Guild Wars 2

Stin.9781:

Redscope.6215:

Knyx.5926:

@Redscope They arent showing much intelligence in regards to well-placed and data intensive based balance changes.

Do you have their data and decision-making process on-hand or are you just mad at the:

Knyx.5926:

See heartseeker nerf

Knyx.5926:

See Pistol whip nerf

I’m not claiming that they’re making all 100% correct decisions, but they’re obviously trying their best since they’ve been claiming this game is skill-based enough to play competitively.

Oh, and I still see a healthy number of thieves around. If you’ve read the forums without playing the game, you’d think they were broken, underpowerd, and extinct. In almost all games that have forums like this, that kind of return usually comes from bad players and ones that know they’re playing an OP class.

Well, ofcourse you see a lot of thiefs… you know what ? When i came to Gw2 i left other game and some 10-15 ppl left game too, guess what. 7 of us ware going to roll thiefs w/o knowing how this class is played 7! 7/15 is half kittenit, 4 rolled mesmers 4 others something else.
Dont you understand Anet showd thief as awsome class so many many ppl rolled it.

I know I shouldn’t feed the trolls…but its just too much fun sometimes.

See my above quoted post about what these forums make the thief population out to be; proven by the direct quote underneath.

Tulisin.6945:

Vrak.2193:

I believe the Thief should be a high damage, low survivability class that is slippery and hard to pin down; very mobile.

This should be a viable way to play a thief, but GW2 professions should not be so strictly classified. There’s no one way to play each profession.

The problem is, if you’re slippery, hard to pin down, and very mobile, you’re also highly survivable.

A lot of people here don’t understand that (Edit: And I don’t mean “here” as in this forum, I mean game-wide). This game’s survivability is partly build and partly class. Mobility is a huge defensive advantage.

kharza.3974:

My bad.. Your are a TROLL AND NEED TO L2P.. Thieves need to be nerfed into oblivion because you are a NOOB lover.

Anyway.. At least on my ranger thieves didn’t scare me at all because I have 2 ways to get invuln (Signet of Stone and Protect Me). Switching to a sword in melee almost everytime and go ninja on the thieves.. plus it gives you an additional 2 evades. I was playing a more power/tanky build over the viable trap build. Seriously I didn’t even notice the backstab thief burst issue until I switched over to a thief and got jumped by one.

Anyway.. At least on my ranger thieves didn’t scare me at all because I have 2 ways to get invuln (Signet of Stone and Protect Me). Switching to a sword in melee almost everytime and go ninja on the thieves.. plus it gives you an additional 2 evades. I was playing a more power/tanky build over the viable trap build. Seriously I didn’t even notice the backstab thief burst issue until I switched over to a thief and got jumped by one.

lol

Backstab thief builds don’t auto-win against the high toughness tank-ish builds of almost any class. The problem is, you shouldn’t HAVE to build a rock solid tank in order to even get a chance to play against a thief.

Now many thieves would argue against that, but I’m sure those that do have never played (unless quite briefly) another class. In fact, there are a lot of people who come directly from other games with thief-like, backstab, stealth classes and believe that it needs to directly translate.

It doesn’t.

Knyx.5926:

@Redscope They arent showing much intelligence in regards to well-placed and data intensive based balance changes.

Do you have their data and decision-making process on-hand or are you just mad at the:

Knyx.5926:

See heartseeker nerf

Knyx.5926:

See Pistol whip nerf

I’m not claiming that they’re making all 100% correct decisions, but they’re obviously trying their best since they’ve been claiming this game is skill-based enough to play competitively.

Oh, and I still see a healthy number of thieves around. If you’ve read the forums without playing the game, you’d think they were broken, underpowerd, and extinct. In almost all games that have forums like this, that kind of return usually comes from bad players and ones that know they’re playing an OP class.

Knyx.5926:

Wilhelmryan.9203:

lmao @ calling backstabs “minimal finese”, coming from a pistol whip thief.

And he is correct, considering PW is bugged and has a self root on a MOBILITY based class

Thief has the highest mobility in the game of all classes. Yet this guy finds a way to complain he doesn’t have enough.

Sheesh…

kharza.3974:

Great part of the post and it is what gives me hope yet for this game. Totally agree and it is pretty apparent to people really paying attention and not being fundamentalist about their class that something is going to have to happen to quickness. I think the Ranger SB change was the precursor to that and I pretty much posted on the General thread asking why didn’t they just get rid of it (post lasted a whole 30 minutes before it got deleted).. the funny part was that I wasn’t trolling all that bad and really was just making examples out of where quickness was the heart of the issue not necessarily the skills themselves.

It is funny on the backstab part though.. one of the reasons why I didn’t go that route was because experience has taught me that it was going to get nerfed for sure and wouldn’t help me properly understand how to play a thief well. Much happier with the approach and build I took because it is a longer term sustainable solution and helped me really understand the thief mechanics considering I never got to play one in BWE (ranger and warrior and ended up rolling ranger main at launch.. sigh)

Good post man!

Its not often I actually get praise from others on these forums. Thank you.

I’d have to concede that, other than those with porting hacks, I don’t run into any ‘issues’ whatsoever with rangers. That isn’t to say I haven’t had hard fights, though. They keep well at a distance but they have no means of immediately escaping a fight, which is a major balance point to classes that are better at ranged combat.

