Guild Wars 2

@themenaceofseventhdimension
I think it is great that you got that video footage going; I enjoyed seeing you in action.
Now you have the tools needed in order to show of this and any future build.

That being said, I think you would have shown more, if you had done what Alissah suggested, and fought people one by one in a custom arena, or as an alternative: gone wvw and dueled people there.

It is very difficult to get a true 1v1 in a hotjoin match. Even if you do manage to find someone on thier own, that other player might have blown all his cool downs to survive against or to kill someone else.

Another problem is the quality of the players you actually fight.

(Yes I know rank does not say much, and someone somewhat inexperienced in spvp might be really skilled still due to experience in wvw ect, but there is no way of knowing that for sure.)

I definitely think recording your build in action is a huge step in the right direction. Now you just need to find ‘the right kind of action’

Soulweaver.2190:

AerosAtar.3198:

The best I’ve seen Ring of Fire manage is around 78-79% and, as far as I am aware, we have never gotten to the second phase. Mostly because of the common reasons (AFK-ers, dead people not respawning, lack of co-ordination despite best efforts, etc).

I think I heard before that we managed to get to the second phase on one of the first days. Still, the 10+ attempts I was on were all terrible, so yes, Ring of Fire certainly needs help.

So glad I went to guest on Gandara to see a proper run and get my title.

After several days attempting the encounter on Ring of Fire (Never saw him under 80%) I guested Gandara as well

I think the biggest problem Ring of Fire suffers from, is that no one is actually taking charge of the encounter. There is not a guild taking charge like there is on Gandara.

At the same time, the server is listed with “high population”, and the last time I attempted the encounter on Ring of Fire, there were plenty of people.
I doubt it will become the target realm for organized guilds. Getting the kill becomes a lot harder if you guest a server where there are plenty of unorganized people and not room for your own players.

Ring of Fire definitely needs help, maybe with organizing more than anything else.

EDIT:
@Seraph, Ring of Fire(EU) is listed twice

In case a spot opens up or in case someone decides to make another EU guild for killing the beast I would like to join

I think the encounter is fun, but it has some design flaws. Since it’s an open word event it seems silly that the success of 80+ people to a vast extend depends on 6.
It is not as if you can vote someone out of a turret or vote for who is in them in the first place.

You can’t decide who is going head to head with Tequatl, 99% of the time there will be someone not familiar with the encounter.

I think maybe it would make sense to implement more turrets? The size of the add waves could be reduced a bit, so it would be possible to defend the extra turrets without having less people in the middle.

Each turret should become less powerful, but since there would be more of them, the success of everyone would not depend so much on whether or not you have top notch players controlling each turret.

If the majority of servers continue to have difficulties, I would think not having the closest waypoint contested would be an idea. I tried the encounter several times today, and before long, there were more people lying dead on the ground than people alive. People did not release and run back. If the waypoint had been right next to the encounter, odds are more would have.

I find the encounter interesting but I don’t think it is designed well for open world.

Gozzo.7380:

to share with you one of the best hidden secrets of the internet: “picture it or didn’t happen.”

many people here are sceptical towards statements or even lists of how many people you or anyone facerolled. So better bring proof before you state anything about the skill of your opponents.

He has a point menace.
If you truly want to show how your build works, then you simply have to make a video where people can judge your build by viewing your play style and the play style of your opponents.

Make sure that you show fights/duels against skilled people, and be prepared that showing your own play style might open up the door for more critique from others.

Telling us how many people you won against does not say much in itself.
Firstly, we have no way of telling whether this is true or not, and we have no way of telling if you fought someone clueless or if you actually fought an experienced player.

Happened for my phantasm as well yesterday with no no stealth involved ^^
Edit: Happened again today. I asked a friend to take a look. He said it looked like a normal clone with fancy weapons, so I guess it’s a bug seen by other players as well.

