Guild Wars 2

Silk.2813:

The screen shot was taken today my friend, you can claim it doesn’t happen all you want.
The fact that you say it is rigged shows the level of delusion we are dealing with.

You’re playing a necro here right? Or is this even your character? We need more information, really… did he have 25 stack of bloodlust and 25 stack of might and did you have a big ol stack of vulnerability from that ranger you were also fighting? O_o Because that adds up to you being pretty screwed, whether it was in 1 hit or several.

He may have also used the sig (probably did) and was there a spirit or banners or any other group buffs going on his side? O_o Again, there are ways for a whole host of things to add up together… but this isn’t a typical backstab, I’m sure we can all agree on that. The C&D and Mug damage are entirely too high as well, whatever situation led to this… it wasn’t typical.

Atticus.7194:

Wow, condescending much?

Well first off your comment about my supposed confusion between a character and the person playing it has no real bearing on my comments and from what I can tell serves to allow you to attempt to belittle me and nothing more so please stop. Just because I use the common vernacular “You might be doing something” or “your ability” instead of saying “your character is able to do something” or “your characters ability” doesn’t invalidate my comments (and frankly it’s really petty).

Also my mention about eviscerate was to hopefully provide some perspective that thieves really aren’t being singled out amongst all other professions by calling for reappraisal of a skill that seems a bit overpowered in conjunction with several other factors like thieves extreme mobility/survivability.

And finally while I’m really not going to get dragged into a semantics debate with you I think most would agree that however or why ever thieves are able to run a full glass cannon build in WvW and remain viable is frankly a bit much. Through out this thread many many players have pointed some of the amazing things thieves (not the players playing them but the profession itself which is not to say in anyway I am referring to the person playing the profession and not the profession itself and it’s inherent abilities which are limited to the profession and not the player (happy?)) are able to do right now and all together it’s just a bit much, so all I’m mentioning is that some of this just needs balancing, your character shouldn’t be considered dead on sight if a thief sees you and you’re running anything but a fairly “tanky” build.

EDIT: Also once more, really… tone down the condescension please you’re laying it on really thick and it’s not appreciated. If I’m wrong well that’s fine that’s certainly a possibility however at no point do I (or anyone else) ever need you looking down your nose at anyone else trying to make them feel like kitten in a constructive conversation.

Just mirroring. I really don’t care, but generally respond to people with the same attitude they have.

More importantly, it isn’t just thief that can and do get away with going glass cannon in wvw. Every class does, or can. It doesn’t suit every class well, but it is an option in many situations that is of some degree of functionality.

A warrior for example, even full glass cannon, has like what… the equivalent of roughly 700 more vitality than a glass cannon thief. And equivalent of roughly 200 more toughness… too. So compared to a glass cannon thief, a glass cannon warrior is just a cannon.

Thief has base hp of 10,805. Look at this number, mull it over for a minute. What does the thief need to get to compensate for having so few HP? Avoidance? Higher damage… burst? What? He certainly doesn’t have more armor… less in fact, which compounds the small HP further. So, to compete, he needs to do some things very differently, he needs to deal more damage, because he can take less…. or he needs to avoid damage… or a little of both.

Anet went with the little of both strategy, and imo it works rather well. They mostly rolled them into the same mechanic, stealth. The thief can become untargetable, and do a bit of burst if positioned properly. Requires a bit of skillful play to make optimal use of, and can be countered by skillful play.

Maybe I am biased, because I have played a thief. That’s entirely possible, but I don’t think it is the case. I don’t even like playing the burst specs. If I play it, I use S/D for control, or P/D for attrition style play.

But either on my thief, or any other character… I have zero problems handling burst backstab thieves. They move in very, very predictable ways, and have very specific requirements to pull off their burst. And it is really… really easy to counter. People can call a well timed dodge luck all they want, until they are blue in the face… but when you do it just about every time, it isn’t luck… and if I can do it, anyone can. I’m good at theory crafting and number crunching, I’ve made some pretty interesting builds, that I’m good at. But actual game play? Mediocre at best.

My honest recommendation… if you have a problem fighting this spec… try it out yourself. Make a thief, go to the mists, play some sPvP matches. Spend some time learning it inside and out. Watch what other people are doing to counter you, and learn from it.

What is gained by using axe/warhorn offset sword/torch that going axe/torch and sword/horn doesn’t do better? I’m not seeing it, can someone fill me in?

I’d think axe/torch is preferable for easier projectile-fire combos, and sword/horn for mobility. It isn’t a huge difference, I’m just curious why you want to use them in the order some have listed.

I personally run axe/torch and sword/dagger with healing spring, fire/viper/spike traps and entangle or RaO.

The beauty of axe/torch is the fire combo field, and that the axe has projectile finishers… so that even at range, it can apply burning to your attacks. It is also an amazing field in group settings. Axe applies a good chunk of bleed too. I find sword/dagger is a useful offset, because it has bleeds and poisons, but also because it doubles as a defensive set with evades for sticky situations.

The traps are fairly self explainitory, they apply conditions in an aoe, and are just generally awesome. Healing spring is wonderful in group setting, not only does it apply regeneration ao, cleanse aoe, and provide a very handy water field…it can also be traited to provide vigor! Go go more dodges.

Entangle is very handy when aoe control is required, but in many situations I prefer RaO, as it can get you to a 25 stack of might in a quickness… and at 25 stacks.. your conditions are going to be ticking for record numbers, and just be wreaking face.

I personally don’t like the idea of sacrificing condition damage for precision, and opt to not use rampager for that reason. Carron or Rabid preferably are going to net you far higher dps with a full on condition setup like I use. Because keep in mind, you are buffing burning, by a large amount with condition damage, poison by a decent amount, and while bleeds are very low in coefficient…. the more you stack the more your condition damage increases your bleed stack dps. Because you have all three rolling on your target, condition damage is just so amazing it is really difficult to pass on.

Atticus.7194:

Ravnodaus.5130:

The problem you’re describing Atti, is the rendering issue. I’ve never heard a thief player claim anything other than that it should be fixed asap. We all know it needs to be fixed, everyone admits it… nothing to see, move along. But they’re not actually in stealth longer than intended, for clarity sake you should know the difference. Not rendering in quickly, and being stealthed, are not identical. You may not be able to fully see them, but their location is actually noticeable while unrendered, and they can be targeted while not rendered in too.

