Guild Wars 2

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, even if I had very little time to play. The only real problem was the balance, and people insulting me when I played my thief (come on guys, you’re not in the pro-league, thief works fine in saphire-ruby). But having a feeling of progression in pvp was really nice, as well as playing with my guild team and trying to make a name for ourselves in the guild leaderboards.

On the negative side, balance of course, and the MMR exploits. I’m looking forward to the s2 changes, but I fear that Anet was a little extreme in the way they implemented the anti-exploit system. My real life friends are less experienced, and I fear that they’ll get completely destroyed if every player on the other team is on my level.

nearlight.3064:

I’ll have to test things out later. But… there seems to be no reason to play power reaper or use GS at all now. If you go power, dagger will be unconditionally better due to dark pact.

GS was never a good choice, since reaper shroud is melee. I think an axe build with Paladin amulet will be a fun choice (for more Blighter’s Boon procs with Sigil of Strength). But yeah, condi is more than ever the way to go on necro.

If you have a good thief on your team, having more than one necro facing you will be easy to deal with. I think necros are going to be a serious threat now, but we still have the tools to deal with them, unlike chronobunkers.

SweetPotato.7456:

what happens if a high MMR is in a party with a Low MMR , i’ve seen people offer to pay to be carried in the lobby.

What about hot join team vs organized team? should hot join team always get hot join team?

I think you mean “pug team” or “team of players queuing individually”. The MM system tries to balance team size when it’s possible (look up the algorithm on the wiki). You can’t really carry a low division player anymore, since the division range from which your foes are chosen is the one of your highest ranked player (ex: a diamond is queing with an amber, the both of them will face solo players from diamond division).

You shouldn’t be worried about facing a premade anymore, because playing as a team is more difficult than ever because of this. In fact it’s even problematic for solo players: whenever I play a game where I feel like I really do a lot of work, but still end up losing two pips is whenever I have a 3-man/4-man premade on my side.

Lucifer.7289:

Sorry this game is not even close to how complex you think it is. MMO pvp regardless of action combat or tab target will never have a high skill cap, will never be mechanically difficult, will never have good balance.

After almost 15+ years of MMOs having pvp, none of them have been close to being balanced for competitive play. MMO balance is just the endless revolving of flavor of the month classes and other classes being useless for x amount of months till the next flavor of the month balance patch.

If you want a complex game, you would not be playing guild wars, you would be playing an RTS/FPS even Moba’s have more complex RTS elements than an MMO will ever have.

Then why is the same team winning week after week in NA? According to you, a team of five randoms could understand all the complexity there is to the game and win the pro League after a couple of weeks of training? If that is the case, you probably have a good opportunity to make decent money for no real effort. Go for it!

Mogar.9216:

Sorel.4870:

I am not sure what I am looking at. Is it not normal to win 50% of your games if you reached the MMR level you belong to? Soloq is basically a coin toss unless you’re vastly underrated, so the pattern your match history exhibits does not surprise me.

If you read my post you would see that I’m pointing out all the matches were blowouts. The outcome was pre determined by match making. Sure it gave me a 50% win rate but what I did or didn’t do meant very little. The system gave me 4 sure wins and the 3 sure losses. This is in diamond, shouldn’t the system have enough info to make good matches by the time players reach diamond?

Hard to believe. Half of these games have seen both teams score more than 250 points, which means the winning team was not even able to ensure a double cap the entire game. That can not be considered a blow out, especially in a meta that favors 3-point splits. Also, it’s rather easy in conquest to win by a large margin, even at equal skills. Even at the highest level of play most matches are one-sided.

I am not sure what I am looking at. Is it not normal to win 50% of your games if you reached the MMR level you belong to? Soloq is basically a coin toss unless you’re vastly underrated, so the pattern your match history exhibits does not surprise me.

Serious Thought.5394:

Highest dps output is CS. Highest burst is DA/TR/X (or if you really wanna burst and are playing something that hits multiple times, e.g. unload or pistol whip or fist flurry- you play DA/SA/X…its just riskier). Agree to disagree yet?

