Annoyed by: That it is incredibly difficult to max out one character.
Angered by: That they already screwed up the WvW achievements by making them virtually impossible and went and did a similar thing with WxP.
Saddened by: The ANet statements that Account Bound WvW levels will never come to pass.
Hopeful for: That ANet has back tracked on statements before and they have been made several account bound changes
Will settle for: Making it so that masteries can be earned in 100-200 hours of active WvW play.
Will probably get: Disappointed.
We have seen a lot move from character to account bound (karma, siege, gathering tools, etc) so I have hope they will eventually come around. They have dug in on this not being account bound but maybe with enough forum outcry we can cajole or annoy them into this change.
Here is an idea… go back to the former system. It wasn’t great but it was better than being locked into death matches with more populated servers for seven weeks.
The OP solution would have been better (not sure how the bracketing would work) but I just want to go back to the occasional hard fight, occasional easy one and every so often an awesome somewhat balanced one.
Easy. Don’t log into WvW for a week. Transfer servers if the problem persists. Start playing another game if that doesn’t work. This has been the solution for a large portion of the WvW player base. We only have one guy from our guild playing in WvW now.
Skill lag. Even if they could remove it, they would have to completely rebalance AoE. AoE is already too heavily built around in this game. Imagine if one player could spike a million plus DPS… nobody would roll with a class that didn’t AoE as a prime source of damage.
t1 vs t2 is pretty sucktastic as well. Ask SoR, they can even say that t1 vs t1 is sucktastic as well.
True. The only winners so far in the league is sitting in Bronze where the matches are at least somewhat balanced. Silver and Gold look sad with blowouts in nearly every match.
Ultimately the scores are reflecting players reducing play time during those tougher matchups. So few want to play when they odds are so heavily stacked against them.
Which would mean the strong server would only need to focus on 1 enemy……
This would be a much stronger enemy. The two smaller servers would not be going after each other for 2nd instead focusing their energy on the 1st place server. We have seen a handful of 2nd/3rd place alliances before and they do work.
I am not sure of the logistics of it all but a forced alliance would make for a far more competitive match in blowout situations… which is pretty much every match in Silver league right now.
Remove score and www is balanced.
Nope! T1 versus anything lower than T2 is a sucktastic match regardless. Crappy for T1 since they will steam roll the opposition and crappy for the enemy server since they will frequently log in with practically nothing on the map that is theirs.
The score is only an indicator of a poor matchup not the cause of it.
Viable, they all are. Best, warrior. Worst, Ranger.
As for the guardian, they are a tin can roaming with lots of players carrying can openers. I consider solo ones free kills most of the time.
Nothing useful and likely nothing interesting. Most GW2 rewards and drops are beyond useless.
Imagine being on Mag or SoS right now… they are getting hammered by the heaviest servers with no end in sight.
Leagues exacerbated an already crappy problem (transfers and tier locks). Until they abandon this architecture, I am not sure there is much that can be done sans eliminating leagues altogether.
They don’t dodge so any place where enemy AoE is dropping fast. WvW is the obvious place but several fights in PvE are also responsible for pet death. They also don’t avoid AoE either and frequently just stand in it.
Veteran Scout… those things have the best blinds in the game. I would settle for a Veteran Cabalist though.
Players should be able to spark up a duel anywhere in the game. We can already sort of do it with Costume brawl and the like. A lot of games also offer this feature including the now defunct Champions Online which was not a AAA title. All the pieces are there and to be honest players shouldn’t have to spend gems to get it.
This is a really terrible suggestion… not only it has nothing to do with wvw but also it would encourage people to fool around.
“This is a really terrible suggestion… not only it has nothing to do with wvw but also it would encourage people to [have fun].”