Exaggeration leads to people discrediting you as an unreliable source of information, and can render your opinions meaningless and pointless, as people will tune you out. There are plenty enough real issues, you don’t have to pretend they are something they aren’t for people to listen, quite the contrary.

“dropping backstabs fast enough to do 20k+ damage in a few seconds” though, is patently false. You can only do 1 backstab in a few seconds, it isn’t even mechanically possible to more than one in a few seconds, ever. No amount of personal skill, gear, traits or combination thereof can alter that either. Simply, not, possible.

So again to that whole exaggerating thing. Best practice if you want to be heard? Don’t embellish, it just casts doubt on everything you have to say.

The sad fact is I’m neither lying or embellishing the facts, next time I go down I’ll screen shot the combat logs and post a link to them (I honestly will). But yes I have been hit by thieves fast and hard enough so that I do go down in several seconds (not saying how many since I wouldn’t want to be seen untruthful… but yes just a few) and yes I have looked at my combat log and seen a string of hits ranging from 5-9k each, and further more I do recognize the backstab animation well enough to know that this particular skill is being used often enough that (as in constantly) so that it is most likely the source of that damage (coupled with some really high mugs on occasion).

So you can believe whatever you like however regardless of supposed exaggeration or otherwise that sort of burst is unbalanced plain and simple. In fact the crux of the issue is that thieves can run a complete glass cannon build in WvW and be viable whereas almost every other profession knows that’s suicide and that’s just not okay. So yes, backstab does need some balancing, in fact I’d venture to guess that thieves didn’t care for the redic eviscerates warriors were dropping back in the day and were more than happy to call for some balance on that skill, well now it’s your turn for some balance as well.

You seem to be confusing players with professions. Hi, I am a player. I am not a warrior, nor a thief. I’m a real life person and I play a pretty cool video game. You’ve probably heard of it. In this game, I have a bunch of characters that I play, one of them is in fact a warrior, and another is a thief, among several others as well. But I myself am not the profession my character is. Because I’m not confusing a game with reality or misplacing identities in my perceptions of other people playing this same game. I am not delusional, in this sense, and can perfectly differentiate between the two.

I encourage you to try it. Coming to terms with the fact that you’re not talking to a bunch of thieves will probably help in the clarity of your perceptions too. Things like “thieves didn’t care when warriors got a nerf and now it is your turn, haha!” are complete nonsense when you adopt my perspective… and you can see them for what they really are, gibberish from a confused mind.

And finally, to your rebuttal. If you are not lying or embellishing, then you’re simply just wrong. After a thief backstabs, they get a revealed debuff that prevents reentering stealth for exactly 3 seconds. They would then have to use a skill to reenter stealth to be able to backstab again. So it is not possible, in this game, guild wars 2, for a thief to backstab “constantly” or hit with backstab numerous times in a few seconds…. just isn’t possible in the game for it to happen man.

Any attempt you make to say it is happening will show that you really don’t know what is going on at all in combat vs a thief.

Bond.4813:

Unreal…
http://d.pr/i/QWjY – on guardian
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/19749/gw007.jpg
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/19745/gw009.jpg
Took me 1min to find those and i wont dedicate 1s more to find what EVERYONE knows already but you refuse to. Even if you account in for signet nerf the numbers are right where i said my ele was hit for.
And i never bothered with d/d builds since i dont like the playstyle. Tried it while lvling but thats it.

@bwillb
Its called pistol whip. Last hit on it can easily crit for 9-10k. On uplvled champs it went as high as 15k (dont recall if i activated signet at that time). Combined dmg can easily go up to 20k. All that by pressing #3 once. And yes, it is spammable; with haste its just kitten It also has a built in evade. And if kitten hits the fan just press #2 and you are back where you started reseting the fight. However with proper signet and food that heals on crit you wont have a need to reset fights often.

Those screenshots are outdated. They are from patches ago, both used pre nerf signet, and had orb bonus. They were also against poorly geared characters, you can tell in that last one especially based on the lightning strike damage that the dead ehmry bay dude had less than basic armor.

If I really wanted to, I could create a situation where I kill my target with 10-15k auto attacks with a necro, then post screenshots of that… claiming necros are OP as hell.

Alls I’d need is a willing partner to stack vulnerability up to 25 on my willing warrior target whos in lvl 0 white gear during a frenzy. kitten’d be cray.

Why would I? I wouldn’t. Because I don’t have some crazy vendetta or agenda.

The problem you’re describing Atti, is the rendering issue. I’ve never heard a thief player claim anything other than that it should be fixed asap. We all know it needs to be fixed, everyone admits it… nothing to see, move along. But they’re not actually in stealth longer than intended, for clarity sake you should know the difference. Not rendering in quickly, and being stealthed, are not identical. You may not be able to fully see them, but their location is actually noticeable while unrendered, and they can be targeted while not rendered in too.

Exaggeration leads to people discrediting you as an unreliable source of information, and can render your opinions meaningless and pointless, as people will tune you out. There are plenty enough real issues, you don’t have to pretend they are something they aren’t for people to listen, quite the contrary.

“dropping backstabs fast enough to do 20k+ damage in a few seconds” though, is patently false. You can only do 1 backstab in a few seconds, it isn’t even mechanically possible to more than one in a few seconds, ever. No amount of personal skill, gear, traits or combination thereof can alter that either. Simply, not, possible.

So again to that whole exaggerating thing. Best practice if you want to be heard? Don’t embellish, it just casts doubt on everything you have to say.

bwillb.2165:

I easily do 20k dmg on non tanky cloth by pressing 1 button that i can spam.

Oh, really? I’d love to know which button that is. Must be some sort of dev client, because I don’t have any spammable buttons that do anywhere near that.

We all do, on any profession, with any weapon set. He didn’t say how much time that damage was done in…

Even a full defensive spec/geared character can do 20k damage by spamming one skill, eventually. He is just stating the obvious and trying to make it sound like it means something… which it doesn’t.

Keywords:
“I never did that combo”
“before i could realise”
“why should i even bother finding proof”
“everyone knows”

Your own argument invalidates itself man…

/facepalm

Are you trying to say that thief backstab is OP, despite having no evidence, never trying it yourself, and only when you’re not paying attention or reacting?? O_o

I’ve run a D/D backstab burst build on my thief before for the luls… but that is all it is good for. When it comes down to actually achieving PvP goals it is subpar by a long shot and numerous other thief builds are going to outplay it.

