Guild Wars 2

Or “Let’s nip the bloody elitism in the bud”.

I’m not sure if I am the only one who has noticed, but there is a very nasty little trend developing on forums and ingame. I’m talking about the elitism and entitlement shown by certain players, particularly in terms of PvE.

This was one of the things that pushed me away from WoW – the horribly fragmented and exclusionary community.

I was under the impression that GW2, as more of a sandbox, had a more welcoming community. However in the 3 weeks since I started playing I’ve seen:

- People threatening to kick others because the class they play isn’t strong enough.
- People threatening to kick others because they are using a less than optimal MH weapon.
- Gear requirements on dungeon groups.
- People supporting certain classes being harder to level/play than others ‘because noobs’.

Basically the whole ‘everyone should play my way and only my way and I will actively block any attempt to do otherwise’.

Today this was especially obvious when the obnoxious sonic periscopes were nerfed in lowbie areas and we got wonderful responses like :

Just goes to show that ANET is babying the casuals once again.

Why would ANET remove the only challenge that PvE offered? I should get compensated for doing the monthly in “hard mode”.

Sigh…

If you want specific harder content made for you, then ask for it. But, as a lowbie who died several times to turret blasts out of nowhere when I first started, stop complaining about difficulty changes that don’t affect you in the least.

Let’s knock off this elitism now, so that this doesn’t become another one of ‘those’ MMO communities.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I don’t feel there is anything wrong with classes that have different learning curves and differing levels of skill to play. In Tera, classes were rated based on skill needed to master. Of course, there are no such warnings in game in GW2, but they are available on the forums if you poke around.

As to WoW’s early leveling experience being on an even keel no matter the class, that is easy to accomplish with class design where you get 1 to 2 skills starting out, and just use those. WoW skill acquisition is also glacially slow in comparison with GW2, at least on the weapon side. I’m sorry, but while the OP may have enjoyed leveling in WoW, I found the process to be so mind-numbingly boring that only the few F2P grinders were worse. So, I might be a bit inclined to view any comparisons to WoW in a negative light.

Are GW2 classes unbalanced early? Probably, since they don’t seem all that well balanced at 80. The meta will change over time, and some of those changes might filter down to the early experience.

So…you are saying imbalance is a good thing? Why exactly?

Tera is a horrible example of game design sadly.

Mirta.5029:

Einlanzer.1627:

Mirta.5029:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The problem is really with a specific weapon set not with the class. P/P thieves are just bad for PvE, the reason is that the weapon set is a contradiction. your auto attack skill is mostly for condition damage, it keeps a nice 5 stack of bleeds on the target. your 2 skill is completely worthless. It will always result in less dps then anything else you can do until there are 60+ players attacking the target, then the 1% dmg increase it offers will outweigh the cost. 3 skill is pure dps and pretty good dps, but it has no condition dmg so using it negates your autoattack as it lets your bleed stacks fall off. 4 and 5 are both very useful defensive skills, but they are neither good for dps or condition damage.

Basically pistol has needed a complete redesign since BWE 1. it just has never happened. it either needs to be a direct dps weapon, a condition dps weapon or something else, but right now it is just a waste of time and space compared to every other weapon available to the thief.

I would disagree
may attack does not do much damage, but your second attack stacks vulnerability. Very useful in dungeons. Going invisible and using your 3rd skill is plenty good as well.

No, it’s exactly what he said. It is badly designed, but the most egregious problem is how weak Vital Shot is, which forces you into Unload dumping, which means you might as well not have an autoattack, and also means you stay Initiative depleted and can’t use the other skills.

It’s really a terrible set and needs to be redesigned.

the set is not terrible, it’s only the auto-attack that actually needs redesigning. Unload does a hell of a lot of damage and thieves in p/p are the only ones able to stack vulnerability that efficiently.

1) Is still bugged, and probably will be forever. Also, until this is made pure damage (or Unload is given a condition) the spec will suck.

Unload is a strong dps skill, but single target only. SB 2) Is very close, costs way less initiative and does aoe.

4 and 5 are useful, but drain so much initiative that you may as well not even bother. You need that for unload.

Quinci.5968:

Okay, I think I see the confusion here. I was not understanding because your complaints don’t actually have anything to do with Thieves leveling worse than other classes at low levels.

You’re complaints are related to Thief strength in pve as a whole. Many people have complained about recent nerfs including the revealed nerf and stealth no longer dropping aggro as making thief weak in pve. Also many people have complained about P/P being a worthless set and very few people would actually disagree with you on this point (just check out the thief forums).

Well, quite a few people have said something like “I don’t want P/P buffed because thieves need to L2P and different specs are different” in this thread. Which confuses me.

But yeah, yet another thread about someone getting kicked from a group ‘because thief’.

Distaste.4801:

DrixTrix.7168:

the game is designed so when you select your class your playing the respective class who can then specialize in certain things.

when you level in WoW or any other MMO i have played you start off playing a bare shell of a class that is as boring as dog poo until you ’’unlock’’ abilities.

atleast with these classes you have the core weapon skills from the outset.

its the way the game is designed, you selct a thief you play a thief not something named a thief with ONE melee attack that acts as a tank until the un-nerfed continent.

i.e. a mesmer uses clones so from the outset your going to have to kitten well learn to use them not kill things with a simple purple bolt until lvl 30 while facetanking them.

