For WvW, they made the Ghost Thief stronger and SoA went from a great skill to a really great skill. Everything else stays pretty much the same which is not good news.
Condi builds got a boost… check.
Epi in tact… check.
Ghost Thief still running… check.
DH still has a ridiculously low skill floor… check.
Warrior passive defense unmangled… check.
Thief weapon set nerf only in PvP… check.
Zerg composition the same… check.
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I can’t understand all the QQ’g and crying and whining about HoT. I LOVE the HoT specialization lines. They made our characters awesome. Any kind of character improvement is welcome to me. And all I see here are people crying about take HoT away it’s too OP, it’s too strong.
The issue isn’t that HoT builds are fun to play and great but that HoT trait lines are near mandatory for most classes in order to compete. Prior to HoT and the trait line simplification, there were more build variations and more trait line options. Most aren’t complaining about HoT OP they are complaining that non-HoT is mostly noncompetitive.
I use the Action Camera with Auto Target and bound the right mouse click to dodge. This solved 90% of the issues with this game for me.
I bind keys to Mouse Wheel Up (typically F1), Mouse Wheel Down (Swap Weapons), Shift Left Click (typically F2), Shift Right Click (typically F3). I also bound Lock AutoTarget to my Caps Lock which is actually a Drop Target.
As for mice I use the Steel Series Rival 500. I find gaming mice with too many thumb buttons difficult to grip.
https://steelseries.com/gaming-mice/rival-500
Before that I used the Logitech g502 and it is a very nice mouse as well.
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Ricochet was removed because it was buggy and it made shortbow trivial for AoE ranged damage.
I don’t know where Ricochet being buggy is coming from. After its removal, the devs made a vague statement about the bounce RNG being factor and about the “purity” of the weapon set but it worked fine.
As for shortbow being trivial damage… it still is. Besides what does one weapon that is mobility based (teleports, evades) have to do with another that is damage based? Weapon sets should be balanced on their own merits and P/P has never been OP particularly because it has zero mobility (the only thief weaponset with that limitation) and requires traits to access stealth.
The number of single target only weapons in this game… Thief P/P… uhmm… uhmm… there probably is one or two more but I cannot think of any.
P/P is a fine weapon until more than one person shows up or it goes against a player with pets that knows to stand behind them. Removing Ricochet gutted the fun factor of P/P.
Dancing Dagger should be an Immobilize not a Cripple. CnD should cost less Init when it misses. Currently missing with CnD is punishing since it chews up a big chunk of init, keeps the thief in close range without protection and has very poor damage.
I would add D/D needs the Backstab ICD removed or greatly reduced otherwise it will continue to languish.
Bound requires a bit of skill to master. UC is easy to use and one of the best traits in the game. This is why so many thieves choose UC over Bound.
Bound when combined with Acro, Staff and offhand Pistol allows a thief to +1 a fight better than shortbow variants and it moves horizontally about as well.
PI cannot crit which makes it a fairly ho-humm damager. Sure it can bang up a crappy player that doesn’t realize they are seeing Head Shot spam and persists smashing the AA key. However any decent player counters Head Shot with relative ease.
Shadow Step and SoA are my mainstays in most of my builds. In competition I almost always go Bandit’s Defense. In PvE I typically take Assassin’s Signet for the extra DPS.
If Ghost Thief survives through a full balance patch, ANet has completely lost touch with the game.
Condi the build up and STOP attacking. Kills 90% of staff builds.
Very good builds go DD, SA and Acro with Bound. Those builds hit like a truck, very difficult to condi down and are slippery as hell. Very good players slow roll that build making counters near impossible. It is probably the strongest roaming build when played well in the game right now.
WvW is the same basic experience it was at launch. Sure we have bug fixes and peripheral changes (WvW levels, reward tracks, etc) but the game play is basically the same. Even the class roles are the same as they were at launch. GWEN is still in full effect, thieves still suck at most things except mobility and complaints generated on the forums.
Any change at this point is only going to be cosmetic particularly given the audience size.
Only two guilds I worry about these days and that is tRex and Void. Everything else seems to be easy pick’ns outside of the onesie-twosie sized guilds with skill players.
DeceiverX is correct. Reapers need better in-combat movement. I can tear one apart even if played to perfection because they simply cannot avoid being kited.
IMO, introduce a new trait in the Reaper line or overhaul a GS skill that allows them to handle kiting better. I think everyone would rejoice if Necros were more competitive in 1v1, duels, etc and didn’t need to rely on numbers or extraordinary skill to survive.
My prediction….
