Guild Wars 2

Jelzouki.4128:

Sorel.4870:

Dude, this site is used for meaningful petitions. Banning a rune in a video game is really, really not meaningful. I like the intention, but are you sure you used the right medium?

Meaningful? Look up the definition of petition. The website he used is totally fine. You’re just trying to be an angel on the internet aren’t you.

Please, don’t accuse me of bigotry. You’re probably right though. I read some of the petitions on that page, and suddenly, this meaningless claim did seem important, in comparison.

This thread… Yes, you’re not suppose to 1v1 in general, but power mesmer is actually the only match-up you can consistently win. Don’t duel against condi mesmers. They rely on stealth, so if you catch one on far point, you can try to lure them into thinking you’re dueling, get a sneaky decap when they stealth and get out.

Power mesmers have a lot of active defenses, so you’ll have to play a little mind game before getting the kill. Basically, you will try to bait out their Blink, Decoy and Distorsion.

It was trickier before the PU nerf, but on DP, you can now out-stealth them. So if they stealth, try to stealth as well. Don’t forget to increase the distance between you and the mesmer when they stealth. For example, go HS in the opposite direction, then 5->2. A lot of bad thieves will try to just 5->2 close to the stealthed mesmer, who can then use Diversion while they stand helpless in their smoke field.

On SD, it’s even easier. If they stealth, use Cloak and Dagger on a clone to wait out. Find a spot out of LoS for your Infiltrator’s Strike. This skill is deadly against mesmers, because most them run no condi cleanse, making them extremely vulnerable to immobilisation.

Play safe. Don’t try to HS them to death when they’re low. Use your Steal wisely: a lot of their skills have long and telegraphed animations. Good skills to interrupt: Mirror Blade (although they mostly cast this from stealth), iZerker, Sword#3. Don’t random Steal (but that’s true of every match-up), because the skill you steal is extremly strong. Only use it when you are in stealth, or have enough space between you and the mesmer.

Good luck!

edit: one last thing. A lot of mesmers double-tap their sword#3 skill. So if you see a sword clone appearing behind you, dodge immediately!

Maxwell.7843:

Overworld.9613:

Is there a meaningful choice between choosing to using the context prompt finisher or continuing to attack the downed player until they die?

If I’m not mistaken, if you stomp (=use a finisher) in PvP, when the player respawns he will be in-combat.
If you kill a player with normal damage, he will respawn out-of-combat.

In WvW, stomping can grant some points, as others have already explained.

I never heard this theory. I will pay attention to it next time I play.

Dude, this site is used for meaningful petitions. Banning a rune in a video game is really, really not meaningful. I like the intention, but are you sure you used the right medium?

Cynz.9437:

Oh i am well aware why am i getting griefed (btw nobody would mind 2 mesmers even if they fill same role). That is the point though. It is class based griefing and it shouldn’t have place in game. Period. I am sorry to say it, but what you do IS attempt to justify griefing.

Two mesmers in your team is usually not a very pleasant sight. When I was new to mesmer, I was forced to swap to my engi every other game, because there was already a mesmer in my team. The only builds that stack very well are bruisers, and maybe teamfighters that have a better on-point presence, like warriors or burn guards.

mysterion.1276:

Im playing thief for years now and its the only class I like…. I have the achievements anyway I just dont want to swap main because the matchmaking is bad. I wont ever play unranked because of trollhamer/courtyard. What is my option?Quit thief?idk…

Well, at this point, not much. If that is of any consolation, I play unranked all the time and almost never get Skyhammer or Courtyard (or even Spirit Watch, that I like) because no one votes for them.

Maybe HoT will bring a new thief build with a different role, but I doubt it: mobility is and always will be our strong suit. The last advice I could give you is to try to find a team to get better games. Again, good luck

edit: also, the matchmaking is not bad (in that case). It’s just that the profession stacking algorithm doesn’t know which builds can be stacked and which can not (it depends on the meta game). So you’re always at risk of having another player playing your profession, unless you’re playing engineer, because you see less of them.

ronpierce.2760:

Too EDGY for you.

