Guild Wars 2

Zelulose.8695:

Shadow.1345:

I don’t honestly know why anyone would spectate your hotjoin match to steal your build when they could just go on google or youtube and type in “gw2 -class- pvp” build. Besides with 3 choices per trait tier it’s not like it’s all that hard for people to come up with a build.

Face it, nobody stole your build, they just saw the same glaring combination of traits, utilities and weapons and combined them.

This is not going to protect builds from being stolen. It will instead slow their distribution (As noted in my OP and previous posts)

If you don’t want your build stolen don’t use it in hotjoins. Problem solved.

I don’t honestly know why anyone would spectate your hotjoin match to steal your build when they could just go on google or youtube and type in “gw2 -class- pvp” build. Besides with 3 choices per trait tier it’s not like it’s all that hard for people to come up with a build.

Face it, nobody stole your build, they just saw the same glaring combination of traits, utilities and weapons and combined them.

I have been having this same problem recently as well.

alchemyst.2165:

No. Uncatchable is not actually using the skill caltrops, its just the effect, therefore it doesn’t classify as a trick.

Because if it did it would have a cooldown matching the skill Caltrops like Flanking Strikes does.

aspirine.6852:

Lavexis.5360:

A lot of debate going on about pistol/pistol right now, but after a lot of testing and practice I come to conclusion that pistol/pistol is actually really strong.

What a-net does is basically nerfing the AOE potential of p/p and boost its single target damage. I use p/p before patch and i do like ricochet. but,
no quarter/executioner/revealed training just give p/p a huge single target burst like none ever.

This set doesn’t necessarily work in 1 v1 (although i did win some duels , surprisingly..more than i thought it would), but this build is pure deathball in conquest.. just imagine ranger rapid fire with no cooldown.

I won 8 out of 10 matches with this set on ranked and unranked matches, its 10x more fun than d/p, s/d, d/d condi, p/d condi… This thing might as well be new meta, heck i haven’t played gw 2 in months and this build made me play the game regularly.

I realized that some people will probably say that i lie and bla bla….soo i recorded some matches..

so enjoy

1. https://youtu.be/gHm0M-eQL0A
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1va3mnLPFIs
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-kQAtaP_6A

some of you probably ask " why not just use d/p and use backstab, since you will hit a lot harder ? "

the advantage of p/p is that you are hitting people from range !
unload with basilisk venom + steal ( daze )(mug) + unload is a 20k dps lockdown from range..

Nice bursts. I dont play pvp and I wouldnt know what the amulets and runes would translate to for other gamemodes. Maurauder is that something just for pvp and the strongest ammy?

Nah, Marauder is basically just a zerker amulet with a reduction on Ferocity and some Vitality added in. More or less. It’s just a really good damage amulet with some survivability added.

With the synergy between traits combinations maintaining their uniqueness is not really a thing. As much as your ego demands that no one could have possibly have come up with your special snowflake build without copying you probability is not in your favour. With choosing 3 out of 5 trait lines means 10 choices of trait line combinations (this is not taking in different trait choices of course) so that means there is a 10% chance every one of your class you run into has the same combinations of trait liness just on that alone. For each trait choice there is a 1/3 chance someone else picked that choice. Do that 9 times over and you come up with roughly 1 out of every 20000 of your class has that exact same trait composition. Take that against all of the players that play GW2 and there is a 100% chance someone else is running your exact same trait composition that came up with all on their own. And that’s not even taking synergy into account.

Nolimitz.9467:

the fact that you post hotjoin trash vids is misinformation on P/P viability. P/P was trash, is trash and will still be trash unless it’s skills changes fundamentally. PVE , sPvP, and WvW it underperforms compared to other sets. Post some actual ranked matches where you are effective and then maybe you have an argument. The fact still remains that utility wise the set is trash. I can’t even believe people mained P/P holy kitten.

They weren’t hot joins. Anyone who watches the videos can easily tell that.

Do you even sPvP bro?

Mordalus.8146:

Shadow.1345:

Mordalus.8146:

-Noone capping home; I see this frequently in Foefire where you need one capper and one to check for crossers

-Allowing rangers to rapid fire from range uncontested

These two really kitten me off but seeing the first over and over again one day made me want to start rage quitting.

I hear you man. When I get a team that plays mostly smart, I’m there to the end and it reinvigorates me and reminds me why I love GW2 pvp. And then I get a handful of just bad players. And not necessary bad in terms of skill; but bad in terms of inability to be a team players and to play smart.

There should be some way to keep people out of ranked until they’ve achieved some kind of minimum ability with their profession and with their knowledge of how to play the maps.

And after they get facerolled at mid someone always has the audacity to say “Why didn’t someone get home?” Why the kitten didn’t you get home?

Generally by the point they start killing our lord and the rest of the morons aren’t even defending I will /sit and watch them kill the lord. I will even tell them in chat I am just watching them kill the lord.

