Guild Wars 2

Lord Aargadon.4135:

The AoE arguement has always been laughable, engineers that aren’t packing grenades or flamethrowers are left with a rifle that doesn’t fire when there is no target, or a pistol that does laughable damage and is bugged. Im pretty sure other proffesions have the same issue.

Try playing anything that’s melee (guard/war) specific.

Its like saying: “Just throw down your huge AoE Indiana Jones Boulder Roll as a warrior!” … what??

Just make damage break stealth.

AoE was stated as the main counter to stealth. So AoE breaks stealth?

Either that or make it so no action can be taken in stealth besides moving. I’ve about had it with the “Just AoE noob” posts from scrubs who only play thieves. Just learn to shortbow and those AoEs won’t do anything to you.

People playing mesmers complained about having to play by the rules with LoS, dodge, miss, block, and ‘out of range’ … and now they’re complaining about an improper change being put back the way it was supposed to be. Wow… The mesmer is the class that makes all the thief jukes look like they belong in the game.

And whats with all the complaints about warriors? Warriors are about the easiest class to beat in the game. I’ve never had an easier time killing anyone than maybe a brain-dead, sidekicked, undergeared player than a warrior.

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

Red Falcon.8257:

No other class has a skill that’s this prone to not work.

Say what. You say you’ve extensively played other classes… Engineer Flamethrower/Elementalist Magnetic Grasp/Ride the Lightning don’t come to mind? Flamethrower misses everything, Ride the Lightning has terrible tracking (admittedly, it is better now, but you used to stun yourself for ages quite often), and Magnetic Grasp suffered the same problem, but… worse.

And as for clunky… have you ever tried to play a ranger using a sword? Lock yourself in place with your auto attack. THAT’S clunky.

Not exactly sure what your prob is w/ the engi’s flamethrower since there are 5 attacks and most of them work differently. So be specific. Only thing at this point I can speculate on is Flame Blast which is kinda clunky in the fact that its range is 600 but the main attack is only 425ish? Kinda doesn’t make sense to me. Other than that, they all work.

Ride the Lightning uses the same mechanic as Rush does, essentially. A long, fast, targetted running attack that ends with another attack. The difference is RTL does an AoE. Rush does not. So winner of clunky-ness is Rush in that situation. And as you’ve said, the ‘stun yourself’ bug has been fixed.

The ranger’s 2nd chain hit on the sword (Kick) is a crippling attack which is followed immediately by a leap attack. I wish all of my melee weapons had a leap attack on a chain.

To the OP’s point, Rush has been broken since day one. That skill needs to be changed. It appears that the GW2 game engine is insufficient at putting one target within melee range of another target without player assistance.

Anyway, yes everyone has bugs, no they’re not all the same, no class imbalance does not warrant bugs not be fixed. I think I’ve covered all further trolls there.

Actually, because of this thread’s specific creation, I believe the thief is being lined up for a gameplay change.

Probably going to be a massive nerf to stealth…since it’s extremely OP right now.

I forsee a “stealth” patch soon. Probably something like ‘incoming damage removes the stealth effect on players’ since their main philosophy was basically “AoE defeats thief’s stealth.”

Rayya.2591:

Ideea of zerg in WvWvW
-run with zerg – spam aoe – 100 kills in 3 fights

Check out the last bit of the 12/16 update notes.

The devs are working on the AoE ‘meta’ saying that its too useful for too little risk.

In other words, you can expect one of three things to change about AoEs:

1. A maximum limit of AoE spells in a specific area
2. A ‘channelling’ requirement to AoE spells which can be interrupted
3. A reduction in duration or effectiveness of AoE spells

The Killbots? A trifle. It was simply a matter of outsmarting them. You see Killbots have a pre-set kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them; until they reached their limit and shut down.

Kif…show them the medal I won.

Schwahrheit.4203:

^
WOW, that is crazy. Arcing Slice was a movement skill?

Yeah and before I got a chance to play the game I thought it was pretty lame. Now that I’ve played, it would have been paramount to the success of many fights.

Schwahrheit.4203:

You guys need to buff Eviscerate or better yet fix the misleading/bad traits such as Discipline.

Buff Eviscerate? … geez man. Are you sure you’re playing the right class if you can’t make a massive damage burst attack work?

Discipline is an entire line and it is not bad or misleading. Although, if I assume you mean the actual warrior-specific trait buff from the Discipline line known as Brawn, then we might be getting somewhere.