The problem is that NONE of the classes are remotely close to balanced. I can fully understand someone picking a class and not quite understanding or liking how it plays, but for a good bit of these complaints that isn’t the issue. The issue is that some classes don’t even need to learn to dodge to be incredibly successful where other classes need to dodge, evade, heal, and repeat to even reach 1/2 of the success of the previous class.

I have leveled all but 1 class to 80 and the last one, a mesmer, is ~67. The warrior is the most unbalanced thing in the game. Run up 100b and everything dies. They do way too much damage, have way too much survivability(most base health and armor), and need to give up absolutely nothing to get it. The guardian is very survivable and puts out good damage(no where close to a warrior). I could go into detail on each class but suffice to say that some classes can be played with a ton of skill and will still be at a disadvantage in PvE. The traits just make things worse here because some are incredibly vital to make a class viable, further showing how poorly balanced some classes are.

Balance requires a give and take like you get survivability but you lose damage. ArenaNet has yet to figure this out completely and because of that the classes aren’t balanced. I mean who decided warriors needed the most damage, most health, and most armor? That’s simply bad design, the whole base health/armor system in general is poor balancing considering all classes have melee/ranged options and a lot of classes have the same options(Control, survivability, etc) but different base health and armor.

Well said.

Looks like we may be seeing a patch soon. Keep em coming!

WyldKat.4712:

Keep in mind, if they do anything to pistol skills, it has to fly across the thief board. There is no separating main hand – dual skill – off hand here. They can’t do something just for P/P except tweak the dual skill. If they change the other 4 skills, it’d overhaul P/x and x/P as well.

Why?

After playing a lot of SB for a bit, I also think that P/P’s initiative costs are entirely out of whack.

Unfortunately it’s a mindset among gamers – “If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying hard enough”.

Just look at how much DDOSing, crashing servers etc. used to go on at the top tier of WoW, and still does to some degree. Not to mention the constant exploits by the top guilds.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Sad to say, but certain classes just take longer to level than others. I have an 80 warrior, mesmer a guardian and I can tell you hands gown, the warrior was definitely the easiest. I’m currently leveling a thief and honestly I’ve been far more enjoying leveling with sword/pistol than the standard dagger/dagger setup. You might try different setups. Leveling in this game isn’t about getting from point A to point B. that’s why there are PoI’s, Vistas and skill challenges. It’s the experience getting there. Enjoy leveling your class rather than grinding away to get to the eventual goal of 80.

SB is also fairly insane once you get the hang of the 2). But I was still ultra ultra squishy for a long time.

Again – I don’t disagree that there are ways around it. I’m just not sure why people are so against P/P getting some love, or class leveling speed/ease being equalized.

Wolfheart.1938:

Bear with me for a sec I didn’t read the whole thread but noticed you said “I want to level my thief with p/p” and I wanted to point out that since balance can’t be perfect some sets/builds will inevatibly suck for leveling up, just like leveling an holy priest is (was?) a nightmare in wow, or wanting to level a Guardian only using the staff.

Also, regarind Thief’s squishyness… can’t you be invincible to every melee enemy as long as you stay in one of your blind-spamming fields? (smoke screen & black powder, add blinding powder or signet of shadows for extra funzies)

Actually, guardian is perfectly fine leveling with staff (slower, but very tough and excellent control).

P/P is just horribly undertuned and poorly designed. The spec works against itself and the costs for most of it’s abilities are about double what they should be. Just compare it, pound for pound, with SB.

This isn’t WoW. All specs are a hybrid to some degree. P/P is a glass cannon with no cannon.

ZenonSeth.5739:

By the way, regarding the pistol’s #1 – we all know that it has about 0.75 seconds activation time, whereas it’s listed as 0.5 seconds. That’s ridiculous – since its a 50% error, and an outright lie to user.

But you want the real travesty? Look at the Thief’s shortbow #1 – Trick Shot. Listed as 1/4 second activation time (that’s 0.25 seconds per shot, or 4 shots per second). The real activation time? 0.95 seconds (according to wiki). That’s a 200% error in the tooltip, and its obvious by how ridiculously underpowered Trick Shot really is.

I made a bug thread, because as far as I’m concerned, a difference between listed behavior and actual behavior is a bug.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Thief-Vital-Shot-and-Trick-Shot-Cast-Time/first#post1849457

Thats…quite insane actually. I can’t believe this hasn’t been fixed yet.

I adore the duster-coat + hat look of medium armor.

Grimwolf.7163:

P/P and P/D definitely do both need to be reconciled to deal the same damage type. Considering the Pistol trait is inside Critical Strikes, I would lean toward making P/D direct damage.
Unfortunately, either way people are going to have their builds royally screwed over and be forced to completely re-gear.

Or keep P/D as a bleed, and make it direct damage for P/P only. It’s not an elegant solution, but really, dual guns are so poorly designed that I can’t think of any other realistic way to handle it.

