Have you played this game long? Even when the devs say they will do something it is often months/years before it is put in. If the change does go in, expect to have the carpet pulled out from under you because they will add XYZ in and somehow manage to make the skill/ability worse.
For the first year I was a big ANet cheerleader but the second and third years have been a monster reality check.
I think it is safe to say just don’t play a thief in any game mode and expect to be on par with other classes. Somehow this class went from useful and dangerous to underwhelming and brittle over the course of a few big patches.
I am sure ANet will work with someone that turns up with a forged or stolen key but there are no guarantees and they are not obligated to do so.
The only “Consumer Right” at play here is between the seller of the key and buyer. ANet has the right to deny users access with improperly attained keys.
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3 months ago, we had a bandwagon in T2 that also lead to two other servers imploding. 10 months ago we had a bandwagon coming from T3 and completely destroyed T2 balance and ended imploding themselves as well.
At the start of the year TC, JQ, BG, YB, SoS, DB and FA were at the top of the leaderboards. Now we have SBI replacing DB but otherwise same servers.
The “recent” big shifts were Mag when the T2 GvG project bailed which was a year ago and HoD during the last tournament also over a year ago. Everything else has pretty much been low to mid-tier shifting where 10 players moving can actually shift the scores. TC and YB switched places but that is about all the drama going on in the top tiers. The last titanic shift was SoR and that was two years ago.
Sorry just not seeing much “bandwagoning” since the top 4 servers became locked. Now if those become unlocked, that will probably have some big shifts but I am guessing that isn’t going to happen any time soon.
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Further I’m talking about history, not necessarily what’s happening now. NA has a history of bandwagoning and fixing tiers, that’s what has put us in this position (for better or for worse).
EU has blowouts and static tiers just like NA. The number of real NA bandwagon activities are almost all related to free transfers (gone for years now) and tournaments. There hasn’t been any real bandwagon activity or even significant implosions in NA for a year.
Besides this problem has existed since day one and had little to do with a “bandwagon” problem.
Perfect.
They have invalidated accounts in the past with forged/stolen keys. Some users found out the hard way buying keys from G2A.
You’re saying bandwagons are due to off hour transfers? Sorry, I don’t agree with that. In the same way that we accomodate OCX/SEA for “variance”, EU accomodates French Canadians, Mexicans, and even a good few NA players. They have the exact same sort of off hour disparity that we do, Baruch’s Bay is their version of Dragonbrand even rofl.
I am saying few if any players are “bandwagoning” in the US since the Full lock and probably not much since the last tournament. There is no place to bandwagon to in the US. Maybe SoS as the transfer is cheap and puts players in T2. Even in that case much of that was from TC to SoS which isn’t a bandwagon.
The thief pretty much sucks right now in overall effectiveness. It is brittle and the damage output is similar to other classes that have far more survival. It has a niche culling the weak (poor players, bad builds and wounded players) but any decently played build in another class will pretty much park a higher skilled thief.
Vitality is superior on a thief in almost every scenario. Toughness is great if a build has excellent condi cleanse and regen. Toughness waters down either damage or burst survival on a thief especially since stealth fixes most of the issues of running with a low toughness.
I believe the population rating is locked or at least on a very slow moving average. If it were not SoS would have moved up to Very High from High a while ago as they easily have the same or slightly more than FA most of the time.
A second Mesmer no doubt. The stealth overlap between three stealthers will allow you to blow up players and larger teams out of nowhere. You will even be able to fight on the outskirts of enemy zergs relatively safely. An Engi is certainly a decent option since it has some extra utility but Mesmers still rule the small man fights.
Get guard stacks and enjoy them while you can. HoT will reset the points so you can pick something else when that happens.
Pop a booster when the circle comes up especially in a keep. That will generate more WxP than no booster and consuming the vials. I am saving them to help speed up WxP generation on characters I don’t main.
The simple fact of the matter is that EU is less prone to bandwagoning, stacking, or fixing tiers than NA is. Some people like stacked/fixed tiers, good for them, but those who are in those tiers have to realize this was done intentionally. It’s not by accident that t3 got so stacked and so fixed, that was the intention.
