Guild Wars 2

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Zardul.3952:

to all those people moaning about rangers and Rapid fire.

its called KARMA !

weve been unpowered for 2 years. and now we beat you… you all CRY

i love it when you cry.

please cry more

War was unpowered until Feb 2013. we started winning, people cried, we got nerfed right back to where we started, almost.

Its time for karma indeed.

#saturatedwithspite

Difference is that Rangers didn’t become near unkillable with the buffs, like the Warriors did. If anything Ranger has gotten a slight survivability and offensive boost…because now Rangers don’t have to go 6 points into Marksmanship just to have signets effect themselves like everybody else can, and Rapid Fire actually goes quicker than the 5 second “free avoidance” window it had.

I lol’d. This must be a joke thread, because everybody knows how to counter SR.

Solori.6025:

RyuDragnier.9476:

T raw.4658:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Rym.1469:

Being really good with Longbow and kiting your opponents takes more skill than many other builds, trust me.

It’s very easy to see the difference between bad and excellent Ranger.

Bad Ranger will get slaughtered when forced to melee.
Excellent Ranger just waits for it.

Oh ain’t this the truth. Had a fight yesterday in WvW with me on my Apothecary thief versus a good Ranger. She threw out a RF, I used LoS to dodge it before I closed the distance with steal just for her to pull out S/D and proceed to start melee combat. We fought for 5 minutes (her dancing between S/D and LB skillfully) before I finally got taken out by her due to a fatal mistake on my part (I dodged too early). Sent her a PM thanking her for the good fight. I still salute that Mag Ranger, I rarely get fights like that in WvW versus Rangers.

So you lost to a power ranger on a condi thief…..

Every post you make just sheds more light on why you post the way you do

Healing thief sir, healing thief. I run with D/D and P/P (both help with the healing procs on Signet of Malice and provide good damage), building for survival when it comes to WvW (a foreign concept for most thieves). I go venom share usually for dungeons, and zerker for those rare occasions that I need to burn something down fast.

So let me get this straight,

Healing bunker THIEF

lost to a power ranger who can shoot bunkers from range.

THIEF.
who is a healing power thief with apothocary gear ( instead of nomads?! also why even use apothocary if you are trying to be survivable? You may as well use clerics and be just as useless)

Complains about not being able to do anything to a ranger.

While real thieves—-the ones that actually build for condition damage and still survive just fine.
Are loading that same ranger up with conditions and killing it.

…
That sums this up no?

I never complained about RF or doing anything to a Ranger. If you note my original post, I avoided and lessened the power of RF often, and we had a 5 minute fight where she was managing to stay alive quite well (I got her to 10% 5 times before she bounced back). What killed me wasn’t RF…it was that last Monarch’s Leap she did. I dodged too early, so it managed to hit me. She did really well too, dodging, interrupting me, anticipating my moves, I was having a lot of fun with fighting a GOOD Ranger for once. I even thanked her for the fight afterwards, because I was genuinely impressed by her skill.

Mbelch.9028:

Rangers are useless in a 1v1 situation, still. Please continue to feast on the tears of the noobs while the people who don’t care about your pew pew continue to pick you off.

I lol’d. Rangers excel in 1v1. It’s anything higher than that they tend to lean towards useless in.

They should just lock WvW servers AT THE SAME TIME they announce tournaments. If a person leaves their world, they cannot WvW on any other world until the season is done. Is this mean? Yes. Is it necessary? Unfortunately, it is because the playerbase is showing why we can’t have nice things, BECAUSE YOU ABUSE IT JUST TO SERVER STACK.

T raw.4658:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Rym.1469:

Being really good with Longbow and kiting your opponents takes more skill than many other builds, trust me.

It’s very easy to see the difference between bad and excellent Ranger.

Bad Ranger will get slaughtered when forced to melee.
Excellent Ranger just waits for it.

Oh ain’t this the truth. Had a fight yesterday in WvW with me on my Apothecary thief versus a good Ranger. She threw out a RF, I used LoS to dodge it before I closed the distance with steal just for her to pull out S/D and proceed to start melee combat. We fought for 5 minutes (her dancing between S/D and LB skillfully) before I finally got taken out by her due to a fatal mistake on my part (I dodged too early). Sent her a PM thanking her for the good fight. I still salute that Mag Ranger, I rarely get fights like that in WvW versus Rangers.

So you lost to a power ranger on a condi thief…..

Every post you make just sheds more light on why you post the way you do

Healing thief sir, healing thief. I run with D/D and P/P (both help with the healing procs on Signet of Malice and provide good damage), building for survival when it comes to WvW (a foreign concept for most thieves). I go venom share usually for dungeons, and zerker for those rare occasions that I need to burn something down fast.

Gobble D Goop.4081:

this thread sounds more like people griping about zerker stats being OP than ranger RF being OP…

It feels like that to me too. Too bad for them RF is easily dealt with, and the Ranger (unless they’re good) is easily taken out too.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Necro’s still say hi..

Reminder…

Hell, condi-bombing with a necro’s Signet of Spite wrecks them instantly, because they have no way to get rid of those conditions.