I see what you did there. Well played

Well played, my Mac (everlasting) BETA client brother. Also, this screenshot was artsy as kitten.

Damage wasn’t really nerfed, except for mesmers and eles (that were over the top). It’s just that people moved from zerker builds to marauder builds, then to bruisers. I only ever play marauder builds, but I like that other players play 1v1-focused bruiser builds or even full support builds: it brings variety in team composition and in combat dynamics. Everyone running zerker is no more fun than everyone running bruisers.

Thieves are the best at their role, and they are easily the coolest looking profession with their custom dodge. So naturally, a lot of people play them.

If you play ranked, I assume you have at least one other build you’re comfortable with, maybe a bruiser, or a less squishy marauder, like a warrior, guardian or engi. So if you see another thief, swap before the game.

I know it sucks if you try to get the achievements, I had that problem with Champion Shadow and Champion Illusionist. If you really, really want to play thief at all cost, play in unranked. It doesn’t matter that much that you have two thieves there, because it’s in general less competitive. Good luck!

I think it’s the first time I ever complain about a skill on the forums, but in my opinion it’s absolutely game-breaking in my favorite game mode, conquest, in this current iteration.

First of all, no, it can not compare to thief’s SB#5 or sword#2 in any way. PT costs only 20 energy, has 1200 range and is insta cast. If you spam it, you can easily ports three times, meaning 3600 range (!), before running out of energy.

You can SB#5 two times, for 12 initiative points, on a trickery build. That’s an awesome 1200 range you covered, in something like 1-2s (it’s not instant). On sword#2, which resembles PT more because it requires a target, you can do two or three IS-IR combos, for 1800 range max, in about 4-5 seconds (counting the time it takes for the energy to replenish).

In addition, when the thief runs out of initiative, he’s dead. When the revenant runs out of energy, no problem! He just swaps legend, blowing only a short CD, and can perform any attack he wants. What a trade-off!

Last but not least, thief is balanced around its amazing mobility. It can’t win any duels except against mesmers and other thieves. I advocated several times on the thief forum that this was a good thing, that thief was fun to play because its role was just different. Now you have a revenant that can +1 better than a thief (but not decap), but is also a beast in duels and teamfights. That can’t be healthy.

You guys probably think PT is fine because most revenants are terrible (they are new to the profession after all), and most of the forum crowd plays exclusively soloq. I faced a team with the only good revenant I’ve seen in the entire beta, and it was ridiculous. When two of my team mates died, I tried to build back momentum by keeping the revenant and two other players busy chasing me at far (on Khylo), and then Portaled back to mid to +1 my team mate (normal mesmer stuff). The revenant just spammed PT and was on me in under a second. I was forced to blow the best mobility skill in the game, for which I wasted a valuable utility slot, 60s CD, and he was on me with just 60 energy, “wasting” only his legend swap. That can’t be right.

tldr: PT trivializes rotations in Conquest, and is inappropriate for a profession who is not only a good +1er, but also a decent duelist and a beast in teamfights. It hould probably get a 10-15s CD, and see its energy cost raised to 30-35.

edit: some words were censored for no reason.

abc.5790:

Sorel.4870:

Jekkt.6045:

op: chronomancer and scrapper

very strong: herald and reaper

strong: daredevil and druid

weak: tempest, dragonhunter and berserker

This looks about right.

edit: misread, sorry. Scrapper is not OP, I’d switch it with Reaper, which is the strongest specialization imo.

IKR scrapper needs love

Well, I changed my Scrapper build… And Scrapper is returning to the OP section I guess.

Thornwolf.9721:

Can we talk about how the druid staff animations look like crap?

Not all. Number three is magnificent.

A mesmer playing the new traitline is still a mesmer, so why the new icon? I don’t understand the need for these new profession icons. Especially in pvp, they actually remove an element of gameplay I like: the element of surprise. Sure, there are some traitlines in the game you can identify just by selecting the player (Marksmanship because of Opening Strike, for example), but in most cases, you can not. Discovering too late that a thief plays Critical Strikes, or that a mesmer plays Illusions can lead to a rapid death.