Mordalus.8146:

-Noone capping home; I see this frequently in Foefire where you need one capper and one to check for crossers

-Allowing rangers to rapid fire from range uncontested

These two really kitten me off but seeing the first over and over again one day made me want to start rage quitting.

lukejoe.1592:

Forget it! Why suggest all these changes when the obvi fix is to just put Ricochet back? P/P IS GARBAGE without it, it was barely viable with it! I’m pretty much taking a break from GW2 at this point. I just pop in to see if they’ve announced new specializations from time to time to see if something is going to be able to get me excited about HoT again. So far…….

Can I have your stuff?

Yeah pretty much every single match of mine has been a 4v5 with me on the 4 side today. One was me on the 5 side but it’s like they run in, gets killed and then quit. Most of them have been thieves.

Bret.6940:

@NinjaEd of course no one wants to just spam a skill for no reason its all situational. If someone is chaining unloads its because he wants to kill someone. If hes using body shot its to prevent escape from people running away from fights or trying to get into tower. No one should just be spamming bodyshot in a 1v1 for no reason. As for lack of deffense on p/p we do have blinding powder, and if you take the right utilty skills you will have good deffence. Your also not limited to just 1 weapon set. You could easily take p/p d/p and make up for the lack of stealth, or take shortbow and use it for the evades. The only thing p/p has bit of a tougher time with now is mesmer because of clones, and even then like i said your not limited to just p/p. Use another weapon set in junction with p/p and you can adjust to the situation. A good example is thiefs making videos claiming to be s/d users but in footage of them they are usually using shortbow alot. Now about ricochet. I was a die hard fan. One thing i would like to see if its not coming back is the range of pistol from 900 to 1050 made baseline that would be nice.

Ankle Shots gives 1050 range, it’s just not on the tool tip of the trait but if you take the trait the range shows on the tool tip for your pistol abilities.

Nice stuff. Looks fun as hell too. Nice to see someone that looked at the potential and made it work instead of just QQing over the loss of cleave from Ricochet. Personally I think NQ > Ricochet since it does more than just support one weapon. Forget the naysayers, they can’t even see what is right before their eyes.

This should just be titled Thief counterplay since every other class that has stealth attacks from range. LB Ranger uses stealth to reposition themselves to be further away. Mesmer doesn’t need to be next to you to burst you down from stealth and Engineer doesn’t have any melee weapons anyways.

Part 2 since character limit:

With all of the new stuff flying around and even Acrobatics being said to not be as bad as people originally thought, even if it needs some loving on the endurance regeneration, I would say to all you thieves out there to not be afraid to theory craft. Maybe the devs were right and their is some OPness out there hidden like a sneaky thief or maybe not. Either way they were good enough at game design to get the job while we just post on the forums so give them a little credit. Recently I discovered how to get a little bit of a hybrid trap build going with DA/CS/Trck by using the ferocity bump from CS and stacking Shadow Trap and Needle Trap on each other to get that immobilize and then Shadow Step to them for a 15 Might + Fury + 10 Vulnerability backstab. I still have reasonably close to the same burst from Marauder Amulet and my conditions don’t just tickle anymore. 4-5k crit backstabs and 200-400 avg ticks on conditions. Sure it may not be the crazy 10k backstab YOLO build but when I’m dropping SB 4 on a team fight from a ridge it’s not just a glorified heal reducer either.

This new meta is new. Don’t be afraid to try new things and test them. Every meta build was just somebody’s theory before it became meta. I may not be right about everything. Again as I said I am still noobish to this game but I am willing to put in the effort to try new things and I’m not looking for an e-sports career either. If I’m wrong and you want to point it out (and it’s not just flaming) I will happily listen to your points and adjust and learn from it.

Discussing here and please understand I’ve only put in about 1.2k matches in PvP and have only played about a year so I’m straight up saying I’m not some super pro player but I do have experience PvPing and have a scientist mindset in that I test and will toss out builds if they prove to not be viable. My way of theory-crafting and testing is that video recording + combat log + unranked matches is my friend. Smacking a combat dummy is not a very good way of testing. With a video recording with a chat window dedicated to the combat log I can watch afterwards and view my combat log results. I don’t find hot join is a very good way to test and I don’t care if people get salty about losing in unranked so I do it there.

Deadly Arts is now one of the best trait lines we have overall imo. It may not be perfect for every build but the range of things it offers can’t be denied. The minors are all great, especially now that any condition on the target gives a 10% boost to damage. The reduced cooldown on Lotus Poison is great for keeping weakness on a target for about 40% of the time. (Yes, for you literalists, I know it is not exactly 40% but 4 seconds every 10 seconds you apply poison is a nice estimation.) Mug of course is Mug, no more is needed to be said. Dagger Training, despite the complaints about losing 5% damage looks to me like an extra sigil proc. Besides if 5% damage was that amazing people would be using Sigil’s of Force more or it would have been part of the meta pre-patch. A 1/3 chance to apply poison with any dagger strike seems more useful with the right build. Deadly Trapper and knowing how to use traps smartly can be very nifty. (Lame condi trap builds don’t work. Venoms are far better for condi builds.) Improvisation with a 1/5 chance to reset your heal is insanely awesome. Being able to have Executioner and Panic Strike now, what more can be said?

