Guild Wars 2

Oolune.4357:

I’ll teach you how to be rid of those trolls. Get six people who are on mumble ready to take turrets. Get them killed, take over the turrets. If you fail that attempt, that sucks, but then the next attempt you have 6 of your own people on them. Everyone deals with trolls or just plain up bad players now and then, but that doesn’t make it impossible.

If you would have read the post, we did that. So what your saying is, that its good design to require people to wait 6+ hours to get into a map, then wait 2 hours for a spawn that is a guarantee fail due to trolls, so they can get the players killed, gain control of the most important mechanic of the fight, then wait another 2 hours for another spawn so they have a single bloody CHANCE to actually try the fight?

Wake up in the middle of the night or early morning, log on and get into the main map, then just afk all day until you can play. Thats about the only real way to get in on most servers. Or do what many people are doing (the reason your not getting in) and find someone already in the map to invite you to a party so you can join them in their map and skip all the people that have been waiting longer than you

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Stx.4857:

1) RNG comes from randomly getting an organized server, or a crappy overflow/server.
2) But if you are not apart of a large guild, then it is RNG because finding one of those organized groups, or a server capable of it, is luck based.
3) All players need to perform basic roles. Turrets are BY FAR the most important per player.
4) Failing should reward us with something, because this game is all about time investment. Even a little Karma would be great.
5) That is your opinion. I enjoy a challenge, I don’t enjoy relying on hundreds of other players to be as prepared as I am, or be as good at jumping over waves as me.
6) Living World content isn’t for everyone? Since when? Surely that is not their intention.

1) RNG doesn’t apply. People organizing and planning strategy does. If you need help finding a group or guild to help, the forums have some wonderful people trying to organize the masses.
2) See #1
3) True, Turrets are important, so is defending them, and killing tentacles, etc.
4) You are rewarded with minor chests. True rewards are for winning.
5) Well, different content appeals to different people. I’m sorry you don’t like Teq.
6) Living World is content made for anyone to enjoy. THAT is Anet’s intention. But it’s also optional. None of my guildies who WvW 24/7 are being forced to do any of the newer content. Yet they’re still having fun in this game.

My server had between 80-100 people on TS today for multiple attempts in a row (I was there for 6 hours, not sure how long that many people were around total), We had 4 commanders per run, each commander with assigned tasks, people were stacked up with their commanders before each spawn. We were ready, we were organized, we had planned and strategized. We failed, consistently. Why? trolls on the turrets. They were reported by many many people each and every single spawn. What happened? Nothing. we continued to fail as they would not get off turrets and wouldnt activate skills.

We tried training mobs into them, and it worked sorta, but also cost us valuable time and destroyed turrets during the fight. Since you say its not based on chance at all, and ALL it takes is organization and planning, clearly you must know a way to gain control of the turrets that nobody on 60 some other servers has figured out yet. Enlighten us with your anti-troll techniques. Or shut the hell up and admit the the design is flawed.

I’d love an invite if this is still going

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

If players quit this game because of the difficulty increase of “endgame” content then shame on them.

So a lvl 55 zone is endgame content now?

Actually there is alot of presentation for the map bosses if you look. On the right side of the screen, usually near the ‘end’ or highest level part of a zone a meta event box will pop up, this will show up even if the event is down telling you the status. things like ‘the swamp is dormant’ ‘so and so has been beaten back for now’ etc. This big orange box with a hint that the swamp is dormant, is telling you that sometimes its NOT dormant and if you follow the events in the area its going to lead to something BIG, every map has at least one of these, they all lead to a big fight and chest

Avatara.1042:

raahk.2786:

Avatara.1042:

FluffyFox.2756:

Avatara.1042:

Shemsu.8721:

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

noticed that i had to rip boons off of a guardian in order to soften it up with S/D on my thief…was with another guardian, we were against a mesmer and a guard. both repplaied boons without a problem, really glassy however i dont see where S/D Larcenous needs a change at all if its a negative change…if anything it needs a buff , a slgiht buff to actually assist in softening up targets more, theyll just easily reapply buffs without a problem..
WHERE…is Larcenous “OP”…seems to be Underpowered if anything.

Pretty much this exactly, in its current state you can burn all your resources cleaning someone of boons, and 3 seconds later the guard/ele/eng/mesmer will have full stacks of everything again while your at maybe 20% initiative. Thats why it was not a worthwhile counter before the buff, and it will again be worthless if its changed as suggested

That is just not true.

Nice counter argument! :P

If they’re going to nerf larcenous strike again, they’d better make it faster, or cost less initiative, because as it is now, it’s a total initiative drain and it’s really slow compared to the old flanking strike, even though the old flanking strike only stripped one boon, it was inexpensive and quick. The nerf to Larcenous strike could make it almost worthless.

Well it was quite obviously false. If you want to argue for changing something, you should actually make real statements.

You aren’t making real statements and aren’t backing up your arguments in the slightest. Saying what he said is “false” is only your opinion, and nothing more. That would be like saying “you suck” to someone that you don’t even know and without listing reasons as to why they suck.

It is patently obvious that what he said is a complete lie. An elementalist cannot completely rebuff in 3 seconds. You cannot just lie your kitten off claiming it as truth with absolutely zero backing, then call someone out for saying you are lying.

An ele can get multiple buffs just by switching attunements, not even using any skills, if they blast a couple fields while switching through 2-3 attunements, your easily looking at 4-5 important boons within a VERY short time frame. Ele aside there are multiple skills for certain professions such as Rage signet, that can provide 2-3 buffs INSTANTLY. So yes it is absolutely needed that LS maintains 2 boons per hit, unless its intended that thieves only play d/d or d/p backstab builds?

