Guild Wars 2

sephiroth.4217:

So we should just remove Elite specs from WvW or give everyone access to it like in PvP…

Players have always had to level their classes to unlock class abilities. I get that some parts of the system are universal such as WvW levels but why should leveling an elementalist also level every other class on an account?

This isn’t PvP with the objective of creating an equal playing field. In WvW players have to earn their class skills before they can use them whether it be going from 1 to 80 or leveling the elite spec. This is the same system in most MMOs and the same one since day one in GW2.

Don’t bother is my suggestion. I have seen hacking go on for weeks/months and nothing happens after numerous reports, screenshots, etc. Same hacks that allow bots and teleports since release are still working.

You can get by with most classes well enough. Some classes such as staff elementalist and some mesmer builds are still very strong and meta. Most classes are at a big disadvantage with the missing elites.

Aezyr.5304:

Our server system isn’t perfect but imho still the best we can get. The focus should be on an engaging and rewarding game play and the maps will fill up again.

The server system is incredibly old school thinking and leads to stale matches, horrendous amounts of PvD, night capping and huge population imbalances. Even the way a player lands on a server is completely arbitrary. It is a design that was required before multi-server scaling was brought into MMOs.

Aezyr.5304:

That alliance system is stillborn from the start. Instead of servers you would get the “nightcap alliance”, “trolling every GvG alliance”, “farm nubs alliance”, etc….

Depends on how the system is structured. In a design I support, guilds can align and declare war on each other. At reset, the matching system would pair guilds together that are friendly against guilds that aren’t but the only guarantee is that players in the same guild will be on the same side. The matching system would take into consideration typical play hours, relative guild strength, previous matchups, etc. Players that are effectively non-aligned (mercenaries) would be assigned into matches to even them out.

The matching system will be responsible for creating relatively even matches that change weekly. At the end of each week, guilds would be ranked based on how well they did in a variety of categories and receive WvW guild awards this way rather than the currently PvE crafted method. Players would also be rewarded based on how well they did in various categories such as Player Kills, various Defense/Offense, Escorts, etc. The more a player does the more they and the guild they play for get rewarded.

A Guild Alliance system addresses the issues presented. There is a great article about this here:

https://toughlovecritic.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/putting-guilds-back-into-guild-wars-wvw-alliances-part-1/

I don’t fully agree with their concept but this system would be far better than Megaserver or the current server system.

I run with standard models so I haven’t seen it. Got a video?

If they “fix” the AA on the pistol you know they will screw up Unload. They so rarely “balance” a weapon set and not F it up.

Yes and it is glorious.

Because we aren’t Dragon Hunters. How the DH landed on a class ability with a fast refresh that works most of the time while the thief is left with a PoS ability on a long timer is beyond maddening.

Loboling.5293:

I miss old wvw…. This used to be my favourite mode. Now all I do is pvp.

It is not a good sign when I have to harass the last half of our guild (the single other guy) out of PvP into WvW. Prior to HoT he didn’t even play PvP.

briggah.7910:

according to these forums nobody plays on the new bls.

According to in game play, ten players can flip most BLs with little resistance. Very few want to be on those maps and the servers that do make a point of playing on the BLs typically win the weeks. Just look at YB in T1. A small force keeps the PPT very high for YB because few JQ or BG players give a crap about the BLs.

We know the feature exists and could easily work in WvW. We know WvW masteries have been around longer than PvE ones. How ANet could have created an entirely new mastery for PvE and simply did not copy the same one into WvW is annoying to say the least. Some features may be more difficult to program than the look but this one is right there… sitting on the feature self… has almost all the work already done.

Anet HATED soul bound WXP for the longest time and it took near crushing complaints on this forum to change them to account bound. It surprised very few that proofs were account bound by design and that ANet would “patch” the ability to use them on other alts. The sting was that there were clearly more important bugs to squash than fixing this perceived on their part issue.

WvW isn’t setup for that style play but for a long time some players have requested a PvP server where all non-city PvE areas are straight up killzones. The only thing safe would be fellow guild mates and allied players.

LionChain.7694:

Straegen, yeah, but if waypoint only contests at the event of a breach, then players who are defending can just constantly respawn at the waypointed objective being sieged, whereas players who are sieging have to run back if they die, so this creates too much of an advantage for defending players.