@themenaceofseventhdimension
Maybe take a look at this
It explains how to use fraps (including download link and instalment guide).
It also covers how to upload videos to Youtube.
Fraps is very easy to use and unless you plan on doing all sorts of fancy effects, most video editors work. I don’t know the Ezvid video editor program, that is also a part of the guide, so I can’t say if it is any good. Windows Movie Maker could be another very simple editor program to use.

How about Helseth?
He is one of the few sticking with mesmer, and I think he previously had a lot of interesting thoughts in his rants

Do you mean as in a video?

If that is the case then I would like to see it.
It would be nice to see you fight different classes. If possible, descibe which professions you find hard with this particular build (and why).

If you meant showing the changes to the build (as in listing traits ect), then I think you should wait posting until you have tested a lot more.

@themenaceofseventhdimension
I am not much of a build crafter myself, but I do think this build is too closely related to existing builds.

That being said: I want to mention the change in your attitude. You have been tested quite a bit in this topic with some rather provoking responses and you are managing to keep the tone positive
Keep it up!

Gizuko.5734:

Mmmm A lot of suggestions here make sense, but don’t you feel like ascended weapons might be a deliberate gold sink to make things more like last halloween (mats and gold-wise) or christmas events?

I had not given that any thought. I was more thinking it had to do with luring people into logging in more often.
I hate crafting with a passion and in all honesty, I would rather not have ascended in the game at all (but that is a completely different discussion that does not belong here).
As I said before, I am planning on making the sword, but I am not in any rush.

Sword. It seems to be the one weapon I never go without

• Balance or lack thereof.

• I just don’t have the stomach for the solo Q I pretty much stopped tournaments after that was implemented.

• Only one game mode, forcing only a very narrow variety of builds to be viable. It is all about who can fight on point anyway.

• I like all areas of the game. If I go do spvp I lose out on overall progress. I won’t get any new skins, I won’t get rewarded with money or in any other way for my effort. With the new ascended weapons, there is yet another reason for me not to do spvp. If I ONLY wanted to do spvp that of course wouldn’t matter, but I enjoy other areas of the game as well.

• A lot of new content released in pve that only remains for around 2 weeks. If I want to see it (and I usually do) then I have to choose what not to do instead. spvp tends to end up high on that list. It’s a shame really as I rather enjoy it, but I only have so much time. Unlike the pve events, I am not really losing out on much by putting spvp on hold.

Balance: that one is a given, no need to elaborate on that.
More game modes: That one is self-explanatory as well.

Solo Q: I would love if there were an option to block people that go afk or leave the match. That block should prevent me from being teamed up with those players again.

I would also love if the system considered classes. As an example, it feels silly to be the one none thief on a team fighting another team with 3 guardians and no thieves.

Character progress: Since some of the pve skins can be used in pvp, I don’t see any reason not to implement a skin that only can be obtained through pvp, but can be used in pve. Either that, or make the same skins available through pvp as well.
Maybe add achievement points for obtaining said skin through pvp?
Add some sort of rewards for spvp. I simply cannot grasp why doing a jumping puzzle for 2 mins should be more rewarding.

I am sure all of this has been mentioned before, and I am sure someone has better suggestions. I just think spvp is somewhat lacking when it comes to rewards.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

The WoW players have gotten their wish and GW2 is turning in to another clone with nothing to make it stand out except no monthly fee.

Old WoW player waving at you here. I used to play WoW and came to this game because it was different.
I have had enough grind and I would much rather be without it.

If you were to compare to two, I personally find that the grind in this game is more fair because everyone willing to put the hours in, can get the ascended or legendary weapons. In Warcraft, the bis gear was only for raiders, and only for raiders that did heroic mode. It was fun for those of us that enjoyed raids, but it ment that none raiders or new players joining mid expansion had a very low chance of actually catching up. You could not get bis by playing alone.

On the other hand, I found the grind in WoW to be more interesting than the gather materials and level your crafting in Gw2.
At least new gear in Warcraft came with new content to do. At least it was somewhat fun to do.

The gear in warcraft served a purpose. You geared up in order to be able to deal with the next dungeon release.

The ascended gear in gw2 seems to serve no purpose (other than grind for the sake of the grind). As borring as that might be, I hope no purpose is implemented.