Kirschwasser.3972:

He’s asking them to change their change.

/pedantry

They have not made the change yet, so i’m not asking them to change it, i’m asking them not to make it. s/d was not a counter to bunkers before they made it 2 boons, if they change it back to 1 the skill will actually be worse than it was before. The original incarnation of FS was an on demand evade, the current version is a chain skill, so you cant always have the evade available, in addition the original version was over twice as fast to execute as the new version. So the evade got made non spammable, and the skill got slowed down ALOT, the compensation for that was it not removed 2 boons instead of one. if you change it to one, the skill is less useful than it was originally (and it was not a meta build originally)

The ability to fail is fantastic, the only fail condition being an arbitrary timer is absolutely terrible. How about an npc or structure you have to protect, or something like lyssa’s seals. So many possible mechanics for fail conditions, but the whole 15 minutes and Teq has to leave to goto a nail appointment is horrible

Kuruk.8472:

Lostwingman.5034:

Kuruk.8472:

But Tequatl is there for those that would like a more challenging boss fight than what the current loot pinatas have been offering up until now.

So you’ve mastered the “get competent players on the turrets” skill?
Is that available on Overflows or only on main servers?

What this has to do with what I said, I don’t know, but his complaint was why he should bother with Tequatl if he can get more loot from other sources faster.

As for this other jab you gave me, give it time, the new Tequatl has only been out for a little for 24 hours, it’s going to be awhile before people can start beating him consistently.

Actually i think his response is very valid. You can have 80 full geared lvl 80’s coordinated and in teamspeak, and have it ruined by a couple of trolls/griefers. It can take hours of time to get such a group on the same shard, all to be ruined by just a couple people…

Smooth Penguin.5294:

JNetRocks.3652:

Tequatl and all of his boss-brethren needed an update badly.
Standing around spamming 1 was terrible design.
I love his new mechanics. Jumping the waves is amazingly fun. The turrets being essential is great. Requiring players to both attack and defend is fantastic.

That said, this is too hard for open-world content. Even if this was Zhaitan himself, no open-world content should be designed that a ‘regular’ group of players can’t complete it given some effort. That means that Tequatl should be able to be beaten by a group of 30~ lvl 65~ players in green~ lvl 65~ gear.

This dragon as is would be amazing in an instance. He puts Zhaitan to shame.
However in the open world, it just doesn’t fit the game that ArenaNet said they were making, and even as a player who enjoys challenging content (SAB Trib Mode, Liadri <3), I doubt I’ll continue to pursue this as-is.

If it would only take 30 people to kill Teq, then it’s no longer an Elite Boss fight. At that point, you just made “Easy Mode” Tequatl. You might as well ask for the old Teq back, where you just stand under him and spam “1”.

watch bogotters vid of bg’s win on youtube. 90% of those people didnt even bother to jump the waves, all they did was stand under him and spam skills, dont kid yourself the only hard mode about this is waiting in the zone for 8 hours to get into your servers main map, so you can communicate in a single language and/or on a single voip server. The fight itself does not require skill when zerged, and it is the ultimate zerg fest

Aorin.9168:

I live in a townhouse community, it is not my private property. I belong to that community therefore I have first right/reserved parking space. I belong to the Blackgate community and should not be forced onto overflow Tequatl failures because of a design flaw.

If people had their own sense of community and would pull together on their own servers or guest onto one to combine their talents instead of bandwagoning onto blackgate for a “guaranteed kill” this wouldnt be a problem.

It’s like suddenly becoming a Ravens fan after they won the Superbowl.

It IS a design flaw, whether you see it or not.
I’m forced out of my own home world by people guesting from other servers and that is a design flaw.

There is a flaw with this content/design, however its not that you deserve more than other players, the flaw is that the content massively favors stacked servers and is big slap in the face to small servers

Rage.9723:

The new change hardly seems worth it after 100% magic find. Over 250 exotic essences only got me from level 55 to 86 magic find. The scaling is also starting to increase and I am losing the opportunity to sell my blues and greens when I salvage them. You start needing 1000s of greens to make meaningful progress.

MF is not what it used to be, this change was a clever way to massively nerfing most farmers drops, slightly improving the average players drops, and conducting a stupidity check on anyone silly enough to try and continue to pump the stat up, it will cost you way way more to raise the stat then having the stat will ever gain you

Knote.2904:

Shemsu.8721:

Knote.2904:

Would love to see a change to Ranger Longbow’s Rapid Shot, feels so weak and out of place for a slow long bow, would be awesome if it were more like killshot that rooted you to cast.

Stealth into killshot-esque skill would be so satisfying.

Could even make the stealth shot apply vuln like Thief’s cloak n dagger.

Could also make thief’s dagger 1200 range like hunters shot

Only when Hunters Shot becomes spammable and hits like a truck. =p

CnD costs 6 init. thats half our weapon resources, how about when you use hunters shot you get 3x more damage than now and a couple stacks of vuln, but one entire weapon set goes on CD (init is shared for both weapon sets, 6 init is the same as losing an entire weapon set)

Aorin.9168:

So now that Blackgate has been popularized with the world first Tequatl defeat, it has been impossible for myself and multiple friends/guild members to get in the Blackgate Sparkfly Fen map.

I’m willing to bet that more than half of the people occupying the Blackgate Sparkfly Fen player slots are guests from other servers.

I believe that players from the server the map belongs to should have priority over guests, how about you, Anet?

edit: I should add, I’ve been on Blackgate since launch

Yeah it must be all those kitten guesters, god knows its impossible for one of the highest population servers to fill a single map without guesting. Blackgate never has wait times for wvw right? (must be the guesters fault again right?)