Cynz.9437:

ranger dmg isn’t issue really, the risk or rather lack of it is

Dodge once. You’ve negated at least 30% of their burst. Dodge twice, you’ve negated around 60% of it. The faster use means it’s far easier to avoid/block the damage, since most blocks are on at least a 3 second charge. Not to mention you can reflect the move and at that point it’s too late for them to stop it, so they kill themselves. The fast use IS the risk of the move, it’s far too easy to lessen the damage from it or send it back their way before they can stop it.

While it’s true RF is on an 8 second cooldown, for them to have that burst means they’re sacrificing all defense for it. The second you get into their face their attacks with LB will do crap damage and they will fold quite fast. Hell, condi-bombing with a necro’s Signet of Spite wrecks them instantly, because they have no way to get rid of those conditions.

The dangerous Rangers are the ones who actually run S/D as their 2nd set, and know how to use it…but I’ve seen more noobs using LB without switching than I have the good players, sadly.

I would like it if when they added World 3, they made SAB PERMANENT CONTENT. Why permanent? Because then we have something else to do besides Spvp/WvW/dungeons/fractals all the time. Not to mention I find SAB really relaxing…and imagine them selling it for your personal instance, I wouldn’t mind being able to enter from the home back on the Black Citadel.

Here’s a suggestion.

After obtaining 2 trait points (meaning level 36), you gain the I and II traits from every traitline. For every 3 levels after that, you gain another adept trait # (meaning III, IV, V, and VI using this order), the VI being unlocked the same level you unlock the Master level, at which point every 3 levels you’ll unlock a Master trait (VII, VIII, XI, X), until level 60, at which point you’ll have 6 points (and the grandmaster tier will be available). However, the Grandmaster traits will be the ONLY traits requiring you to hunt them down, and will have a total of 15 actions that must be done to unlock them, or you just buy them from a trait person.

The trait store people will be changed up to allow you to buy the unlocks for the traits (Adept, Master, Grandmaster, each specific # for ALL traitlines, meaning buying III will unlock all III for your character) separately if you wish to unlock that number ahead of time. Their costs will be similar to what is in the store already for that trait #.

Rym.1469:

Being really good with Longbow and kiting your opponents takes more skill than many other builds, trust me.

It’s very easy to see the difference between bad and excellent Ranger.

Bad Ranger will get slaughtered when forced to melee.
Excellent Ranger just waits for it.

Oh ain’t this the truth. Had a fight yesterday in WvW with me on my Apothecary thief versus a good Ranger. She threw out a RF, I used LoS to dodge it before I closed the distance with steal just for her to pull out S/D and proceed to start melee combat. We fought for 5 minutes (her dancing between S/D and LB skillfully) before I finally got taken out by her due to a fatal mistake on my part (I dodged too early). Sent her a PM thanking her for the good fight. I still salute that Mag Ranger, I rarely get fights like that in WvW versus Rangers.

Anchoku.8142:

I have to say the Ranger’s longbow has become the in cheese, again. It is kind of a low risk, high reward cheese. The knock-back and high damage from short to very long range make long bow too easy. I struggle to think of another long range weapon so powerful. Ele’s ice bow is strong but it is temporary and goes on cool down. Staff is generally weak and more of a multi-purpose utility weapon. The profession should be glassy when using it because damage from short range weapons and most CC are avoided with long bow.

Revisiting Ranger mechanics will probably be a while, though.

I’m lol’ing too hard at this. It’s high risk, high reward. In other to pull off impressive damage with the LB, you have to spec completely into power and crits, otherwise it’s not going to do much at all. And by doing that, you have made yourself glass, and any competent player will be able to counter RF easily and close the gap to where you are unable to keep using it without dying. This move, this weapon has NEVER been a problem because IT’S TOO EASY TO CLOSE THE GAP AND PUNISH ITS USE.

evilapprentice.6379:

Sandrox.9524:

Amonatory.2453:

Congratulations Anet! I am officially done with this weapon set, I even tried to like it but it’s literally impossible with the steal bug and getting blocked doesnt proc larcenous. You guys have single handedly managed to kill an entire weapon set. To those who are still going to play it and say it’s good? More power to you bro haha, I for one am sick of the pointless nerfs. You guys turned a great weapon set into a complete evade spam no dps piece of kitten. I called it, but no one listened and what a surprise I was right.

I guess it was pointless to main that weapon set for over a year ahaha once again Anet. G kittening G.

Come join us on the dark dark d/p side.better now cause sooner or later they gonna nerf it too.

They um…they already did. Have you tried using BP as anything other than a 6init smoke field for stealth yet?

Wait, people used it for something other than for the BP→HS combo?

If they were to do dual professions, they would have to do it skillfully. And by that, I mean that they’d have to make it so no weapons overlap, and the skills you could set up were non-gamebreaking ones. Elites, traits, and class mechanics would be off the table, and you’d only get 1 weapon from the class.

For example, having a Ranger dual profession Necromancer. He’d be able to use the Staff (and thus the Necromancer staff skills), maybe 1 heal skill (Signet of Vampirism?), and 2-4 utility (maybe Spectral Wall and Well of Power among them). Any necromancer elites would be off the table, as would be Death Shroud.