(EDIT: why on earth would a combination of ‘P/P’ and ‘is so’ be censored?)

Duke Blackrose.4981:

By reworking skill 1 to deal normal damage instead of bleeding, you nerf P/D, a more fun and interesting set than P/P.

Your opinion. I much prefer P/P. Who are you to say that one set is objectively more interesting than another?

It could be kept as a bleed for P/D.

NOTE: This is about PvE.

So the verdict seems to be that P/P is among the worst PvE weapon sets in the game. And it’s a real pity, because the idea of an agile, twin pistol wielding gun fighter is an extremely iconic and attractive one.

There seem to be 5 major problems with P/P:

1) Damage Is Too Low.

SB does more damage than anything outside of Unload. And most of it is AOE. This is partially a product of 2)

2) Dual Damage Types.

For some reason, the 1) primary attack is condition focussed and the major dps attack 3) is normal damage.

3) 3 Useless skills.

Body and Headshot are both barely even worth using, due to the way thief resources work (all skills share a resource). Black Powder is a strong defensive tool, but is so initiative heavy that it means you will be doing barely anything besides autoattacking.

4) No Mobility.

None of the P/P skills give any form of movement whatsoever. One, the primary damage skill, is actually a channel!

On a class this focussed on mitigation through mobility, it’s a dealbreaker.

5) No AoE.

P/P is one of the only weapon sets ingame that is single target only. With the multi-mob nature of PvE, this is a massive problem.

So – some possible solutions.

> Make 1) normal damage, buff numbers.

> Reduce the initiative cost of Unload and let it stack Vulnerability, similarly to Body Shot.

>Reduce the initiative cost of Blackpowder for P/P, but give it a cooldown.

> Replace Body Shot with a Shot that allows the thief to leap backwards, firing shots that cripple multiple targets. Give it an initiative cost to reflect this.

> Adjust headshot to also reduce the damage output of an enemy target significantly.

> Make Ricochet unlock earlier, and buff it significantly to compete with SB.

> Increase Unload firing rate and projectiles fired, decrease damage accordingly (for better interaction with SOM).

Thoughts? Any more suggestions?

Faereilos.5106:

Starbird.4029:

Welp, the general feeling on the forums seems to be that if you want to be invited to dungeon groups, don’t play a mesmer.

You mean don’t play a necro…? :P

@OP: Mesmer is definitely more entertaining imo. It’s got useful utilities, better damage, timewarp, and is always welcome in dungeons. I hardly play with my necro anymore – it’s just too boring.

Yeah, whoops.

Poplolita.2638:

RebelYell.7132:

Milennin.4825:

Playing Thief is about dodging, though. That’s what the class is supposed to do.

Sounds like a pretty bad PvE class, then. You can’t do anything while dodgerolling in this game. There’s no other way to proc evades AFAIK. Being a class “about dodging” works for, say a Bear or Monk Tank, because you’re also able to do your DPS rotation while doing it. Not here.

“Bear or Monk Tank, because you’re also able to do your DPS rotation while doing it.”
?

I’m sorry to pop your lovely bubble, but this is guild wars 2, not Wow. Apple, Orange.

That’s not the point he was trying to make, I think.

What he is trying to say (I think) is that while you are dodging and rolling around, you aren’t doing any dps (P/P). Meanwhile a Warrior or Guardian can just facetank a lot of stuff while doing full dps.

Uruz Six.6594:

Starbird.4029:

But okay, let me bounce this back to you.

What would the disadvantage be to letting key self healing and surviveability traits/skills unlock a little earlier for thieves?

You start with Hide In Shadows, that’s a heal, a regen, and a condition remover all in one. Its the best heal you have. One skill point gets you Blinding Powder for instant blindness and stealth. Another skill point and you have Roll For Initiative for an instant get out of melee power. Eight skill points and you have Caltrops, which is your AoE equalizer.

What would the disadvantage be to making key aoe abilities available earlier for certain classes?

I already mentioned Caltrops, but how hard can it be to plink around Shaemoor to unlock all your weapon skills?

What would the disadvantage be to buffing P/P, and other poorly designed sets?

I think this is where the problem is, so don’t take it as ‘L2P’. Take it as ditching WoW-instilled notions of MMO combat at the login prompt. Here weapons were not designed to be one size fits all. P/ kitten le-target ranged. Short bow is for AoE ranged. Swords are for AoE melee, dagger main hand is for single target melee, pistols are defensive offhands, daggers are more offensive offhands.

You can level as P/P, you’re just going to have a hard time of it. Black Powder is the best mitigation a thief has against most anything, however using it at range means following up with Vital Shot or hoping Unload or your auto-attack procs the finisher. You’ll be eating through initiative like mad to blind one ranged target at a time. If you really do want to stick with dual pistols, then I recommend either S/P or short bow for your second weapon set.

I run D/P and S/P myself, one for tearing through single targets and the other for when I’m expecting more. Use Black Powder liberally, toss out a Hide In Shadows, Shadow Refuge, or Caltrops as needed, and you can pretty much tank your way through a lot of leveling content. And frankly firing off Black Powder with a blade in the air is as badkitten as Unload.