Science.6709:

Overflow servers contain people from multiple servers, correct?

How are these people supposed to “hop on mumble” and organize within 15 minutes? This is where I see a huge gap between home servers and overflows with this event.

Pretty much this, one of Anets big things has always been no third party programs, now they design a game without any built in voice communications (and rickety guild/chat system at that) then top it with content that literally REQUIRES either a third party program or built voice comm.

Personally I love the fight and the mechanics of it, i’ve done it 6 times now, the last 3 times I didnt die, the waves are great, taco’s attacks are amazing, its just literally impossible to coordinate enough on an overflow server with 100 random people of random languages from random other servers with random gear and random experience, see where thats leading? If you land on an overflow, you will fail, there is no try, there is only fail.

For my perspective, its been pointed out that stealth is actually a negative in spvp, it hurts much more than helps, this forces thieves to play evasion builds to be effective, now personally, I love both s/d and s/p builds, the problem is that the current meta revolves around conditions, and the only real cleansing thief has is via stealth, so the only good spvp builds we have are countered very effectively by the current condi spam meta, thats just my two cents

Xsorus.2507:

Maugetarr.6823:

Xsorus.2507:

That’s not a draw back.

Cause they’re not doing damage to you.

Esp when Stealth gives you so many benefits.

Now if Stealth didn’t let you heal/remove conditions you might have a point, Because The other person would be getting those benefits while you weren’t.

But considering most thieves can stealth at half health, and come out 4 seconds later with full health and all the conditions removed off of them, You’re not getting a drawback by stealthing.

How do thieves get to full health 4 seconds later? The heal in stealth is only about 330 HPS meaning about 1300 or so health by the end of that. If you have more than 1 damaging condition on you (very likely against engis and necros) all you’re effectively doing is canceling one out until it might get removed at the end of 3 seconds. Other professions have both better passive and active condi removal. Lets take cleansing ire on the warrior for example (comparable since its in their toughness line also); cleansing ire rewards the warrior for being more aggressive instead of backing off, resulting in 3 conditions removed every 7 3/4 seconds while encouraging them to attack for the condition clear. It’s the equivalent to us getting the benefits of ‘while in stealth’ to ‘upon revealed’ instead. That would cause you to benefit from keeping up pressure rather than having to drop pressure 50% or so of the time to gain a noticeable benefit from traiting into stealth.

A. a 1300 Point Heal every few seconds is incredibly powerful. Just look at warriors, who don’t stealth, and you can see how a heal every couple seconds is powerful.

B. You have access to a Heal that removes Most of the damaging conditions off of you, You have a very good Condition Removal ability with the cleanse while in stealth as well. If you’re dying because of conditions that’s on you.

C. Cleansing Ire is incredibly powerful, But then again Warriors are over the top right now, If you want to compare your Cleaning Ability, look at Rangers. We remove 3 conditions every 10 seconds. This is a GM trait, You can remove 4 Conditions every 10 Seconds (5 if you’re really lucky) this is an Adept Trait. All it requires you to do is Stealth, which you’re doing anyway.

If you want to see how powerful Stealth is with these abilities tacked onto them, Don’t drop 30 points in Shadow Arts, and run around WvW for a bit.

So let me understand you correctly, your position is that thieves are notably weaker than warriors, so we should nerf thieves more?

bMd.3579:

Essence Snow.3194:

bMd.3579:

snip

Why does it have to be one way or to the extreme other? Is there something preventing a concession besides condescension?

Hahahaha… forgive me if I find it hard to show respect to people who give up in less than 24 hours after the patch, without having truly tried to beat it.

Its like a marathon runner taking 2 steps and bursting into tears “OMG Its too hard, I can’t do it.”

Seriously, if people want a lack luster, boring game where the “world bosses” can be killed by spamming 1 button….GO ELSEWHERE.

The new Teq has people whining because its a challenge. Most people just whine and cry for a nerf instead of learning the pattern, coordinating with others, and making the effort.

Those same people are the ones who die during the Teq encounter, and just stay there, waiting for a Rez. Instead of releasing and running back from the WP. Not only do they keep the scale up by not releasing, they don’t do any DPS while dead, and when ppl do try to rez them, they indirectly lower the DPS of the group and get some other people killed as well.

So, I do apologize if I sound condescending, but it just annoys me how quickly peopel cry for a nerf, when this is one of the best things Anet has added to the game.

I don’t mind that the legendary weapons look like they were on sale at Walmart, but PLEASE, please please please leave Tequatl as it is now ANet, and make ALL the other world bosses just as Epic and challenging!!!

GW2 NEEDS THAT!!

Nobody said they want a boss to spam 1 at you kitten. We would like a bossfight that when 70+ people are working together on TS cant be ruined by 3-4 troll/griefers and destroy 6+ hours of attempts and hard work. The turrets should be buildable, so when some troll takes over a turret and stands there doing nothing, people can at least construct a replacement

Ryan.8367:

“the evades from flanking strike (which is simply abused to get the boon steal option by flanking striking the air anyway) and bow are what i was referring to by the way.” isnt tied the sentence before it, i was replying to you trying to say that i was talking about traits being the only way (specifically 15 in acro) for evasion. please don’t try to say im tying s/d with 30 in SA when im clearly not. thanks!

