Guild Wars 2

Jinks.2057:

Straegen.2938:

Impressed with some of the solo/skirmish skills coming out of SoS. Some of those fellows from Bane are really good fighters. Two of us were chasing two SoS after a failed garrison attack on our BL and had the fight won but got sloppy and a sword thief clocked us both mid stomp. I won’t let our support guardian live that one down. I hope it was an isolated incident from that one group defending Foghaven on reset.

GH… I have a lot of respect for your guild but surprised to see gloating post fight. Having 20 guys wreck a couple of us then corpse dance is out of character. I know it is part of the game but surprised to see skill groups doing that sort of stuff.

You play for BP………you really expect respect after you get killed by Ebayers???

From most other guilds, I actually take it as a mark of pride that I irritated someone enough to warrant a little dance.

In this case I am surprised GH behaved this way. Based on my experience they do not gloat. It is a game, it happens all the time from all servers but still after all these weeks fighting each other this is the first time I have seen corpse dancing/laughing from their guild especially from so many. I am hopeful it was limited to the group during their defense of Foghaven on our BL during reset.

Same server player titles need to come back. Players should be able to choose PvE or WvW titles that other players on their server can see both in PvE and WvW. If a player wants to display, Ultimate Dominator for all to see they should otherwise why have the title in the first place.

Stealth is the best way to avoid large groups. Every other class runs the risk of using up their avoidance only to run into another player or group. The thief doesn’t really have this problem. Most non-thieves I have seen roam within striking distance of a waypoint. I don’t see many non-thief players headed north in an enemy borderland because the run is time consuming.

Buran.3796:

A Warrior wielding greatsword and sword and using the mobile strike trait and the Bull Rush skill is arguably more faster/has better mobility than any Thief build

Maybe. A thief has excellent sustained speed which allows them to run down most builds. The problem is that often catching another highly mobile player means not having much initiative or skills up so the thief starts the fight in a big hole.

Alchemist.3692:

this is not true.. HS can land and still stealth – ive had it happen and done it myself many times. It’s one of the benefits.

HS damage happens after the stealth and should fire reveal every time it hits a player. If it is not, that is a bug and in my experience when HS hits the thief is revealed. BP+HS isn’t like CnD. With CnD the damage happens before the stealth.

Looking straight down when HS is launched reduces the chance of HS landing but doesn’t eliminate it. Even when a player does get revealed in this manner the thief can dodge a couple times and re-stealth in most cases. This mechanic is broken in my opinion.

Impressed with some of the solo/skirmish skills coming out of SoS. Some of those fellows from Bane are really good fighters. Two of us were chasing two SoS after a failed garrison attack on our BL and had the fight won but got sloppy and a sword thief clocked us both mid stomp. I won’t let our support guardian live that one down.

GH… I have a lot of respect for your guild but surprised to see gloating post fight. Having 20 guys wreck a couple of us then corpse dance is out of character. I know it is part of the game but surprised to see skill groups doing that sort of stuff.

Geiir.7603:

They could make it so stealth in general doesn’t stack, which I highly support. This means that you can’t chain Blinding Powder, Hide in Shadows and Shadow Refuge. Having revealed apply each time the Thief leave stealth, wether he attack or not, would really force thieves to think twice before stealthing. This would heighten the skill level, and it’s also something I’ve supported for a long time.

None of the skills are really problematic. BP is 3s stealth with a 40s cool down. HiS is 3s with 30s cool down. Shadow Refuge, long stealth but 60s cool down and if knocked out of the hut immediate revealed debuf. So in about a minute a thief could be stealthed for about 15s with skills. CnD makes that higher but CnD has to hit and missing leaves a thief very vulnerable. These are working as intended and leave a thief player kill-able with decent play.

The problem really is the combo field Black Powder/Heart Seeker which adds stealth for 9 initiative and a lot less once traits are factored in. This combo also doesn’t require any particular player skill to use and a player can chain these together to get near infinite stealth. The combo itself isn’t wrong but the speed and ease at which it can be accessed is.

justin.9705:

Why is Vt so bad lol, we had a fair 3v3 and they lost…. They must have been mad bec they came back with a few extra to chase us down.