Gudy.3607:

As long as you think of D/D as a power set, you’ll hate Death Blossom. Now, I’m by no means an expert, but I conceptualize the Thief weapon sets as follows:
S/D, S/P, D/P – power,
P/D – condi,
P/P, D/D – hybrid, both having reasonably good bleed application in an otherwise direct damage build.

Now, does that mean that all the weapon sets work? Not necessarily, but that’s a different discussion altogether. The point is, you can’t just buff Death Blossom. It applies some of the strongest bleed stacks in the game, and buffing its direct damage would necessitate nerfing or removing the bleeds, and thus completely changing the character of the skill, and hence the weapon set.

You get it.

Evilek.5690:

Death Blossom is my main skill and is on good place.

Thief dont need 5/5 power skill on one weapon set, 1,2,4,5 and BS is pure power skills, only 3 is hybrid with main bleeding DMG for condition DMG Thiefs

You want better AOE DMG like power thief right now ? Push swap button on other weapon set.

As do you.

D/D is NOT a power set people, it is A HYBRID. Unless of course you’re saying S/P, D/P, and S/D are NOT power weapon sets, at which point you’re a fool. That’s half of our weapon sets, we do not need any more power sets.

BobbyT.7192:

Chainspell.5697:

BobbyT.7192:

Chainspell.5697:

BobbyT.7192:

Nury.3062:

BobbyT.7192:

I said this once, and I’ll say it again

Rangers were never meant to have nice things

Maybe our time has come,finally!

In4b the nerfs

It’s going to happen,, no point denying it. It happens to every class

Seems to happen to Ranger more than any other class in the game. Not only that but the nerfs come quick unlike Warrior, Guardian and Thief nerfs.

Thief would disagree, they been getting nerf every balance update so far, Mesmer too, they can’t seem to do anything to the Mesmer with out something breaking,

You mean free kill vs. being able to survive a surprise zerg? I don’t think any class out there can say they’ve been nerf harder than “free kill” AKA the ranger.

Rangers were never brought down to that position, they were always like that. Can’t break what what’s already broken.

I heard Rangers were the top class in beta, before they got nerfed for the official release.

Mahkno.7593:

i think it’s great that rangers got buffed. and honestly i’ve had little problem dealing with rangers using sic ’em 1v1 or 1v2 because most of them are made of glass. and this is running a sa d/d hk spec.

but that’s not the issue. the issue is is that and entire trait line has been disabled.

‘well just don’t put 6 points into shadow arts,’ isn’t a balanced or fair answer either.

i’ll quit kittening about it. maybe i’ll just switch to s/d. oh wait…

You kill a Ranger’s pet, you’ve disabled a trait line. Kill their spirits, you’ve disabled another one. And I worry about you if you can’t survive for 6 seconds outside of stealth with a full 6 points in SA (that toughness helps a lot). Do you just run around with your head cut off? Or do you actually dodge, daze the enemy, and buy as much time as needed for revealed to get knocked off?

vincecontix.1264:

The issue is to much reward for basically doing nothing. A ranger that is a complete idiot can contribute to level of another zerker person who is playing there class well.

When others zerkers burst they put themselves at risk of being burst down themselves. Then there is a pause from there damage while they set up for there burst again or react to there enemies counter.

With ranger barely any risk, just perch yourself at range and spam attacks. In addition to burst the ranger deals good consistent damage the auto attacks hurt a lot as well. It not easy to just move out of there range like you could do with other profs because its so Long.

With the lay out of many pvp maps lots of good places for a ranger to camp. Most reflects are on a high CD and easy for a ranger to cancel his attack or just dodge it.

Would have been better to buff gs or add a positional req to lb for eg: deals bonus damage hitting a player from behind or the side. Damage is reduced when hitting a player in the front.

Edit also apparently there is a bug when traited lb can reach 2000 range can anyone else confirm this?

I lol’d hard. A ranger is ALWAYS at risk, whether it’s sPvP, PvE, or WvW. In all modes, you cannot keep an enemy at range without constantly immobilizing, crippling, or stunning them, and almost every class has a gap closer, you will NOT keep the range up for longer than 5 seconds. In WvW, a Ranger is considered a free kill, and will be gunned for almost immediately by most classes. This buff to RF really has done nothing but given the other classes another excuse to go right for a Ranger (since to maximize the power of RF you MUST go zerker, meaning you cannot take a hit).

vincecontix.1264:

The issue is to much reward for basically doing nothing. A ranger that is a complete idiot can contribute to level of another zerker person who is playing there class well.

When others zerkers burst they put themselves at risk of being burst down themselves. Then there is a pause from there damage while they set up for there burst again or react to there enemies counter.

With ranger barely any risk, just perch yourself at range and spam attacks. In addition to burst the ranger deals good consistent damage the auto attacks hurt a lot as well. It not easy to just move out of there range like you could do with other profs because its so Long.

With the lay out of many pvp maps lots of good places for a ranger to camp. Most reflects are on a high CD and easy for a ranger to cancel his attack or just dodge it.