Guild Wars 2 always had this idea of forcing players to pay attention to what’s going on in the fight, to read their opponent. To be honest, I don’t like this extra pre-fight information. What do you think?

Ross Biddle.2367:

Let me point out the flaw in your whole argument. It’s right at the start so no one will miss it.

• Flaw: The assumption/assertion that Chronomancer should have to “give something up” as compared to base Mesmer.

Forgetting, of course, that the Chrono line is 1 of 6 trait lines that upon taking, means giving up one of the other 5 lines.

This is not insignificant.

There’s no precedent for dropping Distortion, or any other shatter for that matter.

When Anet introduced specializations, I really thought that they would change their mechanics in a meaningful way, meaning there would be some drawbacks to getting new mechanics. For example, the Dragonhunter looses his old virtues to get the new ones.

When it was said that mesmers would get a new shatter, I was certain it would replace Distorsion. And as a mesmer main, I liked the idea. Frankly, the chronomancer is amazing, shield is amazing, wells are slightly OP, but really fun. It’s just that Continuum Split is so strong, that I fear that heavy nerfs will be made to all those things that give flavor to the traitline (especially alacrity), if Anet intends to keep it as it is.

I would like to see Anet bringing balance to the chronomancien by replacing Distorsion instead of other nerfs. Because frankly, this traitline is so strong there is no reason not to take it in ANY build, and that’s not healthy.

Go ahead. I think you’re ready. Ranked isn’t really different from unranked these days anyway, just more drama, less build diversity and less maps.

style.6173:

Damage isn’t too high. Condi spam is too high. The best way to test: Whenever you die in PvP, look at what killed you. Do you see more direct damage or condi damage in there?

As much as I hate condis, you’re wrong about that. If I kill a thief with my mesmer, he’ll take 20k damage, spread over a multitude of different damaging skills and traits, because he will be able to heal just once before he dies.

Suppose the same thief duels an ele (thieves, please stop doing that). He’ll die slower, but will be able to heal several times (counting Shadow Rej), and the burning, ticking slowly, will slowly add up. In addition, different skills apply burning, but the death log only says “burning” for every burn application. That’s the difference.

I remember a player calling me a “condi kitten” because I killed him “with poison” on my dagger wielding berserker thief.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Damage isn’t that high for most skills. The problem is the pace. Too many skills can be used within too little time without even having alacrity and swiftness on. With the most used builds there’s no openings to interrupt any key damage skill because there isn’t any key damage skills to interrupt. You interrupt their highest damage skill, they just use it again because it doesn’t have a recharge, or just spam all the other skills and do more damage anyways.

There’s no room for strategy and tactical play with the most used builds. It’s all spammity spam.

I think you’re wrong. If you watch a series of duels between two mesmers (or two thiefs) with the exact same build, chances are one of them will consistently come out on top. That’s because it’s not “spammity spam” that makes the win, but positioning, timing, CD management and even spacing (which is underused in this game).

These skill combos probably look fast to you because you’re not used to play a marauder build. Try one (not necro), you’ll get rekt in the beginning, but when you get use to it, you’ll develop useful reflexes!

It’s true that you see a lot of bunkers lately. But I wouldn’t worry just yet. Most druids are playing Cleric, but I think that fashion won’t last because it doesn’t work that well. You see less thieves and warriors, because their specialization is not as OP, resulting in less damage. And let’s be honest, Reaper’s survivability will probably be nerfed a bit before the release. We’ll see.

Caine.8204:

To be honest? If you’re hovering at 50%, you’re probably just average. I’m at 64% win/loss.

Means you’re really just a meat shield for your team.

Wow, aren’t you something special?

OP, I understand your concern, but the MM is not trying to make you loose. It’s just that when you win, he thinks you’re getting better, and matches you against better opponents, to provide more challenge. And that’s good, otherwise you would never get better. Winning every game is not fun.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Would be nice to have an NPC in the heart of the mists that gives you a buff that reduces cooldowns by 100% for some time to test out stuff.