If a true purpose to the ascended gear is implemented such as content that can only be done with said ascended gear, then this game is pretty much like all the others.
If that happens, I think other games (such as WoW) do that better, and I will no longer have any reason to play Gw2 instead.

Kitten is whenever the forum dictates that you are using a word it does not approve of. (Yes, the f word for one). And it translates at least a word (that you would not expect) into something rather amusing.

If you type in pvp*bank (without the star).
It displays as: " I AM A GOLD SPAMMER. PLEASE REPORT ME BY PRESSING THE REPORT FLAG ICON IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT OF THIS POST!"

Oenanthe.6549:

My warrior, Stachys Lanata, (a plant commonly known as lambs lugs) is frosted skin, pale grey blue leaves for hair and a white glow akittens maximum intensity, because as she believes ‘Everything has a right to glow’ and ‘Where life glows so should you’ (I think she may have hit her head a bit in the dream, or maybe she a little deaf)

lol Nice one.

I am with Chaos on this one.
I think we play this game for different reasons and in different ways.
Personally I detest speed runs. When doing dungeons I am always looking for people that are not interested in a speed run either.
I respect that other people do like the speed runs and I respect the time and work they put into finding the most effective build and setup.
I think it is impressive how fast a well coordinated group can blast through a dungeon.

For me a dungeon is something relaxing that I do every once in a while because I rather enjoy them.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Reesha.7901:

Yes, I would defenitly prefer that you could swap stats on ascended weapons.
It would make experimenting with new weapon sets and builds a lot more attractive in the long run. (And my inventory would be grateful)

what if we could swap stats for all ascended gear?

helmet shoulders chest pants gloves boost
back amulet ring ring accessory accessory

all 12 wearable gear, plus weapons

Yeh I would not mind that either
Thing is, some people might be pretty set on their build and their play style. Some might be able to use the same stats in pve and wvw.
Personally, I am not set on one build at all and I would not feel comfortable with berserker stats in wvw.
I kinda feel that I will have to settle for a build soon though. I don’t think I have the energy to craft several possible weapon sets and just the though of having to do the same thing for the armor. :<

Obviosuly crafting gear and combining said gear into one wont solve my natural resentment towards crafting, but I do think that if ascended could swap stats, it would give the entire ascended theme a bit more purpose for me at least.

Yes, I would defenitly prefer that you could swap stats on ascended weapons.
It would make experimenting with new weapon sets and builds a lot more attractive in the long run. (And my inventory would be grateful)

Hmmm – just to elaborate on my previous post as I felt it wasn’t complete, but rl demanded my attention for a while.

The point I was trying to make, is that if the Gw2 ascended items are there, just because they are there. Just because some people desire the grind or just because a-net had planned for them all along (but conveniently forgot to tell anyone about that until recently).

If the grand plan is not to add dungeons and new content scaled towards this ascended gear along the way, then I will choose to only craft weapons for wvw and I can live with that regardless of the (booooooring) cafting involved. I do not think ascended gear is a good idea, but I can live with it.

However, if the ascended gear is leaning towards content and dungeons where ascended gear will be a huge advantage, then I will have put myself in a disadvantage by focusing on wvw weapons and stats.

I would really like to know what the plan is.

If it’s adding gear grind and gear progression and content that requires said gear progression, then I think a lot of games do this better, because you get rewarded through doing new content rather than repeating the old. I personally have played after that model for too long and have no interest of going back to that again, whether it is through raids, solo, new or old content.

I really hope that is not the case, but I do not know. No one other than the very silent a-net knows. I can only speculate.

I doubt I am the only one that chose gw2, because I expected a game that was not created with the vision of gear grind. Ascended gear in it’s current form is not a complete deal breaker for me, but if they walk a little further down that road, then it will be.

One thing, I do not understand about ascended, is why?

I have not played a lot of mmos but I have played Warcraft for several years. The pve grind in that game was mainly locked behind raid bosses. When a new dungeon was released, you worked your way through the dungeon, sometimes being stuck for weeks on an encounter.