Would have been better to buff gs or add a positional req to lb for eg: deals bonus damage hitting a player from behind or the side. Damage is reduced when hitting a player in the front.

Edit also apparently there is a bug when traited lb can reach 2000 range can anyone else confirm this?

I lol’d hard. A ranger is ALWAYS at risk, whether it’s sPvP, PvE, or WvW. In all modes, you cannot keep an enemy at range without constantly immobilizing, crippling, or stunning them, and almost every class has a gap closer, you will NOT keep the range up for longer than 5 seconds. In sPvP and WvW, a Ranger is considered a free kill, and will be gunned for almost immediately by most classes. This buff to RF really has done nothing but given the other classes another excuse to go right for a Ranger (since to maximize the power of RF you MUST go zerker, meaning you cannot take a hit).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Ehecatl.9172:

Adding on to what Ryu said, the two strongest condition cleanses a ranger has are Empathic Bond and Signet of Renewal, which merely pull the conditions to the pet. This sets you up for Epidemic, which will turn their own condition cleanse into an even bigger condition bomb.

If a necromancer does manage to close the distance there isn’t much a ranger with a sniper set up can do to survive.

Soo, what you’re both saying is that Power necros are hopeless against longbow rangers? Or that Rangers try to fight at sub-1200 range?

SIGNET OF SPITE. You don’t need to trait for it, just use it and the Ranger gets bleeding, blind, crippled, poisoned, a 5 stack of vulnerability, AND weakness. That’s more than enough to make the Ranger either freak out and break off, or they’ll continue to try to fight and be easy pickings for you (hint, use Death Shroud afterwards if you really want to make them suffer).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

@Zenos Omega: Making Reflects as important to bring as condition cleanse has one major, major problem: Necromancers. They’re the only profession with zero projectile reflection ability. They also have no methods to block the attack or destroy the projectiles. If Reflects became as important as condition cleanses, Necros would have a really tough time justifying a spot on a PvP team.

They do however have several very powerful mechanisms to make the Ranger back the hell off…conditions. Ranger giving you problems? Fear him or hit him with a Signet of Spite to condi-bomb him to where he needs to back off and heal or he’ll die. You have the power to make a zerker Ranger back off through conditions, use them, abuse them, and make the Ranger suffer for picking a fight with you.

evilapprentice.6379:

ResJudicator.7916:

To clear up some basic misconceptions…

DPS = damage per second. That means if you do the same amount of damage in less time, your DPS increases. Rapid fire does the same damage as before, but now in almost half the time (44% faster). Therefore its DPS has increased.

As for whether power ranger overall is OP now or not, I think it’s still hard to tell. They generally lack stability and have limited condition removal unless they grab survival of the fittest (which means fewer points in skirmishing and therefore less damage).

Power rangers in tpvp right now feel like easier-to-play thieves. Both classes excel at joining a fight mid-battle and ending it quickly. But while the thief has to position himself well and port into melee for a quick burst (which takes time to set up and is places the thief at risk of getting 1-shot), the ranger can put out just as much damage from slightly over 1.5k range without any real positional or conditional requirements. The main issue with power longbow really just seems to be how easy it is to burst with, rather than how powerful the class is overall.

If we compare power rangers to fresh air ele, rapid fire does about the same damage as two air-attune + lightning strike combos, but the ele will take at least twice as long (5s CD on fresh air) to cycle through air twice and has less survivability/mobility. Then again, fresh air ele can chain multiple skills together to achieve a larger overall burst (e.g. triple-hit phoenix + lightning flash + air burst), but that comes at a much longer cooldown of 40s (32 if you trait cantrip reduction).

Fresh air ele and thief also arguably brings more utility to their teams than a power ranger. (Ele can bring aoe daze via comet, aoe healing via trident, blinds, and might stacking; Thief can bring shadow refuge, boon stealing, guaranteed interrupts via sleight of hand, and poison).

And yes, you can evade/block a rapid fire if you see it coming, but that’s true for every other class’s burst (including backstabs if you saw the thief enter stealth and you aren’t completely new to the game). On the other hand, rapid fire is basically immune to aegis and blind (which only block one arrow, so I guess a ~10% reduction), while blind/aegis completely negate single-hit burst skills.

Reflection is definitely a hard counter to rapid fire, but most reflection skills have much longer cooldowns so the ranger can always just use barrage while the reflection is up. That said, it’s really fun completely shutting down the crappier power rangers who don’t pay attention to reflect.

Basically this

It’s going a bit far to say it’s OP (especially this early in the patch), but something feels off about a skill that is essentially a backstab without positional requirements with the added safety of 1500 range separating you from your target.

It also has more weaknesses than the other burst moves, which evens it out. It would be OP IMO if it DIDN’T have those weaknesses. And they don’t want to nerf it considering that’s most of LB’s DPS right there, killing Rapid Fire kills the Longbow, something they do NOT want to do, since it’s basically the staple weapon for the Ranger.

I’m laughing my kitten off right now at you people calling it OP. It’s at 2.5 seconds. Meaning any block, reflect, or projectile destroyer will PREVENT AT LEAST 80% OF THE BURST IF THE SKILL IS USED THE SECOND YOU SEE RF. Hell, just dodging twice does 60% of it. Face it, this is a l2p on the likes of the players. Especially since if RF is hitting that hard, the Ranger is nothing more than a glass cannon who will fold easily.