That’s a really good idea. That way, I could practice my blink shatters and my lighting flash Fresh Air burst without having to wait for the CD.

I hope they add it someday. It’s better than generosity on engineers and warriors.

Now that keyfarming is dead, there isn’t really much use to them.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Reikou.7068:

To be honest, Heartseeker should probably get evade frames.

Na, Heart Seeker needs to cast faster but take more initiative.

Lol, what’s the counterplay then? Thief is one of the strongest profession pre-HoT, and I say that as a thief main. Shame that so many thief players want to play in Conquest like they do in WvW.

Jekkt.6045:

op: chronomancer and scrapper

very strong: herald and reaper

strong: daredevil and druid

weak: tempest, dragonhunter and berserker

This looks about right.

edit: misread, sorry. Scrapper is not OP, I’d switch it with Reaper, which is the strongest specialization imo.

In pvp, where the stats are lower, I’ve sometimes had 10k crits on thieves with Owl F2+Attack of Opportunity (MoC)+Opening Strike (not even Sick Them or SotW), on a remorseless build. I know you can get a lot higher than that with a drake passive third attack. So it isn’t particularly shocking.

I’m pretty sure that Sigmoid is right. I hope this new knowledge will help you with your condition removal issues.

Inflames.8026:

Who cares about elementalist and burning!? Are people completly blind to the fact that burn guardians can do 75,6 000 burn damage in a matter of secounds + blocks, + invuln + heals???

I like how ironic your comment is, given your username!

That being said, burn guards are indeed very strong against golems, but they are really easy to counter. Try running one and learn the CDs/animations.

Sneak gyro is amazing in pvp, and the reveal is simply exhilarating. But really, it should learn to keep up better than that.

I don’t use Balanced Stance anymore. Why? because the ICD on the trait is the same as the regular CD. You’re better off with Frenzy, or Shake It Off.

Obindo.6802:

Evis. If u want for tpvp specifically, I suggest:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAR3ejMdQbI2FCWhAdIGKCKtLi+owGgHIAwSoFSBA-TpxHABEcQAuuMQAXAABeAAqs/AAHBAA

If u feel like a scrub u can equip ramapage and peak performance.

Well, I agree that rampage is for scrubs, but you got to admit that Peak Performance is A LOT stronger than the competition. So Peak Performance and Roflpage are the best logical choice.

That being said, this exact build also works wonder with sword/shield, with Hoelbrak runes. If conditions or cc are a problem, you can always take Shake It Off instead of Frenzy.

TheBravery.9615:

Cortano.5419:

Lot of good point; couple of extra comments:

Forceful Greatsword is an amazing trait. +10% damage AND might on crit (no cooldown) AND 20% faster on BOTH greatsword AND spear … and it’s not even a grandmaster trait. Let’s face it: might on crit on a 1 second timer alone would be better than half the warrior grandmasters.

The tactics minors: reviver’s might and determined revival: these are awful. Just combine them into a single (still lousy) trait and put in something less sucky. The whole tactics traitline is basically carried by phalanx strength.

Speaking of which: phalanx strength deserves to go into might. A trade-off between berserker’s might and phalanx strength makes for a hard choice: boost the team or top the DPS? Yes, -of course- it would be a nerf to no longer be both the best DPS and the best buffer -at the same time-… but then you might be able to have a real warrior balancing discussion.

all good points. You’re right about forceful greatsword being very strong for a master trait, maybe they should reduce the 10% damage increase to 5% or something and add an internal cooldown on the might stack.

Please, ICDs are already plaguing this game. But I agree, this trait is incredibly potent for a Master tier trait.

Trepidation Lost.3469:

ReaperJr.5967:

It’s funny seeing people qq when they’re bad. Warrior isn’t op pre buff, it isn’t op post buff.

