranger/ Shatter mester) and with our teleport abilities we are perfectly equipped to get to them fast and take them out. The art is however not to get focussed before you reach them, and this si where clever use of kiting, terrain, stealth and teleports come in.

caveman.5840:

pain response —-— is a underwhelming trait

ya i know there is not much reason to go deep in to acrobatics :S

just like u said acrobatics is not a rewarding trait line after the first 3 points

i wish there was a reason to go deep in the trait line …… but the whole trait line is full of outdated traits and junk

i wish they would open up builds!

They should just dump assassins equilibrium and add a condi cleanse on dodge in stead as a GM trait. This is a trait worthy of a GM position and would help non-SA thiefs get the condi removal they have been dreaming of. It would finally be worth spending 6 in Acrobatics, since it would synergize well with the rest of the line. The cooldown can be played with to balance, but i would for a first release not add a cooldown since dodge is already capped by energy.

Dahkeus.8243:

Just thought I’d say…the tone of your title isn’t exactly conducive to getting a serious consideration from a dev.

You’re not Cartman, and ANet ain’t your mom, lol.

The NOW is meant as in the upcoming balance patch, since the proposed mesmer changes will have the potential for pushing some thief builds out of the meta (anything without shadow’s embrace)

Paavotar.3971:

BrunoBRS.5178:

“spam 1 through 5, swap, repeat” would become even more proeminent.

This 1 to 5 spam is unique ability of warriors, don’t take that snowflake thing from us please! I want to spam!

But more seriously, 5 seconds is really short time to be honest. I would even argue it’s a bit too powerful for warriors already, I don’t want to see thieves and what not swapping like warriors do.

That is a rediculous statement. The only class that would not benefit from faster swapping (or where it would not be OP) is thief since the cooldowns of both weaponsets are shared through the initiative system. Spam all your skills in 1 weapon set means no skills of the other set can be used till initiative has regenerated!

Ever since the introduction of torment it has been the thiefs nemesis.
This is because any condi cleanse (except for embrace of shadows-stealth clean, and shadowstep, which purely for cleansing is a waste) is condition specific:
Hide in shadows —>
used to removes all damage conditions (bleeding, birning poison) but was not updated for torment
Roll for initiative -->
removes all movement impeding conditions (chill, cripple, immob) but wasnt updated for torment (which is also a condi with a punishment for movement)

Now what do mesmers get, AI massive torment application. They dont even need to target, just put some clones out (super easy with clone on dodge, why was this not nerfed?) and as soon as you come out of stealth, LET THE TORMENT RAIN DOWN! The mesmer doenst even have to spot you and still has all cd’s while you start losing hp like a moron.

So please at least give us some way to counter the new torment meta that is about to come down because every feature patch you are just destroying this class more and more until the point that we will just be a mobility class to decap unguarded points with zero offensive capabilities/ or die as soon as something blinks at you.

Sincerely,\
A concerned thief

How i counter hambows with my d/p spec.
Open with Basi venom, infiltrator signet stealth backstab combo . Try to do it from an unnoticed position so you are sure to land the full combo.
Most warriors will then start with the lonbow. Steal to interrupt the fire field put down your blind field and start whirling axing, shooting out blindign projectiles. (I run a panic strike builds so by then ill have him immobilized while bursting out some serious deeps) He will likely then pop zerker stance (if not just continue):
What now
—> Is het still in bow? just continue, you will reflect projectiles.
—> Did he swap to hammer —> break the skill and dodge away. I then mostly keep kiting till zerker stance wears off and he has blwon his cc’s (swap to shortbow to continue pressure). Follow up with another stealth-backstab combo and then autoattack him down, be ready for doging the next pin down.

This is the ideal situation of course. Use utilities (shadowstep—>direclty into SR) when in problem.

If he is somewhat good this figth will take a while. If you need to fight him to decap far. You will be more of assist in the team fight going on at mid for instance, so don’t waste time.