My point is that the new content and the new encounters were the true reward. The first kill was what gave you the feeling of ‘winning’. The gear that dropped was just a bonus and the gearing up afterwards, once you had all bosses on farm, served only the purpose of being ready for the next dungeon release.

The problem with that kind of game was obviously, that it was aimed at a certain type of players. Those that could not commit to login in daily or could play without interruptions for several hours. Those that did not work well as a part of a team or simply didn’t play well enough could never get bis. Your options in that game was for a large part based on other people’s evaluation of your performance and dedication.

You could not play the game anyway you wanted and get bis. You could not play alone.

Gw2 has a different mindset. Everyone can get ascended weapons as an example. Obtaining an ascended weapon has nothing to do with your performance in the game (other than endurance and flipping skills maybe). Having ascended weapons will not work as a show of factor, as it has nothing to do with personal skill, or being part of a good team.

That is also, what I don’t understand. Granted, there are most likely other mmos that have done this before, but I only know Warcraft other than gw2. In Warcraft, the grind for gear was a part of a greater goal. The grind itself was not the end goal. You grinded for a reason (or I at least felt I did).

In gw2 the grind seems to be the end goal all of a sudden. It is grind for the sake of the grind. It is the grind to get more damage and more stats, but for what exactly?

If it were not because of wvw and the obvious disadvantage exotic vs ascended, I would fail to see any purpose at all. The grand plan is hidden for me. In Warcraft, I knew that I needed the gear to beat the next encounter as efficiently as possible. In gw2, I cannot figure out what the plan is.
If I knew ascended gear was implemented because new pve dungeons would be added, that would have a certain need for ascended gear, then maybe I would understand more what I was working towards. Maybe I would know what weapon set I should give highest priority. (I would still think ascended is a bad idea though^^)

Nevertheless, I don’t know. Is the grind itself the new end goal?
It sure feels that way.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

AScended weapons and armor …. woopie doo. Just wait until parties for dungeons start making each other ping for ascended full zerker.

This is going to be fun yes. Especially for new players joining.
All in all I am more worried about wvw though.

Raine.1394:

maddoctor.2738:

MikaHR.1978:

GEAR MATTERS. STATS MATTER. Having 13% more damage atm MATTERS. And it will ONLY GROW EVERY FEW MONTHS FROM NOW ON.

Ranks were stupid enough already for www, now ascended…PvEers in champ trains…how exciting….

Why does gear matter if someone can do content in blue gear while someone in Ascended is struggling? 13% more damage doesn’t matter at all.

No serious gamer would make a statement like this. In a hardcore raiding guild (in another game of course) if you ignored an enchant that boosted your power 1% you would be looked at like you were from Mars by the guild leader and you would be told to get the enchant by raid time. Every experienced player knows that stats matter.

(+1)
I think it is a good argument. Especially because quite many people (who do not share the concerns regarding ascended gear) seem to think that the only reason anyone could possibly think that ascended gear is not a good idea, must be because they are either super casual or just lazy.

It might not matter in every single area of the game, but more damage is more damage. I have got out of a bad situation with 1 or 2 hp left more than once. Damage does make a difference in some situations.

EDIT: Because English > me, so are long sentences – hope it makes sense lol

TwoBit.5903:

Reesha.7901:

Seems the communication with a-net is limited to the spvp part of the forum.

Lol, no. It’s kind of bad all around. In fact there was an incident with spam that was by the lack of transparency in the sPvP forums last week. That part of the forums is getting more responses but it’s the same apologetic PR vagaries they were getting before communication stopped in the first place.

Yeh you are right about that one. At least there is some evidence that they read the pvp section though (or skim through maybe ^^)
I don’t see them posting much anywhere else.

Seems the communication with a-net is limited to the spvp part of the forum.

Erick Alastor.3917:

It’s kinda sad, because it’s kinda true.
The attachment still made me laugh though

@Irrodesia

A really in depth description of your thoughts on ascended gear.
I for one share your perspective, but I would not have been able to describe it as well as you do.
Thank you for the time you put into writing this post. Not everyone shares your perspective of course, but I definitely do.