DH will see a solid buff and a very minor nerf. Mesmer particularly Condi Chrono remains intact. Thief will get another weapon set hammered. Warrior will get some clunky skill fixed but passive defense will remain intact. Scrapper will get an equal amount of nerfs/buffs that basically net each other out. Necro will get a nerf on skills/traits nobody cares about. Ele and Ranger will have a host of changes that don’t matter. Revs won’t have any of their numerous broken skills/traits fixed in a useful way.
I really hope I am wrong. They could surprise and take a shot at passive defense buffs, stealth stacking, condi burst, etc.
I had done the math of just flipping camps/sentries/dolyaks in an unbroken chain with only considering the out numbered buff and it was those 3 items every 3min to make it work which is impossible without an enemy cooperating with you specifically with this goal. But ya if you are grinding to the lvl you describe I can see how it can be achieved and all I can think of is to say sorry and pity you.
It isn’t grinding… about half my points come from player kills. Sure I don’t rack up the kills like a zerg but almost all of mine are on players that are WxP plump and by my own hand. Killing a couple hundred players or more a day solo is fun.
Also a camp will often yield 400 WxP and I can clear a camp before swords pop on it. Add in the drive by Tower/Keep takes, Sentries, pumping supply into gates and other guards it goes fast and I hardly notice. I don’t play to WvW level, it just happens. If I did, I would have been Diamond a looooong time ago.
Besides I find running around in a zerg tedious… well a friendly one. Zerg surfing is the kitten.
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Lolwhat? No….
I have logged nearly all of my almost 5k WvW levels and I roam 85% of the time. I can do it faster but it takes a lot of dedication to clear camps and sentries non-stop. The Daily 2 WvW levels takes me about 45 minutes if I have no partial levels.
The “secret” is to tag every guard on every tower between camp and sentry flips. That way a player will get a bronze or better if that tower/keep is flipped later. I do the same thing with camps that have RI… kill a guard and move on. Yaks are easy WxP and worth running down. Pump 1 supply into a wall/gate when an objective is contested for the defense points. SM is prime WxP since it is pretty easy to get 200 WxP every 3 minutes with almost no work.
The birthday gifts should come with a free transfer token. Letting a player move for free once a year (or rather X times character slots) would improve enjoyment of many WvW players. Moving servers often makes for several weeks of exciting new play with new friends and enemies.
Often, open world PvP is exactly like regular PvE except any player may choose to attack another player (some distance from a Waypoint). There doesn’t need to be a faction system involved.
When a player attacks another player, that player is flagged as a combatant allowing any other player to attack them without tripping their attack flag. Guilds that are at war with another guild can attack those other guilds without tripping the attack flag as well.
Typically Open World PvP maps have high end resources which makes it lucrative for players to risk collecting items there. Dying in those zones typically drops some of the rewards collected by a player so far.
This system allows for a better GvG environment, rewards players for taking risks and creates an adversarial system between collectors and hunters. In simple terms, an actual reason to try and kill each other.
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Why, they already have a quasi-balance system in effect which is to roll servers together. That system certainly needs to be dialed in better but no reason to create another layer.
Resurrection just makes larger zergs more powerful. If a player dies, they should have to port. That way a small group could engage a larger group and whittle them down. As it is now the largest zerg simply has to outlast a smaller one then it can completely reconstitute and continue on.
As for the downed state, the HP should be doubled and only one down state per 2 minutes. If a players goes down twice in 2 minutes, they have to port. This gives more time for a group to rally their friends but doesn’t allow a player to be continually brought back up.
D/P is and has been conceptually busted for years. Anet keeps buffing it, and has nerfed every other set, directly, since release.
I agree with the busted part (stealth stacking particularly) but the buffing thing not so much. Outside of the AA buff not sure it has seen a significant buff in a long time. The ICD on Backstab was a pretty serious nerf IMO.
This is the build I run in PvE and it basically never dies. It also hits like a truck:
Use Staff for most mobs and Pistols when dealing with a particularly nasty melee hitter. Condi in some fights can be an issue but typically SoA, Shadow Step and Pain Response do the trick.
Thieves do not have access to enough boons to make the set work well compared to others. Healing is also vastly underpowered unless in a group setting.
Try this one:
This is one of the most annoying D/D builds out there. Full uptime on speed, lots of escape, near non-stop evasion and ridiculously durable. Lyssa runes cover the burst condi hole and Instant Reflexes counters the burst DPS typically from compound thieves hitting you from stealth. They seem like odd choices until you run into a REALLY good player then they make all the difference. Most variants of this build go too heavy on Condi application when it simply isn’t needed.