That’s about right. Spartacus is playing a staff build, so it probably makes more sense dps-wise to play CS, since staff is more about team fights than its competitor d/p. The only problem I would have personally is that I have trouble landing staff attacks without Panic Strike, but I pretty much only play d/p and am terrible at staff, so don’t take my word for it.

Magische Boek.2530:

instead of a reveal, a trait to see stealthed players while you are in stealth would be cool.

I guess that would make thief vs thief duels more fast paced, but with it we would completely destroy shatter mesmers, while the match-up is already heavily unfavorable for them. Since it’s one of the only duels in the game I actually enjoy (on either side), I would not like your idea to be implemented.

Firebird.8324:

I find the trait to be more passive garbage that will likely cause thieves to be very OP in the upcoming meta. They can already dodge more than a rev (which is really saying something) so do they really need more evade frames?? Bunker teef inc.

1) It’s not passive. You need to press the dodge key
2) It has no more evade frames than a normal dodge
3) It does not give more dodges. Thief has more dodges than many professions because of other traits, mainly the first minor in the DD line, and because a lot of them run Sigil of Agility, which is a utility skill.
4) Dash would be ridiculous for a bunker thief, since it makes you leave the capture point when you use it. Bunker thief is not a thing anyway, since it provides neither healing, nor support, nor decap

Thank you for your enlightened contribution anyway.

Krysard.1364:

It depends of your role, if you are a roamer the ability to easily engage/disengage is pretty dope. Actually a good thief will hardly die no matter what, so he can always be here and there doing stuff. I mean, I think you get my point, warrs have bad survivability, but thieves?

Yeah, that’s the point. Thief is designed to be extremely bad in fair fights (you can hardly win any 2v2 if you’re fighting with a thief at your side), but have superior mobility to disengage easily and pick up unfair fights.

I think Dash is an extremely well designed trait, probably my favorite HoT addition to the game. Perma swiftness is hardly OP for a GM trait considering that pretty much every build achieves it anyway except maybe guardians (which is good, noone likes walking slowly). As for the condi removal, consider that you still only have three dodges. ICDs are never fun, and tying the condi removal to the dodge makes it more reliable and more fun to use.

I get that it can be frustrating to be incapable of killing a thief on, say, a druid. But in Conquest, you never need to kill thieves to effectively shut them down completely, so what are you complaining about? I think it’s everything a GM trait should be: role-defining, powerful, and impacting your entire playstyle.

Plus, it’s only marginally better than Bouncing Dodger, which is a stronger pick for builds focusing on 1v1s and teamfights (dueling servers d/p, conquest staff, etc.)

There is no opinion to be had. Your math looks solid Henry. Thank you for opening my eyes on the matter.

Dahkeus.8243:

The best part of playing a thief is not having to play fair.

^

babazhook.6805:

I am not sure how many will take that passive Invuln buff. While I myself not over fond of such passives, I will likely stick to pain response on my s/d thief. Something that kicks in once every 40 seconds will likely not save me in any case and I would hate to die to burning and poison because I got 10 stacks of each on me and rather then pain response kicking In I evade the next few attacks

I am looking forward more to the new upper hand and any other changes that might happen in that line.

It depends on your build. Typically, on a staff build with DD/Acro/Trickery, you’ll get a lot more value from the invuln.

The trait will be good, for sure. And I hate it. I thought Anet was finally going away from all these cheap invulns with the nerfs to Precog Well and the changes to Vamp runes before that, and now this? I remember a time when if a player didn’t have good enough reflexes, a mesmer/thief burst could down him in seconds. Now the game is playing for you on many builds.