Another thing to note with more balanced classes is its pretty easy to tell good players apart from bad ones and there are some very visible differences when playing with and against the ranger.

Neandramathal.9536:

And here I was thinking this would be about doing the Dark Room without torches (or flamethrowers/fire related abilities)

Or by turning the gamma all the way up!

Oops

Well actually it would be a lot more competitive if there weren’t hacking guilds like Fallacy.

I’ve run into them a few times and nearly 1/2 of them have 3rd party auto-firing macros and porting hacks on.

They’re NUMEROUS in this game. Something must be done Anet…

Ayestes.1273:

If you want to win duels though, the land of the Thief and Mesmer is probably optimal.

Which is, again, why they get the most nerfs.

In a game that claims to be skill-based, you can’t have one class that is simply ‘better’ at killing other classes for no other reason than, “He’s just better.” They’re trying to make this game into a highly competitive RPG class esport. Needing other players to be an effective class is not the way to do that.

If you want to claim ‘rock, paper, scissors’ on class balance, you can’t have one class be ‘nuke missile’…

kharza.3974:

Namu.5712:

I have and its a 1 button build… snip

The whole point of stealth is to avoid people killing you and control the encounter.. it is a control mechanic. Rendering bugs aside.. how do you normally go after a mesmer and his 50 friends? Personally I learned all about call target and take target when I played on my ranger.. imagine that the same mechanic works for thieves and stealth.

First of all, called targets are removed with certain mesmer skills. Its a balance point to the confusion factor of the class. If you’re going to base an entire class around confusion, why let it be taken away by ‘ctrl+t’? It wasn’t always this way and was changed after the first BWE (iirc).

If you don’t have a ranged weapon equipped, targeting someone doesn’t tell you where that player is. Targeting someone with a ranged weapon means all you have to do is press buttons and see where you point. Targeting with a melee weapon does almost nothing for you outside of single-target only skills; there are few of those and most of them still have to be used in melee range. That’s an important distinction to make.

kharza.3974:

This right now lets you get around the render bug because just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean you can’t target them.

However, it does give them a massive, and more importantly unbalanced, advantage. I’m almost positive thieves will be crying foul on how bad their class is once they’ve stopped taking advantage of being able to attack while invisible…if that ever gets fixed.

They’ll get over it and ‘L2P’ again though.

Nerf the thief based on bugs? Hell no…but fix the KITTEN balance-breaking bugs first please!

kharza.3974:

I’m not defending a backstab thief.. assassin’s signet is the problem and that is where the “nerf” should be applied.

I agree. But chances are, since nerfing sin sig will effect all skills while nerfing backstab will only effect backstab, they’ll probably go the route of nerfing backstab. Assuming its taken and they don’t do something entirely different and unpredicted.

kharza.3974:

Good players figured out the traits and utilities and synergies with gearing.. most bad players are playing traits because they sound cool or following the FOTM build posted here instead of actually learning the mechanics.

Which is why, a few months after release, you’re seeing thief nerfs. People hadn’t figured out how to play instagib thief builds in beta. Frenzy/HB was an easy one to figure out. It was found in a BWE and nerfed accordingly.

kharza.3974:

The reason I am here in Guild Wars 2 is because ArenaNet was supposed to be different. They actually use data, and while they are human and will make mistakes I believe they have the long term view in mind.. which is very refreshing. This is coming from a former RANGER who watched almost every other viable build get smashed by the short bow nerf..

Effective long-term balance changes need to be small, well-placed, and data intensive.

This is exactly why they haven’t done a ‘once around’ massive nerf of Retaliation. They’ve said its an issue, they’re trying to change how its used, and they’ve changed things bit by bit to gather proper, and very much needed, information about the effects.

They’ve known about HS, PW, BS, the shortbow, and even quickness for some time now. The thief nerfs are starting to roll in slowly. This is the beginning and it sucks to have your favorite class take hits after you’ve been playing it but they need to make a bumper sticker: “Balance Happens”

I believe they have something in store for quickness given the immediate locks of ‘nerf quickness’ posts that were put out early on but now are being let loose.

kharza.3974:

Oh yeah.. I’ve never back stabbed anyone on my thief.. ever… never liked the mechanic no matter how much damage it does.

Quoted this part since its the biggest argument used against nerfing backstab. I think we both agree that something will change with stealth+sin sig+backstab, and I’m not saying you’re using this statement to prove otherwise.

What I’m trying to say is, how you play individually has no bearing on game balance. There could be a super OP skill combo out there that nobody uses and they’ve never figured out. That doesn’t mean it isn’t OP.

I can’t reiterate this enough, I know that wasn’t your argument with this statement and I’m not trying to bring you out of context. I just feel that something needs to be pointed out about the use of it by others.

@phaeris: Whirlwind is a dodge…why would you dodge during it?

Anyway, my only issue with backstab is that it’s not a ‘back’ stab…it should be called ‘facestab’

I’ve literally immobilized thieves and had them stealth up and ‘backstab’ me for full bonus damage…in the face… They come out of stealth still immobilized and then start with the HS spam.