If this game is designed around all classes being expected to switch weapon sets constantly, why can my guardian just roflstomp through everything with a greatsword or x + shield while my thief has to either juggle weapon slots to be close to similar in terms of power?

If it’s a matter of ‘thieves are just designed to be harder’ than I go back to my Balance 101 statement.

P/P is not viable for leveling. Possible =/= viable. I still don’t get why you don’t think it should be buffed.

I’m not talking about signet/hide in shadows/weapon skills here. I’m talking about traits and utility stuff.

Mirta.5029:

Starbird.4029:

Mirta.5029:

Starbird.4029:

Baeyne.9584:

Starbird.4029:

Ashabhi.1365:

Just an old lady’s perspective:

I would rather…

-snip-

TL;DR:
Don’t change the leveling process. Take a look at your class choice instead.

You remind me of people who support Shamans in WoW doing 30% less dps than everyone else ’because…

-snip-

‘Flavour’ is never an excuse for imbalance, in a good game.

It could also be argued that the imbalance you feel may be a matter of prespective. You may feel that a profession is not balanced with the other profession mainly because the profession you chose doesn’t cater to the playstyle you are used to in other games.

To my mind, GW2 is less about numbers and more about actually playing the game.

That is the reason why some people shun a profession in this game, they don’t understand how it works so they veiw it as a “weak” profession and deem the game “imbalanced”.

When you have people asking for thieves to be buffed and at the same time complaining that thieves are OP, the problem, i think is how people percieve other professions.

Edit: changed “nerfed” to “buffed”

The devs have confirmed that thieves need some love in PvE.

Do you disagree?

that’s exactly why they were nerfed, right? Because they were so useless in PVE…

The recent dev chat said that they want to buff rangers and thieves.

From my understanding, most of the PvE nerfs were splashover from PvP.

depends which thief ability will be buffed I suppose. Backstab does so much damage that that invisibility nerf seems really needed. Either that or backstab damage itself should be nerfed. Thieves do have other weapons and builds though, so I suppose if those got a buff it would be just fine?

Or, like any good game, you make stealth work differently in both. Which is hopefully what we are heading towards now.

Making stealth not change aggro was a horrible idea.

Coldtart.4785:

I think this thread is just full of thief haters. Give me one good reason why Thief P/P should be worse in every possible way than every other weapon set for every other class.

Becauase some people cannot enjoy their game unless they can, at the same time, know someone else is enjoying it less.

Their enjoyment is increased by stealing the enjoyment of others. It’s like The Highlander.

In the end, there can be only one.

Mirta.5029:

Starbird.4029:

Baeyne.9584:

Starbird.4029:

Ashabhi.1365:

Just an old lady’s perspective:

I would rather…

-snip-

TL;DR:
Don’t change the leveling process. Take a look at your class choice instead.

You remind me of people who support Shamans in WoW doing 30% less dps than everyone else ’because…

-snip-

‘Flavour’ is never an excuse for imbalance, in a good game.

It could also be argued that the imbalance you feel may be a matter of prespective. You may feel that a profession is not balanced with the other profession mainly because the profession you chose doesn’t cater to the playstyle you are used to in other games.

To my mind, GW2 is less about numbers and more about actually playing the game.

That is the reason why some people shun a profession in this game, they don’t understand how it works so they veiw it as a “weak” profession and deem the game “imbalanced”.

When you have people asking for thieves to be buffed and at the same time complaining that thieves are OP, the problem, i think is how people percieve other professions.

Edit: changed “nerfed” to “buffed”

The devs have confirmed that thieves need some love in PvE.

Do you disagree?

that’s exactly why they were nerfed, right? Because they were so useless in PVE…

The recent dev chat said that they want to buff rangers and thieves.

From my understanding, most of the PvE nerfs were splashover from PvP.

Welp, the general feeling on the forums seems to be that if you want to be invited to dungeon groups, don’t play a necro.

Baeyne.9584:

Starbird.4029:

Ashabhi.1365:

Just an old lady’s perspective:

I would rather…

-snip-

TL;DR:
Don’t change the leveling process. Take a look at your class choice instead.

You remind me of people who support Shamans in WoW doing 30% less dps than everyone else ’because…

-snip-

‘Flavour’ is never an excuse for imbalance, in a good game.

It could also be argued that the imbalance you feel may be a matter of prespective. You may feel that a profession is not balanced with the other profession mainly because the profession you chose doesn’t cater to the playstyle you are used to in other games.

To my mind, GW2 is less about numbers and more about actually playing the game.

That is the reason why some people shun a profession in this game, they don’t understand how it works so they veiw it as a “weak” profession and deem the game “imbalanced”.

When you have people asking for thieves to be buffed and at the same time complaining that thieves are OP, the problem, i think is how people percieve other professions.

Edit: changed “nerfed” to “buffed”

The devs have confirmed that thieves need some love in PvE.

Do you disagree?

But okay, let me bounce this back to you.