I guess it would make sense thematically, but we already counter the other stealth users (shatter mesmers, LB rangers, even engineers with Elixir S). The only real problem with stealth is Sneak Gyro, but that elite is broken and is already getting a nerf. It will probably need a second nerf (like giving it a 1/4s cast time). So, cool idea, but I don’t think we need to make thief the only viable stealth user, especially since shatter will probably return to being the only semi-viable mesmer build.

rchu.8945:

another player who “main” a Mesmer suggesting more nerfs to class defining skills. This probably one of the reason why Mesmers nerfs from the devs are so heavy-handed, because we are self-defeating community that openly calls for nerfs. Remember after the Robert Gee trait revamp patch went through? People on here start randomly suggesting nerfs, and guess what? Anet nerfed the skills/traits that didnt need nerfs, in addition to more nerfs and tweaks.

Please just stop.

Look, folks, another role-player thinking that there are “true” mesmers and “false” mesmers! You’re entitled to your opinion, but this is a forum.

Levetty.1279:

st elmos fire.2987:

They should nerf continuum split so that it does not recharge elite cooldowns. They should reduce the CD on continuum split to make back some of the loss. This way I think continuum split would have more depth to it so that it would not be used only for the double elite

Reminds me early on in the games life when Rangers were complaining about Longbow being a bad weapon so Anet nerfed shortbow range and damage and said everybody should use Longbow now.

Ranger shortbow is still crap to this day btw.

The real question you should be asking yourself is: are you having fun with Continuum Split? Because I know I’m not. Most of the time I use it to have a shorter CD on my moa. Maybe it’s a l2p issue, but even Helseth does that, so I’m not really sure it’s a lack of mechanical skill on my part.

Sure, mesmer will probably be less meta now that bunker mesmer is dead, so we should worry about unwanted nerf, but having a shorter CD Continuum Split that doesn’t recharge elites would make the game more fun in my opinion.

Oh, and Portal in the Elite slot would be nice.

Chaos and Illusions are fine. The problem was indeed the alacrity, since the shatters (and everything else) had ridiculously short CDs. When taking chrono gives you shorter CDs on shatter than Illusions, you know something is wrong. But Bountiful Disillusionment and the heal on shatter are perfectly good traits.

I don’t think it’s a buff, I don’t think it’s a nerf: I think it’s a fix. That being said, I’m no chornomancer, I can’t predict the future. I think it will still be very potent: 1 condi removed every second, if you don’t tank too much attacks, will save you from a lot of things above 75% health.

On the other hand, some builds that couldn’t even touch eles before will at least have a chance now. I think of every build that applies condis in bursts (condi necro is the more viable, but condi engineer would be another example). They will now be able to put 5-6 conditions on the elementalist instantly, and it will take 5-6s for the ele to fully recover, and force him to kite, opening a window of opportunity. We’ll see how it plays.

Not this again.

First of all, I fully agree with your Continuum Split comment. Because recharging elites is so important, using this shatter is not as fun as it could theoretically be. Lowering the CD to 60s to make up for this loss would be nice.

But I see no need for Moa or Portal nerfs. Moa has a long animation, is interruptible, and even when it connects, it’s only a guaranteed kill if two or more damage dealers focus it, all that being on an extremely long CD. It’s completely balanced, and it’s one of the only way to quickly kill a players in bunker metas. It will probably lose value with the removal of bunker amulets anyway.

As of Portal, it’s one of the most unique skill in the game, and arguably the best in Conquest. The thing is, it can’t even be considered a mesmer skill: it’s a team skill. It also rewards strategic plays: if there is one skill in the game that scales with experience, it’s this one. I think watering down the complexity of conquest and the uniqueness of mesmer is not a way to balance.

So what’s the cost? Not being able to play bunker/bruiser, ever. Bunker mesmer is a monstrosity, because Portal on a bunker build is broken. So mesmers are forced into squishy builds. And that’s completely fine! There are other professions if you want a bunker playstyle. To ensure that every class has a role in pvp, they need to play different.

Korusef.3714:

Sorel.4870:

So why all the fuss about this venom?

Look at the team composition in the League right now and compare it with the situation before HoT. Before almost no Mesmers, now Mesmers on many teams, after …

Actually, even before June, a couple of teams played with mesmers. Mime, Frostball, Helseth and Supcutie were all playing the profession at the highest level of play.