Can we get a bug fix for that? … Or just change backstab to do the same damage wherever (since it basically does already) and nerf it.

Oh and kitten fix “Throw Bolas” saying that its 900m…because it’s barely even 600m

Shawno.4293:

@redscope, Like I said, I have tried multiple builds and practiced on them continuously to try and see if I could find a viable pvp build. But nope, still get hammered by just about any decent player no matter how good I am.

Well I guess the only thing I have to offer you is to go find other warriors and 1v1 them. See how well you stack up against someone who has the same available abilities and you may get a feel for where you stand as a player.

Almost all other classes (guardian is the only exception) seem to have the ability to keep at a distance and warriors end up playing catch-up. Most of the time that’s fine given warrior’s melee builds are usually cc-heavy or movement-heavy. Unless they’re using packet loss hacks to teleport around the world, and trust me I’ve seen a fair amount of that in WvW, you’ll be able to catch them at various points throughout the fight.

To me, having a build that can catch or slow you but MUST engage you in melee is a good balance point. The warrior has no real ranged builds as far as PvP is concerned, and that’s also not a ‘bad’ thing since not every class will be able to use any build for PvP as well as some others. (Now I know the bads will quote me and cite some warrior who has used Killshot on them and won. Great, you’ve just proven you need to learn how to pay more attention to the fight and not waste dodges on Bleeding Shot.)

The problem I have, as I’ve said before, are the classes designed around NOT allowing you to catch/hit/cc them. That immediately breaks the warrior’s balance point.

What I think you might be seeing is that the warrior has no real ‘gimmick’ builds outside of Frenzy/HB which is super easy to counter by someone who isn’t a zombie player. You’ve played a thief and won much more often. Ask yourself, is that skill or class?

People losing isn’t an issue.

I see most classes getting stomped equally and the warrior is no exception. Especially glass cannon warriors. And the complaints about Frenzy are all made by bads. Anyone can kill a warrior in Frenzy. Chances are you’re a glass cannon build that takes it hardcore already…an extra 50% damage means you’re going to be throwing rocks twice as fast.

My problem is that if you’re expected to play in melee against a thief or mesmer, you might as well just /quit unless they’re terrible. With all the confusion, movement, and cripple those two classes get you’ll just be burned regardless of class unless you have a good ranged build.

The warrior is actually a pretty kitten solid class. Watch the patch notes on which ones are getting the nerfs. Spoiler alert: thieves and mesmers are in there….somewhere lol

Queue the thieves crying: “no nerfs plz” …

What is wrong with this class? Stealth’s true power against players has not been taken into consideration. The proof is in nearly all thief videos where they do just about as much damage (with the exception of sin sig backstab) than any other glass cannon, plus stealth.

Against mobs? Forget about it. Stealth is a short-term, weaker form of defense than just moving out of the way of attacks.

Actually what would really fix this problem is a simple 3 step process:

1. Either lower the real money cost (worth) of gems, or decrease the cost of petty short-term bonuses and consumables.
2. Allow smaller increment purchases ($1-5), and actually increase number of gems per dollar…right now spending $10-20 gets you the same price per gem.
3. Create first-time daily bonuses for team-oriented content that amount to slightly more than the worth of soloing for the same time period.

VictorTroska.3725:

Achieving same result if not better with less effort and skill than other class. Ability to run glass cannon build to maximize your damage while having excelent survival and get away abilities.

To all moaning thieves, I dare you to roll glass cannon elementalist and be as effective as glass cannon thief.

Thief class will be nerfed, it is inevitable and when that happens. True thief players will remain and still shine, while rest of the garbage (which is majority) will move to next fotm.

Honestly the best part about the moaning thieves on these forums is when they say “X didn’t need a nerf, why, I don’t even use X and I’m an awesome player!”

Alright…so what are you whining about? Go be awesome somewhere…

Thieves are taking hits in the damage department because Anet has underestimated the defensive capabilities of stealth and shadowstep. No matter how you build, you still have high mobility and confusion that work in your favor as a thief…so why not go easymode DPS as much as possible?

The better thieves are the ones that don’t come here and cry every time there’s a nerf to an OP skill, because they understand and properly take advantage of stealth and shadowstep instead of using them as a crutch for a glass cannon.

Hell I remember tons of bads calling for perma-stealth and talking about how steal sucks. Where’s all that gone? The bads have all focused on the nerfing going on.

Yewkon.5802:

If you get yourself down to 45%-60% health with more than two enemies around you and didnt run or back off, you deserve to get aced by a thief with a full initiative bar.

Right, because everyone can run from the thief; the most mobile class in the game.

Try playing another class before making a comment like this.

Yewkon.5802:

As a thief, let me tell you, if you over extend from your zerg and you go down to 40% health… YES I’m going to jump on you like an 8yr old on a trampoline.

Isn’t that the same thing you’ve said above? Run or back off when you get to low HP? And now its a bad idea…

Yewkon.5802:

If you chase me, all by yourself, far away from your group… well, now you’re in my house and I live in a house of pain.

but.. that’s what thieves do.. we pick off over-extenders and the slow members of the herd

So in other words, thieves are meant to win 1v1s?

What?