Critical Strikes is pretty much what it says, the burst damage line. With the nerf to stats this is the line that can give you the added burst you need as a thief. Pure condi builds on a thief in sPvP just pale compare to classes that can stack burning, imo (unless you want to reinvent the Unicorn build and make it actually work). You need some added burst damage for them I feel. Unrelenting Strikes and No Quarter make Fury easy to keep an uptime on now. People that have complained about the loss of Vitality on Practiced Tolerance really just need to l2p because giving that boost to Ferocity is much more in keeping with what the line is meant to do and does much more for thieves than a bumb to Vitality. Overall I find this line is perfect if you want a boost to your burst damage.

Shadow Arts is just what the Devs called it, a support line. Merciful Ambush is awesomesauce when it comes to helping downed teammates. I have countless times since the patch saved a teammate at the last second on a stomp just from SB 5 + Res to stealth them from getting stomped. The extra res time is very helpful as well. Also, Venomous Aura > Shadow’s Rejuventation. Unless you are stealth camping from Shadow Refuge the healing and initiative regeneration I feel is just weak compared the the support from sharing Basilisk Venom with your team in team fights.

I haven’t really tried Acrobatics so I can’t add anything here.

Trickery is on par with Deadly Arts in overall greatness I feel. If you’re going with conditions then this line has some nice additions with Uncatchable, Pressure Striking and Bewildering Ambush. If you are going for burst damage then Flanking Strikes and Trickery for the Quickness and condi-removal on a 36 second cool down + a reduced CD and extra condition cleansed on Withdraw is pretty good too.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Vaux.7502:

A thief’s stealth lasts 3 seconds outside of a minute long stealth cooldown. Do you understand how EASY it is to avoid a backstab for 3 seconds? It’s like impossible NOT to do.

And you idiots acting like thieves shouldn’t be able to get a backstab off when using a minute long cooldown make me laugh, other classes get to pull off bigger burst much easier, without the use of ANY cooldowns.

If Thieves could only enter stealth once per minute, I’d have no problem with Backstab. Do you think Thieves can only enter stealth every 60 seconds? How frequently do you think Thieves can stealth?

And here’s a fun fact: the burst is a cooldown for other classes, in almost every situation.

He means that the only long duration is on a 1 minute CD unless you trait Concealed Defeat which competes with Shadow’s Embrace so I don’t see many people taking that. Otherwise 3 seconds of stealth and in that that three seconds yes it is actually pretty easy to avoid backstab. Maining a thief I often can’t get a backstab in those three seconds if the person stays constantly moving since without swiftness we all move at the same speed that means the thief can’t catch up to you without using shadowstep of some kind if you are already ahead of the thief. Pretty much the only easy backstab is the person that just stands there QQing about it. Then we only really get any good damage if it crits otherwise it’s only about 1.5k~2.5k damage without critically hitting. This really is a L2P issue.

Try Berserker with Wurm Runes. It give you a bump to Vitality and Ferocity and gives you 7% of Vitality as Ferocity. Gives you 13k health and 1k Ferocity.

choovanski.5462:

^ nice copy paste response. like I don’t know how nades work, I’m playing the build. you do have to sacrifice survival, I’m running zerk and wurm runes for the 220% crit damage no cele.

I’ve run that same thing for a thief and can’t get the same damage with a backstab that requires positioning and leaves me with 13k health. Tell me again how it’s a high risk-high reward build.

With the increase in damage that made World Bosses cake walks has also made the Lord an easy 150 points.

Cele just isn’t doing it. I was wanting to still have some decent burst on my thief while having conditions do more than tickle. We lost that 300 Condition Dmg from Trickery. What I’d really love is a 1050 Power 1050 Precision 560 Condition Dmg 560 Ferocity Amulet and then toss on a Rune of the Wurm to give a little vitality and a boost to Ferocity.

Glitchfull.5826:

Also, what is everyone’s thoughts on just having a customizable amulet that you decide what stats you want on it (With a minimum of 3 stats and a maximum choice of 4 stats) that all have a base amount and then you pick which stat you want to boost out of your selection. Would honestly make the amulet section less cluttered and prevent the issue of not having an amulet that gives a certain set of stats.

This yes. So much yes. All of my yes.

It would be very simple since numerically it has a system in place. 1200, 900, 900 for three and 1050, 1050, 560, 560 for the 4 choices. I’d still leave in the Celestial choice because honestly I feel like it’s that Jack of All trades, Master of None amulet. It works for some classes and builds but doesn’t work so great for others.