I wouldn’t personally lose any sleep over a backstab nerf, but I do think it is sort of pointless. A thief who builds for high burst backstab has almost zero utility, has the lowest hp imaginable, and nearly the lowest armor too. The only “survivability” it can claim is stealth, which is really only effective against people who aren’t really that effective themselves to begin with.

Burst builds in general are really good at one thing, killing off people with slow reaction time, poor situational awareness, and glass cannon set ups. If those three things describe you, you are going to have a hellova time with burst builds. Thieves do burst better than the other professions, so this fact is exaggerated even further vs a burst thief. But it is one of their niches, each profession has them. This is one of the thief’s.

Speaking purely anecdotally, I have zero concern when facing a burst thief. I know exactly what they are trying to do, I know what they need to do it, and I just don’t let them find their personal cosmic alignment that means they 1 shot me. Deny them anything on the long list of requirements to pull off a huge burst combo, and you will find they are very soft targets that melt without much effort at all.

And again… what exactly is this thief build good at? Is it holding control points? No. Taking control points? Not really… Running around the map picking off people who aren’t even contributing or paying attention? Yes!

Sounds like the best spec evar! Where do I sign up? Lol.

I’m addicted to swiftness, and the ability to give it out AoE style with 100% uptime is too much awesome in WvW to pass up for me. I use Centaur. And an offhand horn. Whenever I’m roaming the map looking for trouble, I get where I’m headed quickly, and so does anyone who is dumb enough to join me.

I used to use 3 krait/3 afflicted when I was using the shortbow and focused more on bleeds. It was amazing for that with the +30% bleed duration, and 166 condition damage. I’ve also used Undead runes, and honestly, have no complains there whatsoever. It adds more condition damage than any other set, depending on your gear, it might add more by a huge margin too. I kinda miss how rediculously potent my conditions were when I had these runes, and will probably go back to them again at some point.

But right now, 100% uptime aoe swiftness is just too much utility for me to pass on. So Centaur it is. The power it gives isn’t exactly nothing either, even when focused on conditions, you are still going to have regular attacks, and it is never a bad thing for them to hit harder.

It has been touched upon already. But I wanted to mention it again. It is ok to mix and match runes if you do it right. Look at what some of them offer at varous set numbers and see if the perfect “set” for you isn’t just scattered between 2, or even three sets.

2/2/2 generally gives really big duration bonuses, but at a cost of attributes and other utility. 2/4 gets decent duration bonuses, probably has some minor utility, but some attribute loss. 3/3 gets good duration, and nearly full attributes, but rarely has utility. 1/5 is usually just if you don’t like the final set bonus and you just tack on a divinity rune, or gem etc to fill the gap for an otherwise perfect set. A full 6 set is generally well rounded, has some duration, some utility, and attributes. Gems have more attributes but no durations or utility at all.

BabelFish.7234:

15 heartseekers all on the same enemy…oh god…what next? 15 backstabs on a single enemy? I could see a well organized and coordinated set of thieves dismantling WvWvW with assassination-style ganks.

If you have a group, they can move, albeit slower, entirely stealthed by having a few of them chain shadow refuge for everyone.

Edit: Oh, and imagine the hilarity of seeing some seemingly unmanned trebs launching at your keep, and going to investigate… And finding they… are not alone. By a lot. Would just be creepy to watch an army appear from stealth to overwhelm your defences. Argggg I wanna join! >.<

Revelstoke.8924:

I am convinced that after nearly 30 ranks of PvP, multiple hundreds of specs and amulet tinkering among other things that toughness (for light and medium classes) doesn’t make a significant impact.

Why? Tradeoffs.

~snip~

Toughness makes a huge impact, but it is also true that power scales better than toughness (in a vacuum).

If you look at the damage formula you can see why (it is already posted above).

Say I do 10 damage whith base power vs target in light armor and base toughness. (916). Well, I can add 916 more power to double that, and do 20 damage. Lets say the guy im fighting decides he wants to go tankier, and adds 916 toughness. Well, now I’m only going to hit him for around 13 damage. But we both added the same number of stats! And I’m still hitting harder than before.

Power just simply scales really well in this game. But that doesn’t mean toughness is useless and should be neglected either! In that example, the extra toughness he added made a pretty big impact still, even if the power outweights it point for point.

Now, your spec is going to determine what is right for you, in s/tPvP everything comes in preset packages, and customizing your stats to the optimum for your build takes a bit of finessing.

My general rule of thumb though, is never to sacrifice too much power, unless it gets you something really good that stats alone cannot compensate for… ie traits, rune bonuses, etc. There are a few builds that don’t need it much too, but those are the exception and not the rule.

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

This thread has some good info

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/35556-weaponskill-damage-formula/page__hl__damage%20equation

“My conclusions:

adding 916 power through traits/runes/amulet will double the damage done.
adding ~1835 toughness will reduce all damage taken by 50%.
adding 916 toughness will reduce all damage taken by 33%.

constant protection boon equals 916 toughness.

Quite imbalanced isn’t it? "

-Enfanger Guild Wars 2 Guru Forum

That’s the closest thing I’ve found to an answer.

As an ele I personally prefer the protection boon over toughness for non-bunker builds. I can maintain 70-100% protection uptime (depending on build) while still having a 67% crit rate. Just messing around on a target golem I was able to achieve 30 seconds of protection using only auras and earth attune swapping. I’ve gotten 1 minute duration before but it might be capped as I couldn’t get any higher.

Depends on what your starting armor is… or what we are referring to as “base” damage.

Also, protection always reduces damage by 33%, so it works synergistically with higher toughness. Stack toughness and reduce damage 50%, add protection for 33%…and you end up only taking 33% of the base damage. They work together well, toughness and protection.

But regardless, protection is indeed a very potent boon, stat wise equivalent is pretty large numbers. If you can run a more dps oriented build while maintaining protection… you got yourself a potent spec.

I can only speculate based on what I know of other %s in the game…

There is a cap for duration % at 100%.

Although I’m pretty sure crit % can go higher than 100%.

So it could be either. The only extensive MF testing I’ve looked at used exactly +100% MF in their tests, which did have an effect.