What would the disadvantage be to letting key self healing and surviveability traits/skills unlock a little earlier for thieves?

What would the disadvantage be to making key aoe abilities available earlier for certain classes?

What would the disadvantage be to buffing P/P, and other poorly designed sets?

PolarTank.5902:

Starbird.4029:

So I got the game a few weeks ago and have been faffing around trying to settle on a character.

Now one thing I like about WoW, for all it’s failings, is that whatever class I want to level, the early experience is going to be pretty consistent. Difficult or easy, the classes are balanced in such a way that nothing is a horror to level early anymore and most dps specs require a similar amount of effort and time to level with.

GW2 on the other hand…well, I really would love to level my thief, but I’m so insanely squishy that I have to jump around like a grasshopper on yellowjackets to survive 2+ of even similar level mobs.
On the other hand, my guardian or Warrior can just kerplode enemies endlessly, even if he is a few levels below them.

Since the early game experience is really important (first impressions on new players and all that) and can be so vastly different depending on what you choose to play first, I really think that some attention should be given to the fairly long period of time between starting and getting fully traited out and skilled up.

Perhaps the armor/mitigation/healing differential between the classes could be smoothed out early (and diverge more sharply later), and key survive-ability traits unlocked sooner? This would be a simple matter of changing a few numbers around.

Thoughts?

EDIT: For clarity. Also, please read this before jumping in with “L2P”. This isn’t a matter of the game being too hard. It’s more about certain classes/builds relying on tools that are not unlocked until late, versus others who have a solid kit from the get-go.

IT’S NOT. let me tell you why. the classes are different. you can’t play a thief like a guardian or vice versa. if you play style is tank and spank don’t play a thief. for a thief to survive you must learn how to move simple as that.

I play many classes and have not found any do be more difficult to lvl then the other through same content.

you don’t want anyone to respond with L2P yet what I read is what you must do. the vast majority don’t post this issue because they have spent the time to learn there class. took me awhile to learn theif. I practiced how to use what was given to me to survive before I put my self in tough positions.

the argument would be better if you we’re talking about time it might take to lvl a class, or how long it takes to learn.

but sorry I just don’t agree

You are free to disagree, as long as you can tell me why in a way that doesn’t end up as L2P.

The issue isn’t that the playstyle is different. The issue is that:
A) Some classes start out flat out worse than others and remain so until quite a bit later, due to when traits/signets/skills unlock. My thief literally does half the dps of my guardian for a fair while.
B) Some playstyles are significantly more difficult. This is fine at the endgame, but as other posters have said, should not be the case early on.

Ashabhi.1365:

Just an old lady’s perspective:

I would rather that things stay the same as they are now. Professions SHOULDN’T be the same to level.

If your play style is an “in your face” style, then warrior or guardian is for you, and thief or ranger is not. On the other hand, if your style is to hide behind the big tanky-looking melee fighter and take potshots, then maybe the Plate Wearers aren’t for you.

Thief specifically takes a special kind of player. One who may possibly be one of those types who have 3 tvs running, reading a newspaper, and playing an MMO all at the same time. I love them, but the simple fact is, I can’t play them well. On the other hand, I rock as an ele.

TL;DR:
Don’t change the leveling process. Take a look at your class choice instead.

You remind me of people who support Shamans in WoW doing 30% less dps than everyone else ‘because of flavour’.

As I said in the other thread, let’s stop this whole WoW style “if you don’t like the class, get out” style of arguing. If someone doesn’t like something (quite a lot of someones, it seems) then it at least needs a look.

Its Balance 101. If one class/race/spec etc. requires significantly more skill and investment to perform at the same level as another, then balance is squiffy and needs to be changed. The reason being, in a situation where skill is equal, the other class will probably have an advantage.

‘Flavour’ is never an excuse for imbalance, in a good game.

Quick Mouse.7635:

I think one of the things that would make boss battles epic would be Touhou-style aoes

If you are unfamiliar with Touhou, see attached:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nb5Ohbt1Sg

Obviously not as insane, but something similar adapted to the available mechanics would be epic IMO.

There should be several different aoe’s with unique patterns, used in no particular order but with distinguishable charge ups.

Jormag phase 1 has this to some degree, but because of the “safe spot” most people dont notice.

This sounds cool, but WoW tried this sometimes – all you get is a boss with a ‘you must have sub 50ms latency or don’t even bother joining the raid’ check.

Einlanzer.1627:

Starbird.4029:

randomfightfan.4091:

Starbird.4029:

Which is fine, but I’m absolutely not a fan of the whole ‘x class is harder than y class by design’ paradigm. All classes should require a similar amount of skill and input to do well as.

My guardian can kill 3+ mobs upwards of 2 levels from her without much attention. My thief can barely handle 3 at the same level and then it takes a bunch of kiting, and fairly decent luck.

What you’re saying is that you want every class to be the same and there to be no variation in class. If one wasn’t harder to play and they were all able to achieve the same goals while doing the same thing then what would be the point of even having classes? Thief is an engaging class that requires at least some attention when you have aggro. I’m sorry that you played a guardian before, I really am. Twice I tried to level one. First time I got it to lvl 40 something before deleting it due to how insanely boring it was. The 2nd time I got it to 50 through sheer force of will, trying to get a reflecting wall bot for grawl fractal. Deleted that one too and made an engi. So much more fun but still not as fun as a thief.