T raw.4658:

RyuDragnier.9476:

T raw.4658:

Wait are people defending 12 -13k bursts coming from on top of a mountain 1500 range away??

ROFLMAO

Too funny

It’s a 2.5 second channel. In that time you can:

1. Dodge, which gives you a .75 evasion window, w8hich gets rid of 2-3 arrows of that burst. Double dodging removes at least 4-6 of them, so you dodged most of the arrows, and thus, most of the burst.

2. Block. Most block skills channel for about 3-4 seconds, which will stop pretty much all of the burst.

3. Reflect. Every reflection skill is 3+ seconds of throwing everything BACK AT THE RANGER. That will cause the ranger to down themselves. Remember, if they’re bursting, they have NO defense.

4. Interrupt. Stopping it in its tracks is always good, especially if you have some long range interrupts or if the Ranger is stupid enough to do it at close range (and many are).

If you do any of these, you can quickly make your way to the ranger and throw him in the one situation he doesn’t want to be in with that bow…close range combat. The Ranger will fold easily at that range.

Don’t defend it cause it’ll just make you look bad specially after being on a nerf thief crusade for the last 1.5 years

lol

I played Ranger for 8 months, do you know how many times I got taken out because people did all of those things to counter my Rapid Fire when I ran Zerker? Even when I used Quickness before the nerf, I still got countered very easily. The buff to RF is fine.

Also, my only crusade with thieves deals with the D/P stealth spam through Black Powder and Heartseeker. If you’ve noticed, that is the ONLY thing I really feel needs a nerf on thief ATM, quite a bit of the rest of the class needs buffs, including survivability outside of stealth.

T raw.4658:

Wait are people defending 12 -13k bursts coming from on top of a mountain 1500 range away??

ROFLMAO

Too funny

It’s a 2.5 second channel. In that time you can:

1. Dodge, which gives you a .75 evasion window, which gets rid of 2-3 arrows of that burst. Double dodging removes at least 4-6 of them, so you dodged most of the arrows, and thus, most of the burst.

2. Block. Most block skills channel for about 3-4 seconds, which will stop pretty much all of the burst.

3. Reflect. Every reflection skill is 3+ seconds of throwing everything BACK AT THE RANGER. That will cause the ranger to down themselves. Remember, if they’re bursting, they have NO defense.

4. Interrupt. Stopping it in its tracks is always good, especially if you have some long range interrupts or if the Ranger is stupid enough to do it at close range (and many are).

If you do any of these, you can quickly make your way to the ranger and throw him in the one situation he doesn’t want to be in with that bow…close range combat. The Ranger will fold easily at that range.

I agree OP. The main thing that should have happened is tutorials to explain these things. Quite a few of us learned from other players how these things worked, and a tutorial area we could access from anywhere would be a very nice way to do it. Sorta like how the tutorial area for PvP works. It explains the tutorials on how to do some things quite well, we need one for when a character is first created. Hell, the tutorial area could easily be a dream we’re having ingame.

Does everybody forget a certain other MMO that died out due to a NPE? One known as Star Wars Galaxies?

Roe.3679:

The QQ about this has been hilarious. Literally you have 1 thing to watch for from a power ranger at range. Dodge it.

Or block it. Quite a few block skills require the enemy to be close for their counterattack, otherwise they’re a 3-4 second block, meaning YOU TAKE NO DAMAGE.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

Its only anecdotal, but the players (that are left) that I interact with want expansion content as well. We all think the LS methodology is a poor substitution. A paid for, boxed expansion of the world with new races, weapons and skills is what we’ve been wanting. Unfortunately, it seems A-net is betting the bank on their LS model.

I prefer them doing that. As much as people QQ about wanting an expansion, there are players like me that do not want to spend $50 for more content just to hang out with people we know. Because that’s exactly what happens with expansions, you’re locked out of areas that your friends are in just because you can’t afford it, and it leads to you getting depressed and stop playing.

Ergolicious.1507:

I stay on GW2 because it has the best pvp I’ve ever seen (engine/technical wise). Not for some worthless Pve events…..

You’ve never played Dungeon Fighter Online then.

OP, you’re forgetting one thing…quite a lot of players actually come back for the Living Story chapters, it’s one of the few things actively retaining players. So they’re retaining ones, albeit by added new content on a bi-monthly basis (whenever LS is up anyway).

But I do agree player retention is one of the problems of the game, though I blame that more towards some questionable class balancing at times (I still haven’t forgiven you for the pet nerfs, Anet), and recent leveling and trait changes that seem to actually make the game feel grindy, tedious, and annoying to play, 3 things they promised this game would never become.

jheryn.8390:

Isn’t it funny that for nearly two years people leveled up from zero without complaining about it being to hard. Then they nerfed the trait system, and now the whole leveling process altogether.

Baffling.

I feel this way too. I saw no complaints about leveling at all, since the game was so based around helping others that people were constantly helping new players learn everything. THAT was the draw of this game, it was so casual friendly to begin with that the community helped teach everything.