I think the choice of how to assign stats within the bounds of a system and with each stat being allowed in one slot (the Celestial choice would pretty much be set for you) would allow for more build diversity I feel.

Before the patch the Rampager amulet gave 4 stats just like the Berzerker Amulet. When Berzzerker got changed to 3 the Marauder Amulet was introduced as a 4 stat amulet that is basically like the old Berzerker Amulet. Why isn’t their a 4 stat equivalent to replace the old 4 stat Rampager?

Zodryn.4216:

We are getting staff. There is an image for the spec in the current .dat file. Looks like melee staff (my guess is stances), though I wouldn’t complain if it ended up being a shadow magic spec.

Yeah I am kinda hoping for a shadow magic spec but if they went for acrobat that would be really awesome too. Staves have been a part of the thief since D&D because it can be disguised as a walking stick, be used to pole vault, used to reach out and push that lever on a trap from a safer distance, etc.

IP is only really any good when combined with Signet of Malice and S/P otherwise No Quarter is gonna give you boss crits.

Laraley.7695:

Coronit.9432:

Laraley.7695:

Shadow.1345:

Laraley.7695:

Shadow.1345:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Shadow.1345:

I know, the dude is like standing there like one of the training NPCs in HotM just waiting for you to set up the backstab.

Meanwhile in gudland,…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQglrsPBeF0

Player applies appropriate amount of damage to low health, high glass enemy (which he knew was there) to down him, and he’s “gud”? Surely this is just a basic math problem XD

Lol, compared to a guy that stands there while some baddie thief tries to backstab him through invulnerability and doesn’t turn around and cleave the thief down? Yes. xD

@StikerHappy my point with the video is that a person doesn’t just have to stand there and wait to eat 7k damage. Sure we aren’t all as good as these pros but sitting there while blockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblock7kdamage is like hearing someone breaking into your house and doing a really bad job of being quiet and you sit there until after he finally gets in and takes all your stuff before calling the police just because you couldn’t see the burglar because it was dark and he was wearing dark clothes.

And in the other guy defense, Helseth didn’t eat the backstab because the thief didn’t even plan to do so, otherwise he wouldn’t be on his sb AAing him.

I think you missed the point.

You said your point is that you don’t have to stand there and eat 7k damage. That happens when you’re going to get backstabbed from stealth, it didn’t because the thief didn’t plan on using backstab. While your point is true, having this video as a proof is not correct since there was no need to avoid backstab. Don’t think I did.

Ok, let us change that situation a bit theoretically, having in mind that Helsith did not know if the thief would engage with backstab or surprise shot (what is a normal move to bait defenses). What if in that moment Helseth used his Sword 2 invulnerability the thief would have used steal + backstab (greedy greedy thief) and continud to cast backstab into blurred frenzy. You think that Helseth would just stand there and eat the backstab after that? Never…
Even if the steal + backstab would have landed, break stun and counterburst, invulnerability from F4, etc. Of course the thief could have been on full zerker DA, CS, trickery and oneshot Helseth. Well, in that case it can happen the other way around easily.
If I´m watching right, the thief tried to time his surprise shot for hitting after blurred frenzy finished. Dodge and reflect the second arrow back. Thats counterplay for its finest ^^

Again, I did say the point is true and never claimed you have to stand and eat the damage, but acting like you can avoid it each time is wrong.

I never said that you could avoid it each time. I’m just saying that if you have some sort of defense up that protects from direct damage and you see the procs on it from absorbing damage (hello, they put those messages on screen for a reason) and do nothing then you deserve the 7k damage after it wears off for being stupid.

Laraley.7695:

Shadow.1345:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Shadow.1345:

I know, the dude is like standing there like one of the training NPCs in HotM just waiting for you to set up the backstab.

Meanwhile in gudland,…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQglrsPBeF0

Player applies appropriate amount of damage to low health, high glass enemy (which he knew was there) to down him, and he’s “gud”? Surely this is just a basic math problem XD

Lol, compared to a guy that stands there while some baddie thief tries to backstab him through invulnerability and doesn’t turn around and cleave the thief down? Yes. xD

@StikerHappy my point with the video is that a person doesn’t just have to stand there and wait to eat 7k damage. Sure we aren’t all as good as these pros but sitting there while blockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblock7kdamage is like hearing someone breaking into your house and doing a really bad job of being quiet and you sit there until after he finally gets in and takes all your stuff before calling the police just because you couldn’t see the burglar because it was dark and he was wearing dark clothes.

And in the other guy defense, Helseth didn’t eat the backstab because the thief didn’t even plan to do so, otherwise he wouldn’t be on his sb AAing him.

I think you missed the point.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Shadow.1345:

I know, the dude is like standing there like one of the training NPCs in HotM just waiting for you to set up the backstab.