The player base does not seem to mind the huge chunk of time it takes to get these things. The players are basically asking that if we pour hundreds… nay thousands of hours into a piece of the game we shouldn’t have to duplicate that effort across every toon.
as usual people want the I win easy mode button
Nothing easy about getting nearly 1400 ranks (the amount needed to max masteries) or getting 10k levels (the amount needed to cap the WvW levels). If capping WvW levels was as easy as capping player levels then most would be happy with it. Currently it takes thousands of hours of typical play to get the masteries. Hope you have roughly 10k+ WvW hours per character of play time to cap that toon.
I can cap 8 full toons in PvE before I can get one toon full up on masteries. I could cap 100 toons before I get Diamond Legend on one toon.
The WvW level scale is ridiculous. The WvW achievement scales are ridiculous. For example, with the current system nobody will ever get Yakslapper in this game… ever.
Irksome is when other players spout a glib opinion with an insult thrown in for good measure.
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For more offtopic nonsense: point differentials in WvW mean next to nothing. Once the outcome of the match has been decided the vast majority of losing servers tend to lose the motivation for play for ppt, or play at all. This is true for pretty much every matchup. The only thing the differential really indicates is how early in the week the losing side gave up.
FA was beating SBI by 10 percent plus almost the entire time. It was only close to even the first few hours of the match and SBI did surge in the middle but never overtook FA. FA is a stronger server generally speaking. If SBI does beat them, as I said before it will be a big upset.
To put this on topic, there probably won’t be a tie for 1st place in Silver, Gold or Bronze. It could happen but probably won’t.
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Shadow Step doesn’t break a stun but can be activated and move you away from incoming attacks. If they close the gap before the stun is up, you can activate Shadow Return.
Blinding Powder has a similar effect which is one reason I prefer it to Refuge. Something stuns you, you can still pop Blinding Powder which turns you invisible and frequently blinds the danger buying you time.
Wrong Shadowstep utility skill is a stun break.
Meant to say immobilize there not stun.
If a skill doesn’t have timed activation cost, it blows right through a stun. The reason we see most times on thief skills is because they want them to be effected by stuns. Most of the longer duration skills are because they have multiple attacks or parts that use the duration to balance the different parts of the attack.
Shadow Step doesn’t break a stun but can be activated and move you away from incoming attacks. If they close the gap before the stun is up, you can activate Shadow Return.
Blinding Powder has a similar effect which is one reason I prefer it to Refuge. Something stuns you, you can still pop Blinding Powder which turns you invisible and frequently blinds the danger buying you time.
But after 10Dec thieves and “prolonged fight” won’t mix well together anymore regardless of extra initiative regen….
The exact opposite is true. Opportunity builds might see a reduction in burst but most builds will see more attacks over time. The change actually encourages pacing over burst.
Shadow Refuge completely gives away your location. Can’t really compare that to the actual “permastealth” being discussed here.
And refuge is often a giant billboard that says AoE the hell out of this spot. Even worse if a thief is pulled from it they get instantly revealed.
This capability and more defensive capabilities could now be better accomplished by D/D + D/P which won’t have the stigma of permastealth anymore.
S/P will be a great compliment to D/D than D/P after the patch for roamers.
That fast and cheap shadow step with the sword is ridiculously powerful in 1v1 fights particularly around uneven terrain. I wouldn’t use the S/? as my up close attack but it is great as an opener and gap closer. Also nice when going in against certain builds like guardians.
The obvious answer is the ridiculous amount of init regen that is done while the thief is in relative safety. Engage a fight, the enemy pops their load, D/P stealth to near full init, kill said target with BS/HS.
Another reason is the stealth has no cooldown. CnD is expensive if it misses and other stealth skills are one some pretty big timers.
Lets not forget about making sweeps ridiculously tedious. Dead players in an enemy keep with a D/P running around is beyond annoying.
Absolutely no reason to play D/D as D/P has a much better stealth mechanism with virtually none of the downsides. D/P will be on par with D/D after the patch.
Lastly, it makes the class almost impossible to kill. If a competent D/P doesn’t want to die, they generally don’t. This was kitten ing almost everyone off.