Defenders should have a substantial advantage defending their keep early on. This system opens up more strategy for both the offense and the defense. Instead of punching one hole there is a huge advantage in opening up multiple. Defending a breach would also be important. Supply management would become vital in this instance.

I am not against 90% or some other arbitrary amount but I think a full breach is a better system. In your proposed system would a WP stay contested as long as any barrier is at 90% or less? If so there would need to be some physical indicator which barrier is preventing the WP from opening. Such as the 50% mark on a wall/door currently which would also be a workable amount.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

You do have to camp (yuck) what gate you think they are going to hit (Watergate 50%) about 30 seconds after the defend event ends. You are eventually going to kill them.

Any guard including wall guards is fair game and a player only has to put them in combat. Also against a dare devil troll build you have virtually no shot at killing it when it contests a keep. You can lay down all the stealth traps and get 10+ people out to try and run it down, not going to happen. Even if you do manage the near impossible, the class traverses EBG map in about a minute from their spawn.

I can shoot one poison arrow from range, never engage the guards and contest the WP. Also Dare Devils are nearly uncatchable nor require stealth with certain builds so a single player can basically troll an entire map with no penalty.

My opinion is that a waypoint should contest when there is a breach (wall or gate/inner or outer) and remain that way so long as a breach exists.

Wurm runes do not perform quite as well but they are nearly as good for a lot less. I am a stun break and travel addict so it is very difficult for me to give up either Shadow Step or Bandit’s Defense but I can see switching in some more offense and switching one out.

The key to me is ditching Trickery in PvE. Trickery is vital for most builds in WvW or sPvP but doesn’t help much in PvE. You can always swap in Deadly Arts over Acro if you really want to spike DPS which I do outside of HoT content. I find Acro allows for a lot more survival with only a moderate DPS drop.

Infusion.7149:

Eh, which ranged AoE skills did you have in mind?
…

Most of it. I am thinking most ranged AoE should be similar in size to the Guardian’s Symbol of Swiftness which is 180. Big enough to catch players but small enough to be able to dodge through. I would also suggest making all CC circles blockable and dodgable.

Peazomanco.7259:

If aoe radius attack is nerfed there would be a problem fighting people over the walls and elevated spots.

Not sure I understand why this would be the case. Even if it were shouldn’t elevation/wll provide a substantial advantage?

Yuffi.2430:

Is the problem the AoE radius or the choke points? I can usually stay out of red circles if I have somewhere else to move to.

In a zerg fight, the area is completely blanketed between two zergs. That is the reason I posed reducing the radius on much of the AoE DPS/CC abilities.

Ansau.7326:

What it needs to be nerfed is the damage or the effect, not the radius. A 1200 range skill locking 5 enemies or doing +10k damage is the problem, not reaching a big area.

Skills like Meteor Shower can hit nearly 75 players and Static Field is not limited to the number of players it can effect. In fact there is no way to dodge or block through a Static Field. It also has a larger radius than the tool tip.

Aeolus.3615:

Joking asside, theres to much aoe if u notice even most AA is AOE but limited to 3 targets

Cleave is a completely different animal and by no means a significant problem. That has been around since the beginning and long before pirate ship.

I run with a standard mouse and Action Camera. I did remap the right click to dodge, scroll down to weapon swap, scroll up to Utility 1, mouse forward Utility 2 and mouse backward utility 3. Q is my F1, E is my F2, C heals, X looks back, I shifted 1-5 to ~-4 and my elite is on 5. I can play most classes with this setup and typically main a Dare Devil.

If that doesn’t work for you, already mentioned but would be my top pics for running in a zerg:

Herald requires little work on the utility side which reduces keys.

DH Trapper which is basically a spam trap build that requires little utility skill work.

Signet Longbow Ranger is stupid simple to play.

Here is the build I run for the new HoT areas:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn8lClOhFmCGOB0PhFqiau63+yvrnCgDYLHHsdE-TRCEABFv/Qb6KYS53DHRACeAAAcoA2SJoBXAgFV/ZzwAwIIQEMzMz0IiIChAEMGA-e

I switch out to P/P over staff against the bosses. I then pick up Brawlers Tenacity, Escapists Absolution and Ankle Shots. I haven’t died in PvE in weeks with this build.

Let me be the first to say the best thing to do is to log that class right out and roll a DH, Scrapper or some other more effective class. The thief is a hard road to travel when every other class around you excels beyond this class’s capability.