What would be the benefit of a 1 sec stomp if you can just press f? If it would be instant, i would agree, because then there is an advantage to the elite over a regular stomp. I would make it a ground target skill (the size of the blink target field, so you need to target well) at maybe 600 range but instant (or 1/4 sec). On high cooldown it would not be op, since thief are able to safe stomp in 1v1 anyway. It would only provide thief the possibility to stomp in big team fights with AOE flying in all directions. Then again, i would rather see a damage mitigation skill as our elite than a superstomp.

In conquest Spvp/Tpvp this is not the case. There it is the bunker builds that can prove very valuable. The bursty classes forfill different roles but both are nicely balanced out i think.

If this happens i can see the Stealth with pistol5 and cluster—> shortbow1 immob —> Pistolwhip/steal combos rolling.

Making multiweapon combos like back in GW1 days! Where do i sign???

Decrease our mobility?? then give us more armor, max health and we can be warriors! Difference warrior <—> thief is mobility at the price of survivability. Warrior hits just as hard as thieves on a non moving target, however thief is able to do more damage because mobility allows him to land more attacks than warrior. That is the class mechanic. deal. with. it.

Blackpowder safe stomping is now useless against anyone with a braincell. They just don’t want us to safestomp out of stealth, and here i was thinking last balance patch was all about bringing the thief out of stealth.

Rasalhague.8270:

80% of balance is cooldown changes.

Allow me to balance the game for you :

Thief
-Remove initiative but keep steal
-Put 20 second cooldown on steal
-Increase cooldown on thief sword movement skills from 3 to 6 seconds
-Increase cooldown on dagger stealth to 20 seconds

Guardian
-Decrease cooldown of Leap of Faith from 15 to 12 (without trait)
-Decrease cooldown of GS4 to 15 seconds
-Decrease cooldown of GS5 to 20 seconds
-Judge intervention to 30 sec base cooldown
-Contemplation of Purity to 40 sec base cooldown
-All spirit weapons to 40 sec base cooldown
-Save yourselves and Retreat to 40 sec base cooldown
-Hallowed Ground to 30 sec cooldown
-Sanctuary to 60 sec cooldown
-Bane signet to 30 sec cooldown
-Increase projectile speed on staff, scepter and trident

Ranger
-Increase damage of all axe skills by 20%
-Put 1/4 second of evade on the first and second hit of GS autoattack
-Improve pets health by 50%

Elementalist
-D/D Earth 5, give stability and protection when channeling earth 5
-D/D Air, reduce cooldown on Air 4 and 5
-D/D Water, reduce cooldown on water 5

Necro
-Increase radius area of wells by 200
-Staff, increase projectile speed of autoattack
-Increase damage of axe skills by 20%

Mesmer
-All clones have retaliation

Warrior
he is OK as is, but make less useful traits usable

Engineer
he is OK as is, but make less useful traits usable

pretty sure you play a guardian. What a worthless post

loseridoit.2756:

Uuni.3561:

loseridoit.2756:

ummmmm…… you dont find anything odd with the consistent 5 month cycle.

The odd thing is that they call them balance patches even though you can’t keep game balanced by touching the balance every 6 months. Even 2 months would be pushing it

so you want anet keep messing with the numbers every 2 months……..

So where does q/a testing fit in your idea of anet content distribution

NO. We dont want new balance patches every 2 months. We want balance patches every 4 months but with content worth 4 months of waiting. Not just a few numbers crancked up or down. Give us new skills, new traits, something to keep the (used-to-be great) gameplay from spiralling into the pit of boring.

The BlackPowder Nerf is the worst since it will make blindfield safe stomping a lot more unreliable and useless against anyone with a braincell. So they want us to go into stealth more for safe stomping (i thought previous patches were all about bringing thief out of stealth into the fight) and they dont want us to safestomp guardians without blowing shadowstep CD. Yes because guardian was clearly underpowered.

I had the same happening during the belt event (2nd level, with the fire pools). Someone died with hammer and it dissappears. After repeatedly party wiping to try and get i back, we see it spawning on the pedestal next to the player spawn location just as the first person rezzes up, but a fraction of a second later it is gone again. Had to end fractal run

I am able to join the hotjoin matchups. Its only soloq that is bugging out. Haven’t tried team arenas but not willing to risk it.

