Guild Wars 2

Lamuness.3570:

What does stowing BP do? I’m not sure I see the benefit of it.

It’s a tell, the animation of you raising your gun will often cause people to dodge, so if you cancel it and don’t use your port they blow a dodge on nothing.

Can I have some plz

I mean if we convince ANet to make it mail able and tradeable at the trading post

Check the combat log to be sure. If you have Poison and take a hit right as you use withdraw it can look like it did nothing.

New meta, Abduction and Steal into Ring of Warding once live. Auto abduct kd OP.

tichorum.2415:

So everything is reset except for MMR and win/loss?

The new rating system doesn’t exactly exist yet in live, so technically your rating isn’t being reset.

ANet has released that MMR will be part of finding matches, so it would be silly for them to reset it and not use their current data set to assist in creating quality matches.

I think warbanner, time warp, Lich, and the tomes are the skills you’re looking for then.

These elites you’d save for a team fight and require coordinating with your team to be able to land these effectively.

KrisHQ.4719:

You can reach the full potential of all these skills in a solo-situation, which is what I want to avoid. I want skills that become extremely powerful if they are coordinated well within the team, and may be lacking in a solo situation or without a proper setup.

The full potential of the skills I listed is achieved when synchronizing them with your team. The results are simply more potent when used in team situations as I described, as opposed to when used individually.

Basilisk Venom, Fiery Greatsword, Supply Crate, Renewed Focus, and Tornado all have team applications.

Basilisk Venom you call to setup a spike, just like any CC,

Fiery Greatsword you leave on the map for your allies to rotate more quickly.

Supply crate has so much team support I’m confused as to why it was brought up, you drop health kits for allies and stun for stomp situations, and applies loads of pressure.

Renewed Focus gives you your virtues back so you can pop them for team support, it’s also a useful LoS tool for your team vs projectiles.

Tornado is useful in down situations to knock the enemy off their ally, it’s also good in conquest for the same reasons.

coglin.1867:

Shockwave.1230:

The only thing limiting/creating build diversity is ANet.

That is not true. Throughout the games history, we have had “metas” change completely between updates. There have been times in which builds have changed entirely, and Anet changed nothing to create that. Players affraid to experiment in serious competition, outside of the “meta” is as problematic as anything Anet does or doesn’t.

Past metas don’t matter, build diversity is up to ANet. The best builds shake themselves out and become meta over time. What was previously meta that still is not, is so because it’s not as effective as the current meta builds. The more time that passes after changes that ANet makes to balance the more build diversity shrinks, because players get better at managing risk/reward those builds end up becoming the most used.

The only thing limiting/creating build diversity is ANet. They could make changes to Skills, Traits, Amulets, or Runes/Sigils to change build diversity.

Runes and Sigils are one of the smaller pieces impacting build Diversity. The other 3 are much more significant than Runes/Sigils.

Shun the non believer!

Shun!

Chaith et all you really don’t need to waste your time bro, anyone who pays attention to PvP at the upper levels understands the need for cele ele to be nerfed. You don’t need to convince everyone, but if you want to try go ahead.

Fix incoming 12/2

I struggle playing mind games with playing D/P. I’m not really talking about someone else’s attempt to for a move from me. I’m talking about me doing things that will force a misplay by someone else.

Things I currently do:

• Enter stealth
• Stow weapon black powder as an opening
• Dodgeroll Basi and HiS
• Cast SR away from me while in stealth
• Cast Shadow Return while in SR

Besides those, I’m afraid to use my utilities to bait people, and don’t find value in cancel casting skills once engaged as a D/P thief.

None of the above is D/P specific though, you can do all those in any other weapon set, besides stowing Blackpowder as an opener.

Is there anything exclusive to D/P that you can do?

1. Yes – Glorious armor, and Glorious Heroes Armor
2. No
3. There are reward tracks, there is the champion brawler title, but nothing new.

No gear grind, ascended is all, kkthxbye

Oh by the way guys, if you thought D/D Ele Was strong before swap Doom sigil for Energy and swap your runes to Orr.

All credit to Zoose, let’s shift the meta D/D Build to this stronger version sooner than later and talk about balancing it based off of that.

As a side note, ZOOSE WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DISCOVER A WAY TO TURN D/D ELE INTO THE ONPOINT VERSION OF S/D THIEF.

Discuss

Can’t shave all that, it’ll hurt the build too much.

The Drake’s breath change,
Some change to lightning whip/stow,
and potentially bring Renewing Stamina in line with it’s sister traits across professions…

… and that would be a good starting point for the nerfs.