GuzziHero.2467:

Remember: this was meant to be a WOW rival, with casual and hardcore players alike catered for equally.

How Blizzard must be laughing now.

No, that’s FFXIV: A Realm Reborn.

Stooperdale.3560:

It seems to me that this feature pack is split in three
- class balancing – always mixed feelings across the player base
- UI improvements – crafting, trading post, guild banks, dungeons – all good
- Leveling process – awful

The leveling process was the least advertised and you can understand why. It offers nothing but unhappiness to the player base. It cuts across the original design and leaves an ugly ill-fitting mess. How could anyone decide that this would improve the game and waste resources on something that alienates the player base? The answer is presumably that accountants have decided this is the way to monetize the game. There is no reason for players to like any design decisions based on monetization.

The sad part is like many companies, they fell into the foolish hole of going for short term instead of long term profits. Long term profits guarantee your company and products will last for years, and garners good PR that leads to more customers, employees, and profits in the long-term (see Wal-Mart under Sam Walden). Short term however basically guarantees you’re throwing away your company, your products, your PR, etc for some fast cash, not realizing that THIS HURTS YOU IN THE LONG-TERM. You lose valuable customers, you get a bad reputation, and eventually you have to shut down because nobody will buy your stuff.

This is reminder for anybody who works for a company or wishes to make one, DO NOT EVER GO FOR SHORT-TERM PROFITS!

RubberDougie.2750:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On3Ya0_4Y

Ahhhhh. This summarizes it. This.

Why can’t I +1 this more?

hihey.1075:

T raw.4658:

Not home on phone can’t see

I’m guessing you can’t stealth using HS steal?

If you use Heartseeker or Flanking Strike together with Steal, the steal will fail and will go on full CD without giving you any benefit.

Except for the fact that from what I’m seeing in the video, you’re still right next to the enemy, meaning it succeeded, yet will not give you anything to use in the F1 slot.

Not really. They’re not fixing the problems with traits, so I’m still playing this game significantly less compared to how I was before the trait revamp went into play.

stof.9341:

RyuDragnier.9476:

You rarely see D/D, P/P, S/D, or P/D thieves in WvW, or at least that’s how it is in Tier 2 from what I’ve seen. All I see is D/P thieves everywhere, just spamming BP->HS combo and Backstabbing for massive damage. I prefer seeing the other sets, which makes it a shame that I rarely see them.

But nerfing D/P might not be the way to get the other sets out in WvW. If they aren’t played, it’s probably because they aren’t viable in the first place.

Or because D/P is currently the safest and easiest weapon set to use.

Geiir.7603:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Geiir.7603:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Serum.4067:

Vladanmit.4052:

I personally think that the reason why they’re not buffing thieves is that everyone is just crying all the time about how they’re OP , which they’re not. But who cares, I’m still gonna rip them all a new one regardless of the changes. xD

Thieves aren’t OP as a whole, but Black Powder and S/D builds are. I have a thief toon and it’s kitten easy to get away from any situation with the BP + HS combo. This unlimited “Get Out Of Jail Free” card needs to be removed. Thieves have way too much leeway in those builds when it comes to getting unlimited resets. It’s not balanced whatsoever. Committing a mistake usually results in death on other classes, I’m glad you guys will finally feel that pain.

I still think the BP field should be changed to Dark to keep the blinding portion of the ability, while removing the “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Not to mention it buffs P/P’s sustain by giving it a field it can use for leech projectile combo finishers.

Doing so would completely destroy d/p since it will lose almost all of its burst by losing stealth. But this get out of jail free card you speak of are only true for WvW. Yes, the thief can bolt off, but it is not because of black powder and heartseeker. It is because of our amazing mobility through shadowsteps.

No D/P stealth spamming thief I’ve ran into in WvW has uses Shadowstep. They use Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge, Skale Venom, and Basilisk Venom. They don’t need to escape when they can easily make you try to in a single burst, and then down you while you try to escape. You can’t even stop the stealth spam if you tried because BP will blind you, and they stand in the smoke field for less than a second to HS from it.

They overload themselves on stealth because they know it’s all they need to escape with and kill the enemy with. I’m fine with heavy stealth use being caused by utilities, but not with a “No Risk High Reward” weapon skill combo.

A thief with no stunbreak? That will in most cases mean dead thief. One stun and the thief will be dead… Most thieves run shadowstep to counter stuns and as an escape tool. I have to say though, that I haven’t played WvW the last month, but as far as I know the old builds are still meta. D/P also lack burst compared to D/D.

Grumpy: Then how is it that I can wreck thieves in WvW on all my toons and you can’t? Thief is nowhere close to an immortal god, just try to play one and you’ll see. I have to say though, that P/D dire is a bit too survivable, but that is mainly because of dire gear and the condition food / crystals. P/D dire will btw be the new thief meta for WvW with the recent nerfs and buffs we get…

You rarely see D/D, P/P, S/D, or P/D thieves in WvW, or at least that’s how it is in Tier 2 from what I’ve seen. All I see is D/P thieves everywhere, just spamming BP→HS combo and Backstabbing for massive damage. I prefer seeing the other sets, which makes it a shame that I rarely see them.