In order to make full use of s/d evades you need much more than 15 in acrobatics, 20 pts for 2 init per 10 seconds and 30 pts for 3 init on swap

As far as that goes the original post i replied to falls into the same fallacy that so many anti-thief posts do, you mention a laundry list of things ‘thief can do’ like its something EVERY build can do, completely ignoring that you can only have a fraction of those things in any build. Feel free to return to the fuzzy animal ranger boards

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

noticed that i had to rip boons off of a guardian in order to soften it up with S/D on my thief…was with another guardian, we were against a mesmer and a guard. both repplaied boons without a problem, really glassy however i dont see where S/D Larcenous needs a change at all if its a negative change…if anything it needs a buff , a slgiht buff to actually assist in softening up targets more, theyll just easily reapply buffs without a problem..
WHERE…is Larcenous “OP”…seems to be Underpowered if anything.

Pretty much this exactly, in its current state you can burn all your resources cleaning someone of boons, and 3 seconds later the guard/ele/eng/mesmer will have full stacks of everything again while your at maybe 20% initiative. Thats why it was not a worthwhile counter before the buff, and it will again be worthless if its changed as suggested

Yeni.3507:

Dawdler.8521:

Elite content?

Tequatl is in a mid-level zone and the “first” dragon boss many new players encounter – a world boss version of the Claw Island mission. How exactly is he even supposed to be elite content to begin with!?! I understand if it would have been bloody Jormag, but not the noob dragon.

Next thing people are going to come with the same argument as AC… “Oh but you dont need to be 80 in exotic gear, you can beat him with level 55 characters in greens, us elite players do it all the time!”.

Can a boss be hard? Sure, we like difficult content. But Tequatl is too hard for the zone he is in. People that cant see that are completely blind. They could have made a new Zhaitan world boss in Cursed Shore like this and alot fewer would have complained!

Actually, first dragon boss is the Shatterer, which is still a spam #1 world boss at the moment and only thing patch ever did was triple his hp pool.

As for is Tequatl too hard for the zone he is in?

I think everyone should already know how to dodge by the time of AC(lv30ish) and everyone know how to read(lv???) by defult right? So the only problem is learn the fight and stop just lay there when you are fully dead.

Really thats its? a group of lvl 55 players in green gear that know how to dodge and read is all it takes? I’d like to see that video please.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Shemsu.8721:

Elite content? are you joking? Watch bogotters video, its 100 people ZERGballed up, NOT bothering to dodge the waves, because of instant res, not using any strategy except skillspam in a zergball. If this is your idea of elite content, you need to look up the definition of elite

Teq is now the ultimate example of zerging down a boss, because its IMPOSSIBLE to beat without a massive bg/tc style zerg. other world bosses can actually be defeated by a small group of coordinated players, but this, not ever without a big mindless zerg spamming skills when they come off cd. not elite at all, just requires a larger zerg than other content

Unless you’ve beaten Tequatl, I don’t think you can make any claims that this isn’t Elite level. People are using mechanics of the game. If someone power rezzes the masses using a skill, then it’s working as intended. We’re used to this in WvW, because we’re organized.

I have no issues with banner res, but dont call zergball ‘elite’ content, and yes I understand that wvw has devolved into nothing more than mindless zergs and skill spam/skill lag.

Elite content? are you joking? Watch bogotters video, its 100 people ZERGballed up, NOT bothering to dodge the waves, because of instant res, not using any strategy except skillspam in a zergball. If this is your idea of elite content, you need to look up the definition of elite

Teq is now the ultimate example of zerging down a boss, because its IMPOSSIBLE to beat without a massive bg/tc style zerg. other world bosses can actually be defeated by a small group of coordinated players, but this, not ever without a big mindless zerg spamming skills when they come off cd. not elite at all, just requires a larger zerg than other content

Knote.2904:

Would love to see a change to Ranger Longbow’s Rapid Shot, feels so weak and out of place for a slow long bow, would be awesome if it were more like killshot that rooted you to cast.

Stealth into killshot-esque skill would be so satisfying.

Could even make the stealth shot apply vuln like Thief’s cloak n dagger.

Could also make thief’s dagger 1200 range like hunters shot

Ryan.8367:

who mentioned anything about pairing a s/d weapon set with 30 in SA?

Ryan.8367:

if youre a thief dueling or roaming, youre 30 in SA much like if youre a ranger dueling or roaming youre 30 in WS. the evades from flanking strike (which is simply abused to get the boon steal option by flanking striking the air anyway) and bow are what i was referring to by the way.

Dee Jay.2460:

Advent.6193:

Nah. They didn’t forget that one. It’s more that folk are in arms about a fully mobile anti-stealth maneuver. But, yes – the sheer amount of things that you can do to yourself and get de-cloaked by “accident” is kinda silly.

Yeah, I hate how contrived the whole Revealed mechanic is. I understand why it exists but god kitten it’s so fickle and sensitive to all kinds of things.

Probably because it wasnt part of the initial design, it was added late beta and like most things added last minute, not well thought out or implemented

Ryan.8367:

if youre a thief dueling or roaming, youre 30 in SA much like if youre a ranger dueling or roaming youre 30 in WS. the evades from flanking strike (which is simply abused to get the boon steal option by flanking striking the air anyway) and bow are what i was referring to by the way. teleportation (shadow step from sword , shadowstep utility , shadow trap, you could do it with bow but there’s no point really in a fight its mostly used for mobility outside of combat as the init cost doesnt justify anything in combat – kitten). are you kittening dumb or are you just really that naive of your own thief’s capabilities?

So your suggesting running 30 SA for a s/d evade/boonsteal build? and i’m kittening dumb?