If that doesn’t intimidate you and you want to proceed, welcome to the club. The best suggestion I can give is to get to Dare Devil as fast as possible.

babazhook.6805:

Lucid singularity is a trait that only happens when one uses an Overload. You can not overload an attunement until you remain in that attunemnet for 5 seconds. This overload will than increase that attunements cooldown making it less accessible to an Elementalist . In order to overload you are locked in a long term lasting channel during which you very vulnerable.

Again this removes all movement impairing conditions and prevents them from being applied on top of the staggering amount of condi removal accessible to a Tempest. The only downside to this GM trait is that it competes with Elemental Bastion.

babazhook.6805:

You can not just look at what the skill does when making a comparison. You have to compare what it takes to get those effects and how often that can occur. I do not know that many Eles will Overload every 10 seconds.

Tempest and Ele condi removal is strong so few take this trait. However if the trait was reworked for a thief it would basically be something like remove all movement impairing conditions on steal and do not allow them to be applied while stealthed.

babazhook.6805:

All of the other ones you mention decrease durations. Don’t stop decreases the effect itself. Again as a thief I have high uptime on swiftness.

How? Either you take UC and make this GM trait completely pointless or go TotC which is inferior to FS in most builds. Expeditious doesn’t have much up time on speed. The other option is some sort of runes that give it but that is a huge sacrifice in DPS/Survival.

babazhook.6805:

As example you claim “dogged march” massively better. How?

Because it is an Adept trait (first tier) and applies Regen.

babazhook.6805:

The suggestion of no cooldown at all is just too much. It means a thief could never be Imobbed.

My suggestion was to make it like UC without the damage reduction bonus, speed and extended movement. I could also see this trait removing/reducing these conditions while Vigor is applied. Those would at least make it somewhat appealing.

babazhook.6805:

Acro needs a few more tweaks but it gets much closer to what it should be.

As I pointed out in my original post Acro needs to be more Acrobatic with more in and out of combat mobility. Acro also lacks a “killer” GM trait and offers no additional DPS. Don’t Stop is certainly not a killer GM trait and at best is a Major trait and more like an Adept one.

babazhook.6805:

Lucid Singularity is a GM trait that makes one immune to immobilize. It only happens when Overloading an attunement. An elementalist can not overload any time he wishes. There a cost to doing so.

This trait completely removes Chill, Cripple and Immobilize. It also make the tempest immune to those conditions while they are overloading. That is far better than turning Immobilize into Cripple and reducing the effect of Cripple and Chill.

babazhook.6805:

Time marches on is the other GM trait dealing with immobilize. It merely decreases duration of the same. It has a 25 percent post to speed build in but chill is a 66 speed reduction . You still move much slower when chilled.

This is a minor trait which the thief has to basically take a GM trait that is moderately better and soak up a utility slot with a signet to get. I wouldn’t use words like “merely” around this gem.

babazhook.6805:

I do not see the Ele or Mesmer versions as being that much better then Don’t stop. UC is much better then don’t stop.

Lets see… Dogged March: Massively better and it is Adept. Mecha Legs… Awesome and is only Master. Geomancers Training isn’t quite as good but is only Major and reduces the recharge on all earth skills. Similar with Relentless Pursuit which is only Adept. Oh then there is Unhindered Combatant which makes this GM trait look stupid.

This trait is a junk GM trait by almost any measure. I cannot believe you are trying to justify this trait at the GM level given at least three clearly better traits that do far more and several others in the same ballpark that aren’t even GM. I would rather have any of the other traits (adjusted for thief skills) than this trait.

babazhook.6805:

I am sort of ok with expeditious dodger. 1 more second might be helpful but any more than that is too much.

Michael.9517:

heh… i think expedious dodger is fine as is.

This surprises me. Currently a player can only keep swiftness up 30% of the time with this trait and that assumes they burn all their dodges to do so. A thief willing to consume all their base dodges should be able to keep swiftness up most of the time. Lets keep in mind Acrobatics is supposed to be a mobile and dexterous trait line.

babazhook.6805:

Don’t stop is in a wierd spot. On its own it can be GM worthy but the DD line exists and since most people take DD line it becomes a reudunant skill in many builds.