Every time we have run into vT, they have been very good players. Having spent a considerable amount of time fighting EBay (months of it) I would put vT up against some of your best (and I have a lot of respect for EBay’s skirmish/solo players).

In this case, screenshots or it didn’t happen. In fact, I would believe it was the other way around and maybe you are bitter before I believe they are “so bad lol”.

I don’t disagree with the sentiment but I think ANet needs to find a solution that encourages players to distribute populations beyond limitations in their engine.

This fix would be excellent as would fixing the context menus… sometimes the context menu works but mostly we only get the Report option.

Sarsbear.3469:

Here’s my problem with theives:
I go out to roam solo on my guardian. Theif opens on me, get him to 20% without losing any hitpoints and he escapes. I continue on because clearly I “won” the fight. But hes back. Repeat from south camp to north camp.

What you are to group play is what the thief is to roaming… hard to kill and effective.Taking away a thief’s escape abilities would be akin to removing all the guardians group abilities.

The fact that a decently played guardian is very hard to kill solo and once it merges into skirmish or zerg play becomes one of the most powerful classes in that environment should temper any frustrations with the thief in solo play.

This field combo falls onto the highly annoying spectrum and feels cheap. A class should not be able to create and use a field this effectively for so little cost. I don’t think it is game breaking, but it is very frustrating mostly because it has so few counters.

Stealth and other powerful abilities work best in the game when it is limited. Imagine if something like retaliation or chaos armor could be applied in a never ending solo stream and not really negatively effect other aspects of the build.

This again. Things we know about thief posts:

• This topic will get posted over and over because people feel the need to be special and create a thread rather than reply to an existing one with the exact same topic
• The vast majority of fights that end well for the thief are against less skilled players or players using a group friendly build
• The thief has seen a nerf with almost every significant patch since release. They share this with the ele and to some degree mesmer
• D/P thieves are the most annoying solo class in the game but a close second is anything bunker
• Thieves do not comprise the most DPS that belongs to AoE classes
• Thieves do not have the most kills… hello zerg guardian
• Thieves are designed for roaming and are mediocre at best in most other roles
• Many forum warriors think their class/build should excel in all facets of game play and completely gloss over builds/classes that do not do well in other aspects of WvW
• Most classes have some form of solo/skirmish build that gives them a relatively fair fight against equally skilled thief players

Jscull.2514:

For us its not finding a server with good small mans….it’s finding a tier that server is in to fight those small mans. We arent interested in teammates in the most non-selfish way, we simply want fights that use more than half our brain.

My point is you want to be on a server that actively organizes 5v5, 10v10, etc on a regular basis if your focus is on skill fights. Without that support network, you are going to be mostly dealing with zergV5 or PUGv5 fights because that is 99% of WvW.

On BP we routinely find decent fights but it is usually 10 Pugs versus 5 of us. Occasionally we run into skill groups like pockets of EBay GF/GH/Char or vT (they moved recently). Seems the bulk of the good 5 mans we have run into have been around T5. When we were higher, we mostly saw zergs and not a lot of skirmish.

I am not sure there is a “good” place for skirmish groups. I spent a considerable amount of time on DB and CD when they were T3 and T4 but both are pretty zerg heavy. We also fought during NA Prime on two servers who had great overnight presence but lacked strong play during our time at least when we were on them. The only time we fought a T2 server it was wall to wall zerg.

BP fighting has been pretty decent. This week has been zerg heavy but we are fighting two T4 servers. Even here though we often flip all the camps in a BL map and never find a decent fight.

I can say BP is a welcoming place and as long as you avoid EB is mostly fun. If you are going to head into higher brackets, I would suggest EBay. They have several skill groups and they frequently setup duels.

Being engaged with the community and good patch notes are a hallmark of MMO companies that players love. Being uncommunicative or sloppy works for some shops, but also tends to create a negative attitude within the user base.

As an example, Turbine at least with AC always had fantastic community support and some of the best monthly patches of any game I have ever played. The game was far from perfect but the community was very forgiving and most importantly the game is still around nearly 14 years later.