Spending 30 points in Discipline gives an extra 3% damage on burst attacks. That was nerfed because of Eviscerate. What they need to do is change it to 1% per point and make it a burst skill cooldown reduction and not a damage increase; or they could make it a .1% per point damage increase across the board.

Karl McLain.5604:

We were exploring at making Arcing Slice more interesting to use before the recent patch was released. At one point we added Might to the ability, but it didn’t feel good trading adrenaline (and potentially damage from traits like Berserker’s Power) for just increased damage. It looks like the skill facts were left in when we changed it back to the original state.
In the future, we’re looking at changing Arcing Slice to apply more utility and be less of a damage oriented burst ability, as the weapon has plenty of damage already and not much reason to use the burst.

Does that mean you’ll be looking for community feedback on Arcing Slice for a possible decision in the near future?

Personally, I think that AS should just be reverted back to a movement skill as it was pre-BWE1. Remove the Fury, leave the damage where it is, and have it leap to a target at 600, 900, and 1200 range based on adrenaline levels. This would give the Greatsword another movement skill for which to keep the warrior on-target when building a damage-oriented melee class.

And then, for the love of all that is holy, fix Rush.

XII.9401:

The main issues are entering and leaving fights -repeatedly- on a thieve’s terms. Have you seen a warrior rush a group of 3-4 people? How about A necro?A ranger? No..Know why? Because they don’t have a broken mechanic that lets them get away like a thief. Worst broken stealth mechanics in any game so far.

If your a glass cannon you should be punished if you miss your chance..not rewarded by allowing you to repeat the attempt repeatedly unhampered.
You should have only one chance to initiate the fight stealthed -and be thankful for that since no other class in the game can do that- and nothing else after it. If you don’t know how to use that already unfair advantage to win, then guess what..you were relying on broken mechanics to win.

Stealth is currently the biggest issue with the thief. Not because of how it works, but because of what you can do while it’s active.

The problem is that the only way to break stealth is by dealing damage. Here’s how you fix it:

• Stealth breaks on skill use (not damage)
• Stealth breaks on channel action (rez/stomp)
• Stealth breaks on dodge roll

The only thing any class should be able to do in stealth is move about. The moment you allow actions to be taken in stealth, you break the balance of the mechanic and give the stealthed player an undeserved upper-hand. You’re completely invisible. That’s enough of an advantage on its own.

We don’t have a thief problem, we have a stealth problem.

Kardiamond.6952:

Especially Reaper protection, when a warrior charge you, he is gone for 4 sec of terror!

That is if he doesn’t use Frenzy immediately after hitting you, because Frenzy is a stun-breaker which the condition “Fear” is counted in.

Still its a very solid build. My concern would be the AoE-heavy staff and Anet’s latest post in the patch notes about AoEs being too much output for too little cost.

John Smith.4610:

From my blog post:
“The Guild Wars 2 economy (and virtually every other economy in the same vein) is not designed to have any loop that involves creating value for no cost.”

“Exploits are mostly generated by a mistake on our end and are really hard on players. When an exploit is discovered, players are tempted to participate by the draw of becoming wealthy and out of fear of being left behind the massively wealthy players who do participate. We take a harsh stance on exploiters because this decision should be easy: find an exploit, report the exploit and move on. It isn’t worth the risk to the player or the game.”

The problem is, you released a game that created an economy based on exploits, bots, and gold sellers. People were playing with disregard for the rules you set out for the longest time. Then you cracked down on botting and cleaned up the anti-exploit measures for farming after the economy settled on cheating being the norm.

Immediately afterward, you gave ~50% of all people participating in the Lost Shores event a precursor, which they immediately sold at the levels priced by botters and gold buyers. All of that gold people bought was being held by the Trading Post by offers made for big-ticket items. Suddenly it became available in the marketplace. Massive inflation occurred.

Arcing Slice has been changed. It now gives 5s/10s/15s of Fury based on adrenaline level.

Looks like they were toying with making it more powerful.

Negativity.5801:

Redscope.6215:

Anyone else notice that bolded part about asking friends for help is not listed in any other classs ‘philosophy’?

Yeah. Would be nice to know that Warriors aren’t the only class designed to need help from others in certain areas.

Stop jumping on the bandwagon. Warrior is one of the most well balanced classes in the game. They aren’t in a bad place and it’s not like other classes are so amazing that they don’t need help from anyone and are without their own faults. Just because Anet says it doesn’t make it true.

LOL@Bolded text.