Not cheating bro, sync queuing.

Sometimes the people syncing fight each other by the way. Probably a 50-50 shot they’ll be on opposite teams.

It’s something you do when you want to play with people you know while in solo queue.

Doesn’t matter come next patch though, so no point in complaining.

My thief forget’s what stealth is sometimes

Cool stuff mucho <3o

What the OP is describing is being able build around compensating for your own strengths and weaknesses.

In PvP there is less flexibility for this, which is fine.

People I’ve talked to are often scared to PvP because they can’t mix zerker stats and soldier stats. However if that stat combination was possible it would likely dominate other power stat combinations.

I think ANet was smart to remove this kind of fine tuning and keep it simple, because the game becomes more about who can play a role in a team better, and less of who has better built stats. And pvp is all about out playing your opponents not outbuilding them.

One of the biggest issue I see with the information we have so far is that this system can continue to be gamed with multiple accounts.

Players with multiple accounts can continue to throw games by logging onto their alt account and leaving the match. This means players with these falsely tanking accounts can boost their rating by playing together and appearing weaker than they are through mixing play on their alts and main accounts with other players doing the same thing.

Do disconnections apply dishonor? Because some people legitimately have a problem where they DC occasionally during a match. If this happens in 1 match they could lose progress for the next three they would win.

At the same time, it’s easy to fake a disconnect and relog on a different character.

Edit

Also are you worried that because disconnects have such a severe impact on rankings and ratings that it will incentivize people to DDOS those that are high up on the leaderboards?

Edit 2
Or worse, just DDOS the game servers and start hitting as many people’s ratings as possible?

Edit 3
It looks like if you have interrmittent disconnects that happen once and a while and during the wrong match, you will have to play a total of up to 3 or 4 matches and win latter 2-3 to make up for the DC in these situations.

This is very worrying to me.

Edit 4
Just imagine a period of time where your isp is having trouble, and you get connection issues. If a DC happens multiple matches in a row that’s terrible for a players rating.

Additionally, once a player does DC, there’s literally ZERO incentive for them to continue playing if they take the maximum penalty, which would severely impact the rest of the players as well. So a single DC could literally impact my rating even if I’m not the one who DC’s.

Peow peow.2189:

press 4 (daze) auto attack, press 4 daze auto – steal fear – auto – daze auto daze auto steal auto

They literally get interrupted between each cast. You must open with a decent burst tho – so either open from stealth or black powder heart seaker steal combo.

and instantly use fear after steal

This is wrong or troll, don’t waste initiatve like this.

Spirit Watch and Sky Hammer in Tournament rotations by the end of next year

Just wait

I’d rather not see the most prestigious armor in the game be handed out willy nilly.
40 players getting a piece is already generous.

This is true of any meta build imo

If you need portal and cant get condi pressure from anything else in your team comp, maybe it’s worth a try, but it’s so unproven it’s hard to justify currently.

If it’s something you want to investigate, id start with Celestial amulet and probably pack runes with double battle sigil as your base and slowly transition a shatter build into a condi/hybrid and see where it takes you. It could end up playing similarly to shatter or end up completely different.

This is an old discussion topic.

Huge trait investment, a Telegraph makes all of these steal trait builds unviable, steal does too much, if you change what steal does you’re just moving it to something else, thief is in a good place balance wise, changes for the sake of making changes.

Tired arguments.

SR is in a solid place.

Locking people in place for 4 seconds to gain the benefit is a solid way to add counterplay to it.

IMO Portal has a similar role to SR, but Portal is far stronger. I don’t see any reason to change Portal, so a weaker rotational utility I see no reason to change either.

When they enter death shroud run through them to cancel their auto attacks. Interrupt Life Transfer, Dodge/Blind Tainted Shackles, Stun Break vs the fear.

When they’re in staff blind their marks as they cast them with shadow shot, dodge roll over the marks without a skull.

When they’re in their power sets play stealth and burst.

edit
If they choose not to move while casting one from death shroud, drop black powder on them, their attacks will either be blinded or they are forced to move and you can run through them to cancel the ds one attack.

Hi all,

Here’s a topic for discussion that seems interesting to talk about.

“What professions/builds are a must in a comp at the moment?”

My opinion is Terrormancer and D/D Elementalist are a clear must in a comp, the condi pressure and sustain those two offer feels too valuable to pass up. If the rest of your team is designed around a 3 point strat, I think that actually makes these two builds even stronger.

Intelligence and Battle are good sigils for hybrid builds.