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Condition build in WvW is great for trolling, but is not very useful otherwise.
Condition thieves have the advantage of being able to keep pressure on a target without having to remain unstealthed. They don’t have the burst obviously but they can unchain themselves from precision which can be quite freeing.
This is an interesting condition build I haven’t quite deciphered yet
S/D thief was barely on par, now anyone picking sword would be literally crazy
1. same stunbreak capability than dagger
2. less DPS than dagger
3. more condi removal ( but who cares, since you’ll be dead at the 2nd stun) than dagger
4. less burst than dagger
5. more predictable than daggerBasically there’s no reason to play sword. Abolutely no one. And dagger was already sub par.
Disagree. I always considered S/? a utility weaponset much like the SB at least in WvW. The feel of S/? blends well with D/D. The utility of Infiltrator’s Strike and Flanking Strike should not be underestimated in a roamer build. I switch to S/D when roaming now and will continue to do so especially since Infiltrators Strike is a much better gap closer than HS or Infiltrators Arrow.
Agreed… bad idea. As soon as a fight goes over 16s the new system is better. It also makes running down players post fight easier since a lot of our speed/mobility is tied to initiative regen.
For those of you keeping score at home, if SBI beats FA during week 7, the points will be tied.
That would be a pretty big upset. FA beat SBI pretty handily (almost 20 percent more points) the last time they met. Things do change and I suppose anything is possible… like SBI or FA losing a match before week 7 which is REALLY unlikely.
I’m close to sure they have to do this. It fits 100% of the GW2 concept and the whole process done so far. Actually the guy who came up with the idea that it should be char bound should be fired or watered or maybe arcaned.
As of now they are sticking to their guns saying it won’t be account bound ever, but they have back tracked before and they certainly should on this. Almost everyone I know stopped playing alts in WvW. I only alt in PvE now where the rewards and achievements are… wait for it… shared.
It’s not that you don’t belong in silver, its DB doesn’t belong there. You guys are fairly even with us (CD) and i can safely say they DB have massive coverage during US prime time and Oceanic Prime time.
They do belong here. FA and SBI are the two that don’t but anyone else brought down from the current Gold league would be dominating as well.
1st, 2nd and 3rd place are probably locked with no ties. It doesn’t much matter past that. I am pretty sure this will be the correct power rankings despite the scoring in the end:
FA
SBI
YB
BP
DB
EB
CD
NS
IoJ
The last two could flip/flop.
Crappy lesson to learn the hard way. Most players on most servers experience it eventually.
I stopped defending ages ago because there is no reward to be found only frustration. The only thing I will defend consistently is Garrison and sometimes the EB Keep. The rest can just stay paper as far as I am concerned.
Didn’t see any of the good roamer guilds in those fights. Would be more interested in seeing a tough fight against better roaming guilds… maybe a GF or similar.
I think medium armor wins!
Thief is impressive with a hopping shortbow, spammable cluster bomb and dagger storm.
Ranger with Piercing Arrows is really good. Long range, can spam the shortbow attack endlessly and the axe bounces like the thief SB.
The engineer has bombs and most importantly grenades that are crazy spammable. So much so that retaliation is a real problem and reflection is deadly.
Light armor Ele and Necros can certainly hang but the mesmer pulls them down.
Guardians staff can be impressive but too short range… warriors definitely bring their group down.
I have played in games that have this and long ago decided that I don’t like a bunch of players stopping egress.
Can you imagine getting into a tower with 20+ players outside? They would stack 5 or so on the door and nobody is getting in. Even if it only happens with friendlies, some groups of players are going to grief and prevent players from getting to some place just by standing in the wrong spot. Jumping puzzles… ughhhh….
Is it necessary to nerf my emergency init (Klepto and 3 signets) from 9 down to 5?