Bandwagon… where would someone bandwagon to in the US servers? About the only server worth transferring to that has a reasonable cost is SoS which is being artificially held at High rather than Very High or Full. Nobody can get on the Full servers.
The US servers have more regional variance (larger time zone disparities) and a significantly larger regional pool than the EU servers. That has far more to do with the current tier imbalances than somehow EU players being better in some way.
Fortunately 400 WvW levels goes pretty fast once you learn some tricks. The obvious one is tagging every enemy keep, tower, camp so when it is flipped you get WxP even if you aren’t there. The easiest way is to either transfer to a strong server in a tier that flips paper constantly or head to EotM… course that is pretty grindy. With boosts though 400 WxP levels can go quickly.
We all transferred to another server. Didn’t like having to do that but would rather play together. ANet has a legendary game but the devs/marketing go out of their way to make it a crappy experience sometimes.
Also Full servers to my knowledge never open up. The population tiers seem to be locked across all time-zones.
-they can create a free alt account on your server to join you
I believe Full servers do not allow new players. Could be wrong on that.
TL/DR Summary: Moving to Black Desert which is coming to NA next year.
Game looks really nice and the upgraded action combat system is much better than GW2 best I can tell.
Oddly the traps and runes are fine. When used with Caltrops on dodge and D/P things get a bit out of control.
Similar problem only with more volatility. Maybe if a server wins/loses 2-3 times they automatically move but no matter how the matches are aligned, some series of servers are just going to get screwed for months on end.
The problem I see with that is unless they are keeping track of which accounts are counted towards “WvW activity”, they have no way of knowing if a transfer is an active WvW player. We don’t know if individual accounts are tracked in that manner.
It is pure speculation since none of us are privy to their code or internal design but I would think they can track average time spent in WvW per player. If not, it doesn’t seem on the surface something difficult to implement.
If RP is a strong contender in WvW, I would consider a T4 or T5 server. You won’t have queues to deal with and lots of flexibility to do your own thing without irritating a bunch of hardcore players. For PvE runs with old TC friends it is still very workable.
It has been a while but NSP was a fun place while I was there.
IMO stealth should not stack and all stealth should have a 1s reveal tacked on the end if exited without attacking. I think that adds enough cool down so as to avoid perma-stealth without utterly breaking builds.
@a pharmacy
Saying they won’t have a sign that they are there is a lie, Black Powder leaves red rings, and same with Sr which has a huge house over it, thieves relying on setting traps to maintain perma stealth is next to impossible due to the small uptime of the stealth provided vs the CD of traps, they rely on D/P for the permastealth, which again has a tell with the red aoe from the BP. the Trapper Rune Provides 3 secs of stealth per trap placed with a max of three traps and MwS that’s 12 secs total that gives no indication, while the need to use the BP to keep it going till traps are off CD… so there are indications that a thief is there, a thief can do all of these things without the Trapper Runes, the runes just make it easier. not trying to directly defending just stating flaws in your argument, I’m supporting a redesign for this crap not a bandaid nerf.
There are other adjustments to consider. Thieves can actually drop 4 traps every 30s. Steal for stealth every 20s and with Improv guards typically give two more stealths. That alone is almost enough to stay in perma-stealth. Add in CnD rather than D/P and a thief can easily say completely cloaked with no visible easily signs other than caltrops.
Having played on or against many of these servers I can say there is a reason they are 3rds.
Numbers and coverage “win” almost every time in my experience. Most servers that move up a tier perform poorly in that tier. Most that move down do very well. The exceptions are usually tied to transfers which is what makes/breaks most servers.
The entire argument that large scale server skill has some larger effect is bull kitten. Sure there are GvG groups that specialize in zerg busting but they account for only a small amount of total WvW play.
If only ppl would have enough knowledge to not make data say stuff it doesn’t…
The bottom set of servers are getting run over and this K/D ranking backs that up. Having spent months (years) playing on servers in 3rd place in a tier it is the least fun position to be in often playing with few if any consistent keep WPs and defending mostly papered structures while trying to take T3s against superior numbers.