Meanwhile in gudland,…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQglrsPBeF0

Player applies appropriate amount of damage to low health, high glass enemy (which he knew was there) to down him, and he’s “gud”? Surely this is just a basic math problem XD

Lol, compared to a guy that stands there while some baddie thief tries to backstab him through invulnerability and doesn’t turn around and cleave the thief down? Yes. xD

@StikerHappy my point with the video is that a person doesn’t just have to stand there and wait to eat 7k damage. Sure we aren’t all as good as these pros but sitting there while blockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblock
blockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblock7kdamage is like hearing someone breaking into your house and doing a really bad job of being quiet and you sit there until after he finally gets in and takes all your stuff before calling the police just because you couldn’t see the burglar because it was dark and he was wearing dark clothes.

StickerHappy.8052:

Lordrosicky.5813:

StickerHappy.8052:

Shadow.1345:

Coronit.9432:

Provost.6210:

lvis.3824:

1.) Backstab HAS a cooldown , its called Revealed !

2.) Anyone crying about getting hit that hard ( from whatever profession ) is running class themself, and therefore dishes out the same dmg.

3.) To cry about thiefs atm is really a l2p issue, compared to every other profession right now they got kitten !

I spot a thief.

I’ll have sympathy for you when you are revealed the second you touch that attack button, not the 47th time you’ve spammed it even though I’ve got a 5 second invulnerable up and you manage to land 7k damage.

There’s a particular blend of bullkitten that goes along with seeing:
InvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerable
InvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerable
InvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerable8000

Oh, and don’t forget your proc sigil on top of that.

Were it up to me, you’d have cooldowns on everything, not just backstab. Be thankful ANet has their hate on for elementalists and your class is on the backburner for now.

What the hell?
Saw something like that in another thread some days ago. That Person wrote blockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblock7000.
Looks like the same problem we have here. You let the thief backstab into your Invulnerability/block and you do NOTHING? Not maybe turning 180° and beat the hell out of him? Saying in ts (if you queued with someone) “thief on me”. ANYTHING?!? Not even sure what kind of a dumb thief would try to backstab on a 5sec invulnerability. Its the same system like mistform from vampire. You wait and kill him when he gets out. Not even have to look into the icon. Its in your mind.
And if its such DA,CS,trickery zerker you just “fart” into his direction and he dies. For me most damage comes from burning, bleeding, etc. Even retaliation is sometimes higher than direct damage.

I know, the dude is like standing there like one of the training NPCs in HotM just waiting for you to set up the backstab.

Meanwhile in gudland,…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQglrsPBeF0

Btw, realistically speaking, how many mesmers are as good as helseth? to strengthen your point

At least 10 on eu are as good imo

And we should believe his argument is a great because 10 mesmers are good as him? How about as casual players? So is this an l2p reply again? So we have to get as good as helseth?

It’s not just 10 mesmers, how about as many players? It’s not just mesmers but that one thief in that video didn’t even give him the help of blockblockblock and he countered his stealth. Helseth is human just like any of us so that means you and anyone else can do it too. He’s not a superhuman. You’ll never counter it if you just sit and QQ instead of l2p-ing.

Also are you saying they should dumb down the game to your level?

Coronit.9432:

Provost.6210:

lvis.3824:

1.) Backstab HAS a cooldown , its called Revealed !

2.) Anyone crying about getting hit that hard ( from whatever profession ) is running class themself, and therefore dishes out the same dmg.

3.) To cry about thiefs atm is really a l2p issue, compared to every other profession right now they got kitten !

I spot a thief.

I’ll have sympathy for you when you are revealed the second you touch that attack button, not the 47th time you’ve spammed it even though I’ve got a 5 second invulnerable up and you manage to land 7k damage.

There’s a particular blend of bullkitten that goes along with seeing:
InvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerable
InvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerable
InvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerableInvulnerable8000

Oh, and don’t forget your proc sigil on top of that.

Were it up to me, you’d have cooldowns on everything, not just backstab. Be thankful ANet has their hate on for elementalists and your class is on the backburner for now.

What the hell?
Saw something like that in another thread some days ago. That Person wrote blockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblockblock7000.
Looks like the same problem we have here. You let the thief backstab into your Invulnerability/block and you do NOTHING? Not maybe turning 180° and beat the hell out of him? Saying in ts (if you queued with someone) “thief on me”. ANYTHING?!? Not even sure what kind of a dumb thief would try to backstab on a 5sec invulnerability. Its the same system like mistform from vampire. You wait and kill him when he gets out. Not even have to look into the icon. Its in your mind.
And if its such DA,CS,trickery zerker you just “fart” into his direction and he dies. For me most damage comes from burning, bleeding, etc. Even retaliation is sometimes higher than direct damage.

I know, the dude is like standing there like one of the training NPCs in HotM just waiting for you to set up the backstab.