Lol so true. I run a very OP thief build. I have perma dodge with a 3 second cooldown on dodges every 20 seconds then I just keep dodging for another 20 seconds. I pump out 1k heals every time I evade an attack and can inflict 50 stacks of bleed damage in that 20s if not clensed lots of access to stun breaks. No hard couner short of running into a zerg, even then I can easily down at least 4-5 people before I get focused down.
Can be stailmated if you have lots of condi clense, but can’t be beaten.
If you are talking about a D/D build there most certainly are several very hard counters since Death Blossom is both vulnerable to interrupt, channeling skills and ground effects. In duels that build performs rather poorly. Maybe you found some secret sauce but I haven’t run into in either sPvP or WvW if you have.
It does not transfer the stacks or the full duration if it is extended. Basically the attacker will get one boon with the initial duration of that stack and the defender will lose the entire stack.
Its only use is cutting through Aegis and Resistance which isn’t nearly as good as Draining IMO. I do keep a weapon in my inventory with that on it so I can switch after a reset to handle Resist Warriors and pesky DH’s running Defender runes.
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Roaming I average about 2.5 levels an hour without boosts. Looking at my log, that hasn’t changed in months.
Revenant used to be a thief counter when it first came out before they clobbered it with nerfs…
It still is. A well played Rev is actually a handful even for two decent thieves. Revs on top of each other start getting very difficult to manage.
Why no AoE caps would help the servers is rather unintiuitive but basically there are a few reasons why.
1. Fights where people stack up will just end a lot faster (so shorter lag time)
2. People might not stack up as much (5 organized people can melt 30 stacking people then, note that I don’t believe defensive skills should be uncapped)
3. Prioritizing is a very heavy operation for a computer, this would not be needed without AoE caps.
There was a time when a 5 target AoE cap didn’t exist and Culling was required to handle it. Even with Culling back then the servers had far more lag than today.
Without a cap a server has to find ALL the players in range of an AoE. Then it has to compute damage on lets say the 30 people in range. Then it has to manage the chain effects from passive traits/abilities that trigger from damage which will also trigger more traits/abilities firing. After that the server has to broadcast all those updates to all the clients within the vicinity both friend and foe. A single AoE on a group could easily trigger thousands of server messages to clients. Hence the need for Culling.
With an AoE cap, the server uses the same calculation as without a cap only it stops when it reaches 5. That limits the number of secondary triggers and reduces the amount of messaging that goes out by an order of magnitude. More importantly far fewer calculations are required reducing server processing load.
Also AoE having a cap brings AoE DPS into an easier to balance range. Without a cap AoE DPS eclipses all other damage by a significant margin.
The built in siege is nearly worthless. It is fine to clip dumb zergs, ignorant commanders or very small groups but otherwise useless and poorly designed. A defending group should have an enormous advantage that requires strategy to defeat. None of the built in siege offers any of part of that.
As it is now, pretty much any half decent pug commander can flip a T3 tower with a moderate numbers advantage. Most guild groups can do it without any advantage.
Condi Chrono is a force, but thieves are hardly OP in WvW. Thieves are carrion feeders that basically kill disadvantaged players (hurt, poor roaming builds, lower skill, etc). In pretty much every other mode of WvW play they are outright horrible. Given equal skill a thief is almost always at a disadvantage for winning a fight. Their strongest “skill” is their ability to test the strength of an opponent then run if necessary.
If we are going to “fix” anything it should be DH and Guardians. They dominate pretty much every aspect of play and the skill floor to play one is ridiculously low. Pile them on top of each other and they are nigh unkillable without a numbers advantage. They are the most complete class with a ton of group overlap, can hit like a truck, best pull in the game, fast rotational defense and they have access to fence skills that no other class has.
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Been asking for a Open World PvP since launch but they don’t seem to be interested.
Interesting turn in this thread… so nobody thinks stab and CC is problem any longer and is fully functional as-is? Pirate ship meta solved?
Players should get a CC resistant stack each time they are stunned, pulled, etc. Each stack should reduce how long a CC effect lasts… lets say a 1/3 reduction for each stack. After 3 stacks a player becomes completely immune to stuns, pulls, etc. As a starting point say a stack lasts 15s (and is not a boon so it cannot be extended or removed).
Obviously not my idea and not the first time this system has been implemented in other MMOs. The current Stab changes simply do not effectively counter the massive amount of CC in this game. The old stab changes made for too much stab up time. This could be a middle ground.