Anyway, I’m not jumping on any bandwagon. Its just annoying to find that the ‘may need help’ phrase is only found in the warrior’s philosophy. It would just be nice if they put a ‘may need help’ section on everyone’s philosophy since that would lead people to believe that certain classes have holes which can only be filled in by teamwork.

Warriors are very balanced. The philosophy is not. Think about that for a minute.

JonPeters.5630:

On the IZerker he does hit correctly now but there is an issue with damage floaters not always appearing the we are now trying to track down.

Jon

Hahaha. This one made me laugh.

So they’re actually doing damage but people don’t see numbers and complain? Anyone else see the irony of this and the philosophy the company takes of “not playing the UI”?

I know it sounds like I’m being harsh, but I truely do find this funny…

Steely Phil.3952:

Warrior
We want the Warrior to be capable of good melee damage in a sturdy body. They can still do some decent damage at range, but they aren’t as good at it as the Ranger (with their pet). They have a hard time taking enemy boons down, and instead, have to just go through them with raw force. They may have a hard time with enemy conditions, and may need to ask for ally help in order to keep themselves free of hampering conditions.

Anyone else notice that bolded part about asking friends for help is not listed in any other classs ‘philosophy’?

Yeah. Would be nice to know that Warriors aren’t the only class designed to need help from others in certain areas.

ManCaptain.3154:

JonPeters.5630:

Got some movement improvements coming for Mesmer also. Mostly more reliable swiftness.

Doesn’t matter.

Other classes get swiftness + 25% speed buff. Mesmer’s snares are horrible and useless. It will still be impossible to catch people or to get away from them.
In order to have any ability to chase or get away from people, mesmer needs to waste a weapon slot on focus (and it’s still way worse than mobility options of some other classes).

If you actually want to help this class in any real way, make 25% speed buff passives not stack with swiftness. This is the only meaningful change you can make.

Swiftness doesn’t stack with passive speed buffs from signets.

Just trait for clones that apply cripple when destroyed, and auto-win against melee builds that aren’t thieves.

Shadowstep is slightly OP and should be next on the chopping block for skills that ignore game mechanics such as chill and cripple (kinda like mesmers not needing LoS for illusionary skills being fixed).

JonPeters.5630:

Fyi, the delay on first attack has been present since BWE2. It is there for balance reasons to give enemies a moment to react to the powerful summon.

Can we get more responses like this to QQ about balance?

This is just perfect. If I had the money I’d pay your salary for ONE day to just sit back and go to each ‘skill x’ thread and give this exact kind of response.

Of course…I don’t have the money

kenshinakh.3672:

I believe elementalists have a bit more mobility/speed than a thief. At least that’s what I found when I play my elementalist or race with my friend’s elementalist.

Out of combat? … MAYBE…

In combat? Heeeeeeeeeeellll no…

Tulisin.6945:

Oxstar.7643:

With sigil of shadows which is a permanent swiftness buff

No, it isn’t, and I thoroughly enjoy using real swiftness to catch and kill thieves who make this mistake.

Unless you’re playing a thief, you’re lying. If you’re not playing a thief, you can’t catch a thief. Assuming s/he isn’t a nub and knows how to spam a shadowstep skill.

Of course I know you play the thief class from previous posts.

Tulisin.6945:

Stealth, if anything, is the hard-counter to NPCs like turrets. Everyone else’s ranged immobilize/cripple/CC skills work just fine against stealthed enemies. That is the weakness incurred for having autonomous firing NPCs instead of player-aimed skills.

Except CC doesn’t do jack to shadowstep. It shortens all movement skills except shadowstep.

Do you need to play more classes than a thief to understand the true mechancis of the game? Yes. Kinda like how you need to play more than a mesmer to get how blind, block, out of range, and miss could change your strategy; then realize how OP they were before LoS was implemented for that class.

Seragi.5910:

ok so what this guy is asking for is that the lowest hp and lowest armor class in the game should be easier to catch! gotcha… So lets take the fish out of the river and put him in a barrel so that you have an even easier chance to kill him =) sounds like an amazing idea

Thief is mid armor. There’s one tier below that. Do you play this game or just log on the forums to complain about people complaining?

Rogacz.9865:

“Rule doesn’t sound so absurd to me.”

Because you have no clue about programming and user experience solutions?

From the way you describe an admittedly undesirable yet working piece of software as a “bug”, I would be hard-pressed to believe you have any experience in said fields either.

Not that it matters, really. An opinion is an opinion.

Rogacz.9865:

As long as any player cannot leave the group without destroying instance of the dungeon this is a bug, especially considering how easy it would be to not have that behaviour.