The list of 3rd place servers in their tier:
Eredon Terrace
Gate of Madness
Anvil Rock
Sanctum of Rall
Henge of Denravi
Crystal Desert
Fort Aspenwood
Yak’s Bend
Something to note is that blind is relatively useless against a LB ranger. It might save you a knockback but their channeling skill is the real danger and blinds don’t have a big effect on that skill.
Steal should have always had a return mechanic or at least a cheap trait that activates that ability.
If I see more than one, I swap Basilisk for Dagger Storm. You can also switch up a skill for Smoke Screen. Basically if I initiate, I switch around skills. If they catch me, I stealth, reset and switch around skills. This presumes the Ranger is a good fighter.
I am tinkering with this build… might be a bit too defensive. I would swap in Critical Strikes if it is.
Should pack a big hit up front and allow a fast escape if things go south.
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The entire system no matter how it is done currently simply isn’t working. The transfer system should entice players/guilds to even out the population levels in stagnant tiers.
I suggest allowing X number of free or very low cost transfers to stagnant servers in tiers that need more balance. Mark a server such as CD or HoD as low until it gets a 100 or so transfers.
Thing a lot of people here haven’t realised is these thieves can sit in a keep and almost never show themselves, not even a sign they’re there and bam, lord down and capped before swords appear.
Sort of. While testing this build, I tried this on a tower and because I never proc’d a reveal the guards just kept resetting and healing. If a thief does reveal for a couple seconds it does work though. Staying in the tower by running CnD off a door between trap drops was cheap as hell BTW.
This chart is really showing how awful it is to be the third place server in a tier. The only exception is NSP which is performing very well.
Trapper runes have LITTLE to do with this. The bulk of stealth comes off d/p . Setting a trap using runes gives at most 4 seconds stealth.
While I think D/P has been broken since release, the issue with trapper runes is that they allow a player to drop 3 traps and a few caltrops under a player without being revealed. Add in a steal that does damage/conditions and doesn’t reveal then a heal that drops an additional trap and cloaks the player. All of this uses zero initiative so a thief is still sitting on plenty of D/P stealth, damage or escape.
Here is a build we are having some success with:
I have adjusted it slightly for exotic rather than ascended armor. The trick is adjusting it so that the crit chance is near 50% to land a backstab. It does trade quite a bit of damage to run Trappers but Trapper runes are some of the best runes for survival right now since it turns the heal into a condition removal/stealth every 15s. Bonus is the control aspect of the traps and the near 100% uptime on swiftness. The extra stealth also yields more backstab attempts so the overall damage is still high.
(edited by Straegen.2938)
Here is the best guide I could find on playing a thief effectively in WVW:
Step one: Log the thief out.
Step two: Create Mesmer.
Step three: Buy cheap condi gear for Mesmer.
Step four: Roll most thieves by pounding your nose randomly on keyboard.
Pro Tip: You can use your feet/toes freeing up your face/hands to eat a sandwich playing a Mesmer and remain just as effective as a skilled thief.
Life is hard these days for a thief especially when an untrained monkey with a Mesmer is a formidable opponent.
It is odd that Anet is pulling the old “10 hotdogs in a package and selling buns in 8 packs” with the transfer costs. Maybe its accidental but it feels more like a big kittening money grab to many players.
Having been on both sides SoS is every bit as populated as FA and none of the lower tier servers have seen anything below Medium at least in the US when I have checked. Not sure when this patch went in but I would expect to see some movement in the last month.
As for the tier politics, TC generally flattens whichever side can generate the most PPT with the least resistance. For the last few days that has been FA but it could be SoS tomorrow. Best I can tell most of FA could give two craps about PPT. The concept that SoS is a superior fighting server that can hold its own with half the numbers is silly. 99% of the time blob size determines PPT with the only exception I know of being the Mag GvG days. As for SoS being ganged up on, look at the map. It looks like a red/green Christmas decoration for the last couple days.
We were discussing this in guild the other night. It’s absolutely absurd that given mostly even numbers, the crew with the high ground (IE, on the walls) cannot hold out against those outside.