Abjured be like “Quaggans, mechanical skill in NA is what our bruiser meta is gonna try to skirmish with TCG”

TCG be like “EU is ‘bout pro strats, because Abjured ain’t use to team fights and back caps, delete thief, ROM’s Ramblings of Radness.”

Both be like “Not sayin’ we’re gonna win, but we did get rekt in Gophers, but it’s all good cuz practice.”

sinject.4607:

Shockwave.1230:

I disagree that critical strikes is out damaged by deadly arts in a team setting. I’m not sure about a 1v1 setting because I haven’t paid enough attention to it, but the difference is clearly noticeable in 2v2 or greater fights that the high crit chance, quickness, and executioner deals more damage. I especially disagree when your fights involve someone who can might stack.

you are then, objectively wrong.

i don’t mean “it just feels stronger”

i mean mathematically, you are wrong.

6/2/0/0/6 with dagger training and/or revealed training will pretty much always out damage 2/6/0/0/6.

I think you’re missing context. In a team scenario I’m not the only one pushing someone down to 50% health to trigger executioner.

I disagree that critical strikes is out damaged by deadly arts in a team setting. I’m not sure about a 1v1 setting because I haven’t paid enough attention to it, but the difference is clearly noticeable in 2v2 or greater fights that the high crit chance, quickness, and executioner deals more damage. I especially disagree when your fights involve someone who can might stack.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

it is working as intended.

the pet revive action can be interrupted by the way.

Except when they do the revive while invulnerable

Because it is???

sinject.4607:

Shockwave.1230:

Because ele’s, guards and engi’s have so much AoE condi clear that people’s personal condi clear and personal defenses don’t have to be used as often, which means in some situations it’s preferable to have the higher dps whereas in other situations it’s better to have the immobilize.

Personally I find the stealth shortbow immobilize adequate, especially when you have quickness or cast from full range to land the immob twice.

One is not better than the other in my opinion, I just find that I’m more effective on crit strikes, especially when the other thief is S/D

if you don’t need the condi clear, then 6/2/0/0/6 is still way better than 2/6/0/0/6.

here’s why:

• power > precision + ferocity.
  with beserker’s amulet, we have a base crit chance of 35%.
  a two point investment into critical strikes brings us to 40%.
  pack runes bring that total up to 46%.
  keen observer puts us at 51% when over 90% hp.
  pack runes 4th effect gives 10sec of fury on a 20sec cd.
  thrill of the crime gives you another 10sec of fury on a 21.5sec cd.
  critical strike’s adept major trait choice can either be: side strike, a constant 7% crit chance when attacking from the side or behind, or furious retaliation,

so, assuming the most ideal conditions possible (over 90% hp, attacking from the back w/side strike, with fury up) your backstabs are going to have a 78% crit chance.
more realistically though, you probably wont have keen observer up so your actual chance is probably more around 73%, which means just about 3/4ths of all your backstabs will crit; not bad, considering they’ll be hitting harder.

compared to fully investing in critical strikes, you’re literally only losing 9% crit chance, since the power increase will more than make up for the lost ferocity.

here’s some more reasons why it’s better:

• condition duration increase goes well with condition damage from trickery.
• condition duration also contributes to the team more by making your poison, weakness, vulnerability, immobilization, blinds, etc. last longer.
• panic strike gives thief an incredibly threatening 3.25sec immobilization that synergizes with burst extremely well, easily trapping enemies that would want to escape.
• revealed training makes you hit like an absolute truck after your backstabs, making you incredibly deadly as your burst is now effectively extended by revealed training.
• deadly arts also synergizes with trickery in that is makes steal even stronger through serpent’s posion, mug, lotus poison, and improvisation.
• critical haste is out performed by sigil of rage + sigil of air
• critical strikes’ adept minor and gm minor are only active for a small portion of fights, since you need to be above 90% hp and have >6 initiative for them to work, respectively.
• executioner averages out to only be a 10% damage increase, since it doesn’t do anything until the enemy is below 50% hp, making it near useless against tanky builds that can easily sustain themselves past 50% hp.

since the reality is that you’ll most often only have either executioner or first strikes working and not both, the actuality is that the two average out to be a relatively inconsistent 10% damage increase, whereas deadly arts’ exposed weakness offers a much more constant 10% damage increase, since thief always has ways of easily applying conditions on every single weaponset.

I don’t find panic strike as good as executioner vs Ele and Engi (guardian too), because their personal defenses or condi clear make the immob moot most of the time.