Everytime i try to join a soloq match i get the loading screen of the arena specific map. When it is about to load i get a message saying: Client lost connection (see screenshot for entire error code). Sometime i do load but after the loading screen i get a weird cracked screen and then again back to login page with the same error code.

I thus am not able to play any rated matches anymore and if i try to join one i am constantly kicked from the game since during the match you keep getting autoteleported to the arena.

My internet connection is fine since i can perfectly play other aspects of the game.

Please Fix this issue ASAP!

Thanks for your understanding.

I don’t want any buffs. If they would just fix our broken traits: Last refuge, fleet shadow, …

Exedore.6320:

Engineer turrets are actually a decent form of AI. They don’t move and the effect comes from the turret itself, so it can be readily avoided, and if the turret is destroyed or the battle moves, the engineer is now at a disadvantage. The more they build around the turrets and rely on them for damage, the weaker they are without them.

I would say that the problems lie in two places:

1. Accelerant-Packed Turrets (turrets explode and knock back when killed). This is an adept level trait and adds so much CC to the turret engineer. Either explode on-demand for CC and damage or punish you for trying to destroy the forest of turrets while staying on the point. This is in addition to all the CC the engineer already has. With this trait, Supply Crate becomes a box of CC, more than it already is.
2. Supply Crate’s Net Turret. Lots of extra CC in addition to the initial stun, healing, and damage. A good suggestion from a while ago was to replace it with a rifle turret and make the net turret a bonus to the Elite Supplies trait, which currently adds a rifle turret.

Well that is exactly the problem in tpvp, moving away from the turrets and thus the point = losing

First notion: I am strictly talkign about sPvP and tPvP. For WvW and PvE i have no problem what so ever with turret engineers.

Why i think turrets have to be nerfed:
-In nodecap based games where holding a node is winning the ability of long lasting, high hp, summons is a win guarantee. It is impossible to have a fair 1v1 against an engineer with 4 turrets + 5 turrets from supply drop that blwo out tons of damage and tons of cc (knockback, immobilize). Heck it’s almost impossibel to have a fair 2v1 as one guy will be on constant cc.
-Playing a turret engineer does not promote skillfull play as you rely entirely on AI.
My main problem with this is that GW2 is a game where looking around is real important and being able to sneak up on people somethimes comes with great reward. Having an AI that autodetects player completely ruins this experience

Some suggestions:
Make it so that the engineer has to hand trigger the firing of each turret (by a replacement skill in the skillbar liek guardian weapons) and cranck up the cooldown on the attacks a bit more so they dont get rheumatic at 30. This will allow engineers to make the turret attacks at critical moments in teh fight allowign for a higher skill cap of the build. It also means the engineer has to correctly target (dotn target clones e.g.) which is also an important aspect of this game. It also means he cant use teh turrets while stunned (stunnign a turreteer is completely useless now, and turrets cant be stunned, so other forms of cc are just a waste) The problem with this would be supply crate. I suggest giving supply crate only 3 turrets (rifle, rocket and heal) that can be trigger all at once by the replacement skill on no10 (NO net turret as a surefire immobilize after a 2 sec stun on a class that already has TONS of cc is just way out of line)

TO me this looks like a much funner way to do somethign about the turret dominance in pvp than straight out increasing cooldowns! Your arguments below!

lol, what does the crit damage nerf have to do with warriors? Its for all classes. Warrior is thus as OP as it was before patch!

apocom.3172:

Prince.7198:

apocom.3172:

This is not true, you have +200 power while revealed. I run different builds in pvp with this trait atm. 30/30/10/0/0 S/D looks nice with this.

This is good news! So they went with the original plan and the game update page is wrong? I haven’t been able to test this but can you confirm?

Yes, if the hero panel displays my power correct, i have +200 power for 4sec in pvp. No matter how often I attack. The ingame description of the skill match with this.

That just made my day. Especially for pvp this is nice! Since crit damage isn’t hit too hard here.

There are plenty of other very viable rune sets to choose from if your class does not have a low cd elite or heal skill!

Ouch that Divinity Rune nerf, right in the nuts!

apocom.3172:

This is not true, you have +200 power while revealed. I run different builds in pvp with this trait atm. 30/30/10/0/0 S/D looks nice with this.