The difference was that back in the days you could play two different comps: a bunker comp with guardian or ele to hold points, with mesmer/thief to get kills quickly, or a bruiser comp a la Abjured.

You guys need to let go of the bunker mesmer build. It just can not exist on a profession with so much mobility. If we want every profession to be viable in pvp, they need to have different roles. The bunker mesmer was a problem because it basically killed the burst strategy completely, and as a result everyone was playing the exact same comp.

I’m glad we’re back to shatter mesmer. If I want to play a bruiser build, there is at least three other professions I could turn to. When I play my mesmer, I want it to feel different.

Thank you, but we never left :P

You are probably better off with Paladin’s on power necro, even with Death Perception, since with the precision you can proc your Strength Sigil (1s ICD) more consistently, therefore gaining more from Blighter’s Boon.

Also, Ferocity as a stat is simply inferior to precision damage-wise (which makes no sense but I’ve made my peace with it), and 4-stat amulets are better in general.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

I fear that all of the try hards that played other easy/op stuff flood back to thief.

I doubt it. It’s just like when mesmer mantras were broken: bad mesmers would just get rekt by good mesmers.

The only thing I fear is Acro being viable and every bad thief playing the passive invuln. I don’t know who at Anet thinks that passive invuln are fun, but this has to stop.

zapphyre.6548:

For Reaper build you’re 100% right, and i feared that it would be like that for Greatsword. In PvP i run staff and dagger/warhorn too, Life Siphon and Locust Swarm are really good and i use that a lot. The reason i enlisted greatsword in the build is that i don’t have ascended dagger and warhorn, so i tought it would decrease my effectiveness, but thinking carefully i’ll craft them when i can, or just buy an exotic set.

Actually, I typed too fast, I meant to write axe and not dagger (axe is ranged). But dagger is also a strong choice: better is some match ups, worse in some. Good luck out there!

That’s totally a non-issue. Basilik Venom, even after the buff, will not be worth taking over Impact Strike, unless you play a funny build with Fist Flurry. You can see the icon, it’s only two attacks you need to avoid, and if you start your shield block, it will be over before the thief gets the time to charge the venom (1s cast).

In addition, I expect the current bunker mesmer to be a lot weaker after the 26th. So the best build we’ll get will certainly be shatter. And on a shatter mesmer, you don’t have a single block, since you typically play torch. So why all the fuss about this venom?

Shirlias.8104:

Seigfried.5938:

Derm.4932:

thank god

i’d rather have a berserker meta. at least that takes some amount of skill. current meta turns skill clickers into pro

I’m sorry, but you’re dreaming if you think the next one will be a zerker meta. With all the condi and boon corrupt buffs, expect each team to be running multiple necros

Agree.

I fear there will be more than one necro per party… sigh…

I doubt it. The natural response would be to take one thief and one mesmer, and just instagib one necro after the other: they are not mobile enough, and too easily focused.

I believe necro could become meta, but just one per team. Like thief.

Dahkeus.8243:

And post patch, I still expect Impact to be the elite of choice for meta, so I don’t think the basi change will make it meta or anything.

Even more so that dagger damage is being buffed, so the added value of Fist Flurry is even worse.

Your shatter mesmer build is good (I don’t agree on the healing skill, but that’s debatable).

However, I think that you necro build wouldn’t work at all in WvW. The main reason being that you are not mobile enough.

To juke zergs or larger group of players, try replacing Spectral Armor with Spectral Walk. I would also try to fit Flesh Wurm in here as well.

With Blighter’s Boon and the precision you have, you would benefit A LOT from Chilling Victory. Also I’m pretty sure you would prefer taking Relentless Pursuit of Chilling Nova, since you don’t play condi.

Finally, since Reaper Shroud is melee, you really do not want to play a melee weapon like GS: you’ll get kited by all the DH, mesmers and rangers out there, and die. Dagger/wh would give you more damage, a lot more lf, an interrupt, and all that at range.