The main reason instances behave this way is because of the personal story and how they allow other players to play alongside friends through it. Someone has to ‘own’ the personal story instance. Someone is progressing something.

They’ve taken this mechanic to dungeons in order to put players in movies and in order to progress ‘story’ mode. Notice how the dialogue scenes have the instance ‘owner’ in them. That’s why there has to be an owner.

I agree that they could have done it differently and it could be better, however we have no way of knowing how much more time, effort, and money it would have taken to make a separate instance structure for dungeons while keeping the ‘story’ mode feeling like part of the personal story.

For right now, ban the players that are purposefully trolling others. Its hard to be the leader of a pug and go afk multiple times without doing it on purpose. If you don’t know that you’re going to have 100% of your time free for a dungeon run, don’t constantly be a leader/instance creator. It’s not that hard to let someone go in first and ‘pass the buck.’

Rogacz.9865:

Its just another misguided attempt by anet to control the game.

Yay, tinfoil hat time!

Oh and I’ve got some disheartening news for you. They do control the game, it’s their game. The only time it becomes a problem is when the government forces you to spend your time playing it or face a penalty.

As I see it, the only reason ascended items are this difficult to obtain right now is because they’re trying to strike a balance between the relatively easy exotics and the extremely time-consuming legendaries.

Also, I wouldn’t say you’ve made absolutely no progress when you obtain a ring with stats you don’t want. You’re being gear-gated in higher levels of the fractals so any ability to provide agony resistance is allowing you to progress. The problem is, this is the exact way you don’t want to progress; forcing players to wear gear they don’t build for, or otherwise wouldn’t use, simply to play at higher difficulties.

Will changing your stats out on one of your rings completely change your character? No. Will having stats of a different build on one of your rings make you ineffective in your current build? No. Does it feel wrong to wear stats that do not coincide with your character’s build? Yes. Sometimes, all it takes is for something to feel off to put a player in an unwilling mood. If you feel like you’re being forced to play with inadequacies (and in some cases you are with Agony), you’re not playing “the way you want to play” which happens to be sort of a mantra for GW2.

On the other side of the coin, however, they’ve committed themselves to adding this new tier (ascended) to the world slowly. With that, I would expect you to see a host of new ‘obtainment’ methods being implemented, tweaked, and perfected. They’re currently seeking a way to give substantial rewards to players who do not grind while giving the grind-happy players reason to come back for more, but without causing a massive gap between the two. That’s hard to do.

The bad news is that we haven’t seen the last poor attempt at using the ‘RNG’ for rewards. The good news? When they make mistakes, we don’t have to suffer through them for the duration of playing the game as with most companies. They’re committed to change…which is kind of paradoxical if you read it right.

If I had to bet money, I’d say eventually you will be able to craft ascended gear as well; though the materials would probably come from unconventional sources.

How about this:

• Downed State remains in sPvP and WvW
• In sPvP, only the closest ATTACKING player is rallied from an enemy’s defeat.
• In WvW, a maximum of 3-5 (depending on balance changes or whatever) are rallied from an enemy’s defeat.

The problem with the downed state right now is exactly that, you defeat ONE guy and your whole team gets up. Pretty lame. If you’re in a 5v5 and you down one but 4 of your teammates are downed, and you happen to get a flag off or just beat the guy to death, then the rest of your team gets up from the losing streak and is in an automatic 5v4 position.

I understand that ‘turning the tables’ is an interesting and fun mechanic, but the way its done in this game is just moronic. You shouldn’t be able to rally any and all enemies in a 5 mile radius because you died…

Archaon.6245:

Overmind.3705:

To Thief players…
Name one other profession that can kill a player in under 2 seconds.

Frenzy HB and Mind Wrack. Questions?

Really? Looks like bad players still complain about Frenzy + HB on the class that has no stealth and every tell in the world. Here’s an option, bring a stun breaker. Oh wait, that’s the line that thief-onlies use all the time to demonstrate how easy the game is. Does that work for you?

Mind Wrack insta-kills you? Lets use another popular thief-only player adage: Bring more toughness, less zerker gear. Especially as a thief.

Well of course the people who are ACTUALLY hacking the game with 3rd party software (which is still a big deal btw devs…I’ve had it with watching people teleporting around the world and using maphacks to see where people are) or buying gold won’t admit to it…so that’s a dead-end to start with anyway.

The main issue is the forums. Even if you log into the game securely, you’re still logging into the forums with your same email and password. If you’ve got spyware on your PC, chances are every time you alt-tab to log into the GW2 website, or go there on your off time, you’re sending email/pass information to an outside source.