This is good news! So they went with the original plan and the game update page is wrong? I haven’t been able to test this but can you confirm?

Superior Rune of the Krait

+25 Condition Damage
+10% Bleeding Duration
+50 Condition Damage
+15% Bleeding Duration; 25% chance when struck to inflict bleeding for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 15 seconds)
+100 Condition Damage
+20% Bleeding Duration; when you use an elite skill, you inflict bleeding, torment, and poison for 8 seconds to nearby foes. (Cooldown: 30 seconds)

Bam, spam that baselisk to cover your bleeds!

Sounds like a nice way for warriors with insane hp to 1 shot eviscerate you! lol balance lol

On swap, sigil of intelligence makes the next 3 attacks have a 100% chance to critically hit. Does damage that is unable to critically hit (sigil of fire proc, mug(thief DA trait)) count as one of the 3 attacks (making this a waste of the sigil in this case)?

A quick overview why I am disappointed from a thief perspective. (All the other features implemented are awesome, probs to arena net for that)

First of all: Skill balacing.
Pistolwhip (Spvp)=nerf (although i sorta agree with this one)
Shortbow 3= nerf
Shortbow 4= nerf
(seems like they made the final nerf to our sword and are now targeting shortbow)

no buffs (as opposed to many other classes, uhum, free traits for necro, uhum)

Skill fixes?
we only got skill fact updates (huray . ) while the real broken traits haven’t even been looked at (still suicide through last refuge, hard to catch is still trash, and all the last patched hard nerfed initiative traits still remain in the trait dumbster)
The only thing i am happy about is the steal fix bcs that was really annoying.

Second: Ferocity.
This hits thief meta hard! Yes there are those that do not enjoy pewpewing cheesy bleeds on a target and waiting for 10 min for a kill. What makes thief fun for me is the quick kills, high risk, high reward. After this amount of damage nerf only high risk remains (especially versus the already overpowered condition meta).

new traits!

#1Deadly Arts: Revealed Training: Gain up to 200 extra power when striking an enemy from stealth, based on your level.
WHAT!!? we were gonna get a power buff upon reveal! What happened to the great devs idea of engaging thiefs to step out of stealth!! Instead we get a power buff that only applies to 1 hit (aka restoring our pre ferocity backstab damage by trading in the last defensive traits we had, Go GLASS OR GO HOME). That seems a little weak for a GM trait doesn’kitten

#2Critical strikes. Invigorating precision: You are healed for 5% of outgoing critical strike damage
Only 5%? so actually 4.5% since crit damage was nerfed by 10%? SAD TRAIT! I’ll pick executioner anyday!

#3Shadow Arts: Resilience of Shadows: Stealth effects that you apply reduce incoming attack damage by 50%.
Finally a new useful trait (those are rare in thief). I am however confused about anet’s previous statements that they want the thief to more actively engage in combat. This trait encourages to do the exact opposite, but still, I am kinda excited to try this one.

Acrobatics: Assassins Equilibrium: Gain 1 seconds of stability when striking an enemy from stealth.
I won’t even get into this. useless 1 sec is useless. Oh and please update your “game update page” or you will fool people into thinking it is 1.25 sec base (rather than only 1 sec with the 30% boon duration form acrobatics included).

Trickery: Bewildering Ambush: Stealing also applies 5 stacks of confusion for 5.25 seconds.
Ok this is viable for condition specs! But worthy of replacing sleight of hand, don’t think so. and also, update the page because here the condition duration is included as well (base is 5sec).

I haven’t been playing around with the new runes and sigils so i hope that makes up for something but in my humble opinion the thief has gone through yet another nerf patch.

Happy Stabbing!

If you are solely talking about a shortbow for zerging (champion box farms) where your personal damage matters little, I would put a sigil of speed (swiftness on kill) and enjoy perma swiftness!