Akumu.7238:

sixfeetunder.6508:

I dont see anything wrong with my warrior. I enjoy them 22k crits from 100blades.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t take your post seriously after reading this. Another noob smasher that is a god around mere mortals. I sometimes play GS warrior just to see how noob someone is. Makes me chuckle every time I’m able to catch someone with it. However, I laugh less these days as more people learn to play GW2.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I’m done creating posts about the warrior to explain its problems. Either Anet is heavily testing the warrior and see these obvious flaws, or they love the current state warrior are in.

I’m going to keep my Warrior on the battlefield, but I refuse to be blind enough to think I’m adding anything to the fight, other then +1. Holy Trinity is gone. This game is more than just a class that does damage.

edit: merged posts.

It really isn’t just noobs that can end up eating a quickened 100 blades to the face. Especially in a larger fight than 1v1. But even in 1v1 if you can catch someone after you get them to burn their stunbreaks, it’s game. In a sense that means you have outplayed them, I guess… but it doesn’t mean they are by default a noob.

garethh.3518:

DesertRose.2031:

That one thing I hope they’ll fix in the upcoming Ranger patch; move the trap traits to Wilderness Survival.

That would be a horrible nerf to trap specs as they can’t get the solid survivability of the wilderness survival tree along with the trap traits (trap specs are condition dmg specs, condition dmg specs are made for the longer haul so need some good survivability or don’t work)
Trap specs are one of our few viable specs atm.
Nerfing a working spec in a class with few working specs isn’t good?

Well if not wilderness survival, then maybe they should go into Marksman? Would at least synergize with the condition duration… and explain why a trap tossing ranger can toss traps… marksmen have good aim.

Slic.2406:

Yeah, I’ve noticed a very, very slight delay. My newer vids actually show it coming into play – there’s at least 1 case where I hit cloak on a downed guy and get ‘immune’ because I didn’t expect revealed to last 3-5 extra frames. And then ofc I take a metric ton of damage for it. -_-

Your vids are awesome and inspiring as always Slic! YKY 6 has some simply amazing fights it it! Just chain killing people, a continous wave of em kept rolling in and you manned up and dominated all of em… haha.

Been doing p/d for a long while now too, but I haven’t been able to get the old timing out of my system for good… it keeps creeping back up on me and I’m triggering C&D early periodically. I’m taking a break from my preferred spec I like to roam with while I experiment with other weapon sets for a while. May as well expand my horizons instead of allowing it to frustrate me. Glad to see you’re pushing through it and remaining true to the style though!

When’s vid 7 come out? ^.^

Jjiinx.8795:

Ravnodaus.5130:

I gave up, it added too much time to my p/d playing in between stealths… vulnerable and out in the open far too long now. because pistol has the channele opener, and it has travel time…yeah, adds too much. Sucks, I was rather fond of it.

I’m just rolling ‘round in my bursty sword/dagger build now. It doesn’t suffer from the extra revealed nearly as much. And I’m growing fond of dazing people repeatedly.

That’s because sword dagger doesn’t HAVE extra revealed. Because of the bug and the way the pistol stealth attack works, it’s the only skill that makes revealed last longer. The patch was NOT a nerf, it was a bugfix, but it caused an issue with pistol’s sneak attack, which is most likely not intended.

Yes it does have extra debuff, it is just less noticeable. But due to the nature of the “fix” they made, revealed on all stealth openers is ever so slightly longer, especially sneak attack and surprise shot because they have travel time tacked on. But they all got longer. So no, sneak attack isn’t the only one… I’m not sure where you are getting that information, but it cannot be true.

If you read what they say they changed it becomes even more obvious, as the debuff itself triggers later than it did before, therefore lasts until slightly longer after your opener. The debuff itself remains the same duration, but gets triggered later, so in effect it does last longer. Very miniscule here, but it is different than before… and not beneficial to the thief. I’d go so far as to say it is it is only functionally relevant in regards to sneak attack and surprise shot… but it still is there on all of them.

But yes. I swapped to sword/dagger because it has less extra revealed time. I thought I made that clear?

I’m prbably a bit more biased towards warrior condition in pve/wvw too, as Asuran have access to poison and confusion through racial utility skills on decent cooldowns. So an Asuran warrior does have access to all four, and it can be pretty deadly. Coupled with cripples, weakness, and vulnerability. they have a spread of conditions beig applied. Irrelevant to s/tPvP.. completely. But something to take note of if you are more of a pve/wvw guy.

That isn’t the only trait line with backwards anti-synergy for ranger, they all do somewhat.

Shadow protector does grant you the regen too, I know.. it isn’t clear about it from the tooltip.

Try it out and see for yourself, but in my experience using dancing dagger instead of body shots just seems to work better. Makes sure they’re crippled at all times, does really good damage….especially vs a ranger or any 2vYou. Body shot seems slow, a dps loss overall… great for maintaining vuln on a boss or focus target with allies, less so solo. But try it out yourself and figure out what you prefer.

Good luck and happy hunting!

I gave up, it added too much time to my p/d playing in between stealths… vulnerable and out in the open far too long now. because pistol has the channele opener, and it has travel time…yeah, adds too much. Sucks, I was rather fond of it.

I’m just rolling ‘round in my bursty sword/dagger build now. It doesn’t suffer from the extra revealed nearly as much. And I’m growing fond of dazing people repeatedly.

I run a similar style I think. p/d. And have similar results with it. 0/0/30/20/20 or 0/0/20/20/30. There is a lot of flexibility involved in picking traits too. I prefer (my must haves) vigor on heal or vigor on steal. 33% speed in stealth, and 2 init regen when stealth. With this build I went 3/3 krait/aff, all carrion gear… all. And +10 condition/kill, and 10% bleed duration sigils. Offset shortbow.

Very nimble, has massive number of dodges. Goes in and out of stealth, to leverage those extra seconds the enemies are disoriented and to sneak attack to pump a large stack of bleed up quick. I never really use body shot, it is too slow and doesn’t offer enough for the cost imo, use dancing dagger instead if/when have initiative to spare. Caltrops skill (not trait) is unbelievably amazing, shadow refuge ofc. + any of your choice, elite whichever.. theyre all good for diff reasons.

Edt: Oh, and always eat your Pizza!

I won’t be able to join, because I play on Darkhaven and don’t really want to leave it. but I wanted to suggest some names just because I really like the idea.