You’re not helping people to view thieves in a non-OP light here…

@Revelstroke:
I think that’s one of the fundamental problems with the thief class. He’s hard to play if you’re focusing on stealth, utilities, and conditions to win the day. He’s super easy if you just go DPS.

And as a DPS build, I’d love to be seen as ‘not a threat’ … most of the time people ignore everything around them and come after me like a rabid dog once I start combat.

So the “stealth” class in an RPG is OP? … To quote Iago: “Oh, there’s a big surprise! That’s an incredible… I think I’m gonna have a heart attack and die from that surprise!”

They always start OP and I’ve about had it with the children that play them crying about nerfs. They’re going to happen. Its just like every FPS game and the grenade launcher. Starts out OP, gets nerfed, noobs cry, real gamers move on.

Anyone worth their salt can PvP with thieves very well without using Heartseeker, Pistol Whip+Haste, or Backstab. I’ve had many long, drawn out fights with thieves that used absolutely none of those skills and most of the time they still win because of the stealth mechanic.

Incurafy.6329:

Or maybe it’s because we’re sick and tired of being hit by nerfs that don’t even make sense? Any Thief worth his salt will admit straight up that Pistol Whip was (and to an extent, still is) OP when combined with Haste (our Quickness ability), but without it, it was a mediocre skill in PvP and an excellent skill in PvE.

So basically you’re upset about needless nerfs, but you explain how PW just got a needed nerf?

As I’ve said before, quickness is a problem. When and if they address it, they’re going to hit multiple classes, multiple builds, traits, and weaponry. They’ve got a lot to consider when changing quickness as opposed to changing one particular skill while using quickness.

Incurafy.6329:

Also, I know that I’m wasting my time here because you’re obviously either 8 years old or a troll, but have you ever actually rolled a Thief and played it for more than five minutes? Anyone who thinks that any aspect of the class is just a 2 or 3 button wonder is an absolute moron.

A moron is someone who thinks that thieves weren’t pressing ‘22222222’ to win until the Heartseeker nerf, and then weren’t popping Haste and pressing ‘33333333’ to win until the PW nerf. That was the whole reason for those nerfs. The thief was a button mash hero.

So when thieves are popping sin sig in stealth, hitting 1, and winning, seeing as how that’s a “3-button-wonder”, I would assume one of those buttons is getting a nerf.

Probably not backstab, probably sin sig.

Just saying, better to be prepared than to be wasting your time crying about it on the forums when it happens.

Using the terrain to your advantage is one thing. Getting somewhere the mobs can’t path to so that you can exploit them is another.

I agree that this happens much more often than it should, but you have to understand where it comes from. Players can jump to crazy places and have decent range in this game. An excellent combination for exploiting.

They’ll get to fixing it slowly. I’d rather them err on the safe side than go through fixing each individual area that ranged players can jump to and effortlessly spam death on respawn all day long. That’s just lame…

I’ve been having this problem since the October 1st patch I think. Definitely going on before the 7th.

It seems to only happen when in combat, but I can’t remember any other time when I’ve had to use mouselook extensively so I can’t say for certain.

Actually I’ve noticed that the skill cooldowns on-screen are not in sync with the server. So if you’re trying to use a skill that has a bit of a longer cooldown on it and just ‘came back’ on your screen, wait a few seconds.

This is not acceptable, but its sort of a workaround.

I’m missing how you can’t help out at level 80 when you’re sidekicked to a lower level.

If by ‘help out’ you mean demolish/power level, no, you can’t do that.

I would venture to say that the lower level areas in this game are much more enjoyable even as a sidekicked character because you have more options in your encounters. It would be nice to have more level 80 areas added but I don’t mind heading back to places I’ve missed since combat isn’t reminiscent of an elephant trampling an ant mound.

And even though you’re sidekicked, when you’re a geared level 80, you will notice a difference in power from the appropriate-level characters in the area.

Devildoc.6721:

Originally Pistol whip had like a 4 initiative cost, had a .25s instant stun, and full damage. The FIRST nerf they did to it was raise the initiative to 5, then add the cast time, then realized the skill only had 1 niche use so they added the evade.

Your point here was that they’ve nerfed it before. I think what you need to extrapolate from that is PW has been under a watchful eye for a while. Its no surprise that, even after the nerf, when thieves kept ‘spamming 3 ftw’ they’d have to hit it again. No pun intended…I just realized…

Devildoc.6721:

You know what they need to do, to solve a lot of the issues, aside from nerf quickness which is the real root of all the problems people have with Pistol Whip and 100b?

Quickness has no place in this game and many people agree that it’s either in need of a nerf or a complete removal. It’s a ‘build around’ utility or a ‘build without’ utility. There’s no in-between with it.

I won’t disagree that balancing skills around quickness, which essentially makes it required, is not the best path to go down. However, until they decide to do something to quickness, the powerful combinations it provides have to be dealt with on an individual basis. They did it to HB, they did it to Flurry, they did it to Heartseeker, and now they’ve done it to PW. I’m sure we’ve not seen the end of it either.

When and if quickness gets changed, we’ll see those skills being used in a different context and their incoming data will prove if there is need for a change.

Devildoc.6721:

They need to take the damage that was lost from Pistol Whip.. and roll it into infiltrator’s strike.

