Guild Wars 2

It’s broken. That being said, it’s still more balanced than a mesmer underwater.

My advice would be to simply skip this map as underwater combat is just a mess in term of balance right now (ranger downed state, engi nades, thief shadow assault, mesmer as a whole). Even if underwater combat was fixed i would still not play it regulary simply because the map itself is small as can be.

http://i.imgur.com/qldn1pV.jpg

When you constantly get harassed for whatever nonsensical reason simply because you play one class (notice that i have two ways to stealth: bp + clusterbomb and sr that i pretty much only use for rez), it’s not really hard to understand why some players using it starts to be a little more aggressive.

You can litteraly try anything with this class, you’ll get harassed at one point, i’m sure i could have someone rage by stomping him using traps while only using sword main hand (no off hand) at this point, that’s just how bad it is.

Edit: forgot to hide the names calling targets, i failed.

Staying on land worked for frenzy, when i entered water afterward the aura showed up when not in combat mode and when i walked on a water spot the aura was dislaying inside the water while i still had my land weapons on.

reign.2369:

I have the spear, and the whole reason I got it is because I saw a video where someone had managed to get the UW aura on land, but that youtube account has since been banned so I can’t message them, and I’ve been looking everywhere on information on how to do it.

How did you manage it? or did it just happen and you never managed to replicate it?

Not sure if it works but try this:
-Get your underwater legendary equipped.
-Enter combat mode on land (not sure it works while underwater and i’m lazy to test it out), you don’t need to attack a mob, just swing your sword or fire an arrow or whatever.
-Switch your underwater legendary with another underwater weapon while in combat mode (not weapon switch you change it using the menu, meaning the legendary will go inside your inventory).
-Switch that underwater weapon again with the legendary, if it doesn’t work repeat the switch over and over.

By doing this i was able to have Frenzy underwater aura active while not being in combat mode. It also more or less worked on land but you could only see the aura around the parts of my character in contact with water. I guess Frenzy have a restriction unlike the spear.

I think they will release a huge “legendary update patch” including improved way to get them (precusor hunt and whatever) and improved visuals for most of them (underwater weapons, meteorologicus and ministrel come to mind). Might aswell do everything at once rather than updating a few here and there.

I’d already be happy if they updated shadow trap into a personal mesmer portal when triggered instead of the current nonsensical version.

Scorpion wire could either have a shorter cd or steal 2 boons on a successful hit.

Pistol whip either need a damage boost, the ability to move during the animation (or blurred frenzy treatment) or a change.
A change idea would be to split the skill in two:
-First part would be a faster melee pistol hit so it can be used as a better melee interrupt (cost 2 ini).
-Second part would be a skill you can use up to 3 times for 5s or until the 3 hits are consumed (each cast woul cost 1 ini), each hits would basically do aoe damage (damage divided in 3 per cast for better synergy with signet of malice) + short evade while being useable while moving.
This change would also need a increased delay in each auto attack part so you could combo auto attacks with each pw cast without it reseting to the first attack of the auto chain. The whole skill would more or less do the same as now in term of damage.

Not until underwater combat is updated.

Otherwise it’s a good idea, but i think a massive underwater update can wait until more important stuff gets fixed.

Puru.4217:

Thief deadly art traits, with the exception of mugh and the two 30 points ones (and the venom one is still debatable, especially as a 30 point trait).

Be specific! Can’t do the +50% damage while downed trait because every class has that useless thing. Traps applying Vulnerability isn’t that bad, Mug is still decent, Venomous Strength is fine for Venom Builds, Potent Poisons I can say is pretty bad, Sundering Strikes is meh, but I wouldn’t say the worst, Improv.. is pretty silly, Quick Venoms is fine for Venom Builds, Dagger Training is Dagger Training, Combined Training is fine, Panic Strike is pretty meh, and Residual Venom is.. okay?

Backfighter: I actually like this trait on my necro, otherwise i agree it’s not so good, still arguably the best choice as a secondary trait though.

Traps are aweful so this trait is basically useless, and honestly 5 vulnerability stack is kinda meh. It either need to be combined with the 20% cd reduction or they need to add another effect (destroy a boon for example, i mean it’s called corrosive trap after all)

Venomous strengh i agree, it’s good for venom share.

Potent poison is useless, i think we agree on that one.

Sundering strike could be ok if they removed the internal cd to be honest, the worst is that i still believe it’s one of the best current choice, even if i almost never use it.

Improvisation is a joke, i already don’t really like engi rng on elixir but it’s still manageable, this horrible trait however is pushing rng to the limit, you can either hit the jackpot and its actually really strong, or it does nothing. Need to be removed asap.