Compared to every other version of this in other classes, this one is by far the worst and it is a GM trait while most are Adept, Minor or Major and come with an additional bonus such as speed, regeneration, etc. Only two other GM versions exist and neither have cooldowns. Both are also vastly superior to this… vastly.

Michael.9517:

endless stamina is okay, buff to 75% would be fair imo.

Endless Stamina borders on useless right now. That percentage is not additive it is a multiplier so the bonus is only 1.25% per second. Vigor restores 7.5% endurance per second rather than the base 5%. With this trait Vigor restores 8.75%. To get any significant advantage from this a thief basically has to be running Vigor continuously. Even then they will get one extra dodge every 40s…. one.

Compared to any other trait line Acro is by far the weakest in the minor trait department.

Been playing an Acro build this week and mostly enjoying it. What I am finding though is that the trait line isn’t very acrobatic or mobile.

Expeditious Dodger swiftness is too short and really needs to be doubled.

Endless Stamina is a very very minor buff basically equating to roughly one extra dodge every 40s assuming a player can keep vigor on for the full 40s. I get they don’t want to give back the 3rd dodge bar but IMO this trait should refill endurance a set amount per evade.

Don’t Stop is mostly a rip off for a GM trait. It should be nearly as good as Unhindered Combatant maybe without the Swiftness, distance or damage reduction. It should also have a much shorter cooldown if it has one at all.

Upper Hand should have its Regen on 2s but the initiative gain per evade.

Assassin’s Reward is still under performing after its buff.

The bright spots are Pain Response, Hard to Catch and Feline Grace. Everything else is very meh or outright crap.

Loosmaster.8263:

Straegen.2938:

I would be surprised to see the overhaul slip into 2017 but I also expect it to be a profound disappointment. I very much hope that I am wrong though.

As we all know, history tends to repeat itself. Don’t get your hopes up.

Keep in mind much of this WvW overhaul was supposed to be delivered with HoT in 2015. It is already four months behind and since we haven’t heard a peep it is at least another quarter and likely more. I can see slipping a year but two is unthinkable in ongoing development time frames. Not impossible just highly unlikely.

Not saying it doesn’t happen but in the hundreds of hours since HoT release I haven’t seen this once and I defend/scout quite a bit.

Liston.9708:

There does seem to be a way to disable it through normal play, but not sharing secrets (and is only a guess any way)

The other way is to keep fighting whoever owns SM and hope the other side caps it as happened last night T1 NA prime (though I am not sure BG ever got to use the cloak)…..

They tried that trick and Chris just kept blowing up whoever was on the lord. The speed at which a cloaked zerg can kill a relatively unprepared enemy even with superior numbers is seconds. Shooting ducks in a barrel is more difficult than zerg wiping with this thing. After eight or so wipes both sides just gave up on SM for the time being. I know I wouldn’t go back into that buzz saw if I were on the other side.

I want to point out that after SM was secured, YB went back to open field fights as usual so I am not trying to throw anyone under the bus on this. YB could have kept using the trick all over the map but instead went back to fights as normal as I am sure any of the servers in T1 would have done.

Simonoly.4352:

It basically just replaces Mesmer as a veilbot in WvW. It’s fun the first time, but just like everything else it eventually just adds to the list of atrocities that have ruined this game mode.

Zergs can see the veil coming and the stealth only lasts 2s. Cloaking Waters stealths a zerg for 2 minutes and opposing zergs have very few indicators that a giant swath of red is about to envelope them. It is also easily and frequently repeatable so a server can keep wiping zergs.

Maybe you had to be there but watching this thing in T1 was basically the nuclear option. When it is deployed, the enemy has very few counter options and none that I can think of that would be consistently effective.

Dawdler.8521:

Reducing the radius would just make the pirate ship bring even more ranged and throw out the “poor” classes in order to adapt (ie instead of the backline being 10 necros + 10 randoms commanders are gonna say 20 necros or gtfo). Its not gonna solve anything.

I don’t think adding significantly more back liners is possible. Zergs are almost completely comprised of back liners tossing AoE now. There are a few exceptions but not many at least in T1.

Dawdler.8521:

Allowing melee to better walk over cc blankets for in your face combat is a much safer bet to reduce pirateshipping and bring back some selfbalance.