Meanwhile in gudland,…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQglrsPBeF0

This thief and the OP have to be made of glass to get damage like that along with some serious might stacking on that thief.

What I think would go a long way towards creating balance is a better match making system. The current one gives some of the worst match ups. Sure those bursty classes seem extremely OP and furstrating when you’re PUGing and the other team has 2 mesmers, a thief and 2 rangers melting your HP before you can do anything and you get stuck with a necro, thief, warrior and 2 guardians who are just getting picked off by focused bursts. I know with holy trinity not being a part of the game makes things like healer, tank and damage harder to sort but evenly distributing classes would go a long way in balancing out teams instead of just going by MMR.

Squee Squashington.5189:

I think you’re confused as to who has to adapt in grand scheme of things.

Oh, I’m aware of who has to but you’re mistaken if you think you’re in the majority opinion here. People in the weeks before were frothing at the mouth to get rid of the old stale meta and to introduce something new. With all new releases it will be tweaked but the old days of just taking zerker stats and relying on other things to carry you is over. Condi competes with power now. You need to think about taking defensive stats from amulets and runes now if you don’t want to be glass.

Silhouette.5631:

Shadow.1345:

Silhouette.5631:

So when my build gets screwed up from an update. Instead of “adapting” and changing to something else, how about I just stand my ground and say “Fix this and give me my defense back”

P.S. Love the new glass cannons. Hate the fact I’m forced to be one of them

You know what else didn’t adapt and decided to stand their ground and wanted an outside force to fix it? Every. Single. Extinct. Species.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

You know what we call people who constantly adapt and never stand their ground?
Words that I wont be posting on this forum

The salt is strong with this one.

Squee Squashington.5189:

Shadow.1345:

Squee Squashington.5189:

Shadow.1345:

I think the damage for the most part is fine.

Shadow.1345:

But after eating one too many Rapid Fires with only 11.6k HP I knew had to change.

Wut?

The real problem with changing your build to combat the current state of burst is that at the end of the day Build Diversity suffers, which will make for a very stale PvP environment.

I disagree because I am running with a Carrion Amulet for hybrid damage and 20k hp. I tossed on Lyssa Runes and Sigil of Accuracy for a little boost to crit chance (about 20%). Meanwhile a lot of traditional style burst from stealth Thieves are running with Marauder Amulets. Then with those Mara thieves we are seeing those choosing between CS and SA and even with SA not all are doing it for passive heals in stealth because some are choosing venom sharing.

Outside of the people being vocal about wanting to go back to the way things were there are people out there trying new things and finding they can finally use weapon sets that were garbage in PvP before because instead of crying about change they looked at is opportunity. Right now, with this shake up PvP is like chaos and many out there are taking the Littlefinger view and seeing it as a ladder instead of a big black gaping pit.

Many people, as you said, are also not very happy, and are being painted into a corner to adapt and not being able to play builds they have previously enjoyed. Compared to the rest of this games history, pvp is pretty much a 1 shot fest. And Anet’s even said they’re going to look into adjusting it between now and HoT.

And as much as I respect Darwin, most if not all extinct species didn’t have the choice to deter or alter their cause of extinction.

Yes they are going to adjust some thing but it’s not going to go back to how it was before. The days of the old stale meta are gone and many players are happy for it. People not like being forced to change is an all too common trait in humans. Why have to change when you can just stay comfortably stagnant. They can cry and moan all they want but it’s changed and that is that. They are going to tweak the numbers on conditions and nerf some OP things but condi is here to stay. They want it viable and people have to accept that. Also the zerk meta is gone. If people are getting one shotted it’s because they failed to realize the zerk stats changed and to just pick a new amulet, like Marauder. I was getting one shotted at first too but then I made some adjustments and I am having fun.

As for the Darwin quote it’s more about being adaptive is necessary to progress. I could have quoted Bruce Lee who was stating the Taoist principle of being like water, which is basically saying be receptive to change and adapt. Sun Tzu states that being adaptive to alter strategies to win is necessary to victory as well. I’m sure plenty of others have said similar things as well. The reality is you can adapt and overcome or remain stagnant and get left behind.

Drennon.7190:

SlayerSixx.5763:

All I’m hearing is “I built for full DPS which is only viable thanks to my ridiculous amounts of stealth and think that being able to reset fights/stun more than your average build has stunbreaks is totally fair and not OP”.

PvP is a team game. Once you survive the initial burst your team needs to peel for you and counter pressure the thief/Mesmer. If the thief is yolo stabbing you to death, you and your team are not doing their job or they are tunnel visioning the other opponents.

Yeah, it’s a matter of players not playing right. Playinga tthief main my self I have had matches where as soon as I show up in a team fight I have 2 or more of the other team on my kitten like glue. that kind of pressure means I can’t just yolo stab because I’m running around trying to save my sorry kitten .