Shockwave.1230:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Because right now BP->HS is No Risk, High Reward.

Really?

Because there’s no risk of getting CC’ed and losing 9 initiative and having to stun break and hope you can get away? Which definitely can’t be achieve by using quick/instant casts to clear the blind followed by quick/instant cast CC’s. Also the blind shot is impossible to avoid by hiding behind AI, out ranging (cuz it has infinite range), LoS (because it pierces walls), evading (because it’s like a sky hammer shot), blocking (because the blind shot is unblockable), invulning (because it breaks unvuln), using condi immunity (because it strips condi immunity). It’s also not like people attacking would ever line up in a way that the blind would immediately be cleansed, and it’s still impossible to follow up with a quick/instant CC.

This would work if Black Powder had a better tell than just a single shot, because right now you have less than a second to react to something that looks exactly the same as Head Shot’s animation that WILL put blind on you, unless you’re a Guardian since you’d have a very easily accessible Aegis that’s constantly coming on.

Shockwave.1230:

Or because once you’re in stealth you’re completely invincible and can’t take damage and condi’s stop ticking on you?

Requires you to be hit by conditions before stealth, or for the opponent to guess and actually get your position right, which 90% of the time they do not.

Shockwave.1230:

Or because once you’re in stealth there’s absolutely no proper way to respond in order to mitigate or completely nullify the damage?

The person who you’re fighting gets maybe 1-3 shots at blocking/evading Backstab, then they can’t do it again for at least 10 seconds…while you can spam Backstab until you succeed, because there’s no penalty for Backstab being dodged/blocked.

Shockwave.1230:

Or because even if the damage is landed the thief didn’t just spend 9 initiative which doesn’t take 9 seconds to naturally replinish, which definitely doesn’t mean if they do that combo 2 or 3 times it definitely doesn’t take 18 seconds or 27 seconds to naturally regen that initiative.

That would only be a problem if most players weren’t downed by 1-2 Backstabs, even if they’ve used their heal. If you’re running D/P’s BP→HS combo that much, you’re so glassy that 1 hit is all you need.

Shockwave.1230:

Or maybe it’s because even when that from behind damage lands, because it always does no matter what, it always 1 shots and leaves no opportunity to respond?

Not always, but it leaves the opponent in a position to where they have to immediately heal and try to escape or take out the thief, neither of which succeed most of the time. And all it takes is 3 seconds for a thief to use the combo again for stealth, and then a backstab to down the opponent.

T raw.4658:

Ryu you play a ranger….you can clear that blind from 1200 range

l2p issue here

I mained Ranger for about 8 months (November 11th of 2012 was when I started) before switching to thief. I still play Ranger every now and then, but Thief is my go-to right now for everything, because unlike Ranger, I can actively support with Shadow Protector, Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, and Signet of Agility, compared to Ranger’s Healing Spring. I LIKE playing group support, something I can’t do right now with Ranger.

And clearing the blind again means nothing if they can still spam stealth so easily without any downsides to it. And no, wasted initiative is not a downside if you can still gain it while in stealth. Stealth is powerful, and getting access to that is fine, ONLY IF THERE’S A DOWNSIDE/COUNTER TO IT.

For example, Cloak and Dagger is fine because it requires the thief getting into close range to use it, so they can hit all manner of AoE on the way to do it, so it’s easily countered.

Hide in Shadows is fine because you used a heal for it and it has a 30 second cooldown.

Blinding Powder is fine because it’s on a 40 second cooldown (32s traited).

Shadow Refuge is fine because it’s a visible AoE you have to stand in the entire duration to keep the stealth, so it’s easily countered with AoEs and cleaving attacks because you KNOW the thief is in that circle.

Smokescreen -> Heartseeker is fine because that Smokescreen is on a 30s cooldown (24s traited).

Black Powder -> Heartseeker combo however is NOT fine because there’s no counter to it and it has almost no cooldown. Within 1 second of that field going down the Thief has Heartseeker’d through it and into stealth. That’s too fast to remove blind and counter him, that’s too fast for AoE to go down, that’s too fast for any kind of counter. Either we change the field from Smoke to Dark to get rid of this (which destroys the D/P burst while buffing P/P’s sustain), or we make it so the blind field goes on the enemy location so you have to get close to do it. Because right now BP->HS is No Risk, High Reward.

Dammerung.6419:

I think a block should give reveal as it is an active counter play. Anything else, blind, evade etc. should just pull the thief out of stealth, no reveal penalty. Punishment for failure is a good thing. Reward for counter-play is a good thing. Especially since a minimum of 1/2 your health pool is on the line.

I like this idea, it punishes the thief for just spamming attacks in stealth without actually punishing him if the attack misses…unless active blocks are in play.

Simonoly.4352:

Never going to happen unfortunately. As nice as it would be to have more natural counters to stealth instead of select Reveal applying skills, the Thief class would just be shut down by any random source of aegis. So this could only ever work with active blocking skills that a Thief can react to with certainty.

Unless they can somehow code it to where Aegis = exiting stealth without reveal, while still making it so active blocking = reveal.