Quick venom once again i agree. An idea, why not combining it with potent poison, that would leave room for a new useful trait and remove a useless one.

Dagger training should have a secondary effect, like pretty much every “X utility skills or weapon 20% cd reduction” and “X weapon damage increased by 5%” traits. Still useable but meh, i really hate those lazy traits.

Combined training is terrible, it’s litteraly “one of your 10 skills damage is increased by 5%, i hope your not using a shortbow otherwise that’s 1 skill out of 15”. Even if it was combined with combo critical chance (another terrible thief trait) i would still not consider it.

The 2 level 30 traits i consider them okish, maybe it’s not worth investing 30 point for panic strike but i find the effect somewhat decent. As for residual venom, well it’s pretty much for venom share builds so it has some uses.

That’s pretty much how i feel about that tree in term of major traits, the tree itself is worth it for the power, mug and minor traits.

Thief deadly art traits, with the exception of mug and the two 30 points ones (and the venom one is still debatable, especially as a 30 point trait). You know something is wrong when you always pick mug and then you choose randomly between dagger training, improvisation (hey, maybe it will instantly reset deceptions), backfighter or sundering strike. Hard to catch is indeed terrible, it’s more effective at screwing you than anything else.

As for guardian glacial heart, not only does it makes absolutly no sense on a guardian, but it is infact terrible.

Venom share should be a given and the trait should increase the range to 900.

As for it not being used in dungeons, i think it’s simply not strong enough, it requires far to much coordination with how small the range is, and even if you are coordinated it’s not that good in pve. Might aswell just dps like crazy anyway since every dungeon in this game are just that easy. I still like the build though, i think it could have some potential if anet actually tried to fix poisons and pve in general.

It needs to act like a mesmer portal, same goes for spectral walk and the thieves shadow trap.

I mean the trap would need to be triggered and the wurm can be killed, at least unlike mesmers it has a counter.

Shadow trap should act like a personal mesmer portal when triggered, it wouldn’t be op and it would be an interesting choice.
Other traps i have no idea, everytime i use them i just switch back to something usefull almost instantly. Maybe 2-3 charges on needle and tripwire (5-10s cd on target affected by a trap once to make it less potent against a single target)

The mediocre thief traps traits be it in choice or effectivness doesn’t help either, that might actually be a way to explore for anet, more and actually good trap traits.

You could always roam the map naked to disable those traps before starting to play for real.

There should be an option so that everyone but you appears as team colored humans and it would be fixed.

Otherwise you’re better playing asuras. They are smaller so your team will see more clearly what is happening and you will be harder to read for your enemies. Asura master race.

Mrbig.8019:

Game is pretty balanced around top builds, but this is NOT balance.

This is very bad game design, in a game were it should be pretty easy to balance ( few skills, trait tiers, fixed amulets etc etc).

Balance in GW2 is a total failure if you see it from this perspective: a game that was DESIGNED to have good build diversity from its core thanks to strong restrictions ( aforementioned trait tiers, few skills etc ) fails in delivering said build diversity.

a good example is the thief: it has a good build ( that has become quite underperforming due to nerfs when compared to other classes) in D/P burst + shadow refuge-shadowstep-sin signet while EVERYTHING ELSE ( traits, other U-skills, weapons) are utterly trash.

I would never call this crap “balance”.

Pretty much this.

Sebrent.3625:

Why doesn’t my Mesmer veil stack with any form of stealth in the game?

It’s inconsistent.

No it’s not, every single line fields that gives a random buffs (necro spectral wall, mesmer veil or temporal curtain) doesn’t stack the buff if it’s already active. While it honestly sounds like a bug (probably because they didn’t find a way to limit the wall buff cumulation which makes sense with the current buff stacks available on one player) it is currently consistent.

That being said, if i was anet i’d have already limited stealth stacking to 3s (or 4s with stealth), i’d have nerfed some traits (shadow’s embrace limited to one condition when entering stealth and infusion of shadow to only work every 5s).

Still thinking this class is currently broken (not op nor up, broken) and need a major rework.

Yup, i’d wait one or two year before making one if i were you, the class might be heavily reworked at this point (probably two).

You can always try playing one with completly random builds, that will make you overall far better at the game and help you counter other thieves.

Those two new traps seems more usefull than the 4 thief traps combined. It’s not that hard though.

I honestly think this class needs a major rework.