The problem with the old stability is that it was nearly as problematic as pirate ship. Hammer/Horn warriors and staff guardians were out of control. In skirmish play, the old stab was ridiculously OP. I am not saying reducing ranged AoE/CC radius is a perfect or even ideal solution but it at least opens up the concept of something in between. Currently a zerg has little chance of bypassing the massive circles being thrown from 1200 and the game play requires virtually no skill since the target areas can easily surround 20+ players.

I would be surprised to see the overhaul slip into 2017 but I also expect it to be a profound disappointment. I very much hope that I am wrong though.

A player gets far fewer kills roaming and ganking than they do following a zerg around. I kill at least 20 times faster in zerg play. It takes weeks to get that number in skirmish.

Also gankers generally could care less about PPK. Our little group just likes to skirmish and PPK is irrelevant.

Played a lot of WvW and never really seen this as an issue.

Subversion.2580:

There is no need trying mend one imbalance with another.

Reducing the ease of large scale ranged AoE promotes skill play over spam play. Rather than creating more imbalance, I believe reducing its radius brings it more in balance rather than out of it.

As for stability while I think the hammer train meta was better, it was not balanced either. Making it so that ranged AoE/CC can be more easily dodged and requires greater precision could indeed be a more neutral approach to the problem. As it stands the CC blankets such a large area it is impossible to escape it hence pirate ship.

What if Anet drops the AoE radius for ranged offensive skills significantly?

This would likely have a very positive effect on large scale combat since a handful of players wouldn’t be able to blanket an area with red circles. It might not solve the pirate ship issue but it would certainly help. It might also bring some parity between melee and ranged.

The sting to me is that targeted skills which require more skill to use than blanket AoE frequently get obstructed when they should not. I sometimes get obstructed standing right next to a target.

grifflyman.8102:

It should only be available to a server that’s losing by 5,000 to 10,000 points.

It would make a pretty fantastic outnumbered buff.

Offair.2563:

The return of culling – Now in guild upgrades!

Ha! Bug turned feature… good catch.

Thief is great early on in unranked sPvP play. The shine will soon wear off as you face opponents that know how to fight a thief or run a build that can basically ignore one.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Shadow trap gives 15 stacks of might when traited, 5 when the trap is triggered and 10 when you port to the target using the second function of the trap. Placed on top of 2 needle traps in a choke point it can be used to gank pretty effectively, although I might be role playing traps more than I should when I do that lol.

I never saw the extra 10 stacks in the Shadow Pursuit before. I may try that as a gimmick on my crit build since it could easily crack a big shot with 15 stacks of might on an unsuspecting foe.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

The other reason that I use channeled vigor is that I can steal to place the utility needle trap, then cast heal and sheath weapon immediately to keep the heal and still place the trap. Makes landing both traps in the middle of a fight significantly easier, and means I don’t waste my heal on the engage. This rather necessitates dash though.

The original link you listed used Withdrawl. I did think that was an odd choice. In that case Brawler’s Tenacity may be a pretty solid choice since it changes the heal to 16s from 20s which is more survival and more DPS.

It’s a fair point about cleanse heavy builds being an issue, you do have an advantage there. Like I say, I’ll give it a go when I don’t get massively distracted playing S/P lol ^^[/quote]

Cerby.1069:

I think it is an awesome addition to spice up the gameplay. You are attacking a castle….it’s not supposed to be easy stop complaining and work on improving your skill (stealth removers….COUGH COUGHHh).

In an SMC zerg fight a stealth trap is mostly useless. Even if it isn’t tripped early by a random player and is placed at the right spot to catch a zerg and the other zerg is ready for a sudden reveal, it only hits 20 people and the reveal only lasts 30s. The zerg just trots back outside and repeats a few seconds later. Last night it would have been useless because it was a 3 way fight with YB blind siding each zerg in different parts of SM.

With 2 min of stealth a zerg can basically destroy any other zerg on the map with relative ease. It is the best zerg weapon in the game bar none.

Confession, I abused the kitten out of this thing last night. The OP-ness became quickly obvious watching a zerg use this. I know it isn’t easy to get but once a side has access to it, no amount of preparation by the enemy can withstand a sea of red suddenly exploding on top of them.

RodOfDeath.5247:

Anets response was “please report in game so our security team can keep an eye on him”. I gave them documented evidence and the account name and they can’t sign onto the YB server and hang around EB keep and watch him? Oh wait, that would include PLAYING WVW. It really seems like a lost cause.