I am going to assume that utility in this context means being able to perform several useful functions. Unfortunately that description kinda leaves out both of these classes. I suppose the engi would have a tad more as they do have fields and can clear siege but both classes are utility-light at least in this context.

If you are asking what is the most useful, the ranger heal is ridiculously good since they can keep players alive while sieging.

All the basic forms of WvW combat have strategy. Zergs have a group strategy. Players inside the zerg have one goal… to follow instructions. Solo is about self reliance and individual skill. Skirmish is about overlapping skills and leveraging your teammates. They are all valid, useful and in their own ways fun. I personally find skirmish to be the most rewarding and difficult since it takes both a group strategy and solo skill to be effective.

Atherakhia.4086:

Not every class is useful to a zerg.

Thieves offer nothing.
Rangers offer next to nothing.
Necros suffer because of the insane amounts of condition cleansing.
Engineers are boring.

I understand where you are coming from with this but it is selling these classes short. Thieves have the best blast finisher and that alone makes some useful. Rangers have the best water field. Necro marks have no player cap and they are the natural counter to the guardian. Necros have become a power class in the zerg. Engineers… don’t play one so I won’t comment about how boring they are to play.

Azure.8670:

Thief 30 30 10. what weapons?

I run D/D SB (which recently saw a reduction in range). D/P is currently strong due to the ability to perma-stealth. S/D D/D builds are powerful as well due to high mobility.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlYmaPHfy5E+5Ey2jdqC5JuHOVS1UdFiKA-jUzAYLioRCCIRBgsARXwIQIJwioxW1KiGraBT5SEVbwFiM5p2fgJDg5CA-w

My build is a compromise between solo roaming (30% of the time), 5 man skirmishing (60% of the time) and zerging (10% of the time). I could swap traits/weapons in and out (such as dropping Shadow Refuge or Shadow Signet for Shadow Step) but I like the flexibility of switching roles on the fly. This build can handle most GC damage and clocks GC builds hard. Anything that drops below 50% health will find itself in trouble and it can handle heavy AoE which is frequently necessary for skirmishing.

Jscull.2514:

It’s not fun killing kittenty players, rather have 5 mans aiming for 5 mans to test merit. Anyone with a pulse can kill 10-15 Dungeon “masters”. Not sure if 5 v 5 will ever become culture in this game. Don’t think there’s enough talent…. Or desire for non-ez mode pvp.

We do love finding other similarly equipped groups roaming but that has been a very rare occurrence. However, our small group finds PUGs cathartic for the seas of red that routinely diverge on our position.

CHIPS.6018:

WvW leveling is faster than PvE on a high tier server that’s winning every week. In each fight you are getting experience from 60 enemies, instead of just 20 or 30. And obviously your zerg have to win those fights for you to get that experience.

Even on a high tier server leveling in WvW is slower than moderately efficient PvE leveling. It certainly can be done but it isn’t as fast IMO.

I would also add that leveling in WvW should not be discouraged. That said a player should be prepared for tough fights because up leveled players really are at a significant disadvantage. They frequently get plowed by hard hitting builds, cannot make a dent against bunkers and are often attacked first due to their squishiness.

If you like zerging/skirmishing, the Alt Heal Guaridan (check their forums for specifics) is an amazing build.

D/D bunker/quasi-bunker ele is still pretty unchanged even though it has suffered some nerfs.

Thief… I run this as my primary and like 0/30/30/10/0. It isn’t as burst driven but can whittle most classes down and most importantly can stay in tough fights for a long time.

Ranger – RRR (check the forums). It lost a bit with the last couple patches but remains a solid build.

Direwind.8409:

None of you have denied the the pro+ to the class I stated (being highest dps and burst, speed, mobility, escape ability, class synergy and overpowered stealth)

Denied! That is my official opinion on this statement.

Highest DPS belongs to AoE builds and thieves aren’t even in the running.

Highest single target burst certainly debatable. Thieves can deliver a lot of damage but not without face tanking which is inherently dangerous for a squishy class. The better thieves don’t burst, they whittle. Warriors probably have the highest burst.