It’s because you can’t really stealth underwater which means you can’t abuse shadow’s embrace. On top of that you lose shadow return condition removal be it on sword and shadow step which doesn’t help either.

Basically yes, thief condition removal underwater sucks, your only choice are a 20 acro trait, signet of agility (you need it underwater) and HiS.

That being said there’s no way to avoid underwater combat as a thief since withdraw + roll for ini + spear 3/5 and speargun 5 (use this when fleeing, can switch to spear and use 3 to block some ranged hits aswell if they miraculously catched up with you) = impossible to die.

1) 2/3 thief traits in each tree are garbage, some are obviously far to strong (infusion of shadow needs an internal cd and shadow embrace should only remove a condition when entering stealth or gaining a new stack). Basically 30 points in shadow art are far to good, especially when almost everything else the thief has is craptastic, deadly art being the best example, you go in that tree for the power, the minor traits and mug, the other chosen trait? Backfighter, dagger training or sundering strike unless you go venom share, if you don’t know what those are i invite you to look at the wiki and realize how all of them are BAD. Building a thief is the most brainless experience you’ll ever meet in this game, you’ll mostly take the same things over and over.

2) S/P is ruined by pistol whip (otherwise it’s ok, btw pistol whips becomes basically a “kill yourself” skill when your target spam retaliation aka a boon that involves no depths nor skill), dagger off hand is garbage in general and everything involving pistol main hand should be either deleted or reworked massively (p/d is basically the art of pressing 1 and 5, that’s 3 key i will probably never press, i think it speaks for itself, p/p sucks because of the lack of evasion, teleport or stealth, auto attack also does poor damage and fires slowly, actually this sets makes no sense, i honestly can’t figure what anet was trying to do with it). S/P and P/P are stealthless weapon set btw, but they aren’t worth using, that’s fine i guess?
Basically you’ll go s/d, d/p,shortbow. S/D is a bit less stealthy than d/p infusion abuse since it’s basically a 3s stealth if you hit.

3) Utility skills are DOMINATED by deceptions aka the stealthy tree, it’s simple almost every single video or thief you’ll ever see will have shadow step and shadow refuge, the third skill is generally another deception or a signet, talk about diversity. Now you’re probably thinking “well nerf them” but trust me, no. The problem is that everything else (but some signet, and even those i’d say only agility doesn’t need a buff) is GARBAGE, traps are laughably bad, tricks are terrible outside of caltrops and roll for ini but those are still inferior (roll could be instantly fixed if you could choose where you roll, kinda like the warrior gs spinning attack), venoms are crap and even when massively traited for (60 trait points) aren’t even that good and signet well… agility is good, shadow signet active is terrible, assassin signet makes no sense now that the passive is 180 power and infiltrator is just meh.
As for deceptions, i’d say shadow refuge needs to reveal the targets going outside of it even after the effects ends, it’s honestly currently far to strong.

4) Weak condition removal outside of stealth, you can deal with it of course but i think being almost immune to those is a bit more interesting don’t you agree?

The problem with that class is not only that it’s stealth heavy and stealth is annoying and reduce depth and skill, the problem is that anet has done NOTHING to promote stealthless or low stealth builds.

If underwater combat had more weapons, was more balanced and all utility skills were actually working or had a underwater verison, it would honestly be far more interesting than land combat. Maybe they could also allow players to have both an underwater and on land traits selection.

If i was anet, i wouldn’t bother developing any major underwater content until they fix the variety. If they do then i have no issue with it, i’d actually gladly enjoy it.

/Offtopic

Cool, that video can pretty much be used to make my point without me having to make a video of my own, thank you.

Mug hits for 4-5k every 45s (can be reduced) if it crits as glass cannon, tier one trait. Thief is now in melee range.
Static discharge hits for 1.5k+ crits as glas cannon and is AOE up to four time (more than 6k from that video but heal is indeed not used and not recommanded to be used anyway), cd depending on the toolbelt skill chosen (can be reduced), tier one trait. Engi doesn’t care, he will either fire them at range or instantly hit with them in melee.

Community reaction:
Mug: Holy hell, it does far to much damage if glass cannon, 4-5k is too strong, especially for a level 1 trait, nerf it to oblivion.
Static discharge: …

Why does the pet that followed you at the opposite side of the map magically disappear when his master decide to change pet or becomes a torpedo when asked to come back making it virtually impossible to deal with it while he harass you for free?
Like seriously, there is no reason for the pet to run that fast back at the ranger, if he did or didn’t wanted the pet to follow a target to the end of the universe, he should pay the price for it unless he pet swap.