Offair.2563:

Whats next, comparing guardians to rangers?

Well they both have spirits, soooo… ;o

Shockwave.1230:

RyuDragnier.9476:

caveman.5840:

d/p stealth thieves can be easy to counter ….. all u need to do is use pulls and pushes stuns and daze to stop there black powder heart seeker combo ……

idk what all the buzz is about d/p thieves lol but

u break the combo u break the thief

Requires you to not be blinded, which Blinding Powder does with a single shot. Unless you’re an engineer with Goggles equipped or you have Aegis, you’re going to be hit with a blind, which by itself makes it impossible to cancel the combo.

Or just clear the blind then use CC.

The argument to not use counterplay because you have to take 1 extra step is dumb

It takes 1 second from using BP to enter stealth with Heartseeker. Guess how long it takes to cleanse a condition…1 second.

alchemyst.2165:

Thieves shouldn’t get revealed on blind/block/aegis etc. It wouldn’t be proper counterplay to spam these blinds/blocks/aegis/evades and get a thief revealed. If so, you could probably reveal a thief literally every time he stealthed. Thief is already seriously unforgiving, even with our ports, evades, blinds, and stealths.

Miss a CnD? You’re susceptible to huge burst and left like a sitting duck.
Mistime a dodge? You’re screwed.
Miss mug at low hp? You’re dead.
Run out of initiative? Again, you’re a sitting duck.

I could go on. My point is, thief doesn’t need to be even MORE unforgiving. If this change happened thief would be unplayable.

Not really unplayable, thieves would just go to the P/D setup since Sneak Attack is 6 shots, it won’t matter if the first gets blocked/dodged/misses because the rest will hit.

caveman.5840:

d/p stealth thieves can be easy to counter ….. all u need to do is use pulls and pushes stuns and daze to stop there black powder heart seeker combo ……

idk what all the buzz is about d/p thieves lol but

u break the combo u break the thief

Requires you to not be blinded, which Blinding Powder does with a single shot. Unless you’re an engineer with Goggles equipped or you have Aegis, you’re going to be hit with a blind, which by itself makes it impossible to cancel the combo.

Aliven.4056:

Just one more thing. If you dont like the new traits after april patch DONT PLAY. Really this is the only way we can show the company that we dont support their decision, its not like 47 pages and 2333 posts do any diference.
So if you dont like it, dont play. Show your lack off support. Dont make traffic.

That’s actually what I’ve been doing in a sense…the new LS chapters are the only things keeping me coming back at this point, I haven’t logged into GW2 in quite a while because of of the trait changes. Because if I can’t do my altaholic ways, there is absolutely nothing keeping me going here outside of new content.

Geiir.7603:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Serum.4067:

Vladanmit.4052:

I personally think that the reason why they’re not buffing thieves is that everyone is just crying all the time about how they’re OP , which they’re not. But who cares, I’m still gonna rip them all a new one regardless of the changes. xD

Thieves aren’t OP as a whole, but Black Powder and S/D builds are. I have a thief toon and it’s kitten easy to get away from any situation with the BP + HS combo. This unlimited “Get Out Of Jail Free” card needs to be removed. Thieves have way too much leeway in those builds when it comes to getting unlimited resets. It’s not balanced whatsoever. Committing a mistake usually results in death on other classes, I’m glad you guys will finally feel that pain.

I still think the BP field should be changed to Dark to keep the blinding portion of the ability, while removing the “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Not to mention it buffs P/P’s sustain by giving it a field it can use for leech projectile combo finishers.

Doing so would completely destroy d/p since it will lose almost all of its burst by losing stealth. But this get out of jail free card you speak of are only true for WvW. Yes, the thief can bolt off, but it is not because of black powder and heartseeker. It is because of our amazing mobility through shadowsteps.

No D/P stealth spamming thief I’ve ran into in WvW has uses Shadowstep. They use Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge, Skale Venom, and Basilisk Venom. They don’t need to escape when they can easily make you try to in a single burst, and then down you while you try to escape. You can’t even stop the stealth spam if you tried because BP will blind you, and they stand in the smoke field for less than a second to HS from it.

They overload themselves on stealth because they know it’s all they need to escape with and kill the enemy with. I’m fine with heavy stealth use being caused by utilities, but not with a “No Risk High Reward” weapon skill combo.

Serum.4067:

Vladanmit.4052:

I personally think that the reason why they’re not buffing thieves is that everyone is just crying all the time about how they’re OP , which they’re not. But who cares, I’m still gonna rip them all a new one regardless of the changes. xD

Thieves aren’t OP as a whole, but Black Powder and S/D builds are. I have a thief toon and it’s kitten easy to get away from any situation with the BP + HS combo. This unlimited “Get Out Of Jail Free” card needs to be removed. Thieves have way too much leeway in those builds when it comes to getting unlimited resets. It’s not balanced whatsoever. Committing a mistake usually results in death on other classes, I’m glad you guys will finally feel that pain.

I still think the BP field should be changed to Dark to keep the blinding portion of the ability, while removing the “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Not to mention it buffs P/P’s sustain by giving it a field it can use for leech projectile combo finishers.