I play warrior and it is op in wvw roaming XD

Right? I never quite understood why though. Is it because warrior has more base stats? How come I’m a scrub warrior in pvp, and the moment I enter a Borderland I’m suddendly 1v2ing everyone and his grandma? Can someone please tell me what makes warrior so strong in WvW?

I think it looks daring. I have three sylvaris, and I usually choose the strangest faces for them, but I originally picked this one for my ranger, because it looked more adventurous than the others. I still ended up changing it for one of the new ones in the end, because it’s not very original.

Cyninja.2954:

Can easily be achieved by switching the “Deposit all Materials” with the “Hide Rarity” options.

More buttons usually lead to more menu clutter. Maybe I just don’t see the issue since this has litterally not happened 1nce to me in over 2.5k hours of gameplay.

This looks more reasonable, if something really needs to be done. I’m one of those compact warriors, so I won’t judge the issue.

Funny, there’s a thread just above yours expressing the exact same idea! Great minds think alike I guess. I never thought of something like that, but that would be very legendary indeed. While we’re at it, we could add a sigil swap on legendary weapons as well.

apocom.3172:

Dear OP,

as a thief player I feel insulted by the presentation of your topic. Plz follow a few simple guidlines:

First the topic. It’s way too neutral. Something like: “OMG Theef so op now” is way better and creates much more attention. +1 for you that you mispelled thief. That is really important.

Second: You did everything wrong with your first sentence. The main mistake is that you are telling that you are new. Don’t do this, I will tell you soon why not.

You need a good start like: OMG ANET WTF!!!. Now you insult the developers and suggest that they are mentally challenged or something like that.

Your next part is ok, but you only suggest that you could do nothing. Say it: There was nothing I could do Now the problem is that you telled us that you are new to the game. So maybe you got outplayed.
But according to the forumguidelines that is impossible, because nobody here gets outplayed. If you loose to something it’s because it’s OP, you can do nothing and ANET doesn’t play their own game. Also: Your teammates sucked and the lag is horrible.

So for the next part don’t stay longer on the topic, because everybody here has a attention span of a goldfish. It’s more important to come to some conclusion like that this will ruin the game for sure, every customer is leaving and so on.

Your last part is again to much on topic. Make it more that you sound like you’ve calmed down, use the word seriously often and come to complete random conclusions how to fix the game. Try to avoid logic as much as possible, nobody can follow you this path, so just spare it. Seriously.

You just summarized at least half the threads I ever read on those forums, ever.

Javonovich.5280:

I’m having a hard time maintaining my hope. They balance every few MONTHS, they’ve alienated a large portion of the community by doing nothing about leavers and D/Cs for such a long time,

That’s not entirely true. On the contrary, I think they did a bit too much on that regard. Since december, pvp has been great, because the new system drastically reduced the number of 4v5 games I was playing. On the other hand, to achieve this, Anet decided to lock us in HotM, which defeats the purpose of creating a funnier pvp, imo.

I will play a crusader remorseless build (the same I’ve been running for months), but take WHaO and Guard!, and rune of the trooper. If the protection duration I get is good, I’ll have good sustain with all this healing power, regen and swiftness from Resounding Timbre and protection, good AoE condi removal, and I could drop the WS line to get my fury in the Skirmishing line. Hopes up!

It also annoys me a bit, but think of it this way: your allies buff you in the beginning, and after that you stack swiftness every time you are in combat, so really, if you don’t die too much, you have perma swiftness (I play with a bird, and sometimes Strength of the Pack).

With the buff to WHaO, you could try a shout remorseless build (I know I will): perma swiftness and regen.

Ok, I’m yet another thief main, and I think you are complaining about two different issues:
1) Playstyle
It’s true, thieves, more than ever, only have one viable build, revolving around one mechanic: stealth. I, and many more of us, miss the days where SD was viable. Hopefully, Anet will have this issue in mind when balancing the Daredevil: we need our evasive playstyle back!