Forum accounts should always be made and kept separate from actual in-game login information. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just ASKING for accounts to be stolen.

BabelFish.7234:

Saulius.8430:

i see you rarely run into tanky mesmers what if i told you, that blind makes only 1st attack miss?

Then you’d be lying. After looking in the Mesmer forums blind kills off 1/2 of the Mesmer skills.

After looking in the Mesmer forums, I see a lot of players that never had to deal with blind before crying their eyes out. Since they’re just now learning how the game REALLY works, what with LoS, Dodge, Block, Miss, Out of Range and Blind actually factoring in to skill usage, mesmer players are going to have to adapt and get back on their feet.

Don’t worry, they’ll get used to it eventually.

kurtosis.9526:

Too many people bend the truth, for example complaining about another class without having done the due diligence required to figure out a counter, or complaining while WvW’ing in less than optimal gear, or any number of variables into which you have no insight in this format.

Especially the variable of people playing only the thief class without even mousing-over the other available classes…right? The problem with these forums is that you run into a lot of class-exclusive players saying “Don’t nerf me bro!” when they’ve never played anything else competitively.

If there is anything I have to offer, its to take these “Don’t nerf me bro!” posts with a grain of salt. Most of them come from people who play the OP class in all MMOs just for the sake of winning.

kurtosis.9526:

And by limiting to the top 20% of sPvP, you hold skill relatively constant as well, allowing unbalanced builds to be more clearly spotlighted than anywhere else in the game.

The only problem I have with this is that most skilled players can turn a fight on its side regardless of class.

The bad thieves need to die just as quickly as the bads in any other class. Currently, they don’t. Bads playing the thief can do much more than bads playing any other class. That’s not a matter of skill.

So much QQ on thief forum. Soooo much. Its really amazing. The truth is, good players don’t QQ on forums. Bad ones do.

Multiple devs have already stated they’re not making balance changes based on forum crying and knee-jerk reactions. They have data and meaningful discussions around all the changes being made.

Observing this sub-forum has brought me to realize that there are lots of bads here and lots of thief-only players too. Hmm…. 1+1=2?

Good players with thieves are still owning it up in PvP. Adapt to a balanced game, like the good players do. Those “Learn 2 Play” posts are coming back to haunt some of you.

AcidicVision.5498:

Now we are also dealing with our burst damage, which is the hallmark of the thief/assassin/rogue archtype, taking a hit?

Thief =! Rogue

Not sure where you guys are getting this, but the thief class is not a rogue from WoW or a sin from Aion. GW2 is not balanced for that type of gameplay…which is why it’s being removed in a slow, controlled fashion.

AcidicVision.5498:

Warriors are just as mobile

Warriors are just as mobile as thieves? Really? Even most BAD thieves would have to concede that no class can touch the thief in mobility with exception of, maybe, an out of combat elementalist. Initiative vs. cooldowns, teleport skills vs movement-based skills. There’s no comparison. Cripple and/or chill any other class and their movement is impaired. Shadowstep isn’t hampered by any slow effects.

AcidicVision.5498:

Stealth and its limitations are the mechanic that you use to balance being physically fragile with very high damage potential. Without that potential there is no reason to be fragile, which means there is no reason for stealth, which pretty much eliminates the need for a thief to exist.

The ability to stealth offsets the frailty of the class, not the damage. Stealth and trickery, coupled with the highest mobility in the game as well as the most frequent dodge capacity is your defense as a thief. Thats what the low HP and medium armor comes from.

Stealth doesn’t mean you get burst damage. Quite the opposite, in fact. What you’re suggesting is that because you have the ability to confuse players, hide, run, and avoid damage better than any other class in PvP, you should get the highest burst damage as well. Does that sound like game balance?

Watch good players with condi-build thieves. Its amazing how little damage you take as a thief if you know how to do more than Steal+CnD+Backstab.

Jasher.6580:

19k-25k hundred blades is okay… yet they nerfed pistol whip… I’m genuinely confused. Both root the character, both are channelled attacks, yet the guy with the heavy armour and high health gets to keep that ridiculous damage.

Confused.

Your confusion comes from not understanding the mechanics of stealth, daze and evade. All of which are available to Pistol Whip, none of which are available to Hundred Blades. Wrap your head around the mechanics of a non-stealth class and you’ll get it.