Stolen Pride

Improved Initiative

Night Watch

Guild of Shadows

Order of Shadows

Guild of Thieves Guild

Desanguination

The Black Market

Illicit

Surprise

Varyag.3751:

Bleed sword is fine for solo leveling and even then it’s better to use a Greatsword as it kills trash quicker and hits more enemies. Why is sword poor at everything else? because all sword Warrior skills bring to PvE are bleeds, fair enough, you’ve pointed this out. But in group situations and events, there is likely to be more than one or two people using bleeds, therefore your bleed attacks are useless because there that 25 bleed cap means your sword is made out of cardboard.

That is the dilemma for all bleed stackers though, not a warrior specific issue. And saying that because someone else in a DE might have bleeds means bleeds are bad… would mean no one should ever use bleeds.
I ran into this problem on my ranger pre SB nerf… because I could get bleeds up to a substantial level just on my own, and for a little while on my whirling dervish of a thief spec spamming DB… that one could get almost a full 25 stack. But a dual sword warrior actually can get a full 25 stack with relative ease, so the issue is compounded even further I suppose.
In general though, a larger pool of condition options makes more sense, and allows for better synergies and even condition removal protection. We really only stack bleeds and vulnerability with any regularity, maybe some cripples and a lil weakness… but dot conditions are burning with some finesse required from longbow, and bleeds through swords or rifle.
If the trait Fast Hands simply worked all the time properly, I’d go so far as to say that that would be enough, really. Just because of how efficiently warrior can tack on the bleeds. Toss in some burning too, and you’re pretty up there with the condition dps. That one trait working right can dramatically change the way warriors are played. I know after a prolonged fight, and I’m able to make use of it finally… being able to swap weapons so quickly is a major part of my fighting, and it even makes burning through bursts more fluid if you have the adrenaline gain to keep up. Bursts every 4 or 5 seconds… I’m off topic..

Akumu.7238:

We are warriors, right?

Why am I not able to make someone bleed effectively, immobolize them, or send chills up their spine?

Why don’t we have a signet that allows us a decent heal for each attack? or an effective heal at all?

Why can’t we apply protection or retaliation properly?

Why is my ONLY useful trump card(elite) on the level of a regular skill?

Why do my shouts not debuff the enemy?

Why do most stances make such little changes in my fighting?

Why are we able to be knocked on our butts so easily?

Why are my “finishers”, powered by my adrenaline, so mediocre at best?

Why does adrenaline not affect my defense capabilities?

Why do we bring so little to the front lines of battle? Other than +1…

ARE WE WARRIORS!?

Warriors do bleeds and immobilizes pretty well, actually. Just, conditions have their downside, ofc.

The warrior heals are pretty well balanced, the amount healed is perfectly in line with what I would expect it to be. The only one that could really be looked at is the signet heal… but signets have their own issues.

We can’t apply protection or retaliation reliably, tis true. But we can do retaliation, just not on demand, so ofc unreliably. Plus I’m pretty sure that trait is wonky sometimes.

SoR is better than a utility, if only because of duration. The boons last days. Otherwise agree with you.

On My Mark applies 10 vulnerability, and Fear Me applies fear. I think those count.

I’ve seen a lot of people harping on burst skills, and that still confuses me. They’re not bad. Some better than others, sure…but overall, most seem rather handy to have imo.

I think adrenaline is pretty much just offensive, because warriors and guardians are like two sides of a coin. The same reason we don’t have more blatant defensive stuff like aegis, protection etc. Warriors are aggressive and offensive, guardian are defensive and protective. Both heavy armor fightery types, but who approach life with different attitudes.

If you want to see something funny, use your build and swap your amulet for a Clerics for a match or two. Toughness, Power, Healing…. comboed with all that heathregen and condition removal/reversal… you might start thinking you’re immortal.

Sword 4 does 4 bleeds. Watch carefully when you use it. It puts a unique debuff on the target, this debuf periodically adds the bleeds, four in total, over its duration.

It is a dotot…. lol. It applies damage over time… over time. It is still a very good weapon combo in pve.

If you are focusing your stats on condition damage, and your goal is to apply bleeds, I recommend the following… since sword auto attack has 3 attacks in the chain, the first two apply bleeds and the last one does not. If yu nterupt the chain after the second hit, preferably with another bleed skill, it resets the chain, and you start over again so that your next two hits apply bleeds again. Obviously you can’t always do that, and a lot of people will generally be too lazy to keep track and do it… but I figured I’d toss it out there for ya.

Varyag.3751:

Zonzai.2341:

Varyag, if the warrior underperforms in sPvP, that clearly means ANet should rebuild the entire profession or at least make changes that will drastically alter it in nearly every way even in WvW and PvE.

The profession doesn’t need rebuilding, simply tweaking – could you make suggestions without being a sarcastic jerk? =P

He said it needed tweaking only. Not rebuilding. He isn’t being a jerk either. There is a strong attitude in this thread that if you are not discussing tPvP only, then your opinion is irrelevant, and that simply isn’t true.

Not every skill of every profession is going to be an all star performer in PvP, but it might have a place in PvE… or WvW… and so what? That is going to happen, because they are different environments, it is natural that some will see more use in different venues.

Sword, I’m returning to it… It is an amazing bleed weapon, sustained damage weapon. Is that the absolute best option for your tPvP warrior? Probably not. Stacking just bleeds opens you up to having all your damage removed over and over with ease, effectively neutering you. But it works mighty fine in other situations where your target isn’t cleansing it right off, in these situations it does a lot of damage. So it has a place… it just doesn’t seem like many people on this thread like that concept… and I’m at a loss, personally, why that is.

No matter how much you tweak skills to make some more ‘viable" in the game setting you prefer to play in, it is going to have an effect on the game settings you don’t care as much about. If sword direct damage was to be increased, as is brought up a few times in this thread… then this weapon starts leaning into the imba side of things as it would have entirely too much dps in PvE.

That is going to be a concern for the devs, even if you personally don’t care. So any suggestions should bear that in mind. The effect of the change shouldn’t swing the skill/trait/etc into imbalance in any part of the game, otherwise it will never get implemented.