Still pretty active in NA during NA prime but there are nearly half as many match ups now.
Never is the real answer. We still have a handful skills/traits that are broken from release. We still have dozens more that are under-utilized because they under-perform and have done so for a very long time.
The only thing we have now is some sort of parity of roles in WvW. Virtually every class has a build that performs well in at least one role in WvW. I think that really is the best we can hope for at this point.
How about they change it, we live with it for a couple matches and see how it is BEFORE we start criticizing it and asking for it to be removed. You may be right and it doesn’t work as well but we probably won’t know all the ramifications both good and bad until they try it.
Most players will always want to fight from an advantage that rarely revolves around skill. Outside of everyone playing the same thing like in old school FPS games, that is just a reality and we even see it in newer games like Overwatch.
Even in games like Words with Friends, at least half the people I play against use websites that offer an advantage. You just have to adapt and play the game the way you get the most enjoyment out of it… or find something else (where the players will do the same thing).
Toughness and damage reduction on an enemy are big factors swaying damage on an opponent. Also traits and skill descriptors. Then we have damage modifiers. For example:
3000 power, 1100 avg weapon dmg, 1.32 Arc Divider, no modifiers, 2.25 crit damage against 2000 armor: (3000 * 1100 * 1.32 * 2.25) / 2000 = 4901
Same setup against 3500 armor: 2800
Add in Stick and Move, Berserker’s Power, Burst Mastery, Always Angry, Blood Reaction on a target with 20% health and 2k armor:
(3000 * 1100 * 2.31 * 2.45 * 1.1 * 1.2 * 1.07 * 1.07) / 2000 = 14112
and this illustrates both the variance in crit hits but also just how powerful multipliers are (and why low armor characters stay away from glowing red zerkers).
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Use a travel attack to find them. Thieves can use steal, warriors can use rush, etc. It isn’t a proper fix but will at least help you find their location.
The unrealistic list:
1. Population Balance – Magically fix what no other MMO has been able to do
2. Overhaul Condi so it isn’t all or nothing
3. Gut passive defense and eliminate multipliers
4. Create tangible rewards for winning a week
5. Create bonus incentives for 2nd/3rd servers to go after a “winning” server
Simple, durable, near condi-proof, slippery and hits like a truck:
D/P is utility for stealthing. Staff is the damager. Keep Steal in your backpocket for a very fast escape. Travel is Bound, Vault, Bound, Vault. Moves almost as fast as a shortbow. There is another variant that is straight up evil but requires more experience to run. Start with this.
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Warrior is the second strongest/low skill floor overall class in the game right now. It is defensive without the user actually having to heal, hit invuln manually, comes with a big pool of health, starts with the strongest armor and can be built to hit like a truck. Boon and Stun Lock builds are the more prevalent variants.
Rev isn’t in a great place but in capable hands is fierce. It has several mechanical play issues that makes it a bit clunky and it tends to be an all or nothing style play. Not as easy to play as a warrior but if you like complex combos it is a solid pick.
He is using the Candy Corn Gobbler probably to get the WvW and Reward Track XP Buff. The buffs from that are random so to get a harmless leveling buff the player ended up getting a bunch of others.
They have a solution right in front of them. Anet could rebalance the small servers between larger shuffles. Basically go into each tier and move one or two smaller servers around for a couple weeks until they get to a decent parity then lock the tiers for a few weeks.
Across multiple abilities, yes, but BD when compared to every other ability has the best block uptime in the game as well as substantial extra utility at little to no cost to the thief’s build in general.
There are a couple weapon skills that have similar up time including Warding Rift, Shield Stance and Echo of Memory/Deja Vu (this one is a bit weird).
I like Bandits and I run it but it isn’t a huge game changer on the class. It performs well on non-stealth builds but stealth builds have better utility options IMO.
Ascended weapons have a higher base damage which in turn is a fairly sizable advantage on power builds. Not so much for condi builds though.
Modifiers are multiplicative… meaning you actually get more than 26% as they stack. The more multipliers the more they start to add up. Example:
So non crit you end up with a Vault of 2475.
So non crit you end up with a Vault of 2970 which is 20%. Now comes the “magic”:
6% of the base damage is 148.5. However with Executioner factored in that Eagle damage is actually 178.2. It starts getting more obnoxious when you factor food, traits and skills in:
Now we are at 5489…. crit that with a strong magnitude and on a hardened opponent a thief is landing a Vault at north of 12k.
P.S. This multiplicative nature of damage bonuses is why Vault and in some cases Backstab get an OP label by a lot of players. Thieves have very strong multiplier access.
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