I too would much rather have been without the ascended weapons (gear in general). Since that’s apparently not an option, then I do wish they would add several ways of obtaining them that does not rely upon crafting or random drops.

I hate crafting with a passion. I can’t help it I just do.
Since my weapon set is spread out on all 3 crafting professions, I am in for a treat….

I know people will argue, that since I feel that way, then I should not acquire them, because it’s not that big of a deal anyway.
Maybe it’s not a big deal, but I am used to min a maximizing. Why would I want to put myself in a 5% disadvantage damage wise?
Moreover, it all adds up. The ascended armor is on its way.

I play with an old friend from Warcraft. When I set out to mine orichalcum, his only comment was: “Didn’t we choose this game because we did not have to grind?”
… And he has a point. That was actually one of the reasons we chose gw2.

One of the main reasons we eventually left Warcraft behind was that in order to get somewhere, you would have to log in every single day and pretty much do the same things repeatedly.
Often you would spend your time doing stuff you were not particular interested in, because you needed the rewards in order to perform your best.

Granted, it is not a fair comparison, as Warcraft pve wise was leaning heavily towards raids etc. You depended on others to a much higher extend as well if you wanted bis.
If I don’t log in every day in gw2 I will just progress slower than others. I can live with that part I guess. (Even though I would still rather be without it.)

The one positive thing about ascended weapons in gw2 I can think of: At least people can get them if they want to. They are not limited to a small elite group of players. You don’t have to be in a high end raiding guild in order to get them.

You do however have to endure crafting, and I still fail to see the point of ascended gear in the first place.

I think this is a great initiative Sensotix
Keep up the good work!

TooBz.3065:

In that case, I think one of the reasons for the constant complaints is that the complaints haven’t been acknowledged. I know that if my wife has a complaint the WORST thing I can do is ignore her.

Even if they said, “we hear you, we know some people are unhappy with this change, but we think it’s best for the game — deal with it” the complaints may die. Without any comment it seems like they may not be paying attention.

On the other hand, sometimes when your dealing with a toddler having a tantrum you have to let them scream it out. So maybe ANet is treating us like toddlers.

I think you are spot on.

The way I see it, they have not dealt well at all with the concerns voiced regarding ascended weapons.
There was a 20 page long feedback topic, initiated by them, but not a single moderator response in there. In the end, it was deleted. All the feedback removed.

There has been several other topics regarding ascended weapons that silently were removed. Others apparently noticed this as well. Yesterday there was a topic (only for a few minutes before it was removed), asking if the moderators got stricter somehow, because people noticed their own posts vanishing. Granted, those topics might have violated the forum rules somehow, but a lot of feedback still vanished with them.

I get that the ascended weapons are not going anywhere. They are not open for a debate on that one.

However: The way they have implemented them should be open for a debate in my opinion.

• Should the ascended weapons be account bound?
• Should they only be obtained reliably through crafting?
• Is the materials needed to craft them reasonable?
• Is the way they materials can be obtained reasonable?

I think that discussion is healthy and worthy of a response since we are not done yet. Ascended armor is on its way.
However, A-net remains silent. Maybe they are waiting for the storm to pass. If that is the case, I think it is sad. I think many valid concerns has been raised, as well as many valid suggestions as to how obtaining ascended weapons could be made more interesting.

I like this idea

Vhaegar.6954:

I think this gentleman’s complaint can be summed up in this elaborate diagram I’ve prepared.

http://i.imgur.com/EG0dmQG.jpg

lol. Well done

The way I see it: The gear tradmill in wow was too massive, but at least the gear was fun to grind for. When you defeated the whatever heroic mode raid boss, it felt like an achievement in itself. The first kill was the real treat, the gear just a bonus.