I run a 10/30/0/0/30 build with S/P in tournies. For as far as surviving goes:
-In a 1v1 (when decapping far) i mostly survive through cc: You have pistolwhip, baselisk venom, Sleigth of hand and Headshot. And pistolwhip offers enough evades in between that cc. Ofcourse if the opposing player is competent he will be able to avoid half your cc. Depending on the class i pop baselisk for teh Lyssa Proc at teh start (for stability vs warriors, engi’s, ..) or mid fight (vs condi builds, engi’s, necro’s). Further condi cleanse through skill 2, and signet of Agility (also giving you more dodges).

Dangerous situations:
#1. Opposing player is tanky: You are a killfast or be killed spec. If your target is still over 50 % (i use executioner) when i am down to my last initiative. I know i have to get out or he will eventually put you down (wasting time, better go cap somewhere else since you probably cant kill that bunker before all your utilities reset)
Side note: In killing bunkers, timing of your cc is essential

#2. Watch out for additional players coming in (especially when decapping far). Your CC’s are your best survival but are also single target. When additional players join, be ready to disengage (SR or switch to sb and evade, infiltrator arrow) because if they cc you at that point and your stunbreak is on cd, you sir are dead.

-In a team fight: You are basically glass so what i first do is use shortbow to apply poison and blast it for weakness, then i go s/p, use skill 2 to pop in, spam my whip, skill 2 again to go out. Dont stay in the fight since even weak aoe will probably end you. Stay at the outside of the fight and time your PW burst to help your team put down bunkers.

Hope this helps!

How will the Critical damage —> Ferocity change affect the Divinity Rune set?

Many people have spend a lot of money on this rune set (as well as the traveller rune set) for the high critical damage it gives, next to a nice bonus on all stats. However if the rune would be changed to just:

(1 to 6)+10 to all stats (including ferocity)

This would mean a big nerf to the set. How will this be changed?
1)Will all the stat bonusses be increased (cfr. celestial gear)? This would still be a disaster for all builds using the set for the crit damage.

2)Will there be a separation like so:

(1 to 6) +10 to all stats & +30 (2%) to ferocity

Please let me know:
A concerned divinator!

Great build! But u might wanna swap Signet Use out for something different as you don’t use signet. I would also drop the ini on stealth and just take the lower deception recharge trait! Have fun poking your dagger!

The new traits have been released and I am very happy with most of the thief’s new traits. Only one trait seems a bit out of place, and the winner is:

Assassin’s Equilibrium (Acrobatics): 1s stability on reveal.
The only “disappointing” new trait for several reasons:

1) It seems misplaced: Builds with high acrobatics uses evades rather than stealth as a defensive mechanism as no other traits in this line are actually stealth related (except for fleet shadow, but that trait is pretty broken). It would be a better fit as a second grand master in the Shadow arts line.

2) It doesn’t seem very useful. It is a 1 sec stability, however to proc it you need to use at least 2 skills: a skill that grants stealth & a skill to break the stealth. That seems like an awful lot of preparation (and initiative cost) for 1 second of immunity to cc. It can thus not really be used accurately against incoming cc. Furthermore, the whole point of stealth is that the player doesn’t know where you are. When you break stealth with a backstab the player will see you (reaction speed maximum at .15 s) and first dodge (.75s) in order to avoid more high lethal crits (heartseekers), then try to stun you to pin you down and release burst. By that time, with the fastest reaction speed, there will be 0.1 s of stability remaining (boon duration allows for e.g. 0.4 sec remaining), making it unlikely to prevent any CC. In same other situation it might save you, but those are few, and spending 30 points on a trait that only helps you in 1 of 20 encounters seems a bit off.

What to do to make it better:

—>Increase the stability duration. Asking for stability during the complete revealed time would likely be encountered as too powerful, as the “Stealth-is-OP-community” will explode if thieves can theoretically either be invisible or un-cc-able (practically this will not be so easy). A slight increase to 2 sec, allowing it to go to 3 sec with boon duration would place the stability more in the time window in which players will try to CC you, and can ensure a safe getaway. Even then, people playing a stealth build (d/d, p/d or d/p) will likely not be inclined to go this far into acrobatics since it will go at cost of dps.

That is why I propose it to be replaced by a different trait more in line with the acrobatics trait line: several suggestions:

1) Remove a condition every time you dodge (cooldown 5s) giving thief more access to on demand condition removal, which is a bit lacking if not running a stealth build.