Roll 15% of PW’s original damage into IS? A 600m shadowstep for 3 initiative that immobilizes, breaks stun, and cures a condition? I just don’t see that happening. That’s a powerful, low-cost skill.

Devildoc.6721:

Cloak and Dagger can hit for really high amounts. Infiltrator’s strike tickles. Both skills are used to set up another skill.

CnD hurts more because of what you lose with that skill set. You lose a ranged weapon and, therefore, some distance fighting capability. Albeit to a lesser extent with this class, a ranged weapon still grants the advantage of distance.

Devildoc.6721:

In a PVP situation that’d crit for about 3k. Pistol whip would remain somewhat low damage but the combination between infiltrator’s strike and pistol whip would do roughly the damage that pistol whip used to do, at the cost of 8 initiative, infiltrator’s strike doesn’t get spammed, so you wouldn’t have as much damage spamming pistol whip as you used to, but you could do 1 old pistol whip’s damage with the combination of skills, and then jump out, infiltrator’s strike, pistol whip, then jump out, which is probably the intended use of the skill. The overall damage of using pistol whip multiple times goes down from what it used to be, but still gives thieves a burst.

The whole point of the last hit on the chain doing more than the first two is to provide a benefit to the player who is actually able to pull off the entire chain. Why would you stay close enough to use 3 consecutive hits on the target if you don’t have to? As a thief, you’ve got so many more options than just swinging in the player’s face.

Devildoc.6721:

It’d also give sword/dagger thieves a bit of help that they need, flanking strike is pretty weak and is really janky with how it’s used due to the camera.

I’d like to see the camera improved in general, but I’ve never played with a class/skill set up which moved your character in this manner so I can’t really comment on that.

I will point out that FS does more damage than the 2nd and 3rd chain hits combined, removes a boon, and evades. It also attempts (not sure how well it works) to place you behind the target, setting you up for higher damage output. I don’t think its a weak attack.

Devildoc.6721:

I’d argue that the offhand pistol skills should get some more damage as well. Just like offhand dagger skills get considerable damage. Daggers have good damage on every skill on their bar. Sword has good damage on 1 skill aside from the autoattack.

The only reason, and the proper reason, that this will not hapkitten distance. For the most part, melee just does more damage. In this type of game, where melee is about the hardest position to play, it should.

^Edit: Can’t say “h.a.p.p.e.n. i.s.” geez guys lol

Auto-attacks do lots of damage in this game Devil, this isn’t LOTRO.

They’re a 3 skill chain. Many classes have more DPS output in their first chain than in the rest of their skill set because of cooldown times. They’re built around utility, control, mobility, etc.

I don’t think that GS warriors need buffs but they are definitely one of the harder builds to play if you don’t intend on using Frenzy. And even if you do, you take 50% more damage while using it…so you better have a plan of attack AND escape.

The damage on PW was dropped because of the thief’s spammy nature and its stun attached to it. Couple that with immobilizing venoms, damage increasing traits, and the ability to go invisible and you’ve got a powerful combination that forces people to be very skilled in order to counter but a monkey could perform the attack. Argue for it or against it but they’ve already said they’re not making knee-jerk reactions when balancing their game.

As many people have stated, myself included, quickness is a huge balance issue here. Not just for PW but for all skills. This is not GW1 where most of what you did was auto-attacks and a few important skills at certain times. You’ve got very powerful time-balanced skills that are extremely skewed in usefulness when a character is given quickness.

I wouldn’t doubt that it gets a change in the near future.

Ghonta.3958:

Imagine if they nerf the stealth? Because ppl are complaining about it.

People complained about HS, got nerfed.
People complained about PW, got nerfed.
People complained about Basilik, got nerfed.
People are complaining about stealth, backstab, quick, guess what?

People cry about a lot of things. The most crying, however, comes from thief players saying “L2P” instead of realizing that things need to be changed.

HS was nerfed because it did too much damage for a skill that leaps
PW was nerfed because it did too much damage for a skill that has a daze
BV was nerfed because it was essentially a stun with no counter
BV was also buffed in duration, and I’ve never seen thieves use it…so…qq less plz.

Stealth is stealth, the only thing they need to do is fix it so people can SEE thieves when they’re supposed to be seen…

Backstab isn’t the problem, the problem is sin sig. Nerf sin sig and backstab (BS) problems will go away.

Quickness is available to multiple classes. I would advocate that quickness be remove entirely from the game…but that’s just me. I’m not sure what they have in store for it but I wouldn’t expect it to stick around in its current form for long.

Side note: Thief crying is like a siren’s song to me…I can’t resist…I HAVE to listen…lol

They do (almost) no damage. As they are only meant to decieve. However, why do they apply conditions?

My mesmer with S/P spec can keep 7 stacks of vulnerability and 2-3 stacks of bleeding on a target by using only clones.

What the hell man?

SHM.7628:

Why people cry over the bug? This has gone on 2 weeks without even a mention that it was a bug. I think the reason for that was the backlash was more than they expected.

People are crying on this forum 24/7. If they changed everything due to people crying, they’d be changing every aspect of the game for the duration they support it. You can’t assume because people make long-winded posts about leaving the game that tons of people are leaving, can you?

Its the same situation here.