The way they implemented grind in this game now. I don’t know. I am sure some people enjoy it. Personally I just find it borring.
It is nice that everyone has an even chance to get these new ascended weapon. Everyone that wants to can get them, and you don’t have to depend on other people to achieve that goal. Thats the good part about it. They are not reserved for a small elite.
All in all, I still would rather be without them I hate crafting with a passion, and I liked that I could potentially swap between toons having each of them equally powerfull in their own way. I do feel the ascended gear to some extend limits my options. Not right now so much – but when they add the armor as well then swapping main will be a costly/borring/time consuming proces.

I actually liked the suggestion given by Osicat a while back regarding Signet of Inspiration. I think it would be a rather elegant solution.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Mesmer-signet-fix/first#post2125005

I would love a signet for movement speed as well.

When my friend plays his thief, he is straifing around me. When playing his warrior, he is constantly dropping banners just to speed me up (lol).
The other day, he was even calculating on the cost of travelers runes, because he would love for my mesmer to move with a decent pace :P

Chickenshoes.6250:

Because karma is a good method to quantify general effort.

Gold doesn’t represent effort. It can be earned all sorts of different ways, grinding, buying, market-milking, or getting a stupid lucky precursor drop. Tokens are specific to one section of content.

In other words It’s perfect for the grind

When you’re thinking “accumulate over time” you mean laurels. That’s the currency that just rolls in for doing dailies. There’s no need for a green and pink flavor of the same thing.

No, I meant exactly what I said. If you liked events you would gain karma, If you focused on your daily you would gain karma, if you did dungeons you would gain karma etc.
In other words you would gain karma through different ways of playing and enjoying the game. Now it has become narrower

•Liquid Karma dropped from dungeon end chests have been replaced with Empyreal Fragments

•Drips of Liquid Karma from champion loot bags have been replaced with Piles of Bloodstone Dust.

I get that you don’t think there is a need for a green and pink flavor. I on the other hand don’t think there is a need to add more grind.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I had way too much Karma, that I was running out of things to use it on. Over 7 million from the start of the game until now. And that’s only a fraction of the Karma gains of some players.

I’m glad they reduced the output. With Karma being so easy to get, it made it less desirable to get. Plus, now that there’s no Karma gain from failed events, that gives more incentive to people to actually succeed for the awards.

I say “Good Job” Anet. A well welcomed change.

Congrats to you. I have 1.5 million so I am not in any desperate need either right now, but new players are still joining this game.

I don’t mind the karma removal from failed events, but I do feel karma was one of the few things that just came naturally by playing the game. I liked that. It was something that you wouldn’t get over night but something that you would accumulate over time.
With the changes, I think anyone new at the game that desires ascended weapons or a legendary weapon are forced to specifically grind for karma.

I have said it before but I´ll say it again: There is enough things in this game that feels a bit (too) grindy atm. I don’t see why karma should be added to them.

You really should take Allisah’s advice and either post your build as an IDEA that you need help with through feedback and criticism. Or ask people for help with testing your build before posting it.
Both of those are only going to be possible if you keep an open mind and are willing to accept that sometimes a “brilliant” idea wont produce a fantastic build.

Wolfheart.1938:

Why am I unable to upvote this thread?

I was wondering the same as I too would really like an answer to that question.

At 9:32

Jonathan Sharp:
“I think the S/D in particular, it got damage, it has boon removal and it has evade all at the same time.
I think what we want to do is shave a bit of the damage… maybe, or maybe take out one of the boon strips… maybe or maybe the skill itself should cost a Little bit more.
So there is different ways we can deal with it in different game types.”

It was not clear which would be implemented in what game type. Or if they had decided for sure on which change would be implemented. In his list of the maybe changes he also mentioned a maybe regarding steal (I think?). But I couldn’t hear it clearly.

Zaxares.5419:

Still, as someone who isn’t too keen on the SAB skins (I love their look, but they don’t match my character aesthetics) and isn’t a mini-collector, I would prefer it if Obsidian Shards came back to Moto so I have something to spend my Baubles on.

I would prefer that as well.
SAB was fun to try since I missed it last time around, but I don’t feel encouraged to do SAB. Had the Obsidian shards still been available, I would at least have had something to spend the Baubles on

The way I see it, karma was one of the things that just came naturally by playing the game.
I really liked that. It was not something you had to go into grind mode for.
I don’t understand why that in any way would be a bad thing.