SlayerSixx.5763:

Shadow.1345:

hisorange.3957:

It’s kinda logic a thief keeping up stealth because moving around in the “shadows” but when they get a greatsword in chest cannot stay “hidden” from our eyes…

The difference being is that thief and mesmer stealth is magic so it’s really more like an invisibility spell than sneaking around in the shadows.

Which achieves the same purpose, although you could use magic as an excuse as to why you can’t physically cut them out of stealth.

That’s my point, cutting them out of stealth is not the logical conclusion because it’s magic.

misterman.1530:

Maybe, just maybe, the OP didn’t mean the actual Traits. What he meant was the ability to pick traits in more than 3 lines? Just maybe that is what he meant. I don’t think OP was defending the old trait acquisition system, nor the actual Trait/Skill combinations.

I, for one, hate the fact I am locked into 3 trait lines. I also hate that I have to take a 3 of each level (adept, master, and grandmaster) – I can’t take 1 Adept and 2 Master traits, for example. So…those arguing that this new system has more diversity…I think you need to look up what “diversity” means.

The ones in favor of this system mean the diversity of more viable builds instead of being locked into a stale meta where one or two builds worked and the rest were scrub builds.

hisorange.3957:

It’s kinda logic a thief keeping up stealth because moving around in the “shadows” but when they get a greatsword in chest cannot stay “hidden” from our eyes…

The difference being is that thief and mesmer stealth is magic so it’s really more like an invisibility spell than sneaking around in the shadows.

First tip is practice, practice, practice. It’s tough going at first but as you play more you will learn more.

For those mesmers, try the target feature with alt-T to put that target on the real one. Als the real one is the one doing evade rolls and has a bunch of buffs. Thief takes a little bit more but if you spam your auto attack and try to keep circling as you move so your back is not exposed helps some. Backstab is garbage when it hits you from the front. Elementalists are a pain but try to save your burst CDs for when they are either in Fire or Air attunement. Earth and Water have too much defense.

Silhouette.5631:

So when my build gets screwed up from an update. Instead of “adapting” and changing to something else, how about I just stand my ground and say “Fix this and give me my defense back”

P.S. Love the new glass cannons. Hate the fact I’m forced to be one of them

You know what else didn’t adapt and decided to stand their ground and wanted an outside force to fix it? Every. Single. Extinct. Species.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

Squee Squashington.5189:

Shadow.1345:

I think the damage for the most part is fine.

Shadow.1345:

But after eating one too many Rapid Fires with only 11.6k HP I knew had to change.

Wut?

The real problem with changing your build to combat the current state of burst is that at the end of the day Build Diversity suffers, which will make for a very stale PvP environment.

I disagree because I am running with a Carrion Amulet for hybrid damage and 20k hp. I tossed on Lyssa Runes and Sigil of Accuracy for a little boost to crit chance (about 20%). Meanwhile a lot of traditional style burst from stealth Thieves are running with Marauder Amulets. Then with those Mara thieves we are seeing those choosing between CS and SA and even with SA not all are doing it for passive heals in stealth because some are choosing venom sharing.

Outside of the people being vocal about wanting to go back to the way things were there are people out there trying new things and finding they can finally use weapon sets that were garbage in PvP before because instead of crying about change they looked at is opportunity. Right now, with this shake up PvP is like chaos and many out there are taking the Littlefinger view and seeing it as a ladder instead of a big black gaping pit.

+1

/15 characters.

Razor.9872:

Shadow.1345:

When the tides of change come some people adapt and swim and some don’t and get swept under it and drown.

I think the damage for the most part is fine. The first day I did alright with the new changes. The second day I noticed I was dying too fast with a Rampager Ammie for hybrid damage and crit procs from sigils. But after eating one too many Rapid Fires with only 11.6k HP I knew had to change. So I went back to the drawing board and worked on finding a new combination of amulet, runes and sigils. Sure I lost some of the crit chance, about 50% of it actually, but gained more condition damage and about 9k hp.

Basically there are those crying for the game to change and there are those who changed to win at the game. And those who changed to win at the game are happy to feast on your tears.

Tears are ascended quality, I’ll give them that. They make fine crafting mats.

LOL XD

ronpierce.2760:

Amulet Two: Power: 1050 Condition Damage: 1050 Precision: 560 Vitality: 560
Reason: Low HP classes could honestly use a “Marauder” version for hybrid DPS, as most times with no toughness, 11k HP these days just isn’t going to cut it.

^ This please. That’s exactly what I have been wanting.

When the tides of change come some people adapt and swim and some don’t and get swept under it and drown.

I think the damage for the most part is fine. The first day I did alright with the new changes. The second day I noticed I was dying too fast with a Rampager Ammie for hybrid damage and crit procs from sigils. But after eating one too many Rapid Fires with only 11.6k HP I knew had to change. So I went back to the drawing board and worked on finding a new combination of amulet, runes and sigils. Sure I lost some of the crit chance, about 50% of it actually, but gained more condition damage and about 9k hp.