You can’t just assume there’s a problem because some guys make long posts about how they don’t like it.

SHM.7628:

If not then why not just say, Its bugged, we’re working on it thank you for your patience. I doubt it was ever a bug. I think it was intentional, and they disliked the bad press. and/or lost revenue at the cash shop.

They’ve probably had to identify a bug themselves. Nobody helps identify bugs when they come on the forums and spout, “DR is broken fix it now!!” and continue to cry about how “DR has no place…etc…etc..”

Did you ever stop to think that maybe you were being hit too hard and there is an issue with the system? How come every time something gets implemented it was always “the way they meant it to be”?

Help them identify bugs with details instead of acting like an angry child who doesn’t understand why his lollipop was taken away.

SHM.7628:

That is all hindsight. Now we have an answer. Are you are asking why people are continuing to "cry’ as you put it.? My answer is this. DR has no place in an MMO. It’s too problematic and does nothing to Bots. There’s a million ways it can mess up = innocent players get punished.

Which brings us to the crux of the problem. Your opinion is your own. Anet obviously spent a lot of time figuring out the most effective and efficient way to police their game based on their company’s needs. I suggest you help them make your experience better rather than continuously crying about how its not like other games and it should be your way.

SHM.7628:

Plus I don’t want to have to monitor their failure of a system. I also don’t want to have to worry about “playing right” That is too much work. You say they are crying, I say they are kitten off and other than full rollback of DR will be unacceptable.

You don’t want to use software with bugs in it? May as well take every single piece of electronics you own and toss it. That’s the only way to achieve bug-free software.

Bugs are going to exist. If you happen to be negatively impacted by them, all they can do is apologize and hope to god that you’ve given them info about it so that they don’t have to find it themselves; which takes time and means that others will be impacted negatively as well.

SHM.7628:

Without rewards = Its all just grind. N’est pas?

What have you done in this game that has not rewarded you at all for doing so? I’m sure they’d be happy to fix that issue as well, so long as they have proper info.

Everything I’ve done has rewarded me upon completion. Sometimes I get hit with DR too harshly, agreed, but I don’t get nothing.

JonPeters.5630:

Some players have run into “diminishing returns” thresholds we put into the game to provide a safety net against unanticipated economy-breaking issues. We do have these thresholds in place, but it’s not our intention that normal players should ever run into them. We’ve recently had bugs and imbalances that have caused normal players to hit thresholds, and we’ll fix those.

So there are bugs, and they will be fixed…given enough time and priority.

Why people cry and cry about buggy systems is beyond me, report the bug and be patient on the fix. Anet is a company made of human beings; they don’t have any more hours in the day than you or I do. And they have to go to sleep at some point.

JonPeters.5630:

It would be bad for everyone if, for example, a group of players learned how to speed-clear a dungeon in 5 minutes, with full rewards each time, and then repeated that continuously.

That’s fine, but as described earlier 15 minutes is when the exploit DR kicks in. When you’ve got a group of geared 80s who play well, its not inconceivable for them to run through explorable mode in 15 minutes or less without actually ‘exploiting’ anything.

5 minutes I can see. None of those dungeons are do-able in 5 minutes unless you’re exploiting simply due to the amount of content.

JonPeters.5630:

While we need a safety net to stop unanticipated economy-breaking exploits and botting, we have no desire to stop farming. Farmers are a part every online economy and when they are doing normal game activity they do not cause any harm. If a player finds a normal game activity fun and would like to keep doing it, that’s fine with us.

When your event is beaten and it reactivates, the time it takes to reactivate should not trigger a diminishing return. Big example here is the Harpy attack near the Ascalon Catacombs. If you’re waiting for a group, and you complete that event as often as it reactivates, the DR kicks in. If you don’t want players doing events that quickly, tone down the reactivation times.

Event DR is the easiest safety net to remove, you have complete control over the number of events and how quickIy they come back (it doesn’t like those two words together). Tweak it so that people are unable to stand in one area and repeatedly complete an event faster than you desire.

JonPeters.5630:

Initially we have to rely on smaller data sets, instinct and some guesswork to find the correct cutoff. What this means is that some players are going to bump into the edges of these systems for a while as we get them sorted out.

The only problem with bumping into DR edges in this game is that its more like jumping face-down on a knife. Your immediately treated as if you’re botting/exploiting. This is what players are mostly angry about…but then they just get mad at the system and expect an immediate removal with no questions asked.

DRs should increase gradually to the point where they become harsh if you continue to do what shouldn’t be done instead of immediately giving players the finger without any prior notice or inclination whatsoever.

I do appreciate Anet’s time taken for communication with their community. Its very hard to work and troll the forums at the same time looking for an opening to spit out a few words and hope those words don’t say too much or fall on deaf ears.

Agreed.

Something needs to be done about this and it seems this way is the easiest.

I’d prefer a bindable key that centers the mouse pointer. But that may take more time than just a color option.

This game’s AFK kick is pretty quick and is applied no matter where you are in the world.

But I agree, assuming it isn’t 5 minutes already, it should really only let you be away for 5 minutes tops considering the queue times.

I want to ride a Charr as a Human.