Did people forget about the arrowcart skill that pulls people out of stealth and gives revealed?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toxic_Unveiling_Volley

Ryan.8367:

Shemsu.8721:

Rvb.8297:

This buff to sic em is not going to change anything, i have never ever seen a thief get the full 4 s of revealed, culling issues and all… (or whatever its called). A good thief should never lose to a ranger in a 1v1 (unless he’s bunkering). But no build should ever be able to win against a bunker in a 1v1 anyways… And regarding the ‘nerf’ to larcenous strike: evade, decent to good damage and boon STEALING is a bit OP for a two skill combination. Im surprised they kept it at 1 boon… And i also don’t see why only a few classes should have boon removal….

First off, 4 second reveal is in Spvp, wvw/pve have 3 second reveal, secondly, there is NO way at all in game to reduce revealed, so if you played spvp you sure as hell did see a thief get 4 second reveal, you simply cant count well is all. Third, there is no such thing as culling any longer, it was removed, read patch notes. FS/LS does not do decent to good damage more like bad/mediocre damage, is one of the shortest evades in game and it was made to steal two boons because it wasnt useful when it removed one. Many classes (including yours mr ranger) can reapply boons as fast as they are stripped, and thats with skills like null field, corrupt boon (if 2 boons removed is OP how is ALL of them removed ok?), so changed to 1 boon removed means it is no longer a counter to boon builds, since they can reapply faster than you can remove them, hence it will be useless again

and you have stealth , ability to take boons, ability to evade alot with the correct weapon set (same with rangers – we are also forced to a weapon set except yours does alot more dmg) , ability to burst insane amounts of damage , ability to have 2-3 stun breaks on utility and teleport to different areas in conjunction with a weapon set and a utility. classes have different uses for different things. if rangers had full dmg on their weapons, the crying would be endless and quite frankly , we should be given that option to not take a pet and get the full dmg but anet won’t give it to us.

most of the ranger’s issues against the thief isn’t the ranger himself, it’s the pet ai and mechanics in general. it takes a pet 2 seconds to register someone coming out of stealth before he attacks that person that and it’s a free cnd as the pet can’t dodge not the mention the steal we give you , if running dagger at all is insanely overpowered as HS doesn’t require a huge amount of init vs the heal youre getting AND condition removal out of it. jus sayin, any thief bragging about killing a ranger 1on1 needs to realize how much they actually have it made against us. that’s why we’re getting stealth counter, and like many have said, it’s really not that significant , you just have to pay attention a little more to the skills we use, that’s all.

Wow, so much to respond to. First off, you literally didnt address anything in my post that you quoted, at all. Secondly only thief has 2-3 utility stunbreaks? Really? Every class has the option to take multiple stunbreakers if they so choose.

Then you talk about us having stealth (30 SA for full effect(d/d, d/p, s/d)) ability to take boons (20 trickery (s/d)), heavy evades (15 acrobatics) s/d, d/d, s/p)), “insane burst” (25 DA 30 CS d/d) and “teleport to different areas” first off they broke shadowstep pathing months ago now, it fails more often than it works, secondly in order teleport all over like you say, we would need shortbow and use all our initiative. So lets look at this build you have described 25/30/30/15/20 with d/d, s/d, d/p, and shortbow. When did thief get 120 trait points and 4 weapon swaps?

Advent.6193:

At least Thief Stability can last 9 seconds. A Mesmer’s lucky to get 5-6, and this presumes either:

1. Heavy +Boon Duration
2. 3 Mantra casts.

And if the Blurred Frenzy bit’s any indication, it won’t be long at all before Distortion becomes a random Evade. Not to mention, Blink/Portal trickery has less uptime than
SB Shadowsteps, due to Initiative refilling faster than a utility C/D

Although it can be worse … we can all roll Necro. Stability’s nowhere to be seen, except Elites, or going 30 deep in Soul Reaping for a few seconds upon DS entry.
Which isn’t much, what with the DS overflow “fix.” And no Stealth, or major disengage options.

Blink/portal might have less ‘uptime’ than shortbow shadowstepping, but you can use blink/portal and still maintain 100% offense capability whereas a thief burning init with shortbow shadowsteps cant do anything but autoattack. I’d love to have full utility without reducing myself to autoattack only mode

Dee Jay.2460:

Frankly, before Conditions went apekitten crazy and Necros could dump 6 Conditions + Fear on you within a second this trait made Thieves practically impervious to Conditions.

Any popular Thief build back then would stealth frequently and consequently remove conditions every few seconds.

This trait would be overpowered by all accounts, if Conditions weren’t so out of control as they are now. But they are, and in times where Singet of Agility will remove one of 6 Conditions a Necromancer can apply within seconds without even aiming, this trait is the only tool that allows Thieves to compete.

Pretty much this. Acrobatics needs to be buffed with some significant condi cleanse to get away from stealth gameplay

Velron.3729:

Am I blind? I came to check this thread since there were still no balance fixes in today’s update (only logged in to check the notes)….and I STILL do not see any mention of toning down this boring, no skill, condition spamfest that has become GW2 PVP.

Someone please tell me I am blind and just missed it.

Your neither blind, nor missed it. They dont intend to tone done condi spam, in fact they will further reinforce it by nerfing the few remaining non condi builds left. As example see the nerfs to thief stealth and s/d builds, whats left d/d condi spam!

Rvb.8297:

This buff to sic em is not going to change anything, i have never ever seen a thief get the full 4 s of revealed, culling issues and all… (or whatever its called). A good thief should never lose to a ranger in a 1v1 (unless he’s bunkering). But no build should ever be able to win against a bunker in a 1v1 anyways… And regarding the ‘nerf’ to larcenous strike: evade, decent to good damage and boon STEALING is a bit OP for a two skill combination. Im surprised they kept it at 1 boon… And i also don’t see why only a few classes should have boon removal….