And about the whole thief having troubles doing the content that is faceroll on guard or war… well that happens in low lvl pve. The guard and war still do it at high lvls open world pve but then again so does every other class. Despite what people think, thief is amazing in dungeon and it has already been established that thieves are great in wvw too. So the problem is that you’re trying to compare thief to guardian when those 2 classes are apples and oranges. If you really need comparisons, then thief is the condition guardian. Instead of boons on you, it’s conditions on them.

If you don’t like the class though then just don’t play it. If you want the game to pretty much be handed to you and have very little challenge, then continue with the heavy classes. Problem with that though is you’re probably going to get bored of this game very soon when you’re not allowing yourself to get engaged into the combat.

Honestly, I’ve never bought into the whole WoW style “if you don’t like x aspect of the class then get out” method of thinking.

I’d rather suggest a change.

Balance 101: If one class/race/thing requires significantly more input and skill to succeed with than another, then it needs a look. Reason being that in a situation where skill and input is equal, then the other class is going to be better.

I agree with this.

It’s Zerg all over again. And we all know what happened there…

Ah, good to know. I tend to shy away from overpopulated classes

P/P is just craptactular overall. It’s autoattack is a condition and it’s main dps is normal. 2 of it’s shots are basically useless due to the way resources work and the defensive tool takes so much initiative that you will be autoattacking only.

Simple question. Not sure how it is at endgame, but all I see early game are Warriors, Guardians and Thieves. W and G I understand…but why thieves?

Are they this common at the endgame?

randomfightfan.4091:

Starbird.4029:

Which is fine, but I’m absolutely not a fan of the whole ‘x class is harder than y class by design’ paradigm. All classes should require a similar amount of skill and input to do well as.

My guardian can kill 3+ mobs upwards of 2 levels from her without much attention. My thief can barely handle 3 at the same level and then it takes a bunch of kiting, and fairly decent luck.

What you’re saying is that you want every class to be the same and there to be no variation in class. If one wasn’t harder to play and they were all able to achieve the same goals while doing the same thing then what would be the point of even having classes? Thief is an engaging class that requires at least some attention when you have aggro. I’m sorry that you played a guardian before, I really am. Twice I tried to level one. First time I got it to lvl 40 something before deleting it due to how insanely boring it was. The 2nd time I got it to 50 through sheer force of will, trying to get a reflecting wall bot for grawl fractal. Deleted that one too and made an engi. So much more fun but still not as fun as a thief.

And about the whole thief having troubles doing the content that is faceroll on guard or war… well that happens in low lvl pve. The guard and war still do it at high lvls open world pve but then again so does every other class. Despite what people think, thief is amazing in dungeon and it has already been established that thieves are great in wvw too. So the problem is that you’re trying to compare thief to guardian when those 2 classes are apples and oranges. If you really need comparisons, then thief is the condition guardian. Instead of boons on you, it’s conditions on them.

If you don’t like the class though then just don’t play it. If you want the game to pretty much be handed to you and have very little challenge, then continue with the heavy classes. Problem with that though is you’re probably going to get bored of this game very soon when you’re not allowing yourself to get engaged into the combat.

Honestly, I’ve never bought into the whole WoW style “if you don’t like x aspect of the class then get out” method of thinking.

I’d rather suggest a change.

Balance 101: If one class/race/thing requires significantly more input and skill to succeed with than another, then it needs a look. Reason being that in a situation where skill and input is equal, then the other class is going to be better.

Thanks for the advice! I am going to hold off on my thief for a little bit and focus on my guardian (I just want to be able to mule her some leather and stuff to get over the initial leveling hump). But will definately give the D/D Caltrops+Signet build a go

Thanks for all the suggestions! Wow, some good stuff here. Keep em coming, hopefully the devs take a look at this.

Esya.3427:

Mirta.5029:

if you would go out to the starting zones you would see that about first 5 levels mostly only feature yellow mobs anyway.

That is not the point I tried to make. It was only part of the things they changed. They made the overall content of the early levels drastically easier, in order to have players try the game for longer. A first impression is really important for games like these.

Mm.

Without trying to plug WoW (I’m sick of it, but lets face it – it’s a bloody good game for a lot of reasons) the first 20 levels are really focussed on teaching gradually and on having fun, getting people into the lore and helping them choose their playstyle. Not making them feel like their build/set isn’t viable until later/at all. That kind of min/max crap has plenty of time at endgame.

20-58 is very much a gradual difficulty curve. BC and WOTLK are…wonky, but Cata starts to ramp things up nicely and MOP has some very challenging leveling areas that require you to know your class. By the time you hit 90, you have a fairly good idea of what works, what doesn’t and what to do/not to do, at least as a dps.