Slowed Pulse is ok, but you have Pain Response. Using both seems counter intuitive to me. If you go with Shadow Protector you should find you gain far more regeneration. (I am assuming you’re going to basically be using C&D and Sneack Attack frequently) Otherwise, Infusion of Shadow works well if you’re wanting more Init regen, though this isn’t an initiative intensive build, this trait greatly helps you keep your total up and available. Shadow’s Embrace is a nice one too, as it triggers when you first go into stealth and again after the 3rd second.

I’m also a fan of Fleet Shadows, because I like to make maximum use of stealth time to drastically reposition myself and disorient my intended prey. But that’s just a personal preference.

Otherwise your build will probably work well enough to try it out and get a feel for it. After playing it for a little while you’ll know better than anyone else what about it isn’t sitting right with you and that you’d like to change. (If anything)

Yeah, I’m really not sure what I am saying is being heard. But that’s ok. I’ll go ahead and explain further and with more details. Hopefully that is helpful.

If you have protection stacked up pretty much all the time, would it help if I brought more protection?

More to the point, I’m really not sure that the warrior is the best profession to be bringing the protection buff, seeing as he can’t, really. Same with aegis.

The warrior does pure stats buffing with banners well, but can also bring swiftness, vigor, might, and fury to the table boon wise. That is part of the reason why banners are as helpful as they are, because they are rather unique. But if you have another warrior in your group running banners, that would still mean you’re pretty freed up in that department. If party has vigor, swiftness, fury and might covered, as well as cleansing, may as well be a dps imo. That really is your best option in that case.

The point I’m making here is: If anyone in the party where to be a full on dps build, the warrior is one of the best profession to do it. They do it rather well.

Edit: Oh, and 100% fury time can be handled by just 1 person.

If you stay in the refuge until the animation ends you can safely leave the area while remaining stealthed! ^.^

Additionally, while stealthed, you can chain other stealthing skills to prolong it even further…you just have to stagger them so it doesn’t go over the cap. You can stay stealthed for longer than the cap, basically.

And the final fun trick, while not permastealth per se, is to use cloak and dagger just after your stealth wears off, to flicker out and back into stealth. You can keep doing that as long as you have initiative and a target.

Ivanov.8914:

Are you sure that the place you were really was a dungeon?Because in a dungeon, there is no such thing as abundance of support.Not in a game where bosses can 1-2 shot you to death.
Maybe it’s just me, but running every dungeon for tens of times, I’ve yet to see such an abundance of support to the point of it no longer being good, and yet to see a pure dps person not utterly failing.
Aside from signet of rage, all other signets are utterly sub par.All of them.

If I can provide 100% up time aoe boon X, should my teammates also bring a build that also provides same boon X? The answer, you are proposing, seems to be yes? But, in my experience, that is redundant and not very efficient at all.

I’m a pretty big fan of bringing exactly what you need and nothing more. Because once you have the basics down support wise, all that really remains is to increase your speed and thus efficiency. Dps does that.

Ivanov.8914:

Wow…an afternoon passed and this thread exploded…

@Ravnodaus – you said my point wasn’t credible.But you did not say why.From what you said, it sounded like it wasn’t credible just because YOU didn’t believe it.
And yes, I know warriors are few if none?How do I know? It’s because I’m not a pro at playing a warrior, so I’m interested in how other warrs perform, so I search on the really well-known teams in their websites and streams.THAT is how I know how few warriors there are in tPvP.
Oh and, good job at trying to look and sound smart.Clown.
Edit:just went and counted most of the classes’ bugs.Here we go:
Ranger – 69, mesmer – 33, guardian – 50, engineer – 26(bug thread incomplete, realistic number can go up to 50-60). You know what this is called?Checking your facts.It’s not weird, it’s expected of you.The only 2 classes so far that really hit it with the bugs are necros and eles.So way to go in pulling “facts” from thin air, clowny boy.

Aha, so now there are “few” warriors. Because a little earlier I coulda sworn it was “no” warriors that where in competitive teams, or so it was said.

Those numbers are a simple matter of alternate list formatting. The warrior “bug” list separates things out as singularly as is even possible, many other lists group similar/same issues together. Warrior bug list also contains quite a number of non-bug issues. Like, omg, after 1 adrenaline the tooltip description for arcing slash replaces the word fury with the word might! That is such a debilitating “bug”!

Other “fun” stuff on the “bug” list.
Arcing slash(again) The description text (again, hmm..why is this listed separately?) says uppercut, in game animation is an overhead swing instead. Yep, game breaking, I know….
Rifle butt has a short range “bug”. Uhm, yeah, it does, it is a melee 130 range attack… some bug.
Impale- tooltip display error.
Riposte- tooltip display error.
Shield stance- display error.
Banner- tooltip displays 45 seconds. Skill actually lasts 90 second. Game breaker right there if I ever saw one.
Blademaster doesn’t update hero pane tooltip. This one is just debilitating, I know. (After all I’m trying to force people to wear double swords in tPvP apparently, wish that wasn’t crippled by this massive bug)
There is one in there about not being able to use HB in the middle of another skill animation time, I’m pretty sure that is normal. You can’t use multiple skills at the same time unless one of them is instant, neither HB nor Slice is instant.
There is more of the display issues, tooltip issues, etc. There are even quality of life improvement suggestions on this warrior bug list. Yes, under the title “quality of life”. You really counting those as bugs too are you, friend?

I’m not saying warrior has no bugs. They certainly do. But this list isn’t a good representation at all, because it really isn’t a list of warrior bugs… it includes more than bugs. Heck, it even includes more than just warrior stuff…

It says “Thief: The “Whirling Axe” skill has additional projectile reflection not present on the actual Warrior version (axe 5 skill).”

That…. is actually a warrior bug is it? Lol… That isn’t a warrior ability, and it certainly isn’t a bug. Why, please explain, is it included in this list of bugs you think you have?

I know Durz! Haha. I was saying the benefit of the Jaguar’s f2 is somewhat lost when you go heavy BM, not the benefit of the Jungle Stalkers Might. Might is amazing on a BM pet!

Basing your build around 200 precision might be foolish, but using signets does have a time and place, and can be very beneficial to a group. If your party has a solid support framework already, the benefit your group would get from providing more boons is negligible. If the mobs are already being well cc/debuffed, the benefit of providing more cc/debuff is negligible. At that point, being full on “selfish” dps build is the best option.

That doesn’t usually happen, of course. More often than not everyone has some bit of support to add to the group that is more helpful than 40 personal precision would give. But I’ve been in groups where there was too much of the same support being tossed around, it was redundant, and if one of them had instead been more dps focused the group would have been the better for it.