Psikerlord.2569:

If you dodge the initial attack it wont track you will it? Just if you’re already in the channelled ability, like unload, it continutes to hit you? Allowing stealth to break a channel half way through would be too good, like another dodge, amirite?

Exactly.

Stealth is not a free dodge. Heck, as a thief you’ve got more dodge and mobility capability than any other class. Dodge it or move out of range.

leprekan.7248:

Roll back the changes until you figure out how to implement your “fix” without breaking the class beyond being playable.

Yes, roll back the changes. I want my 70k Bladetrail back!

Mere Image.8376:

As a mesmer nearly all my phantasm attacks miss now.

I would suggest that, before reporting this as a bug, you make sure you have LoS, you weren’t blinded, you weren’t blocked, the target didn’t evade, and you weren’t out of range.

The problem is that many mesmer-only players are currently not aware of how the game works yet because they were playing with a broken/OP mechanic. Since the fix, they’re steadily realizing how OP they were to begin with and wanting it back.

JonPeters.5630:

Fast hands only is broken on the very first swap after you turn it on our load a map. After that it works. Fixing that first time bug is extraordinarily difficult, but we think it is worth it to keep the trait.

It may be extraordinarily difficult but its is also extraordinarily detrimental to have something not work the FIRST time you need it. First time, every time.

By “turn it on” I’m assuming you mean entering combat and “turning on” a separate 5s cooldown weapon swap, correct? Does that mean “Fast Hands” is an entirely different weapon swap skill that, in order to activate it, you must tell it you’re in-combat by swapping while fighting?

I don’t understand how the weapon swapping skill cooldown is any different from all other skills’ cooldowns. Every other skill cooldown reduction trait works just fine as a percentage. Why not treat the trait “Fast Hands” as a 50% reduction in weapon swap cooldown that applies directly to the 10s swap time?

nosleepdemon.1368:

From the patch notes it seemed like it would still pop up on the wall, but only if the target was within LOS.

Exactly.

I don’t get what all the crying is about. So now you have to use LoS like everyone else?

Um…welcome to balance. Sorry.

The main issue with backstab is that it’s a stealth attack. You have no REAL way of knowing when/where its coming. You can guess, but guessing means that if you’re right, you’re lucky.

Its getting a nerf for a reason. No attack should be dealing that kind of damage without a tell. Most people who have played a thief as well as other classes realize this. The ones that don’t agree with the incoming nerf are the bads that only play the OP class/build of whatever game they’re on.

DigitalKirin.9714:

What’s crazy is when you’ve got the Superior Runes of the Pirate on – pretty sure it’s bugged on warrior because instead of saying “Yarrr!” I just yell “For Great Justice!”

Yeah the rune makes everyone yell FGJ….kinda lame.

Would be nice if you actually shouted “Yarr!”

I’m going to advocate we get the following shouts as new skills in an expansion:

• “What you say!?”
• “Set up us the bomb!”
• “Make your time!”

Its like they took a page right out of the “Turbine: How to Ruin Your Game” playbook.

I don’t get it… Don’t these guys pay attention to history?

You may proceed to lock this thread now as it concerns Radiance…I mean…Ascended gear.

Jamais vu.5284:

MMOWarrior.9312:

Ask Turbine how this same sort of system worked for LotRO… dungeon gating.. locking off content/items except for a select group and type of player (raiders)… it turned LotRO into a ghost town… if fact it did so much damage to the community that they eventually pulled the system out of the game..

This is actually a valid concern, however we know nothing of the frequency of Agony mobs, particularly those that will be added after Lost Shores. Maybe they’ll be concentrated on a select few elite monsters in a dungeon or two. It’d be unfortunate if some close minded PUGs would lock you out on those particular ones, but I doubt the rest (i.e. most) future endgame content will need it. ANet isn’t dumb. They realize the casual, particularly new, players won’t attain Ascended gear any time soon, and will design future content around it.

Read into LOTRO’s Radiance system. Agony is almost a direct copy. After a certain point, you can no longer progress because your life will be too low to fight anything due to “Agony” debuff.

Linsey Murdock

Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must.

It’s a gating system. Eventually you will not be able to participate in content due to lack of specific gear.

Puggers will most definitely be requiring you to have specific gear for invites depending on what part of the dungeon they’re doing.

…sad really…

I would like you all to educate yourselves on the topic of “Radiance” gear from LOTRO.

This is exactly what’s happening here.

It’s a long read but it sounds like the mistaken road that Anet has chosen:

What Radiance Is
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Radiance

Radiance and Gloom were subsequently increased dungeon after dungeon to the point of requiring you to grind older content to be able to play more recent content.