I didn’t look into Klepto and the Signet changes. Klepto isn’t a huge deal since it only effects a couple init per minute. The Signet one could be far more problematic especially for builds that use Improv. Both of these are nerfs no matter how we look at it. Not sure why they felt the need to do this. Players using either may (and probably will) have to unfortunately alter their attack chains.
Just as well the P/P and S/P are not hit HARD with this change it is just the sole fact that this change was brought in as a MASSIVE BUFF to any and all thieves.
But the change to opportunist did not include the compensation for those builds that actually actively, willingly, skillfully used it.
Thief gets more BASELINE power at the cost of lowering the skill ceiling and abandoning benefits that reaching that ceiling could give.
Look. D/D will make more CnD or more DB with this change.
S/D will make more stips with this change.
Godly SB doesn’t really care.
D/P will make more Heartseekers with this change.
P/P will make less Unloads.
S/P will make less Pistol Whips.
Does not sound like a buff for everyone.
I don’t agree that these classes will necessarily take that hit. They may have to space out their heavy init cost skills more but it is entirely possible they will cast the same number of these skills and in some cases considerably more.
No matter how I approach the math on Opp/Regen it seems to come out near even or better in most cases. The attack chains may have to be altered but it is likely that similar DPS will occur but with less peaks and valleys. Also, there will probably be new builds that spring up from this change to replace the old ones since the init regen does make the CS line more optional.
This is just my opinion from theory-crafting and clearly is not based in the real word. Time will tell and hopefully I am right since that would mean these builds are still as strong as they were going into the patch. It would be disheartening to me if these builds fall away because of this change.
Something is buggy with this skill. I have seen it work both ways. Also strange is that sometimes if 2-3 players go up for the stomp it only effects some of them.
Guardian Wave of Light has a similar issue…. sometimes when they are blinded it misses sometimes it hits and pushes back.
A thief can chain the better attacks in a weapon set quickly. Every other class has to contend with a cooldown on XYZ weapon skill. For example, dropping 4-5 cluster bomb blast finishers is something no other class can do.
Is it worth the trade-off, that is subjective but I would say yes. Certainly more fun to play.
I think P/P needs a different condition applied on Body Shot, a faster base attack and a decent AoE. P/P could be a nice condition style build for the thief (sort of like the engineer) but it is too compromised with too much single target, limited condition application and slow recharges.
I could see changing Repeater into either a ranged AoE skill or a teleport both of which would help bring it on par with the SB.
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1. Guardians are mostly free kills in 1v1 play. Some warriors are tough but with the upcoming hammer/control changes they should be much easier to bring down.
2. Thief mobility is ridiculously good. Most weaponsets have mobility, steal, shadow step, traits that increase speed and a mobility signet that is actually good. To date almost no class can out run my thief. Best they can do is use fear and immobilizes to keep me nipping at their heels.
Burst, D/D and D/P is still one of the highest single target bursts in the game. You just won’t be able to spam it then recharge in complete safety. Basically you are going to have to learn how to play the class without an OP gimmick like D/D thieves have been doing since the start.
PvE content in GW2 (with the exception of some dungeons) is so ridiculously easy does any class have a hard time with it?
The only complaint I really have is that mobs regen their health to full sometimes and run back to their reset point when I stealth. It is annoying particularly with champs but not a deal killer.
after you factor in that your target will ALWAYS be moving, dodging, pushing you away, putting you into stuns, etc., … won’t the base regen increase actually be beneficial?
Yes. This is why theorycrafting Opp/Regen into a nerf is probably just forum drama. It will like change some attack chains but the overall regen is probably going to even out most losses. I am sure there will be a loser somewhere but I am not convinced it will be substantial.
The math is looking more and more like the new Opp/Regen system is better for most builds, equal for some and slightly worse for others (fractionally worse).
Thieves in WvW may not be great group fighters but they are the premier scout class in the game. If someone thinks a Ranger is better, they could not be more wrong. Thieves are also one of the best open world 1v1 classes out there. They may not be as strong in duels but when they choose the fight they are hard to beat.