I use Fist Flurry with Basi Venom on an interrupt build. If you don’t jump into the fight head on, but instead wait for a dodge or after an important CD, it can be a guaranteed kill.

It’s fun, but I would say there are better choices. But it’s definitely viable on d/p.

RaGe.9834:

Ele = new teef

I’d say new warrior. Thief was semi-viable.

That being said, with the come back of our necro overlords and the supression of celestial and sentinel amulets, teams could need additional condition removal, so we might see eles with healing power amulets acting as “bunkers” in the new meta. Well see.

Juba.8406:

• Some damage increases and some aftercasts removed so you can activate skills quicker.

That can actually be a really nice change. In a lot of ways warrior is lacking fluidity, and this change can help with attacks not connecting.

The only thing that would really make warrior good though is the global nerf of a lot of builds.

Schurge.5194:

Aren’t enough for bads to be able to sit on their keyboards and kill the build? I don’t get it. Mesmer got castrated, Arena.net could be charged with war crimes.

Not really, shatter mesmer will be in a better spot it is now.

Bunker mesmer got destroyed, but it ought to. You can’t allow a bunker with mobility, since it defeats the snowball strategy necessary to have interesting conquest games.

Schurge.5194:

I look forward to being the most survivable thing on the battle field though as a Marauder Powermancer.

I think Paladin will become the best amulet for Powermancer, but I could be wrong.

That’s pretty broken, especially on a weapon that didn’t need any help. At least make it a boon removal. Loving the other changes though. And our new amulets.

On the contrary, now that the bunker specs will be in fewer numbers, I’ll be back on my good old shatter mesmer. I’d say most long-time mesmers know that the Alacrity nerf won’t be the end of the profession.

In pvp, bunker mesmer is dead. Good riddance: you can’t have a mobile bunker in a conquest game type.

On the other hand, what is left untouched: extremely high quickness uptime, F5 recharging some of the best elites in the game, and one of the best burst spec in a game which will soon see the removal of all tanky amulets.

With Portal, moa/GW, boon removal on shatters and GS bursts, mesmer could be back in the meta in a good old thief/mesmer roaming pain train. I’d say that’s a much better place that the boring CD spammer we’ve had this last month, don’t you think?

Rome.7124:

Of course all the thieves are happy, one meta that they were not part of, Anet grants the wish and put them right back in there. Anet just have it out for Mesmers, just cant have a good thing for long.

Yeah right, Anet wants to nerf their only unique profession to the ground.

You’re missing the point here. I main mesmer and thief, and bunker mesmer was bad for the game, not only for thief, but also for shatter mesmer. Mobile bunkers can not be a thing in conquest.

Also, why is everyone saying that the basi venom buff will be the end of mesmer? Mesmer has ONE block on one weaponset, and I would bet that most mesmers will be back to playing sword/torch GS shatter next month, so unblockable attacks won’t frighten us anymore.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Frankly damage even with AA has never been a problem for my thief.

The thing preventing thieves from getting into groups is the lack of group buffs & group utility.

It definitely was for sword. Not that it didn’t deal damage, but it took so long for the AA to connect that you could get interrupted/bursted/blinded three times in between each part of the chain. Dagger and staff damage buffs look unnecessary though.

I’ve been waiting for some of these changes for years. The sword speed increase OMG…

I think we will definitely be back.

Wow, frankly, an elite on a 42s CD, with a long cast time and then a clear icon on the bar, it’s not the end of the world. It just makes it a viable alternative to Impact Strike.

If you manage to lose, or even let 4 ambers score 300 points, then either you don’t deserve to be in Legendary, or they are under evaluated. So it’s all good.

Caedmon.6798:

Im not circlejerking,i main a warr for 3 years..Atm i would not recommend a new player going for warr,rev would be the better most obvious pick to go for.They just have more to offer atm.

If it’s for pve only,then yeah it doesn’t matter much,think warr is pretty strong in pve still.