First off, 4 second reveal is in Spvp, wvw/pve have 3 second reveal, secondly, there is NO way at all in game to reduce revealed, so if you played spvp you sure as hell did see a thief get 4 second reveal, you simply cant count well is all. Third, there is no such thing as culling any longer, it was removed, read patch notes. FS/LS does not do decent to good damage more like bad/mediocre damage, is one of the shortest evades in game and it was made to steal two boons because it wasnt useful when it removed one. Many classes (including yours mr ranger) can reapply boons as fast as they are stripped, and thats with skills like null field, corrupt boon (if 2 boons removed is OP how is ALL of them removed ok?), so changed to 1 boon removed means it is no longer a counter to boon builds, since they can reapply faster than you can remove them, hence it will be useless again

Zanryu.3417:

Shemsu.8721:

Zanryu.3417:

It does my heart good to see a stealth class get a major nerf to that mechanic. For those of you complaining about a useless trait line… you do realize every class tends to have a PvE and a PvP build right? There are traits on classes that are useful for PvP or PvE, but usually not both as they don’t offer what you’d need in such a situation depending on your build or what your’e going for. Surely the other 4 trait lines of a Thief could be used for PvP and the stealth line could be used in a PvE build?

jajajaja?

You should learn more about classes before posting. at most a thief will run 10 SA in pve, only for reduced init on stealth to maintain long term backstab rotations. otherwise no thief with half a brain would run SA in PVE, its a complete DPS waste and all it serves is to draw more agro to your thief. So SA is already useless in PvE, so lets make it useless in pvp also? good idea right jajajaja?

Huehuehue that’s not completely useless ehuaehuaehua.

Being able to stealth for over half a fight is complete garbage of a mechanic and anyone with half a brain would realize that. Thieves already have excellent dodge and access to blinds, oh and let’s not forget the teleports. The amount of stealth they have to go with that is absolute overkill. Some kind of nerf to it is more than welcome in my opinion, please accept my sincerest apologies that you can no longer spend most of your time in stealth.

Pfftbahhaahahahaha sorry, I couldn’t say that with a straight face. Ah. A thread of kitten thieves sure does brighten one’s day.

Ohh yeah I forgot about the infamous 30/30/30/30/30 thief build, with double trait selections, max dps with d/d, perma stealth with d/p, infinite teleports with sb, max evades and boonsteal with s/d (did i mention thief has at least 4 weapons swaps too). You certainly know how the game works

And for the record I dont run a stealth build on my thief, I find stealth more useful on my engi and mesmer

Zanryu.3417:

It does my heart good to see a stealth class get a major nerf to that mechanic. For those of you complaining about a useless trait line… you do realize every class tends to have a PvE and a PvP build right? There are traits on classes that are useful for PvP or PvE, but usually not both as they don’t offer what you’d need in such a situation depending on your build or what your’e going for. Surely the other 4 trait lines of a Thief could be used for PvP and the stealth line could be used in a PvE build?

jajajaja?

You should learn more about classes before posting. at most a thief will run 10 SA in pve, only for reduced init on stealth to maintain long term backstab rotations. otherwise no thief with half a brain would run SA in PVE, its a complete DPS waste and all it serves is to draw more agro to your thief. So SA is already useless in PvE, so lets make it useless in pvp also? good idea right jajajaja?

Fortus.6175:

Shemsu.8721:

Actually I find the opposite to be true. When i’m playing my thief I have 0 room for error, one mis-timed dodge and i’m done (even in soldiers gear in wvw) you have to play perfect to succeed. Guardian; ACTUAL INVULNERABILITY! not to mention highest armor, some of the highest healing, aegis, protection, massive aoe cc, highest damage specs is there anything that guardian and warrior dont have?

Im sorry but you are wrong, if you are dying in WvW more often as a thief than as a guardian you are doing Oh so very wrong!.

Guardians have no disengages and the only invulnerability they have at command cannot be used while CC’d and has a veeeeery long CD, longer than any stealth skill of thieves. No amount of aegis or protection will save you from a focused fire of a zergs, once you commit to a fight as a guardian, thats it, you either win or die. But as a thief you have the short bow and several stun breakers on top of perma stealth to keep you alive, unless you are going head first into the fight in which case thats just unskilled playing of the class.

My guess? Lets hope you were lying because otherwise you will appear as not only a liar, but a very unskilled player.

No, I just dont play a stealth build on my thief. However if we are talking about strong survivable classes. Who was the first to attain 250k kills, dominator title. It wasnt a thief, it was ohhh my goodness a guardian, who would have thought. and the guardian doesnt need more than one invuln, with such high access to protection, aegis, healing, high base armor what else do you want, thats literally every defense in the game

Knote.2904:

SteepledHat.1345:

Play a thief for a while and they don’t seem overpowered. So many newbies in this thread.

Sorry but you would regret saying that as people find out how simple and forgiving it is to play Thief and just reinforce their QQ of the class lol.

Actually I find the opposite to be true. When i’m playing my thief I have 0 room for error, one mis-timed dodge and i’m done (even in soldiers gear in wvw) you have to play perfect to succeed. However when i play my warrior or guardian its an entirely different story, I usually watch tv while playing those two toons, because I dont need to pay attention, just hit 1-10 keys randomly and pick up loot bags, nothing is more forgiving than having access to ACTUAL INVULNERABILITY! not to mention highest armor, some of the highest healing, aegis, protection, massive aoe cc, highest damage specs is there anything that guardian and warrior dont have?

TheJokester.4672:

Kaon.7192:

I don’t think giving other classes the Revealed status is an acceptable way to provide counter-play to invisibility.