There’s something that just seems proper about saddling up a giant sentient cat being and yelling, “Yah mule! Yah!” while they’re on ‘all fours’…

Cortechs.3265:

Wanting to roleplay My Little Pony isn’t a good reason either.

We could do that if we wanted to, just use a transformation potion…is there one that looks like a horse?

…wait…

Serious Question: Has anyone ever seen a horse in Tyria???

Blueroseknight.7954:

Ig you think that mounts will stop you from enjoying the scenery then don’t use them. People play games in different ways.

Yeah sure, agreed.

Blueroseknight.7954:

If I had mounts I probably wouldn’t use waypoints as much. I think that teleporting everywhere breaks up the world in an unpleasant way.

Take your own advice above…wow…

Hell just leveling as fast as you do in this game prevents you from exploring and taking in the brilliant artwork of ALL the areas you play in. That is, unless you specifically stop to do that.

Blueroseknight.7954:

I have yet to hear a reason for mounts to not be implemented other than “I hate WoW and don’t want this to be like WoW. WoW is the only MMO i know and the only one that has mounts hur dur”.

That is not a good reason.

Here’s a reason not to have mounts: They’re useless, we have waypoints. End of discussion. Can’t fork over 4s at level 80? You’re doing something wrong. You probably spent all your money on something in the broker right? Hit “H” and go to the Mists, walk to Lion’s Arch, sell some junk at a vendor or the broker, and go to your waypoint.

Don’t have junk you say? Complete the Lion’s Arch puzzles, there are 3, and get junk from the chests. Its free, there are no mobs, there are no enemy players, just jump.

After all that, don’t make that mistake again.

Unless you cosmetically want mounts…in which case, I’ve got your ‘mount patch’ notes right here:

• Mounts have been added to the game, they do not move any faster than players.

One thing I would add though is watch for the hammer and dodge it as much as you can. It has a knockdown that will make you sad. :p

Actually, not a bad idea….why the hell not?

Edit: This could also serve as a reminder to the player where s/he has logged out or last played. Not that it doesn’t already tell you, but sometimes visualizing it is easier than reading it.

@Blazer (b/c I can’t quote right now FIX IT! )

Yeah that’s essentially a version of team deathmatch. I had read your post as if you were referring to the current game’s version of a 3v3 as ‘deathmatch’ mode. My mistake.

Blazer Hellsing.9184:

Redscope.6215:

Blazer Hellsing.9184:

I supported and still support Arenanet’s stance on PvP modes and that they only want conquest mode sPvP. If you ever do add a death match mode, please put a minus 50% damage modifier on those death match mode maps so people won’t die within 3 seconds of being focus fired and keep it at 3 players per team. This will make the game play more interesting and challenging.

Would that -50% apply to conditions as well? Think carefully before you respond.

In a game where everyone has a 15-30 second cooldown heal skill, if you lower the damage too much, nobody will ever die.

Yes it applies to all damage, condition, power and crit damage. I don’t know if you have ever been in a death match map or not, it is small and 3 people fighting 3 people, a decent focus fire and good timing and 1 person goes down. 2 people focus firing a person with quickness makes the target drop in 2 sec, let alone when 3 people do it. If death match is implemented, then a minus damage modifier to the maps of that game type is a must. Maybe not a 50%, but 30-40%, that is up to arenanet.

Death match mode with the current spike damage of the game? it will be unbalanced.

Well you answered correctly. I just wanted to see what kind of player you were :p

Lets just not argue the quickness buffs for now. Most people, including myself, think they need a massive nerf and I’m not planning on them remaining as-is in the future.

I was assuming you were talking about a new game mode. By your definition, deathmatch already exists. Just ask Anet to put up sPvP servers with a smaller max player count.

Getting back to your point, yes focus fire kills very quickly. My problem is, we’re in a small map and you’ve got a lot more room for a 1v1 situation. Bringing damage down too much would create an unending battle in where players would avoid and mitigate damage just enough so that their healing more than makes up for it. Then its just not fun. Then it becomes a forced focus fire style gameplay where if you’re not balled-up and focusing on one target, you’re going to lose.

Edit: And I use the term ‘fun’ personally. Not sure if you find balling up and focusing targets down fun or not so I can’t really make that call.

Shukran.4851:

i am not a fan of shortcuts, but what if i told you that “target closest enemy” could work with thieves.

You’re right, except for one fatal flaw: Proper target acquisition and positioning don’t just automatically happen when you press ‘t’ (or whatever key you use). It sounds good on paper, but then again most erroneous comments do.

Just because you now have the Thief targeted, doesn’t mean you know where he is, what he’s doing, what you should do, when you should react, at what point he will disappear again, etc.

That’s a hefty chunk of confusion and it must be taken into consideration in a game where most skills are not just “press 1 and you’re guaranteed a hit” but in fact take a reaction to your situation.

All classes have skills that other classes have to use proper reactionary measures to counter or diminish. The thief is, outside of the mesmer, the only class which multiplies that by forcing other players to consistently pan their view and apply guesswork to the fight.

In other words, ask yourself these questions:

• Is it skill when the Thief presses an ‘invis button’ and forces a miss by confusing the target?
• Is it skill if a player swings where s/he thinks a thief is and actually hits him?