Nailed it. Structures that are actively defended by a large group should not only be able to hold out but push back all but the most determined forces. Currently if the attackers have a slight edge in population they can take a structure through sheer force as the defenders can only wait until their is a full breach to actively use siege.
In tiers with a significantly more populated server (many tiers), the strongest server lives in fortified structures able to more easily defend their most important WPs. The two remaining servers try to paper each other often avoiding the heavier populated server because taking a T3 with fewer numbers is extremely difficult. Basically the system is setup to crush the least populated server in a tier and then keep crushing it.
My suggestion, create significant incentives for less populated servers to focus more populated servers upgraded structures. Basically create a system where the weakest servers aren’t a target just because it is easy to flip their side.
I am under the impression that the current population state for a server take into account only WvW. If that is the case, something must be messed up in the calculations. If this change has not gone into effect, let me know.
In T2, TC is Full. SoS is High. FA is Very High. Having seen two sides of this match I can say that SoS often has more players than FA or at the very least is on par with FA. I do play across all time zones so it isn’t a timezone thing. How does one server get a High rating while the other server gets a Very High?
Then we have the opposite problem at the other end of the spectrum. No server is ranked Low population yet we know some of the servers go hours without a significant population.
Hopefully the WvW population change isn’t in full effect yet. If it is, might be time to revise how a server counts its WvW population.
Friday is better than Saturday. I speculate with this change that Friday to Saturday will be EotM in WvW.
Stealth is not invuln… and if you really main thief you’d know that, aside from conditions, you cannot deal direct damage from stealth without being revealed, which prevents stealth for 4s.
The point of this entire thread is that a thief can and does deal considerable damage to players without proc’ing reveal. In addition the Ghost Thief build in fact stays stealthed the entire time. It has near 100% up time, reduces incoming damage significantly, has tons of escapes and is quite tanky for a thief build.
Ghost Thief perma-stealth is broken. The comparison between invuln and Ghost Thief perma-stealth is laughably ridiculous. My point stands, invuln is not a broken mechanic since it has massive limits on its frequency of use while perma-stealth (in any form) is.
Gotta admit that I don’t see any advantage to moving the reset time at least for players. KTrain is likely going to be in full effect Thursday till Saturday reset for most servers.
The fix to the original problem should have been to allow all players on an AC to have full FoV when firing. That would mean to counter an AC, a siege team would build an AC. Instead we got a change that nerfs ACs so hard it makes defending only possible with superior numbers.
We are on Eredon Terrace, the lowest population in-game. Our guild ran around for ninety minutes earlier today, and saw no one-from either server.
Now that’s action.
Impossible! Your competitors have a Medium population rating so they MUST have at least one map half full. /s
If this is the case, the fix may be pretty easy. Give one HP for each WvW level gained by a toon. They can cap it at 250 or something per toon.
stealth is a defensive mechanic , u dont want ppl to stay stealth while dealing dmg…
then pls disable warrior skills in endure pain / adrenaline stance, ranger skills while signet of stone , ele skills while obsidian flesh and so on.
If warriors could stay invuln’d 56s out of 60s in a fight, I think people would have the same complaint. As it is warriors have access to two invulns one of which they cannot directly control. Both are on 1 minute timers and last 4 seconds. If stealth had the same level of access, nobody would be complaining except stealthers.
Oddly traps used to and may still go through invuln. Also nothing procs on invuln like a blind, condition removal, extra speed, etc. There is also no way to extend it on a warrior.
Oh and I main a thief.
I get mystery damage not showing in the logs all the time from various sources. GW2 has the worst combat log of all the MMOs I have played.
I will play Rev but I play all the classes and many of their popular builds just to learn how to break them down.
When stacks are gone with the HoT release, Valk will be the preferred power armor for average players IMO. Without stacks heavy zerk leaves zero room for mistakes. I have switched to Valk on my armor and zerk on my jewelry. Now if I were 30 years younger with my old reflexes, I might still try full Zerk but full Zerk requires exceptional skill or exception caution to use.
The DPS curve on crit chance starts to diminish past 40% and really falls off past 50%. This is of course opinion but a couple thousand extra hitpoints wins a lot more fights than 5% or so more DPS.
(edited by Straegen.2938)
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