Revealed, as a self-regulation mechanic on Thieves for Stealth attacks, is perfectly fine. However, when given to other classes to apply on Thieves, Revealed becomes a hard-counter to the Stealth mechanic, completely disabling the mechanic and all it’s related effects and abilities and traits that depend on it. Revealed disables an entire traitline of utility effects for the Thief and disables the Thief’s best burst/control/condi abilities (Stealth attacks), severely crippling any Thief built around any of the above aspects.

Hard counters should not exist in a balanced game, because they result in rock-paper-scissors interaction between classes and builds that are simply not fun for the player on the wrong side of the equation.

The fact that hard-counters do not exist currently in GW2 for any other major mechanic for any class is what I consider to be one of the most impressive accomplishments in the design and balance of the PvP aspect of the game. This will no longer be the case once Revealed becomes available to other classes.

---

I would like to suggest an alternative to Revealed in the form of another effect that specifically counters invisibility, rather than the entire Stealth mechanic. Let’s call it “Detected” for now.

The Detected effect will make the Thief fully visible and targetable for its duration, but will not prevent the Thief from entering the Stealth state itself like Revealed does. This effect will provide counter-play to the invisibility aspect of the Stealth mechanic, but will still allow Thieves to go into the Stealth state to gain the effect of any traits he built for and to access stealth attacks that are a key component of a majority of Thief builds.

In other words, Detected would be a soft-counter to the invisibility aspect of Stealth, but will not hard-counter the entirety of the Stealth mechanic like enemy-induced Revealed would. Detected should be implemented in place of Revealed in the upcoming Sic Em change, and in the previously implemented Stealth Traps in WvW, and in any similar anti-stealth skills going forward.

I feel this would be provide counter-play to invisibility while being much fairer to Thief builds that rely on the Stealth mechanic.

Thoughts?

I got some thoughts on this hard counter? it can be evaded no? in a balanced game? you consider thieves balanced? vanish from a zerg and escape is balanced? get real kid time of face roll keyboarding to win is over it’s time to develop skill and if u rely on stealth to do dmg you need a lot of practice also in the dagger since of stealth attack relies on being invisible ie it does more damage from flank or in the back not the face argument invalid and you keep failing to realize how you refer to stealth yea u get unique attacks for bein in it but also relies on you not being seen for it to be any use if u can be seen we can still hit you making ur stealth STILL WORTHLESS big whoop u might get initiative regen and hp regen but its not going to counter 2-4k dmg every swing on you nor are u going to be able to kite the person because ur used to actually being invisible

I cant really understand most of your post, however as to being evaded. Sic Em is presently an instant cast shout, how exactly do you evade that? as to the rest, it doesnt make sense, maybe english isnt your first language, if so I apologize

Sanduskel.1850:

No need for petty insults. The stealth counter will make the game fun again. It’s really not fun being able to perma stealth without consequences. You also missed the several improvements that anet is giving us. From a WvWvW thief, thank yo Anet!

I was speaking specifically to thief related changed, other improvements aside, I dont see anything positive that relates to thief. As for perma-stealth without consequences, I agree entirely, however this rock/paper/scissors nonsense is not the answer. Its actually very very simple to fix, put a 3 second ICD on infusion of shadow, no more perma stealth build and it doesnt hurt any legitimate stealth build/use. But giving other classes a literal I Win button against thief is just terrible design

Sanduskel.1850:

Black Teagan.9215:

Sanduskel.1850:

My thief fully heals while stealthed…

…and your heal stay even so under the heal from the warriorsignet, and stealth is not permanent

What are you trying to communicate?

I think these changes are a big buff to thieves. Thank you anet!

I think what he’s trying to say is that yes a thief can heal good while staying in stealth (assuming 30 pts in SA) and doing no damage, accomplishing nothing. Whereas a warrior can also heal to full, without stealth, while maintaining full dps. As for this buff to thieves… I think you read the wrong patch notes, there is no improvement to thief at all, while its not as kittenome claim, there is certainly no positive. Care to share what your smoking?

keenlam.4753:

Can mesmers Veil skill apply revealed to enemy crossing it as well?

Sure, when thief smoke fields banish clones/phantasms and prevent the mesmer from creating more for the duration

Terrahero.9358:

Revealed on an ability that requires a visible target is no more a counter to Stealth then Stun or Daze is.
It might last a bit longer, but we dont know that yet.

As it stands there is still nothing to actively track a Thief in stealth or pull him out if it, and that is what i consider an actual counter to Stealth.

actively track a thief in stealth? what is the point of stealth then?

Xsorus.2507:

Shemsu.8721:

Xsorus.2507:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth, and the opponent controls whether/when to activate it?

Right. I didn’t think so.

Yes, Rangers…When you flat out kill their Pet.

But to answer your question, stealth is not your mechanic..When will you Thieves realize this.

Steal is….Stealth is just something you have similar to Rangers with Evade to avoid damage.

It is not an actual Mechanic you have though.

You are correct in that stealth is not a mechanic exclusive to thieves, 4 of the 8 classes have stealth access. However stealth attacks ARE a mechanic exclusive to thieves, and are completely disabled by an enemy controlled on demand revealed. No other class can have their exclusive abilities disabled like this.

Other then the Ranger, who can have his F2 Abilities completely disabled by the killing of his pet.

And for the guy who said damage is not a counter, It most certainly is a counter. Where you get the idea that killing a pet classes Pet isn’t a counter to them because its damage is completely mind boggling. In no MMO game is this not the counter to a Pet Class.

How did you stop a Bone dancer in DAOC? You killed his Pet

How did you Stop a hunter in WoW, You Kill his pet.