Speed. Check, thieves are fast. Rangers and warriors also have fantastic sprint speeds that don’t burn out all their offense using. Eles can also be very fast especially if they trait the fire sword.

Escape. Yes no question thief is the best escape class.

Class synergy… not even in the running. Alt Heal Guardians and D/D Eles have vastly superior cross player skills/traits.

OP Stealth… we can just agree to disagree.

Monsoon.2589:

“that part of the game that not a lot of the population plays”

What? Remember what the name of the game is? GuildWars2 Guilds as in large groupd of people and Wars as in combat

Guild Wars the name comes from the lore of the game not a description of the play and certainly not from WvW. There were three human guild wars. The original GW game was the period after the final guild war.

Monsoon.2589:

Are you under the misconception that this is a solo pve game and that there are more people who are buying the game to jump in the dark in JPs? I would love to see your stats and sources for that claim because as far as I can see this is a pvp game based around spvp and wvw and marketed as such with some pve added for people who are in queues waiting to get into wvw

If all WvW maps are capped the WvW population is estimated to be 2k on that server. This would be a relatively small percentage compared to the number of active PvE players. Nobody outside of ANet knows the real numbers but WvW and sPvP are likely side shows to PvE. This shows heavily in their content deliveries as they have been heavily PvE based.

Urnbak.5046:

So PVP is not really advisable till lvl ???

and mix it with PVE.

An argument could be made for 30 and the elite skill. I personally don’t play WvW with a new character until I hit 80 but I end up crafting my players up now since I have no patience with the PvE or fighting at a massive disadvantage in WvW with an uplevel.

It is pretty amazing that a group of 15 with 5 golems can cap Hills/Bay T2+ in about 10 minutes without bringing up orange swords. By the time many defenders realize there is a problem, they are in the lords room.

A new type of anti-golem siege would be nice. Omegas can wipe most wall siege and sit back from the door to avoid AC door targets. At 1.5g for an Omega guilds can now afford to drop them in big numbers.

Reducing golem door damage might be a cheap fix to the problem.

WvW leveling is very slow compared to PvE and glacial compared to crafting. You can do it and it is probably a worthwhile challenge but sub 80 geared players are at a substantial disadvantage. I frequently 1-2 shot most of them.

The high ground should have an advantage which it currently does not. The lip of a wall should obstruct players firing up not down.

I always have a chance against a thief. D/P can be annoying but still beatable. Most boring has to be up arrows though. They die FAST.

As for classes/builds that are boring Alt Healing Guardian for me is the worst… good ones get a bow and I go on my merry way in 1v1. In a skirmish group they are even harder to kill until their friends are dead and in a zerg they are almost always the last to die.

Next up would be a toss up against clone tank mesmers, running warriors and bunker elementalists. Several builds fall into the most boring category.

Kadub.8743:

This is sad to hear because I believe WvW is a golden goose that needs to be fed.

If by golden goose you mean that part of the game that not a lot of the population plays, then yes. More likely WvW will remain a small part of the larger GW2 game and the lag will fix itself with player attrition over time.

I am sure there are things they can do to reduce the lag. However there is a reason no MMO with this level of skill customization that I am aware of allows this many players to duke it out in one area.

Incredible fight with the two thieves and warrior from GH and CHAR from Ebay on our BL in front of Bluelake, Victors, Briar and everywhere in between. Wow that is one of the best warriors I have seen in a LONG time and the thieves were very skilled as well. I am not sure our group ever dropped the warrior and wouldn’t have dropped the thieves without a significant numbers advantage. I think it was 10 on 3 or so but our side was PUG. We certainly lost a lot of badges for the couple that we got. Forgot how good GH, CHAR and GF among others could be.

/salute and thanks for an exclamation point on the weekend!

I can sort of see some frustration with this, but these sorts of differences between classes makes the game better as a whole. If everyone was essentially the same, might as well play a shooter.

Almost everywhere our small guild turned was a wall of red. We had a couple decent fights this weekend (there are some good players on Ebay and CD) but mostly we ran into zerg, mini-zerg or really big zerg. Impressive that 20+ players were patrolling their home zones on both servers. I am sure many love this style of fighting, but I am looking forward to moving back down a tier or two.