2) Remove a condition for every evaded attack (cooldown: 10s). This will allow the thief to use dodges as well as some weapon skills (with evasion) to cleanse themselves of conditions when actively engaging in a fight. This trait will allow thieves to be stronger against the condition meta (e.g. engineer doing many conditions with many hits, grenades). It seems like a very strong trait but the cooldown can be played with in order to balance it.

3)Adding stability (1s) after a dodge roll. This allows for a more accurate application of stability and allowing you to survive more than one CC (since you can dodge the first and are immune to the second).

4)When you dodgeroll, you roll twice as far (same evasion time frame, just faster speed during the roll). This would give a lot of increased mobility (land speed) to the thief class and the acrobatics line.

Let me know what you think about these idea’s!

No, 70 % percent of the players in PVP are not Thieves. It just seems like they are abundant here because they are as good as non existing in the PVE content as PVP is the only thing the class is really good at. So don’t complain, and if a thief is spamming HS, it means its a bad theif and you should be able to kill it easily or L2P.

Now, back to GW2 and the point of this post. What GW2 does really well is the Combat system. It is all I could ask for, it’s dynamic, fast paced and difficult to master the timing of key skills (stunbreaks, heals, cc, teleports). However GW2 lacks BUILD DIVERSITY. We are 18 months into the game and by now all professions have about 2, maximum 4 different build (traits and skills) setups that are viable. That’s it! And after playing through most of them I have gotten bored with the skill system. When I play a pvp match i just have to see what profession with what weapon i am up against and i know immediately what build they run. There is no more room for creativity. This happened as well after a while GW1 Prophecies. However not much later there was an expansion with a SH*TLOAD of new skills, and even new professions, allowing me to further define my playstyle and try different ones. GW2 however doesn’t do expansions, they focus on living world. OK, i am totally fine with that so far as story and lore content. However, these living world updates don’t seem to change a lot about the skills and trait systems. Very scarcely there is a BALANCE UPDATE and it is meant for exactly and only that, to BALANCE. These mostly revolved around toning down overused and overpowered traits a little with the small exceptions of sometime completely changing the functionality. But that is all that happens and it is not enough. In my eyes, to make this game compelling again, we don’t need new areas, or new living story quest lines.
What we need is:

1)A thorough rework of many traits and skills that have never been used because they are simply not viable
2)Addition of traits and skills with completely new functionality, opening up different build options and re-sparking the creativity involved in build-crafting. And i want to say that the adding of a new healing skills is a good start but it is NOT ENOUGH. I want to ask for a living world release which adds:
A) at least 10 utility skills to each profession
B) a new weapontype which again adds skills. I am thinking: Spear (on land), Crossbow, Conjuration Book (2handed, bit like guardian elites, which are a nice idea but not very viable due to short duration)
C)new traits that are linked to these new utilities and weapons

I think i am not alone in wanting this since the amount of discussion a simple balance update get’s on this forum alone shows that people are very captivated by the gw2 combat system and playstyle.

Thanks for your attention!

PS: I REALLY like what your are planning on doing with the sigils and runes rework. This is exactly what this game needs for allowing more build diversity but it is not enough. So i kindly want to ask you to consider my requests. Thx!

PS2: As a reaction to this topic i would like your suggestions for new skills and traits (consider all professions not just your main)

(Long Post, Conclusion is at the bottom)
The thing I enjoy most out of an MMO is not it’s story or it’s gear grind or it’s lore (although its fun to speculate on that). I enjoy the development of my personal playstyle and the ability to show off how skilled I am at it, be it in PVE or PVP. I don’t want to show off a legendary with too much pixeleffects, or an xpensive piece of armor. No, i want to show off how skillfull i can approach different kind of game mechanics (boss fights, dungeons, pvp, ..)