That may or may not happen with Ascended gear, but the fact of ‘needing’ it for specific content remains.

Developer Diary on its Removal
http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1043-update-2-radiance-removal-developer-diary

People were disgusted by this system so much that it was a threat to the game’s future. They changed it. They were attempting to assert that their intentions were good because it wasn’t supposed to be a “new grind” …

If nothing else, read this quote from the diary:

“As you can see, our intentions were good. We wanted to do something new for the game and not create a new grind mechanic that ultimately resulted in running the same content over and over to acquire a “key”.

Somehow, this is exactly what we ended up making. None of us were pleased."

Anet, you’ll waste lots of time and effort down a futile path if you make this decision. Learn from your competitors. Don’t do it.

bwillb.2165:

1. Bugs are fixed. For pete’s sake, a lot of the things people complain about wouldn’t be possible if they fixed some bugs. And some things that aren’t possible should be.

2. Other options are buffed. This includes things that are currently underpowered, as well as things that would become underpowered unintentionally through any related nerfs. Part of this would need to include making pistol whip without haste viable to fix past transgressions.

3. Serial nerf-herders and trolls are removed from the forum. Look at all of the unreasonable, illogical posts that see light in this forum. It’s always the same small group of people ever since the game released. Remove them. No other profession forum has to put up with this kitten, trollish nerf posts on warrior and mesmer forums quickly disappear.

4. And finally, come up with a cohesive plan that will cause as little collateral damage as possible, and fix any collateral damage caused IN THE SAME PATCH, not 6 months from now. The nerf needs to affect ONLY this build, and ONLY the extreme fringe cases.

1. In my opinion, bugs that create class imbalances are worth being pointed out until they are fixed and should even be given a sticky thread. It consistantly keeps the topic of the bug fresh, consolidates a wide range of player feedback, and drives users to better understand (or test) the bug which can be beneficial to the Anet team and help expedite a solution patch.
2. Over/underpowered is an immeasurable description given to something based on data. Until that call has been made, skills/builds/classes can only be seen as over/under used . Collecting data takes time and requires a real environment (release) to make the best decisions. Class balance patches have (and continue to) spread the changes over a series. They’re re-measuring the outcomes. This is how you properly execute balance.
3. Unless they make forum ‘code of conduct’ infractions, they’re free to speak (type) their mind. It does add to clutter and allows bigotry but this is the internet. There’s tons of uselessness everywhere. Personally, I’d rather have it that way. Better to sift through loud opinions and nonsense than to have a forceful hand steering everyone towards its own goals.
4. See my response to #2. + They only want to fix what needs to be, and they try not to break anything in the process. The question is, how long does it take for you to find out what has worked and what hasn’t? How long will the mindless crying go on from patch day? How many people will refuse to continue playing ‘X’ class/build or switch to ‘Y’ class/build and lower the necessary incoming information on what has changed?

Just a few quick things to keep in mind going forward (not directed at bwillb specifically):

• “Hard” is not the same as “Broken”
• A good player is not made from one class
• Resourceful feedback is more helpful than opinionated bickering
• Constant arguing with a troll makes you a troll; you obviously speak the same language

Tulisin.6945:

They’re comparable but via two entirely different scaling mechanisms. Warriors (even glass cannon ones) benefit from innate durability and scale well with stats. Thieves (even glass cannon ones) benefit from innate mobility and scale best with skill. As a result, at lower skill levels the warrior benefits more from their innate defensive characteristics, whereas at high skill levels the thief benefits more.

The reason this is totally wrong is simple.

Innate, passive benefits of the class should be even across the board based on situational awareness and positioning. Each class is given its own set of passives based solely on how the class is to be played. Therefore, player skill should benefit each class equally.

If a thief is able to get the better of a warrior because he has more mobility, then the warrior should be able to trounce the thief in all respects when he gets the chance to nullify that mobilty. And he should, ultimately, be given that chance through player skill.

As of right now, there is nothing the warrior has, that isn’t easily avoidable, to close the gap during melee combat when the thief is visible. Yet the thief puts out more burst damage than the warrior in a shorter period of time with a more spammable skill set.

I think I’ve had this convo with you before. Basically it all comes down to this: mobility is king in GW2. If you have mobility, you have surviviability. There’s no denying that. The thief is the highest mobility class in the entire game, both in combat and out of combat. He doesn’t need the spike damage backstab provides and the devs know it.