Basically there are those crying for the game to change and there are those who changed to win at the game. And those who changed to win at the game are happy to feast on your tears.

Doghouse.1562:

I don’t feel it’s disastrous, but it most definitely lacks the scope for creativity and subtlety that the previous system had. By a HUGE margin.

Under the old system, I make it that there were no less than 30258000 different variations on allocating points on a 6/6/2 spread alone for players to choose from. (Yes, that really does say “Over 30 million”. And, yes, that’s combinations, not permutations, for anyone who thinks that I may have forgotten such things.) And that’s only one of many ways I could have chosen to spread my points out.

One pattern among many; 30 million variations. I’m not going to put the effort to work out the actual answer, because whilst the maths is trivial it’s also tedious, and I’d rather be playing; I only worked out the first number because I’m a maths nerd at heart. But the message is clear, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the final total were well over half a billion.

And, sure, most of those specs were probably obvious rubbish. And lots of good ones were near-identical. But what it meant was that there was a HUGE specification space out there for inventive, creative players to explore for something that suited their play style. That has now gone.

What are we left with? 270 distinct builds (27 different permutations of major trait per Core Specialization; 10 possible combinations of 3 Core Specializations. That’s yer lot).

270 versus maybe half a billion. In any profession, excluding incomplete builds, there are now exactly 270 different ways to fully spec your traits. That’s it. Probability that your “clever” new build is actually simply a carbon copy of lots of others running around out there – 100%. Room for creativity? Pretty much none. We’re going to be running cookie-cutter builds now, whether we want to or not. And, while I don’t dislike the new system per se – that’s a real shame.

(I’m sure that ANet are relying on HoT putting a little bit of variety back in. Undoubtedly it could, to some degree – but not to anything remotely resembling the scope we had before.)

Those ultra creative one of kind of those half-billion builds are what are referred to as “scrub builds”. Some build somebody made to be a special snowflake that is absolutely worthless because they thought it would be fun but spent most of the time in the downed state. Nobody in your dungeon party or on your sPvP team wants your special snowflake build bringing the team down.

Also a sizable portion of those builds that have one or more of those traits now as baseline or had the traits consolidated because they went well together. Keeping in mind that we only get three non-elite utility skills means that you are picking traits to support those you chose. It’s not like you’d take 20% reduced recharge on traps and not have any traps. Then if you are running with traps and did take that trait it’s likely you picked some other trait that made your traps better. Now those traits are consolidated.

With some traits made baseline + consolidated traits actually reduces those half-billion builds greatly because they get removed from the choices. Since combinations are C(n, r) = n!/[(n! – r!)r!] that means removing even 1 selection of a sizable enough group to give combinations in excess of even 1 million is going to result in a much smaller number due to the nature of factorials. So as impressive as 30+ million vs. 270 sounds it was done without taking in consolidation and traits being made baseline into consideration. That’s negligent math.

Also those traits being consolidated and baselined means getting those same traits plus choices in addition as well to what you would take for the synergy or even getting traits that people didn’t pick in favor of better choices, like extra downed state damage.

Ambush Trap not applying Vulnerability or Might when combined with Deadly Trapper.

Bumping this since it is affecting so many and got pushed down by so many other posts.

The old system appeared to allow for more diversity by giving you more to choose from and being able to put adept traits in a master slot and master and adept traits in a grandmaster slot but that is really about it but the stats being tied to trees kinda forced some classes into taking certain trees. And where that wasn’t happening the traits themselves were forcing you to take trees just to get those traits that have now been consolidated.

Take for example the necromancer. If you wanted to run a “well-o-mancer” and focus primarily on having buffed wells you needed 3 different traits over 3 different lines just to get what you can get with one trait now. Minions also were similar in needing more traits to synergize.

Then where things like that weren’t happening a lot of the traits were useless and only good for “scrub” builds. The gutting and consolidating in most parts is something MMOs do because at first they make all these traits and then realize 99% of the players are just taking the same traits because they are the good ones. SWTOR did the same thing just earlier this year. Sure some people lost a few things. I lost Ricochet for pistols but that’s the way the cookie crumbles and I don’t care because overall the new system gives me better choices and +2 slots to choose traits and +2 minor traits.

I double checked this and and neither give the 5 stacks of Might from Deadly Trapper. Ambush Trap doesn’t give the 5 stacks of Vulnerability but Shadow Trap does on the triggering of Shadow Pursuit. Also Shadow Trap show 8 stacks of Vulnerability for 5 seconds in the Shadow Trap part with or without Deadly Trapper but with Deadly Trapper it shows 5 stacks of Vulnerability for 8 seconds in the Shadow Pursuit display as well.