Haha, so we meet again? I presume you will look into my post history now and make quips on my other older posts too? Ah, such flattery.

It is like a bunker guardian in some ways, but no not useless.

phaeris.7604:

Sword as an off hand?

Again. Possibly the worst pvp set to have going.

I forgot there was only pvp in this game. Wait… oh, you got me! And to think i had forgot about all that not-pvp stuff for a second.

Seriously, what is with you? Are you even reading what I am writing, or just skimming it looking for something negative to say?

I get it, you have a bone to pick. Go ahead I guess. But that doesn’t mean that warrior is some sad miserable profession that no one should play. Far from it. You can attack me all you wish, but that does nothing to show anyone you even have a point. You think something I said (Something I actually said) is wrong? I’m all ears. Seriously, I would rather be corrected than be wrong. But I don’t see anyone correcting me, just attacking me… and passive aggresively too. Why not explain the actual problem.

Varyag.3751:

Thanatos.5102

Hey Ravnodaus, since you’re a Warrior on a competitive team would you mind helping us out here and offering some much needed advice? What are you tactics, how’s your build, what roles do you take in the tPvP, your overall experience with the profession on a competitive level?

That’s if you don’t mind sharing these info of course, thank you

I would also like to see this, its clear to me that we’re simply mindless casual sPvP scrubs and he’s a tPvP god in the presence mere mortals; destroying bunkers with his sword/sword bleed build of doom.

I never once suggested to use a bleed build in tPvP. Not once.

Edit; I never suggested I was a pvp god for that matter, or that anyone else wasn’t any good. You could be freaking amazing at playing a warrior, still wouldn’t make you correct about everything, that’s an arguement to authority, and generally bad form.

Tulisin.6945:

@Bloodgruve

He’s referring to the fact that traited SoM has a very short cooldown allowing you to activate it often, not the passive effect.

Yep, this. Traited, SoM only has a 12 second cooldown. I use it in one of my specs for insane initiative return. Gives + 6 initiative every 12 seconds by using it. I tie in the on heal vigor, and maintain nearly 100% vigor uptime too. Since it gets the returned endurance on dodge, and always has vigor, I can generally chain dodge roughly every 2-3 seconds at the minimum, so can nearly keep up swiftness 100% with this method alone. (It is a very evasive spec, in case it wasn’t obvious)

Varyag.3751:

Ravnodaus.5130:

Rampage doubling power stat.

It already doubles base power, by the way, so nothing there would change. On paper the skill sounds good, in practice it’s horrible.

I was referring to the guy who said that rampage should double power stat while keeping the normal weapon skills. Because that is laughable.

Varyag.3751:

Ravnodaus.5130:

Aoe swiftness/vigor is useless.

Aoe Swiftness is one of the few useful utilities this profession has, Vigor doesn’t suit Call of Arms at all. Vigor is used for dodging, but stances – or at least two out of the four of them – are designed for damage/cc avoidance through other means. The Vigor for stances is a useless trait.

AoE swiftness, few useful utilities provided? So, AoE Vigor is useless in your opinion, along with cleanses, heals, stat boosts, AoE might, AoE fury?? Not to mention Debuffs like cripples, immobilizes, vulnerability, or control like stuns, dazes, knockback and knockdowns? Just swiftness. There isn’t anything, anything at all you’re neglecting? O_o Wow, I didn’t realize warrior utility could be so easily replaced with some random guy with a set of centaur runes. Must suck.

Ravnodaus.5130:

Ravnodaus.5130:

Warriors don’t do enough damage.

Rifle, Axe, Greatsword. Everything else is rather lackluster in terms of damage – Longbow and Sword are really the only weapons that could use boost in damage, primarily through conditions.

Warrior Longbow > All other Longbow users Longbow. You want to talk about a craptastic dps Longbow, I got a forum for you to chat in. And it ain’t the warrior section. Sword damage is freaking phenomenal in a bleed condition build, what are you talking about “could use boost in damage” for? O_o 8 second duration BASE bleeds on auto attack? A trait to increase bleed duration by 50% in the freaking condition damage trait line?? Brings it to 12 second bleeds without even trying… It stacks em up ridiculously fast, and can keep up a 25 stack of bleed easy… hmm, maybe you are just confused and meant something else?

Ravnodaus.5130:

Ravnodaus.5130:

Banners are useless. Remove from game.

So how often do you see banners used in PvP? Apart from the Battle Standard, which is only occasionally used and for only one reason, I’ll give you a hint – it’s not for the buffs. Banners are lackluster and clunky.

Because something isn’t used in PvP very often, you want it removed from the entire game? Logic. Nailed it.

Varyag.3751:

Ravnodaus.5130:

Warriors should get WoWs block % mechanics.

Warrior needs something that allows it to build towards a bunker type playstyle, do you have any suggestions. Or would it be absurd for the shield bearing guy covered in a panoply of plate armour to be an effective defender?

What about the warrior is missing for it to bunker, in your opinion? I have a spec I use to bunker with on mine. But, who knows, maybe I’m doing it wrong. So, explain to me if you would precisely what is lacking for a viable bunker spec on a warrior?

Varyag.3751:

Ravnodaus.5130:

600 range for some melee attacks is too short.

This is golden coming from guy whose profession has 1,100 range melee attack. Honestly, the only melee skill that could use more range is a skill called eviscerate (which should have maximum 600 range), because it often misses moving targets – despite leap skills being designed to keep up with moving targets.

I have numerous professions, actually. I don’t limit myself to one. And in case you have not yet guessed, yes warrior is one of them. The list of ones I play roughly evenly are Warrior, Thief, Ranger, Mesmer, and Guardian. I don’t play eng very often, nor elementalist, and only screwed around on a necro once. I don’t miss with eviscerate though, tbh, unless my target uses an evade. You should get familiar with the effective range of your skills and use them accordingly. If a melee attack misses sometimes from that distance… get closer first.

Varyag.3751:

Ravnodaus.5130:

This class should be celebrated for its amazing well rounded completeness

Warrior’s lack of use in tPvP teams is evidence of it’s excellency and completeness! Third only to the might of Necromancer and the most powerful class in the game; Ranger!