In this specific case, the player is on for hours each day and every three minutes can be found tagging a guard. It would take about five minutes to find this guy if they wanted to. At this point he is a walking advertisement for running cheats and hacks.

babazhook.6805:

SOA does little in the build except gain some endurance every 30 seconds. Distracting daggers is a free of INI interrupt and if used at close range is very effective.

SoA is awesome in this build actually. Extra dodges is a considerable amount of extra condi application and condi damage (10%) thanks to Lotus Training and Uncatchable. It also keeps speed, vigor, regen and initiative regen up longer in a fight. The removal of conditions is a nice bonus. The key to this version of the build is to keep dodging so SoA is a massive boost. Inflicting interrupts is bonus particularly when stability, invulnerability and blocking all prevent interrupts.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Similar sort of idea, just using traps for the extra DPS instead of the direct damage from pulmonary strikes. Means I don’t just have to rely on interrupts since two needle traps with 25 stacks of might on yourself kills just fine. I would love to take lotus training, and I played with acro before settling on traps, but immob is a real problem hence why I went for dash. I’ll have a go with carrion today since I have some spare plex runes lying about, I’ll reply later with the results.

The difference with the acro interrupt build is that it can still kill with power shots so heavy condi cleansing builds are vulnerable to its damage output. The Acro build is also very powerful in a group setting since Lotus Training is an AoE. Pretty much everything about the build is centered around dodging to spike DPS and make the build very difficult to pin down. It is also very difficult to stun lock the build as it has numerous stun breaks.

As for your build, I suggest Tripwire over Shadow Trap as it is on a faster timer and can potentially trip Perplexity. Definitely go with Uncatchable. Not sure how you get to 25 might stacks as you should only get 5 per trap. Immobilize shouldn’t be a problem with Withdraw.

Mokk.2397:

I simply don’t understand why third party hack programs can’t be blocked by the client. I’m no programmer but why can’t a simple detector be put into the client that would prevent log in when such programs are present. Can’t Anet programmers reverse engineer the most common ones used to date . They’re easy to find by just Googleing GW2 hacks cheats and exploits .Isn’t it in Anets best interest on a financial level to protect their customers from cheaters.

Scanning a users machine is a tricky business and full of liability issues. Besides most decent hacks hide themselves from detection. What is possible is for them to figure out the portion of the client that is getting hacked and put code that identifies users any time that routine is improperly accessed. The hacker gets away with it but unknowingly trips the ban flag.

I am sure some of the hacks are injecting network traffic which often is identifiable by syncing packet requests with client submissions.

Dawdler.8521:

OR they could just revert the kittened new waypoints to what was working fine for 3 years and once again allow us to cooperate to overcome the “issue” (ie scouts say when you can port).

Similar problem as thieves would just stand at the door and Cloak and Dagger or similar until it disabled the WPs. They just made it easier (and vastly more annoying thanks to NPCs) to contest. The WP issue has been annoying since release.

Since release my personal opinion is that a waypoint should contest when there is a breach in inner and/or outer and stay contested so long as this is true.

Zodryn.4216:

Keep in mind if you have no movement buffs and are out of combat, you have 300 ms. If you then Steal to someone, which stealths you and places you in combat, you will still have 300 ms (200*1.5). Supposing you got swiftness on Steal, when you exit stealth, you will have 266 ms (200*1.33). I could easily see how one would notice little or no difference.

I can drop a Refuge and after running out of it feels about the same as when I went in assuming I don’t have speed up. If I dodge to gain speed, I feel faster. It could be perception but whatever the effect from the speed of this trait I don’t think it translates into more kills or defense.

The problem with P/P is that it lacks a pierce, bounce or AoE so a skilled player kites behind their pets, clones or other players and completely avoids the damage.

As for the shortbow, its damage is laughable and since ANet nerfed Cluster Bomb by slowing it to an easily avoidable completely unspammable skill the weapon is mianly for teleport and tagging. Choking Gas has some narrow applications but that is incidental IMO.

Vault is great against crappy or stunned opponents. Outside of that it will get a player killed. As someone noted hook strike, AA and weakening strikes are the go-to on that weapon set.

As for the L2P aspect, Shadow Strike and dagger AA is spammed far more frequently in WvW than staff. IMO staff is actually a more difficult weapon to use than dagger/dagger and certainly dagger/pistol.