I think it’s bad advice. Rev is too easy and gives you bad habits (like wasting dodges, casting your skills anytime because they are channeled, etc.). Warrior is straight-forward, but at least gives you good mechanical reflexes.

I was, like many, very excited when I read that gliders might be coming to the core game. However, it was all theoretical, since I don’t pve very often.

And then I thought, what about HotM? Frankly, since we’re going to be stuck there waiting for the queue to pop, we might as well glide while doing so. I think this is a no-brainer, requires little to be implemented (it’s small compared to PvE maps), and would please a lot of players.

More controversial maybe, I would like to see gliders added to Skyhammer. This way, the map would be even more original, but plays more like a competitive map. A floor could be added under the map, with stairs and/or jump pads to go back up, and when you get pushed off the hammer you would not fall to your death anymore. What do you think?

Petoox.6570:

tbh this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoaVn0MBlPhlOBGOBkmiFYCzLNcGaDzdwTYLULBEAyAA-TpBEABAcEAYa/BDOBAE8AAe4QAYeZAA is best thief build.

I believe you are right. This build and its variations are probably the best builds if you play a “traditional” thief, meaning you try to outnumber and end fights quickly.

Urejt.5648:

Actually critical strikes does more dmg mathematicly speaking which can be easily proved by calculations or jaxnx dps meter.

Herev is the test i conducted. Weapon – staff, any dps combo to kill indestructible golem
Dps meter shows:
cs : 3999 dps av
da: 3200 dps av

Except you don’t fight golems in pvp. Did you take into account that most of our targets are below 50% health or just above when we engage?

style.6173:

@OP

the truth is no one wants a thief on their team. Why? The class is weak and there never really were many good thieves to begin with. I’m finding that whenever I have a thief on my team, about 80% of the time we lose. Coincidence? No.

Cool story bro

Cynz.9437:

did you even read my post?

Yes

Cynz.9437:

does sind ever q alone?

Sometimes yes. He also queues with Helseth or Frostball, which allows for thief/mesmer burst, so it’s another reason why Sindrener has more success than most thieves.

Thief has a role, and it’s the best at it, still. Instead of having balanced squirmishes that you win, you need to +1 fights and instantly kill stuff to build momentum and constantly outnumber opponents everywhere, while taking decaps when your foes decide to comit to bigger team fights. Basically, you snowball the map by quickly ending fights and roaming between points.

The problem in the current meta is that it’s just not possible to quickly kill meta builds. If you watch recent ESL games, you’ll notice that even when a fight is won, the team that has the upper hand is incapable of snowballing because:

1) Mesmers and druids are far too mobile.
2) Mesmers, revs, druids, scrappers and tempests take ages to kill

So in definitive, thief is only marginally worse than pre-HoT, but the conquest strategy in which he has a role has completely disappeared, at least in tournaments.

You mentionned Sindrener and Vallun, which are perfect examples. Caed plays a staff build and plays well, but a power revenant could fill his role much better. What makes Sind and Vallun is that:

1) The players at their level have a better understanding of rotations, and can actually make use of the thief.
2) They play a very smart build. Dash, Scholar Runes, Palm Strike on interrupt, d/p: the idea is simple, never duel, just insta-kill. In the role they choose, not even shatter mesmer can compete.
3) They are mechanically better than most players. With all the condi/AoE/invuln/block spam around, playing thief requires amazing concentration (more than, say, scrapper). They’ve been playing thief for a long time, and they are good at it.

So yes, thief is rather bad currently. It should get better if bunker mesmer gets destroyed (sorry, I just don’t think that it’s a good thing to have a mobile build capable of holding a point), druid mobility gets nerfed, and some of the AoE damage and the block/invuln/blind flying around disappear, thief will be back in the meta, because while he can’t 1v1, he has a very distinct role in which he’s the best.

tldr : Vallun and Sind are good, but the team strategy associated with thief does not work anymore because of mobile, unkillable meta builds.