D/P is now basically on par with D/D… get used to it. Oh and D/D is not dysfunctional… it is actually a really well designed and powerful weaponset.
You have 15 base, 45 regen and a TON of opportunities (literally, not just trait name)
After patch – you have 15 base and 72 regen. Nothing more, nothing less. No room for error, and no room for brain.
Pre patch the max init regen (using Opportunity and base regen) is 105. The highest post patch will be 72 as you stated. That seems like a big difference but virtually no build is going to be able to spam 3.3 critical shots every second of that minute. Only a very small handful of skills can guarantee a ROI of 1 init per second from Opportunity. The skills that can do that cost too much to spam endlessly.
IMO, most builds that use Opp to regen were probably hitting in the 70s on this scale. Some builds will probably take a hit during bursts but will likely even out over the attack chains. Every other build is likely to see a small to very large improvement in overall DPS.
As I pointed out in other posts as well as Jon from Anet, Opportunity is a mid-tier minor trait that should not define builds. If it is a trait that defines builds it should be a Grand Master trait that requires sacrifice to get. They gave us a giant buff and likely a mostly minor nerf. Opp regen builds (S/P and P/P) didn’t really get anything out of it but I am so sure they lost much either.
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Eles can do that too with Glyph of Renewal.
Not even close to as good though. Battle Standard brings up downed allies, brings back NPCs from the dead (allowing a single warrior to keep a circle up) and after all that for a full minute buffs anything near it with Fury, Might and Swiftness.
Put a pack of these together with some guardians and instant skill group emerges.
I am not a fan of the repair achievement but getting supply is relatively easy by going to a camp or killing a yak. Seven weeks is a long time to drop that supply. I finished mine in the first week fighting YB without taking tower/keep supply.
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Long queues, zergs everywhere and when I do find a 1vX fight it is frequently a pack of new players. The first league week blew with long queues and a large population imbalance. Second was OK but we were more evenly matched. Third week has been another giant mismatch with enemy zergs everywhere.
I am a daily WvW player (mostly) and probably will not WvW much until the league is over. I am sure some are enjoying it more but it really isn’t my scene. Much of my guild has started playing Path of Exile in the meantime.
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FIFO, LIFO, Random? Should someone sitting in the queue for 10 minutes have priority over someone who has been in there 1?
Also why doesn’t it tell us the average queue duration and if they adjust the selection mechanism tell us where we are in the queue (1 of XYZ).
It is well hidden. Talk to the guildmaster. After the panel opens, select the bank option from the drop down in the upper left.
Taking the “fun to play aspect” out of it.
Ranger is the least useful. Their water field is powerful but the elementalist water fields are almost as good and elemenatilists do way more AoE damage and add group fields.
Engineers are second. Stronger than rangers solo but also lacking in general group utility.
Thieves are third. Stealth allows them to scout zergs, kill yaks with relative ease, help cloak mesmers for quick keep flips/forcing sweeps and gank reinforcements. However in large group settings they are relatively weak with mainly a great blast finisher to offer.
After these three… the rest are all good in one role or another. None of this changes what players like to play but if I were forming a skill group I doubt rangers or engis would be in the list and thieves would be asked in limited quantity.
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Which it will still do.
Well considering a reduction to init directly causes evade uptime reduction, stun uptime reduction, and even heal amount per second reduction (signet of malice) so it’s in fact a very big nerf even if init regen is slightly nerfed. While PW will still have evades, and stuns, it will not be able to provide that if you run out of init , so not really.
I think at this point both sides of our debate are academic. Neither of us can really know until we see it in action. I still believe that builds focused around this will see only a minor hit to their overall init regen. I do agree (which makes me wrong earlier) that with this specific skill it will see an obvious net loss though. I also believe most players will see a net gain some tremendously so. Ultimately Opportunity as it was designed was OP for what it cost to get. Now we get part of it without even having to trait it.
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