Its taken only a few good players, after release, to show the devs what this class can really do. There are a ton of ‘bads’ that play this class who are arguing they don’t need a nerf. The problem is, they either don’t play other classes or they don’t realize how bad they are at playing the game. The thief ‘crutch’ has blinded them.

LoneWolfie.1852:

The reason why you think glass warrior is weaker is because you’re in a WvW situation. You simply can’t run away (because everyone is hitting you). But when it comes to a small team situation, warriors can still pull off better numbers against them with survivability and even come up on top, where thieves have to immediately run away and wait for an opportunity.

Warriors can run away. They’re very good at it. Except when it comes to the thief. You can’t run from the most mobile class in the game…period.

I don’t know what delusions you’re under, but the thief can catch anyone and can outrun anyone. There’s absolutely no reason for you to die as a thief, and there is nobody that can get away from you.

In the world of balance, that’s called an opportunist. The problem is that thieves don’t have to play as an opportunist. They currently can play as a hunter. They enter combat, survive from invis and teleports, then chase down the one who needs to leave due to focus fire and finish them. All while engaged in combat. That isn’t opportunist play, that’s a sustained combatant. There hasn’t been one thief that I’ve lost to because he ran away and came back. The ones that beat me are good players that know how to juke properly. Combine trickery with the highest burst damage in the game and you’ve got a class that makes ‘bads’ think they’re good.

Bad thieves need to die just as easily as any other class. They currently don’t. You can either deny that and prove you’ve got a personal bias problem with thieves or accept that they’re still in need of tweaking; as the devs say and every patch since release has proven.

Thieves QQ “L2P” and then this happens:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted you guys to know we’re looking at this specifically right now. We will probably bring down the raw spike DPS for some builds, but we’ll be careful to increase other areas to compensate.

Awesome.

Look, guys, you’re playing an OP class right now. Nerfs have been hitting EVERY patch since release. Your “L2P” posts show that you’ve never played another class against a skilled thief.

Here’s the issue:

• Thieves have stealth
• Thieves have high mobility
• Thieves have high spike damage

That combination spells out one thing, “skill-less dps class” …

Like I’ve said before, its not a question of whether or not the thief is getting a nerf. He’ll get more because he needs them. It’s a question of whether or not Anet is nerfing the right skills.

I think they’ve done a fantastic job with zeroing-in on specifics and waiting for new results.

Defektive.7283:

Example:
http://www.twitch.tv/defektive/c/1717839
^tPvP – vs rank40+ bunker guard

How wrong is this?

He beats up on someone that obviously isn’t paying attention, then takes on a guard fighting another player.

When the guard finally turns to attack him, you find out he’s an ultimate noob bunker guard. No symbols, using dogs, using a sword main hand, and hardly even attacking. And he STILL manages to chase you out of the point. Then your buddy downs him.

I’m not seeing whats so good about this fight. Not saying I’m the best PvP player in the world, because I’m obviously not, but this vid is just a high powered warrior displaying how they still lose to a poorly-played and built bunker.

The problem with thieves that get killed by HB is that they’re more often than not an instagib build with no stunbreaker and no way of clearing conditions (immobilize). Lots of bad players trolling warrior forums with ‘L2P’ posts about getting more toughness and bringing stunbreakers and then crying about HB. Take your own advice.

If you’re in a zerg battle and a warrior is doing HB, you’re likely going to be rolled by the incoming zerg or the warrior will die. Either one will happen before the HB finishes without Frenzy up. Besides that fact, HB only hits 3 targets.

This thread should be stickied and locked at the top of the forums. Specifically to let all other players who glance at the thief forums see that most thief players don’t understand how powerful stealth is against human beings.

Mobs re-aquire and know exactly where you are in stealth. They just stop hitting you until its over. Stealth does nothing to confuse mobs. To people, on the other hand, it’s very powerful.

The only reason this thread exists is because thief players don’t understand that. And they probably never will. They’ll just continue to whine as the balance patches roll in. As they have been ever since release.

If you guys want to flame me for pointing out facts, go ahead. I’m happily awaiting the next patch.

It’s been this way ever since they “fixed” it. It misses more often now then it did before.

Not like it isn’t the easiest skill in the game to dodge anyway. Even if it worked 100%.

Rush’s tooltip should read:

• Run to the target, tapping him on the shoulder and reminding him to dodge before swinging.

Actually its more like this:

Clay vs. Tyson! Match of the century! Come see these two superstar heavyweights battle it out to determine who is boxing’s all-time best!

Except, Clay gets to go invisible every 3 seconds at random points during the fight.

Wait….what?