My role is to play finisher and with those builds so heavy in the meta I like executioner. I also like critical haste for that role.

I think panic strike can be better a lot of times vs zerker classes and sometimes necro when condi xfer isn’t available, but I feel confident enough in the critical line. I think panic strike is terrible vs S/D thief which is another reason I don’t run it, but it is strong vs critical d/P if you catch me without being able to port to another enemy or with shadow step on cd.

If cleansing and personal defense abilities weren’t as prevalent then I’d like panic strike strike better. As for the extra raw power damage of panic strike, it’s value diminishes when you’re around a guardian, ele, or warrior and you’re picking up might stacks from them or via shortbow.

Yes engi’s have insanely spammy easy to use super strong cleave that once applied is very passive damage that allows them to safely range and/or LoS.

But their high power damage is at least active.

And yes their survivability is extremely strong due to passive regen and the best heal in the game and their Dot block and their invulnerability and stealth and CCs (soft and hard) and their range.

And yes their cool downs are such that they can always be using something strong at all times.

But let’s be real, every profession has things that feel OP.

sinject.4607:

glock.6590:

The good streamers dont play panic strike D/P. There is sizer which is S/D, caed D/P crit strikes and Magic Toker that is also S/D.

Anyway panic strike plays the same as other builds , I dont know why you are only looking for panic strike D/P…

eurostrike >>> americrit

i honestly have no idea why 2/6/0/0/6 is so much more popular than 6/0/2/0/6 despite the fact that 6/0/2/0/6 is so much better.

Because ele’s, guards and engi’s have so much AoE condi clear that people’s personal condi clear and personal defenses don’t have to be used as often, which means in some situations it’s preferable to have the higher dps whereas in other situations it’s better to have the immobilize.

Personally I find the stealth shortbow immobilize adequate, especially when you have quickness or cast from full range to land the immob twice.

One is not better than the other in my opinion, I just find that I’m more effective on crit strikes, especially when the other thief is S/D

NeXeD.3042:

I would also be willing to bet there are some players that are so mechanical their timings would be very close, my only question would be how are they measuring the timings, or at least how accurate

Many macros can be assigned timings in milliseconds, ANet has 0 reason to communicate their logging methods, but it’s possible to check intervals smaller than milliseconds.

It’s also not about checking that a couple of inputs were executed with perfect timing. It’s about measuring a body of inputs and being able to see the variance that human error creates.

Even the most mechanically adept players don’t have the exact same timing when you’re measuring at millisecond increments and smaller.

Also I’ve heard conversations of attempts at methods to request from the operating system what mouse/keyboard are in use.

Ideally if companies could compile a list of known processes that can execute macros and make that a living list and request that the OS send back if a program is running that has a match to that list that would be another way of identifying who to check on to see if they are running macros.

Poke around with the elementalist weapons, ranger weapons, and necro weapons. I think one of those three you’d like based upon what you’ve previously enjoyed. However, if you really want a change of pace from your current two Engi, Guardian, and Warrior are very different.

T raw.4658:

If Anet banned based on key input times A LOT of players would have been unjustly banned.

People who bot are running macros for hours repeatedly not 1 second every so often.

It’s not hard to identify a macro, they have very easy to identify input patterns that make them standout.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

So, does this mean we can use these music macros to play Bell Choir? If not, how does the game know the difference? Or is it just a matter of reporting people who seem good at the content?

Seems like a bad idea to me. /shrug

Is that the mini game? If so and you use a macro for it, you’ll be warned/banned if you have a multi action macro and are found out, since it’s giving an advantage at completing game content (and a kind of pvp?).

The policy on Macro’s is clear, you can’t use macro’s that give you an advantage in completing content or an advantage in PvP.

They’ve also said that if your macro’s have 1 action per click then they are always fine.

The grey area is when you have multiple actions per click that is not related to gaining an advantage in completing content or PvP.

For in game musical instruments, since that falls in the grey area, an ANet rep clearly communicated that they do not ban people for macro’s that play musical instruments.

That’s all the relevant information related to this.

Nothing is unclear, Macro’s aren’t allowed if they give you an advantage at completing content or an advantage in PvP.

There’s nothing confusing about it at all.

S/D and D/P with shortbow off set are meta.

I understand where you’re coming from even though there are some glaring holes in some things to use stated.

I exclusively pvp now, because PvE is so boring and repetitive. But that’s because I have consumed all the content to the point that I don’t enjoy it anymore in PvE. New content I like, so I am excited about the expansion, whenever it hits. But for now I only set foot in PvE for the Living story