If you can’t respond to both of those questions with the same answer, you’re opinion of stealth is skewed in the favor of whatever class you’re playing.

Shukran.4851:

ofc if they are d/d, stealthed, and you are glass cannon too, well…gg.

I’m not sure what you’re saying here. So two glass cannons go up against each other and the thief should automatically win?

Pretty poor statement to make if you’re trying to argue that the crying about thieves is unwarranted.

Well its kinda like how they don’t let you build pure zerk gear or pure valk gear in sPvP. You just can’t. You’re forced to split your crit damage stat into two categories.

That’s a balance point which was considered, I’m sure, as they ran into the problem of high crit damage builds eating people alive because of the high crit chance available in this game. In comparison, condition builds had no chance.

Each stat build (which includes amulet and jewel) must be tested extensively against all other build possibilities. This takes a LONG time and they don’t really have any extra time right now. They probably won’t have any extra time for ‘new’ balance-requiring additions for a while.

I wouldn’t hold my breath, but Jon has already stated it isn’t impossible.

Blazer Hellsing.9184:

I supported and still support Arenanet’s stance on PvP modes and that they only want conquest mode sPvP. If you ever do add a death match mode, please put a minus 50% damage modifier on those death match mode maps so people won’t die within 3 seconds of being focus fired and keep it at 3 players per team. This will make the game play more interesting and challenging.

Would that -50% apply to conditions as well? Think carefully before you respond.

In a game where everyone has a 15-30 second cooldown heal skill, if you lower the damage too much, nobody will ever die.

@labotimy

GW1 was mostly PvP and PvE was an afterthought. Noted by 20 levels and gear progression as well as how mobs were simply re-skinned AI players.
GW2 was designed from the ground up with regards to an open world without sacrificing PvP balance.

I don’t see how you could possibly see PvE as an ‘afterthought’ in this game considering the personal stories, the jumping puzzles, the character choices, the voice acting, the dungeons, map completion challenges, the achievement system, and not to mention the vast majority of the playable areas in the game being PvE.

So much work put into the PvE aspect of the game that the PvP aspect doesn’t need at all.

Hell there’s even a jumping puzzle and PvE events in the WvW maps.

What game are you playing?

I await your angry response about how I’ve never played MMOs.

This is currently a balance point for PvP and sPvP. What they don’t want happening is players moving just a few feet from the fight and getting their high HP regen to kick in. They require you to go so far away that you’re obviously not contributing, or to wait so long that you have been more of a detriment than an asset to the fight by doing so.

Its tough in WvW when you’re doing something like a jumping puzzle, admittedly, but its just one of those things that can’t be helped too much without allowing people to exploit it during fights.

My opinion of course.

My opinion of OP’s weapon suggestions:

• Crossbows will most likely make it in as a two-hand only ranged weapon and may be part of a class add.
• Brawling, Grappling and “Fist” weapons will only be added as part of a class add (if they make it at all).
• Scythes will most likely make a comeback with the addition of the Greataxe, whenever that happens.
• Halberds/Spears would be a relatively easy add since they’re so much like the Harpoons and Tridents in water combat.
• A Flail would be an awesome weapon to add since its hardly ever in any of these games, however it would be the most difficult considering animation requirements.
• Whips, for whatever reason, usually makes it into these posts somehow. I’m not sure how easy/hard they would be to do but they’d probably be an off-hand only weapon.
• Power Orbs and Spell Books are basically Foci; the Focus is already an item. They should definitely add those as Focus skins, however.
• Energy Shields are just Shields; again, should be added as a separate skin.
• Mutagens/Transformers, as you describe them, are more ‘anime’ than anything else and I’m pretty sure would not fit this game at all.
• Charrzooka can be used as any class, as long as you’re a Charr.

I would assume the biggest reason for keeping necros from having access to lots of finishers is that many ‘dark’ finishers are life leeching. That’s a very powerful finisher to be able to create on your own, especially as a class who already gets skills that steal life.

I feel bad for:
Sidekicked players in WvW

The only problem I find with the ‘downed’ state in PvP (structured or otherwise) is that only ONE enemy has to die for multiple ‘downed’ players to rally.

It should be a 1 for 1 IMO

The problem is twofold:

1. Players are not realizing when ret is up and acting accordingly
2. Ret does the same damage per hit, small hits don’t do well

About the OP: I’m assuming you’re a thief…I could be wrong…but my advice against a guardian is to harass him with conditions when ret is up and if you MUST attack, use LARGE hits.

In other words, Thief + Dagger Storm + Pistol Whip + Retaliation = Dead Thief.

It’s harder to do than it sounds, but you can harass point defender guards in the point and keep it contested until friendlies show up.

Paze.8903:

SC2 players don’t whine because they ARE getting something for playing. SC2 is an e-sport because it is well balanced. You play for rating, just like in WoW arena. I don’t see any such system beneath 5v5 in GW2. I was hoping there would be 3v3 arena and hopefully 2v2…

You play for rank in sPvP. Call it rating/rank/points/candy/etc and its still the same thing.

What you refer to about esports is where they’re going with this game. It’s brand new, it’s still got lots of bugs, glitches, exploits, and, most importantly, balance changes to be dealt with.

Anet is doing their very best to get this game into the esport realm. Just be patient.