Why does those pet actually disappear and where do they come from, if it’s magic then why does the ranger only limits him/herself to 2 pets?

The list goes on.

S/P + Shortbow + signet of malice + caltrops. You’ll be almost invincible.

You’ll eventually learn that the only threatening creature that roam Tyria for a thief are the dredges that you’ll soon be calling “forking dredges” and maybe the kraits.

Vol.5241:

Honest question: If you started getting 3 exotics everyday and a ring every fractal run, would you make this post and say RNG is broken?

If i actually started to drop this when since release i probably got one exo drop every 2-3 months (i got 1 exo drops from the improved boss chests and i farmed them with 6 alts, all of them at least farmed rotbeard and centaur chests once per day and half or more the maw, there’s a reason i completly and utterly ignore them now unless i miraculously happen to be in the area when the event triggers), 3 sab skin out of 300+ chest, no will of doing the new dungeon because i know i won’t get anything out of it and 4 rings out of 30+ fractals then yes, i would still say it’s completly broken.

Then again, rng is rng. It’s just the design that is flawed to begin with.

Tier A:
+Ranger
+Mesmer
Engineer (not sure, maybe + aswell but i’ll leave it as is)
Elementalist
Guardian

Tier B:
Necromancer

Tier C:
+Thief
-Warrior

Still close to no build diversity.

Saital.4819:

Mrbig.8019:

Signet of shadow is still horrible

I hate to pick apart an overall well written post for one minor detail, but it bothers me how many thieves say this.

Signet of Shadows passive is great for roaming and general out-of-combat mobility. Its passive is bar none the best way to secure stomps if you don’t have an offhand pistol. Seriously now, what’s not to love?

Active is only really good against guardians if you’re not using pistol off hand, everything else you can cloak and dagger and stomp, it’s just as effective. The active is honestly really bad. The long range immobilize was a real active i actually bothered using alot and still would with the 25% movement speed version.

Keep pressing the key for a bit -> cancel the next move.
Would that work in your opinion? I agree while i actually enjoy the rework, the loss of evade potential is a bit saddening.

I already did it with shortbow, s/p or d/p.
I’m still not using 4 when using dagger off hand unless i want to laugh at how bad it is.
As for pistol main hand… yeah i sometime forget it actually exist.

A life leech condition.

Stack on duration.
Basically anybody attacking leeches some hp off the target.
As for the dot, it would less than burning (of course) but still strong and procide a % of the damage into hp to the target at close range of the afflicted target.

The purpose is to give multi attacks a point other than getting kitten by retaliation, to force the target to get it off or dodge the mulit attacks, while providing extra support in form of healing and team damage to the classes who have access to that condition.

I would give it to necro and thieves, maybe engi, that’s it.

I honestly can’t believe they didn’t changed assassin signet active. I was so expecting them to do it when they were like “yeah we changed signet of might active because it would make no sense to keep it that way now”.

Whatever, maybe in 2 months (since next patch will be bug fixes as they said) they will actually make something new viable, like maybe i’ll have something else than deceptions, signet of agility/assassin ( or shadow to travel and switch it before battles, in pve at least) to go inside my utility skills.

Pyriall.5027:

Shemsu.8721:

Pyriall.5027:

On par with warrior long bow, ranger long bow, and ele staff abilities.

Thief SB is on par with long bow and staff now? Awesome! I missed the part where they adjusted Shortbow range to 1200-1500. Ohh wait they didnt? Guess its not on par then is it now?

Yes, being that you have to invest points to make those two weapons function. So, sure give thieves 1200 range and make it cost 10-20 points in a trait line…done and done.

There’s a 20 shadow art trait that “increase the damage of shortbow and harpoon gun by 5%”, i think adding more range to all sb skills (and yes, this includes infiltrator’s arrow) wouldn’t be a luxury now and it would fix one of our trait (out of many).

Btw anet, the thief stealth skill with sb is still heat-seeking, just so you know.

Spike.1526:

Ntranced.7415:

Trick Shot skill: First arrow is no longer heat-seeking.

What exactly does that mean?

+1. I don’t really understand…

Basically the shortbow auto attack couldn’t miss before (like almost every projectile in the game), this patch now enable to dodge them it seems, and since the travel speed of that weapon is relativly slow, you will probably be able to dodge it with ease at far range.

In before ADADADADAD > shortbow.

I personally hope they will change the active, losing power for damage is just meh.

Whatever they do that trait isn’t so bad.

As long as this trap doesn’t act as a personal mesmer portal, it won’t be worth it.