Warrior is pretty much right where it should be, in other words, you are saying? It isn’t too good, and isn’t bottom rung, but right there in the middle… balanced, even, in other words? Is that right? Cuz that’s what I’m picking up, if you’re throwing it down.

Jungle stalker has the best f2 imo. 5 stack of AoE might.

If you go heavy BM, the effect of the Jags f2 diminishes, as your cat/bird has such a high crit rate at that point they crit with nearly 100% of attacks already.

The birds have awesome F2s though, not gonna lie. I especially like the Owls, chill is fun, it hits hard too.

1) That’s not true.

Some pets are for utility, some are for damage, some do both. The problem in PvP is that dps pets aren’t doing their job. They just flounder about soaking up aoe damage until they die, lol.

2) You seem to not understand the problem.

Pet goes up to target and stops at attack range, winds up attack animation… target moves, pet attack misses. Repeat.

That is the issue. Having the step where the pet closes into range to attack happen faster doesn’t do anything at all to fix the problem. Because the pet stops. The pet, litterally, stops. He could freaking be teleporting to the target, and it wouldn’t do any good because between the start of his attack, and the finish of his attack, the target is now out of range.

To fix this, pets either need to have far shorter attack animations, or attack on the move. This wouldn’t have increase thier damage vs stationary targets at all. They could still attack just as often, just the time by which they go through the stop/animation would need to be shorter/negligible.

Pets wont be the damage source for the ranger if they are tuned properly to not be. The devs make the descision on that one, how much of the ranger dps belongs to the pet. I prefer it be a very small fraction, personally. But regardless how much the ranger’s dps the pet is, it should at least be capable of being used.

The way to look at an ai controlled combat pet isto think of it as a dot. It does damage over time. But unlike other dots, it has a different counter, because it is obviously not cleansible. But it can be killed, and it can be CCd. Regular dots cannot be CC or killed… it is just an alternate form of dot to a condition dot. It doesn’t have to be OMG OP just because of that! But it should actually function and deal its damage when not being countered by death/cc!

Hey OP, use the sigil that grants power on kills in your off weapon set, and use either 5% damage or the crit causes might sigil on your greatsword. Use runes that increase your might duration, a pair of 3 set power/20% might works best imo.

he trick is to get as large a rolling set of might as is feasible, with a high enough crit rate, with greatsword..that is very doable. The highest 100B I’ve pulled off vs a player was 22k range. Though based on the initial hits on a target dummy in mists (it dies well before the full attack) I’d say vs the medium dummy, (your typical glass build has similar toughness), it would have done 27k. That was with a 25 stack of +10 power and a 25 stack of might.

I suspect this is a joke thread, just figured I’d add to the humor… because the damage can be even more ludicrous if you really push for it.

This is the best joke thread I’ve read in a long time! Thanks guys!! ^.^

400% increased burst damage! Oh, that one was precious! Because 40k damage eviscerates would be really fun, lol.

Warriors the squishiest class in the game, that was a good one too! because, you know, it is the exact opposite, so grats on the irony. Very good usage of wit.

Oh and Rampage doubling power stat. That one hurt my sides I was laughing so hard.

Other precious jewels:
Aoe swiftness/vigor is useless.
Warriors don’t do enough damage.
Banners are useless. Remove from game.
All attacks should cripple/immobilize.
Warriors should get WoWs block % mechanics.
600 range for some melee attacks is too short.
Lacking mitigation and healing.
Lacking condition removal.

Le sigh. I often wonder if people posting this stuff are even playing the same game I’m playing.

Warriors have some of the best trait lines and synergy in the game! How are there even complaints about it? Warrior damage is freaking phenominal too! If you want to go tanky or support there are plenty of good traits and skills to pick up. Can go power builds, crit builds, burst builds, support builds, condition builds, control builds, there are tons of options!

I still remember clearly, when I first rolled my warrior, and equipped him with a greatsword… felt that #1 skill was decent, unlocked #2… walked up to a mob, hit #2…mob died. Just kept doing that for a few minutes in awe. One skill, one kill. Then I started doing it to multiple mobs at once, same result, death to anything, with…one…skill. I knew then that warrior had the potential for massive damage… and everything I’ve experienced playing him since has confirmed that. But they’re not even pigeon holed into dps only, there are plenty of secondary roles to play! Least number of freaking bugs too!

This class should be celebrated for its amazing well rounded completeness, not complained about. It is one of the best ones we have the good graces to be able to play in this game!

I use a similar build on my war in sPvP. I gear with cleric, soldiers, axe/horn with the + heal/heal 30% sigils. And mace/shield with stun15%/30% heal sigils. I use the remove condition heal, and signet elite.

It’s like being immortal, due to extreme toughness and rediculous healing. And normally conditions would be its weakness, except it has continous condition removals. All that while providing aoe swiftness, vigor, fury, might, cleanses, heals, and some decent control/debuff. The damage is very minimal… but you can kill someone 1v1 given time, all while safely remaining near full hp.

Stick with power/precision/crit damage until you feel you have a well rounded understanding of the game mechanics. They’re easier to synergize with.

Power is your bread and butter damage booster. Precision is good, but crit damage % makes precision even better. Stats scale off one another in that manner. And the power/precision/crit damage trio are the easiest to wrap your head around if you’re not familiar with all the options and how they interact.

Basically, what I speculate based on my limited findings, is that stats are scaled. The level of gear itself isn’t a factor, your actual level vs current level is the only factor that matters. There is very likely to be some sort of static conversion rate. Ie difference of 60 levels is a 7:1 ratio as in my data. I did verify though, that it was a consitent 7 to 1 conversion, there were no outliers whatsoever.

I tested it with a mix of stats, power, precision, crit damage, toughness, vitality, healing, and condition damage. I didn’t test for duration % however… though I might now that I think about it next time I’m in game. When I went full +vitality on the same lvl 20 war, he had nearly 40k hp though, which was funny.

I’ve only really paid attention a little to this for up-scaling. I know at level 20, each 1 stat on my gear was translated into 7 in wvw 80 scaled terms. Once I figured that one out, I quickly realized that the most powerful gear for that level range in wvw was gear with % crit damage, as it 1% was being scaled to 7%. I managed to do some really rediculous damage on my warrior alt. It may very well have been more than was feasible at 80 in exotics. I think I ended up having 2.1k power, 99% crit rate, and +110% crit damage. Something like that.