There are plenty of things in the game that feels a bit (too) grindy atm. I am not pleased seeing karma becoming one of those things.

Personally, I dislike the change as well. I think it is too harsh for new players joining the game.

Sure, the rest of us that sit safely on our vast amounts of karma won’t feel this for a while, but new players will be at a disadvantage imo, and that I do not like. Your options in this game should hardly depend upon when you started to play.

If I want a legendary, karma won’t be an issue. If a new player decides he/she wants a legendary, they will have to spend time grinding for something that I got for free.

Tiger.7506:

The new content system and pace is great.
If you don’t have at least 5 hours or more in your week to play the new content, then maybe you shouldnt be playing games
Ultra Causual are in the small minority !

I play around 4-5 hours a day and I still think my gaming experience would benefit from slowing the pace down a bit.
It will always be a matter of opinion I guess. And the opinion on this matter does not necessarily have to do with “Ultra Causual” as you put it

Hi thieves. I main a mesmer and I play with a S/D friend of mine 90% of the time.

When trying out different builds against him, I find that mesmer’s do have builds that can deal with a S/D thief. However, the one build that is desired in tpvp: The shatter build, is shot down pretty hard by S/D.

As others have mentioned before me: Shatter can deliver a huge amount of burst, but has very low sustained damage. A S/D thief can negate the burst without much effort. The mesmer in return is very vulnerable to physical damage and a S/D thief is not exactly easy to get away from.

If I spec into a condition, stealth heavy build, I don’t have any issues at all, as sustained damage works a lot better against S/D. Unfortunately, that kind of build and that kind of play style decaps the point, and it uses utilities such as Veil/Null Field and decoy, leaving no room for the portal or Illusion of Life.

As fun as it is to play, it is not viable in competitive tpvp. (From what I understand, much the same issue thieves had when they only had viable stealth heavy builds).

Edit. I think that Rome made a good point as well, but since I don’t play as a part of a team I am not used to getting backup no matter how many thieves are chasing me :P

I agree as well.
I really like the content they are releasing, but if I want to enjoy it and get the achievements connected to it, I find it difficult to find time to enjoy other areas of the game.

I would like to do pvp (but since it’s not going anywhere I choose not to do it.)
I would like to do dungeons (but since they are not going anywhere either, I choose not to do them.)

Even though no one is forcing me to participate and even though I am enjoying the new content, I do think the pace of it makes me neglect other areas of the game.

If you want to worry about s/d getting nerfed, you should have a look at this topic instead.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/How-to-avoid-the-next-balance-disaster

JonathanSharp.7094:

Agreed on the shaving + making sure we don’t overdo it with big hits to the classes.

Also good points about making sure that we don’t take away the things “holding down” some of the strong builds. I think Mes and Ele are probably ok for the most part, as long as we tone down the conditions output from some classes, and bring the S/D Thief in line.

Same here (Ring of Fire)

Alissah.9281:

Im conpletely rubbish with thieves and necro though… Maybe i should go join their forum guild ;P.

Hmm. Just a thought, but maybe it would be an idea to let some none mesmers join? ^^
With the rank of “Butterfly Fighter” or something :P

It would give us a better option when it comes to practice fighting against a different profession and it would give them an option to learn how to fight against a variety of mesmer builds. Just a thought ^^

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Is Helseth banned from the forums permanently? I would like to see his arguments more often

Yes, I am fairly sure he is permanently banned, but as I recall the ban happened a long time ago.
From what I have heard mr.Helseth say on his stream, it had something to do with a post that got him a temporary ban. When people kept re-posting it, A-net made the ban permanent. According to him, they falsely asumed it was him asking people to do so.

I think it was something along those lines anyway
I don’t know what that topic was about.

Besides that I think Helseth has some valid points in this rant.
It would be nice to be punished when playing poorly and rewarded when playing perfectly.
The spam factor in pvp atm is just ridiculous.