I wouldn’t punish people playing in zergs but it would be nice to up the prize for players going solo/skirmish.

The upside is that in 2-3 months it really won’t matter much. Most T2- servers are constantly gaining/losing population. If AR gets saddled in the bottom bracket and that isn’t your cup of tea, you can always transfer to another server. It really is part of the game.

Yes but nobody on the outside knows how long it will be. At least that is what the devs have said in the past.

Blinding Powder, 1-1-1-1-1-Backstab. Doesn’t typically matter what the other guy does to avoid it. The damage is high, the risk is minimal and IMO it feels cheap. Thief is even building initiative while this is happening.

Absolutely zero skill to pull it off as well. I am all for big damage with good play but my dog can probably pull this combo off.

If you got a lot of hours of gameplay, they more than gave you a good value for your dollar. Take a break and check back in a few months to see if they have improved/changed the things you don’t like.

1. Spike lag would likely be intolerable
2. It won’t solve any specific problem, certainly not zerging
3. Single target classes would be obsolete immediately
4. Condition damage would be obsolete
5. Many would reroll to an Ele or Guardian
6. Every defense sans retaliation would be useless
7. Retaliation would be incredibly powerful… one person buffing could essentially wipe a group

IMO, leave the cap alone but allow control abilities to hit everything in range. This would add an extra dimension to zerging because stacking would be dangerous as would spreading out. It might also help with lag since more players would be on cool down in large fights.

This thread has slid completely into fantasy land. Lets correct some misconceptions.

Boons: If they have lots they stole from a mesmer or they were standing next to a guardian/necro.

Zergs: Thieves not useless, but not particularly effective either. Other classes have FAR more group centric abilities, LOTS more AoE and certainly better utility. Traps in the enemy zerg is useless because the damage is not high enough to do anything. Stealth and combat mobility are the thiefs strongest traits… both are near useless in a zerg. DS is still good so long as the person is standing at or near the commander position.

Killing: They are very strong solo killers with a good blast finisher. They are excellent support in skirmish teams as they can dish out heavy damage and synergize well with tanks and field classes.

Oh and yes as a primary thief player I will concede that jumping through ones own field endlessly lands on the broken side. I don’t play it because I feel it is a bit on the cheap side but that is a personal opinion. The only way to fight that is to stand in the field which will usually cause the thief to target the player on the HS forcing their reveal and burning a lot of initiative.

Hopefully BP learned from NSP and DH about protecting their corner of EB and their BL. Funny to me that my guild left CD a few months ago (just before the EBay death lock) for more skirmish action and we have rarely seen T6 or lower since.

CD has fantastic coverage outside of NA Prime and EBay has solid NA Prime coverage. I doubt we will be able to rely on late NA Prime beat downs or early morning Kalkz golem rushes in this match-up.

Yaks and SBI were both dealing with some big transfers when they fought us. Maguuma has lost some groups but gained others. Mags is likely as strong as EBay and possibly stronger. We simply don’t have the population to effectively compete (as in have a serious chance of winning) against Mags… IMO.

As for BURN… I was sorry to hear of them leaving the server but looks like our other guilds have picked up most of the slack. I haven’t really noticed them being gone which is kinda of a shocker given how many members they have.

Zikory.6871:

Well, Healing turret isn’t a water field. (unless the wiki is wrong) So that’s why healing spring is the best water field in the game.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Turret
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Spring

The turret isn’t but both the automated (Regenerating Mist) and the manual (Cleansing Burst) abilities from it are. Regenerating Mist fires every 3 seconds but the water field only lasts 1 second so it isn’t nearly as reliable as Healing Spring for blast finishers.

It is a good ability and one can argue in some scenarios better than healing spring, but IMO healing spring is still the best water field.

A group would surely camp friendly waypoints.

I would LOVE to see a true PvP server. The only safe place would be around a waypoint or in a city. The only damage ignored would be from guild mates and guild alliance mates.

I still like that the about to be down message references a few hours instead of minutes.