To be able to do this there are 2 requirements:
1) An AWESOME combat system with a high skill cap
2) A lot of diversity in possible playstyles (yes, BUILD DIVERSITY)

Let me get my nostalgia on and tell you why i was drawn to the Guild Wars series all those years ago. Exactly, those two reasons. GW1 combat system was dynamic (not as much as gw2’s but it got the job done) and it took many many hours to master. Here I’d like to give the example of the Famous Spike builds (Rift spike, blood spike, ranger spike) that were run in Heroes Ascent that took hours and hours of team practice to get exactly right. I would also like to remind you off the elaborate weapon swapping builds (backbreaker assassins, or even the warrior “4 WEAPON DOMINATOR” (thumbs up if you ever played this build)). One last example, the art of INFUSION, people that took years to master this one specific skill and to be able to safe someone by their developed microsecond reaction speed.
Second, GW1 had THE MOST DIVERSE SKILL SYSTEM EVER and that is what kept me clustered to this game hour after hour , day after day, year after year. There were never-ending lists of skills from all professions too choose from to fill up those 8 precious slots and thus endless combinations of potential builds. Back then, it meant something when you invented a new build. If it was good it would get picked up by many until something better was invented, or until a strong counter build was created (in pvp). This allowed for an ever changing “meta-game” and challenged players to try and break the meta by originality in their builds.

The thing I enjoy most out of an MMO is not it’s story or it’s gear grind or it’s lore (although its fun to speculate on that). I enjoy the development of my personal playstyle and the ability to show off how skilled I am at it, be it in PVE or PVP. I don’t want to show off a legendary with too much pixeleffects, or an xpensive piece of armor. No, i want to show off how skillfull i can approach different kind of game mechanics (boss fights, dungeons, pvp, ..)

To be able to do this there are 2 requirements:
1) An AWESOME combat system with a high skill cap
2) A lot of diversity in possible playstyles (yes, BUILD DIVERSITY)

Let me get my nostalgia on and tell you why i was drawn to the Guild Wars series all those years ago. Exactly, those two reasons. GW1 combat system was dynamic (not as much as gw2’s but it got the job done) and it took many many hours to master. Here I’d like to give the example of the Famous Spike builds (Rift spike, blood spike, ranger spike) that were run in Heroes Ascent that took hours and hours of team practice to get exactly right. I would also like to remind you off the elaborate weapon swapping builds (backbreaker assassins, or even the warrior “4 WEAPON DOMINATOR” (thumbs up if you ever played this build)). One last example, the art of INFUSION, people that took years to master this one specific skill and to be able to safe someone by their developed microsecond reaction speed.
Second, GW1 had THE MOST DIVERSE SKILL SYSTEM EVER and that is what kept me clustered to this game hour after hour , day after day, year after year. There were never-ending lists of skills from all professions too choose from to fill up those 8 precious slots and thus endless combinations of potential builds. Back then, it meant something when you invented a new build. If it was good it would get picked up by many until something better was invented, or until a strong counter build was created (in pvp). This allowed for an ever changing “meta-game” and challenged players to try and break the meta by originality in their builds.

Now, back to GW2 and the point of this post. What GW2 does really well is the Combat system. It is all I could ask for, it’s dynamic, fast paced and difficult to master the timing of key skills (stunbreaks, heals, cc, teleports). However GW2 lacks BUILD DIVERSITY. We are 18 months into the game and by know all professions have about 2, maximum 4 different build (traits and skills) setups that are viable. That’s it! And after playing through most of them I have gotten bored with the skill system. When I play a pvp match i just have to see what profession with what weapon i am up against and i know immediately what build they run. There is no more room for creativity. This happened as well after a while GW1 Prophecies. However not much later there was an expansion with a SH*TLOAD of new skills, and even new professions, allowing me to further define my playstyle and try different ones. GW2 however doesn’t do expansions, they focus on living world. OK, i am totally fine with that so far as story and lore content. However, these living world updates don’t seem to change a lot about the skills and trait systems. Very scarcely there is a BALANCE UPDATE and it is meant for exactly and only that, to BALANCE. These mostly revolved around toning down overused and overpowered traits a little with the small exceptions of sometime completely changing the functionality. But that is all that happens and it is not enough. In my eyes, to make this game compelling again, we don’t need new areas, or new living story quest lines. What we need is:

1)A thorough rework of many traits and skills that have never been used because they are not viable
2)Addition of traits and skills with completely new functionality, opening up different build options and re-sparking the creativity involved in build-crafting. And i want to say that the adding of a new healing skills is a good start but it is NOT ENOUGH. I want to ask for a living world release which adds at least 10 utility skills to each profession,

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Warriors have bad DPS and poor defensive options, being easy to play doesn’t change any of that. And I think that’s enough to justify keeping them exactly as they are currently.