Rakanarshi.5892:

Frankly I have to agree with the OP. The warrior is just so much fun to play as you can pick up almost any weapon early on and experiment with the skills. I made a second warrior after trying out all the other classes and didn’t realize how much more fun I was having with it then all the other classes. Got a sword and a war horn and rounded up mobs and mowed em down with my burst skill and used savage leap and charge to get around until I had weapon switching. I then used that to level any other weapons I picked up.

The other classes just can’t kill as fast as the warrior can. You can’t get some mobs and heap them all together and then easily mow them down while doging here and there. Everything is just so much slower, even on an eli. I thought, oh yeah, glass cannon, but I found that the best way was to go dagger/dagger and stick to earth…it was also a pain to get a new weapon and level 12 different skills -_-. Can’t they just look at the other classes and see how they can be more fun early on?

Bingo.

And it wouldn’t be a massive change at all.

Let’s look at the thief, for instance. A simple increase to damage early on (why oh why does my guardian do about double the damage initially?), making Signet of Malice do a bit more early game and perhaps making the aoe trait for Pistols more effective and available sooner, as well as the initiative boosting ones?

Right there, massive quality of life improvement.

I’m not asking for blanket nerfs to anything, just a buff to make the …say, 1-40 trawl a little bit more entertaining/forgiving on certain classes. The second you have numerous people advising others to level early on through crafting, it needs a look.

Quinci.5968:

Well, I know anecdotes are a dime a dozen, but I wanted to give you my experience as well.

I leveled a thief as my first character from 1-80. I’ve played with D/D for a short time, S/P for most of the early game, and D/P for most of the late game leveling (I switched to D/P when pistol whip got nerfed so hard), and of course shortbow as the secondary at all times. I never had much trouble leveling. I did feel squishy at the beginning but I quickly got used to the game and using stealth, blind, and dodging to make up for this. Pistol offhand #5 is especially OP in PvE, you can stand in this and wreck stuff without taking barely any damage. Not to mention you can use this and/or the smoke wall to shoot through with SB or pistols to keep an opponent permanently blinded.

I found that during leveling with my friends I actually ended up being the “tank” of the group since I would shadowstep in and pull most of the aggro, and then tank through blind and dodging.

I think the thief is harder to level just because he is a harder character to play. Guardian and Warrior are just easy classes. It’s not like the thief suddenly becomes easy at level 80 and Warrior and Guardian become harder.

Also, P/P is largely considered the worst of all the thief weapon sets. It’s not a matter of “you have to use this specific set,” but it is a matter of “user any set but this one.”

Firstly, as far as anecdotes go – did you do this before or after Stealth was changed to not drop aggro in PvE?

Secondly, P/P is the set I really, really want to play. As I’ve said, the iconic gunslinger archetype is what brought me to the class. It’s always what I try to play in games like this. Without it…the class just loses a lot of it’s appeal.

New Character Yo.6487:

I do agree with you that some classes faceroll too easily early game (warriors especially) and some have more trouble. Yeah, warriors are OP in both armor and damage compared to a thief, which makes the thief less attractive to begin with, but my main is a thief, and i love it, regardless of the obvious difference. My warrior facerolls mobs 4 levels higher then him sometimes, which is kind of hilarious. I guess it doesn’t really bother me because i love mobility so my 2 lvl 80s are ele and thief while my lower levels are guardian and warrior, but I can see what your concern is. In the end, what’s in game, is in game, and I wouldn’t count on balancing early game damage and survivability on the top of their list.

It would take a minor tweak of some numbers That’s all. For a massive quality of life increase. I’ve actually got several PMs from new players thanking me for making this…so it may actually be a bigger issue than you grizzled veterans think!

Baeyne.9584:

Starbird.4029:

Baeyne.9584:

There is also the fact that you are not limited to a single weapon set through out your gaming experience in GW2.

set is an assest in this game. In fact, it is a …

-snip-

There is no “white damage” in GW2. All your weapon skills do “yellow damage”. The only advantage is you can set one of your skills to auto-cast.

My Guardian can level just fine with Greatsword, Hammer, Mace+shield etc. Constantly having to swap weapons on my thief just because the one useful skill on each comp is needed in certain circumstances makes me want to punch a kitten. It’s clunky, unfun, and dilutes a lot of the thematic strength of playing a pistols thief versus a dagger thief.

And that is exactly the reason why you are having trouble with the thief profession. Utilizing different weapons sets for different situations is one of the core gameplay of a thief.

That, and still being in the “other game that must not be mentioned” mentality. There are professions in the game that are easy to pick up, but there are also some that requires you to know and assimilate the basic mechanics of GW2 combat before you can fully enjoy them.

It is also worth noting that the “carebear” mechanic of leveling during the early levels of that “other game that must not be mentioned” is not present in GW2.

You have to unlearn a lot of things that you have picked up in that “other game that must not be mentioned” before you can really enjoy GW2.

If one profession takes significantly more focus and effort than another for the same performance, something is squiffy.

randomfightfan.4091:

pistols are generally a bad weapon for thief, especially at lower levels. They don’t know if they want to be power or condition and instead of getting the best of both worlds, they get nothing from either. No offence but you’re probably a terrible thief right now. That’s normal. Everyone sucks at thief for the first little while until they get the hang of a few thief-specific mechanics before they get to be a decent thief player.