It’s an underwater legendary so it not having footsteps makes sense. It actually has an aura but like every single underwater legendary it’s working 10% of the time (also the fishes are so small you probably won’t notice them, especially those that are tied to the aura working or not, the aura itself and the fish are also less visible in clear waters).

I agree it seriously lacks projectile effects, be it sounds or projectile change. It’s the only huntsmen ranged weapon not featuring any, i would guess this weapon is still a work in progress in term of effects(along with some obvious like meteorologicus or the ministrel)

Thief traps are the worst utility skills of the game.

If thieves venoms are still useless unless massively traited for and traps still crap tier, i’d rather them just add a new tree.

If they fix those kind of issues for every class then i think a mix of both world wouldn’t be a bad idea.

donttread.9304:

Do you think necros get more loot bags?

I personally get far more bags with my power necro (and generally feel more usefull) but thief is far more safe and as said before, cluster heal is pretty strong, actually cluster in several fields is really strong.

It’s terrible.

Scorpion wire: Pulls your target, it’s a projectile, 30s cd, 1/2 cast time, buggy pull
Necrotic grasp: Grants life force, chills your target, pulls your target, it’s a projectile, 30s cd, 3/4 cast time, buggy pull.
Into the void: 2 skills in one, not a projectile, pulls multiple targets reliably and you can choose where you want to pull them, unlike the two others doesn’t even requires your targets to be at the extremity of a fort wall to hope getting a pull, 25s cd, 1/4s cast time.

I think the comparison speak for itself. It should at least steal 2 boons.

That being said it still have some uses, pulling someone can result in a free kill.

Josh Foreman.8250:

If you can hear it in your nightmares, there’s a good chance you’ll come across it in SAB.

I sure hope not.

That, Sonic and tmnt combined in a single underwater level would be true horror.

Warrior are op in pve, just like mesmer and guardians are (mesmer only really being op for dungeons or inside a group, on their own they aren’t so great). They are not very good in pvp.

But to be honest i think i’d rather have every other class being as op rather than those being nerfed.

Spam cluster bomb, poison fields and sb auto attacks, generally best choice unless you see a good ds or stolen axe opportunity.

S/P as a secondary set because:
-Infiltrator’s strike is godly
-unhasted pw evade time last a long time, and even if the target avoid most pw damage it will still pack quite a punch (maybe even kill), also infiltrator’s strike -> pw -> return is almsot 100% safe and since it’s aoe might actually do even more damage than you would expect. Also you can generally spam several pw + dodge and after you use return your sb will once again be available to use.
-infiltrator’s strike -> black powder -> dagger storm (blinding bolts) -> return. If you use signet of malice it can make you quite tanky. You can also use the sb for a poison field, teleport to it with infiltrator’s strike or shadow step (target the closest enemy) and ds.
-Try stealing some warriors or rangers (aoe heal with clusterbomb, might aswell support your allies a bit if you can, especially if no rangers layed some healing springs :<) and use shadow return from infiltrator’s strike to go back to a safe position. Stealing a thief can be quite useful to pick up someone escaping by using the sb stealth skill, necro isn’t bad either.

That being said i like my necro better for zergs.

I like all the underwater ones (kraitkin and frenzy lacks effects though, but that’s true for several legendaries anyway), Frostfang, Rodgort, FSP, the Predator and the Moot. I actually somewhat like the Ministrel, a shame it currently has close to no effects.

My favorite would probably be the kraitking (typo made on purpose).

My least favorites would be the greatswords and bolt, despise being great effect wise.

They said it would be the same weapon featuring visual change depending on the day/night cycle. The only thing it needs is some bug fix.

Shemsu.8721:

Infiltrators Strike is 600 range, and thats exactly the range it works at

I was talking about the return part of the skill, which is supposed to be 1200 range but currently is able to return from infinity range.

Don’t forget infiltrator’s strike, it says 1200 range after all.

stof.9341:

Iove.3902:

I quite like the trait. I don’t see a problem with it, and have not experienced a problem with it. If anyone wants to enlighten me, please do so. Though, the reason I might not have problems is because I’m not a stealth spamming Thief — I use Evades.

Regardless, what are the problems you are having with it?

If you aren’t really using Stealth, why do you spec into Shadow Arts?

If you want to use a lot of Stealth, you have to spec into Shadow Arts and then the trait gets annoying.

Because:

1)This trait is powerfull if not massively using stealth
2)reducing the cd of deception by 20% is powerfull regardless of using a stealth build or not.

The trait is good but i agree it shouldn’t fork you if you rely massively on stealth, it simply needs to be modified slightly.