1. The DPS isn’t all that poor, that is just a stupid statement, you have perma fury and might.
2. little defensive abilities: Let me go over their defensive abilities
A. Kite away from damage: You basically have permanent swiftness, GS 3 and 5 get you for out of any damage range and have low cooldowns, Sword 2 can even add a little more distance.
B. Damage mitigation: Shield stance: 3 sec of safety, chain with endure pain, 4s of safety (that is 7 seconds).
C. Massive HP regen: Signet alone: 392 heal / sec; Adrenaline Heal: 360/ 3s aka Massive heal
D. Max HP and Max armor in the game
E. And next to all that, Low cooldown aoe CC
3. You sir are a troll.

frans.8092:

While this would be enjoyable, it would not last and I fear the ensuing cries could possible lead to a ’Smiter’s Boon’ treatment of the class.

Did you hear? They lifted that rediculous nerf Dam im getting nostalgic over the good old GW1 days where pvp was balanced

It is not the only self CC but it is the most useless self CC.
But underwaterthief has been broken from the start. Just look at the utility skills available, there are almost none (devs reasoning: stealth and smoke skills wont work underwater, lol ele can use fire skills and air skills underwater XDXD, engi can use bombs, tell me how that works lighting a fuse underwater??) and we have 1 crappy elite at our disposal. We used to have some underwater relevance when we had spear 5 doing reasonable damage while providing a long evade but that is nerfed to oblivion as a 7 ini skill allowing you to cast it twice and then die.

In “the raid of the capricorne” pvp match i dont even bother trying to cap the ruins (underwater node) since any other class easily kills me as all my survival utilities are “not available” and thief is a squishy kitten without them.

Welcome to what thief has been through for the last year. A tip: reroll warrior or guardian!

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Engineer – spam nades and bomb poo

Thief – spam 5 and 2

Lol at Spam 5! if you spam 5 with d/d you are in an infinte reveal loop and die, If you spam 5 on /p you will be out of ini very fast and die (btw if you get owned by standing in a tiny black powder field, go play candy crush saga in stead).

Spam 2, yes some thiefs tend to spam HS but thiefs that do it for the damage are mostly not very good. If i use HS its mostly to only score a kill after my cnd, backstab rotations. Off course if you are running, dont blame me for spamming my gap closer, thats like saying let me run away i wanna live, and yeah.. i dont feel like doing that for obvious reasons.

isolatedchimp.2510:

I find it laughable that anyone can say that engineers are spammy even if you claim that grenades are spammy. If you’re spamming anything on engi then you’re doing it wrong. I’m constantly switching around using different skills and utilities that you’d hardly see me using the same skills in a 10 second time frame.

Lol spamming necessarily doesn’t mean the same skill, that is stupid since you can only do that with autoattack (and thief but that is just suicide). What is meant by spamming is constantly pressing skills and not even bothering about precise targetting, and this is where engi excels. They have so many skills (on relatively short cool downs) that they can just keep blowing cool downs in an area around them (most skills: bombs and grenades are ground target) making it almost impossible to go near or to chase down. You tell me that as an engineer you are not constantly pressing skills back to back? I call kitten

Balanced thief with d/d or even d/p is no spam build at all. Ok you go in stealth as many times as you can (if you’re not you’re dead) but these builds are all about kiting the damage and waiting for opposing players to make a mistake ( for example spamming all their cooldowns in the air) and timing that precious Backstab (and in case of d/d Cnd) at just the right time.

Of course there are thief builds that require spamming (pistolwhip spam, s/d, or condition p/d) because these are mostly very glassy specs and it basically boils down to kill fast or get killed. Overall i have found thief to be the class with least skill spam and highest skill cap rewarding players with a lot of skill.