Which is fine, but I’m absolutely not a fan of the whole ‘x class is harder than y class by design’ paradigm. All classes should require a similar amount of skill and input to do well as.

My guardian can kill 3+ mobs upwards of 2 levels from her without much attention. My thief can barely handle 3 at the same level and then it takes a bunch of kiting, and fairly decent luck.

So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that P/P is just not a viable leveling spec since the changes to stealth not resetting aggro.

I guess I’ll be playing a melee thief then, but the whole ‘blind and autoattack’ thing doesn’t appeal to me.

So – is there any thief build that allows me to go toe to toe with enemies to some degree, with decent self healing? I’ve tried Signet of Malice, but it seems to be rather crappy (my Guardian’s passive healing is stronger). D/D is cool, but man – any sort of instant aoe/turret/ranged and I go splat.

Baeyne.9584:

There is also the fact that you are not limited to a single weapon set through out your gaming experience in GW2.

For the longest time, I could not get my head around the fact that my warrior SHOULD use his rifle in certain situations and that he can pretty much be a ranged class if you want him to be.

Not being limited to single weapon set is an assest in this game. In fact, it is a MUST.

Again, let us take our friendly neighborhood thief as an example. You should not limit your play style with just P/P. There are situations where an SB would be muh better since your no. 1 skill hits upto three targets. Or a D/P combo would be better for more survivabilty on a specific fight.

Granted that you can allocate your traits and equip armor to a SPECIFIC play style. Still you must not limit yourself to it.

There is techincally no auto-attack in GW2. If you stop thinking about your no. 1 skill as your auto-attack, it will make a whole world of difference.

Take a look at it for a second, you will find it it deals about the same damage as your other weapon skills on a per strike basis.

The only reason we mandatorily set it as our auto-attack is because it usually does not have a cooldown and can be chained. But it is not an auto-attack in the sense that it only deals “white damage.”.

There is no “white damage” in GW2. All your weapon skills do “yellow damage”. The only advantage is you can set one of your skills to auto-cast.

My Guardian can level just fine with Greatsword, Hammer, Mace+shield etc. Constantly having to swap weapons on my thief just because the one useful skill on each comp is needed in certain circumstances makes me want to punch a kitten. It’s clunky, unfun, and dilutes a lot of the thematic strength of playing a pistols thief versus a dagger thief.

Well, a big part of what I like about a class involves how it feels and looks. I like the way P/P looks and feels, but it’s just so horribly squishy and weak that it makes me feel like punching a puppy…while at the same time annoying me on other classes because they aren’t what I want.

This would lose ANet money from gem sales, so won’t happen.

But still a good idea.

Quite a few people have been telling me to avoid a ranger, due to the class being least wanted in dungeons, poor in PvP and overall crappy and buggy.

Is there any truth to this, or is it just the internet sounding chamber effect?

I honestly found ele fairly quick to level, especially as a melee spec. The self healing is amazing.

Mesmer…I may not have given a fair chance to, but I found it clunky and unappealing.

Thief just didn’t do the damage to justify it’s squishiness early on.

Also – having to play a drooling chihauhau monster is a dealbreaker :|

Wiser with Age.3714:

Starbird.4029:

S/P seems to be the top spec for leveling, with D/D being pretty popular too. I just really don’t want to be a melee thief :|

Ah… Then you pretty much don’t want to play a Thief. Our AoE ranged option of Shortbow is a decent back up weapon, but Pistol/Pistol is our weakest weapon set available and is in serious need of a rework.

I’d suggest that you take another look at a Pistol/Pistol build for Engineer. If you use P/P in some kind of condition / critical hit build and combine it with one of their weapon kit utility skills (like Grenades or Bombs), it should probably play closer to what you’re looking for. That kind of build can have almost permanent Quickness through a couple of Minor traits, which can lead to your having Vigor whenever you’re under Quickness (for just another Minor trait choice). This will let you still dodge around like a Thief and will let you ranged combat to your heart’s content. (My personal vote would be a Charr Engineer since they have exclusive access to the Dual Hidden Pistols toolbelt skill. This skill is the Thief’s P/P skill called Unload, just with a different name.)

Yeah, I have a feeling that I’m going to have to reluctantly shelve my thief…a pity, because I adore the look of the class.

Engi – ick. Super duper gimmicky, not at all the ‘gunfighter’ that I want to play. Unless I’m totally misunderstanding the class.

Jack of Tears.9458:

Starbird.4029:

Again, I’m fairly sure you leveled P/P pre stealth not dropping threat change.

Leveling shouldn’t just be ‘grrr make it ultra hard so people L2P asap’. It should also be a time when people are free to experiment and find their own style with the class.

Well, I’m biased – I found leveling other classes boring, honestly. BUT, yeah I did that leveling before the change to Stealth … horrible, horrible change Anet – no donut for you until it’s fixed!

Haha yeah, I can imagine it being a lot more doable when you have a get out of jail free card.

Nothing quite like mobs continuing to plug away at me through stealth :|