2) Role
That’s where I don’t agree. Thief is the only profession in the game that has an entirely different playstyle in conquest. Imagine it has more defense, or more damage on backstab: that would be plain OP. Mesmer was hardly viable for years because it could not run away from its hard counter. The only solution I would see would be to give thief a weapon dealing no damage, with no mobility, but with a lot of defense to it, so that they would be forced to drop the SB, but that’s not the path Anet has taken.
On the thief subforum, some “thief mains” suggested to nerf the mobility in favor of a better 1v1 capacity. Please no! I play every profession, like most half competitive players, so I don’t want to play the same way on all my characters.

Xillllix.3485:

These are more than what was needed considering that they did NOT EVEN nerf mesmer shatter, ranger pewpew, rampage and burning on guard. The issue was cleansing anyway, not burning. Burning needed to be nerfed globally but instead they crippled the elementalist fire line with some now useless trait by removing its might on cantrips.

It’s a terrible balance patch.

Did you consider the fact that the game is not balanced around players who get killed by a LB ranger or a burn guardian? Also, mesmer shatter was nerfed (PU), and Rampage was nerfed in a previous patch.

I’m fine with earth eles. They deal no damage (especially with the fire attunement change), so they are just a different iteration of a bunker guard, with less boon sharing. I would have liked to see a sustain nerf, but I don’t feel like ele sustain is over the top considering they are wearing a cele amulet. It’s the damage that was ridiculous, on par with a full power or a full condition build.

style.6173:

An interesting point to ponder. If the oRNG thief decided to quit the game, would they immediately recruit a new thief, or would they go in another direction. I’m not sure the answer.

I’m ready to bet A LOT of virtual gold that they would take another thief. Interested in trying your luck?

Pretty sure it’s a bug, or maybe the trait was on ICD. Once again, I’m surprised how you can find people on the forums calling any bug a feature.

I’ll just link the guides Backpack (a top engineer) made some time ago. It’s still very relevant, and will help you get better.

Marcos.3690:

The twitch viewership is still very poor tho

Compared to other games? Yes, most definitely. Smash Bros Melee came out in 2001, and yet they have 20k viewers at each major tournament.

Compared to WTS Beijing? The numbers were multiplied by three.

Now, on thief: I think it fills its role well. Naturally, given how fast it is, and how much damage it deals, it would be ridiculous if it could actually win 1v1s against meta professions. Remember why pre-June mesmers see little use in competitive play? Exactly: because having the fastest profession in the game hard-countering you is game-breaking. Thieves still hard-counter mesmers, but at least mesmer has enough stealth now to at least juke the thief for a little while.

I really, really enjoy playing thief (I played most of my games in pvp on this profession), but it’s true that its true strength is in a competitive setting. I think that’s fine: the game definitely needs high mobility, high skillcap professions whose sole purpose is to shift the pressure to the other side of the map quickly, as Capablanca used to play chess (I’m pretty sure he’s one of the inspiration for how Helseth plays). I’m sure what we enjoyed the most in WTS was the mesmer portal plays and Magic Toker leading his team to victory.

The core issue with thief is its lack of build diversity, which makes it a bit boring to play for too long. It’s definitely not its lack of use.

OK, I feel like one thing has never been addressed in this thread: the original research. I am assuming, since the OP said he was a thief main, that he played thief, during all of these matches. That’s why this experiment is not significant in any way.

1) The match-making avoids class stacking. So naturally, if you play thief, the system will try to put the least possible amount of thieves in your team. That’s the strongest bias.

2) Thieves do not stack well, so chances are, some players in your team who play thief swapped to accommodate you. Similarly, a player queuing on, say, necro, but who also plays thief and sometimes swaps to it when need be, would not swap seeing you, leading here again to biased results.

3) You didn’t say if your queues were in ranked or unranked. People don’t play the same professions in each queue. I, for example, never play my mains in ranked, while I know that some ranger mains never play their main in competitive matches.

To sum up, I like the effort, but you might consider reconducting your study playing, say, an elementalist (because it stacks well) in ranked.

Don’t act spoiled now. Our dodge is still the coolest in the game. Now, Karl needs to get to work and make the new dodge animations as good as the old one.