How did you stop a Necromancer in Rift, you killed his pet.

Killing the pet is the counter, In Guild Wars 2, This not only removes a large portion of the Rangers Damage, It removes passives like Empathetic Bond and Natural Healing if they spec for them. This is no different from a Thief being Revealed. Just because they’re adding an actual counter to Stealth in the game doesn’t mean you’re some how persecuted.

So attacking a rangers pet (that can be made invulnerable by the ranger) is the counter to rangers pet mechanics, but damaging and killing a thief in stealth is not a counter? It goes both ways, if damage is enough of a counter against rangers/pets, its enough of a counter against stealth.

Xsorus.2507:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth, and the opponent controls whether/when to activate it?

Right. I didn’t think so.

Yes, Rangers…When you flat out kill their Pet.

But to answer your question, stealth is not your mechanic..When will you Thieves realize this.

Steal is….Stealth is just something you have similar to Rangers with Evade to avoid damage.

It is not an actual Mechanic you have though.

You are correct in that stealth is not a mechanic exclusive to thieves, 4 of the 8 classes have stealth access. However stealth attacks ARE a mechanic exclusive to thieves, and are completely disabled by an enemy controlled on demand revealed. No other class can have their exclusive abilities disabled like this.

Lonesamurai.4852:

Shemsu.8721:

Ace.1726:

Surely this can’t be it when they mean raids. Essentially Tequatl is a dps test, nothing like a what a real raid is.

Guild Wars 2 needs more exclusive content, something not everyone can do. Right now there is no reason to be good at your class everything is so easy in the game all you have to do is use zerker gear and auto attack essentially.

MattVisual mentions on GuildCast that Tequatl was what Arenanet meant when they said Guild Wars 2 style raids, I’m hoping he’s wrong but I had an inkling that was the case even before.

Can a dev confirm or deny this? Are Arenanet working on actual raids?

No. Just No. This game does not need content that locks out a part of the playerbase, in fact this game was built on the idea of not doing that.

But we all know how closely they’ve stuck to THAT ethos for the game

Actually I think they’ve done a good job of creating content and systems that doesnt lock out players. The only thing that comes close is high level fractals are gear gated, however one can experience the content and low lvl fractals without any gear reqs, and the early agony at 10+ can be healed through, so it takes very little to even get to the lvl 20 range. So far nobody is kept out of any content, I’d like to see it stay that way

Void.4239:

Brando.1374:

this is a nerf to all conditions that cant stack to 25.

think you got it wrong.

All duration stacking boons and conditions now stack to a maximum of 5 times.

(i just removed the (tralalala ) between the text, should be clear now)

This does NOT touch boons or conditions that stack like bleed or might.

All it does is make things that stacked in duration now only stack 5 times max .
Like poison / regeneration.
And its only a nerf for the rare cases where duration stacking was a problem .

1) nerf to burn ( in zergfights only)
2) nerf to poison ( in zergfights only)
3) nerf to boons ( that had longer duration then recharge )
4) buff to immobilize

in other words its a nerf to zergers in pvp

It affects alot more than that, almost all the conditions applied by our venoms fall into that list, this is a complete screw you to venom share is what it is. as example, you cast spider venom, next 5 attacks on you and your 4 mates apply poison. thats 25 applications, except now its only 5, which you could have done yourself without a 30 point SA trait, so what exactly is that point of that grandmaster trait?

Brando.1374:

this is a nerf to all conditions that cant stack to 25.

Exactly, and considering most of those conditions make up our venoms, what exactly is the point of sharing them with 5 people now?

Eodwen.2613:

Shemsu.8721:

IHowever I do agree that counterplay is a good thing, so now that rangers can disable thief class mechanic with the press of a single button, where are the skills to disable deathshroud, remove the abillity to summon clones/minions, or disable virtues/burst skills etc?

I do not think adding buffs to selected classes that target specific mechanics of other classes is the way to go. Might as well end up to a rock paper scissor type of balance.

I was actually being sarcastic, I know we wont get anything like that. Is there a trap in wvw that nullifies class mechanics for any class but thieves? nope. They will stick to anti stealth skills, and apply them to more classes in future updates dont worry

Sil.4560:

Shemsu.8721:

Really? because any group I see running in WvW has at least one ranger, zergs have many rangers always. However I do agree that counterplay is a good thing, so now that rangers can disable thief class mechanic with the press of a single button, where are the skills to disable deathshroud, remove the abillity to summon clones/minions, or disable virtues/burst skills etc?

I’d actually like to see something like a de-summon or an ability along those lines. That might be interesting, if niche. The thing with stealth is that you could literally kite around and harass a group as a thief with next to nothing stopping you. Having something threaten that guaranteed escape actually gives thieves a lose condition they needed to stop some of that silly stealth trolling. Maybe.

As to other thief changes along with it, you mean a further nerf to s/d, or the ‘buff’ to venom share (while at the same time making the spec even worse than before, since you cant stack any of the condi’s above 5 anyway)

I was thinking something for the future, actually. If other classes get abilities that can do this, thieves will probably be compensated in some way.

Yeah, i’m very skeptical of them fixing things in ‘the future’. Devs said in a SOTG months ago that they were going to improve thief mobility, they followed that by nerfing the stunbreaker on sword, nerfing the range on shadow return, destroying the pathing on shadowsteps. They also said they wanted to improve thief condi specs, which they followed by nerfing caltrops, nerfing lotus poison, removing weakness from skale venom.

So understand when i see nerfs to both stealth gameplay and evasion gameplay, with absolutely no mention of any improvement, i’m not pleased