JaNordy.6149:

I love how every thief thread has defense force of thief players defending their dumb OP mechanics. Its just like the RTL, confusion, and retaliation defense forces. No arguments, just spouting how they have no trouble with it and you need to l2p.

Some of those were nerfed because when used in zergs, they were evil on a mass scale. Stealth (aside from veil/mass invis) is mostly useless outside of solo/skirmish.

RTL got whacked because of the build it was in. Swoop from the Ranger GS line is WAY better than RTL but doesn’t sting as much when it isn’t coupled with a lot of control. I would have left RTL alone personally.

Something else a bit lost here is that players who specialize in the thief class frequently get far more solo/skirmish experience than other players. It is hard to quantify just how powerful that experience is. This is compounded by the relatively low diversity of builds in most classes.

I know how a fight is going to go in about 10 seconds usually and I suspect most players with a few hundred hours in WvW feel the same. It is rare when someone hits me with something I have never seen before.

Stranger still is the recent nerfs on other classes. I know some of it is for sPvP balance but they are really hurting those classes solo WvW play. Remember when mesmers were like a grenade with the pin pulled solo? Even the RRR ranger pet build in the right hands dished it out.

Geiir.7603:

A D/P thief is a guardians nightmare? My lvl 14 guardian ripped a full glass cannon D/P thieves to pieces the other night.

Alt heal bunker guardians that are played even moderately well have ZERO to fear from a thief unless they are caught on cool down. Even a full zerk thief isn’t going to crack 3k+ armor, shouts on rotation, retaliation, blocks, heals on every crit, boons out the wazoo, control, etc. A bunker guardian isn’t going to kill a thief either. I usually just bow to those guys and go on my merry way.

DPS Guardians are a serious handful. Their control, healing, aoe and targeted damage are problematic. They can be beat but it isn’t like cracking other non-bunker classes. Mistakes are costly against these builds and best approached with shadow steps… even still Judges Intervention with a knockdown can be a big surprise to an unwary thief.

PinCushion.7390:

I will say that 99% of players are complaining because the Thief profession needs to be rebuilt from the ground up (which won’t ever happen). Not because it’s OP, but because it’s only fun for the guy playing it.

The forum is a minor (but vocal) subset of the WvW population. Most experienced players avoid the forum tarpit like the plague. What is mostly left is a handful of forum warriors, people with a constant sense of outrage and players who cannot play the game for some reason rambling in. Of that handful, some gripe about how a solo build beat them solo. A lot of the complaints are tied these fantastical numbers that few thieves have ever seen outside of a perfect storm. Are thieves dangerous solo/skirmish, yes but no more so than any other well played class in their role.

Most players stay close to spawn points or run in packs. Thieves are one of the few classes built to go behind enemy lines. Without stealth and escape that portion of the game play would almost cease to exist. IMO that is the intention ANet has for the thief and it probably won’t change. It would be nice to see another class (Ranger gets my vote) with big escape mechanisms and natural counters to stealth.

Geiir.7603:

What you say is that because I’m a thief I have no right to discuss my profession? There are many good thieves in these forums that is actively giving advice to other players on how to counter us, how to read stealth and how to completely destroy these so called OP builds. But this community does for some reason completely ignore any of our attempts to help or explain, all you can say is “thief is so OP, OMFG NERFZZZZ”.

What often happens is players go roll a thief and realize pretty quickly that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. Once a thief grabs a hold of a decent player, it is not an easy fight. Can the thief run in those scenarios… sure but often thieves are far away from a spawn point or allies and without stealth few players will solo behind enemy lines far from a waypoint.

Singer.8740:

Sadly the ranger does not even get a bone because engineers have the best water field.

Healing spring is also not susceptible to damage so it is a great skill to drop at the feet of people using siege who are under fire. Its regen is six stacks instead of two. Healing Spring removes up to 5 conditions per player standing in it… also useful for door siege. Healing spring is better for blast finishers because it is up a full 15s not 1s every 3s.

Not saying the healing turret is better or worse just saying Healing Spring is a great water field and at least on par with turret.

Xom.9264:

Good thief can not be killed in WvW unless they let themselves be killed, end of story.

Depends on the player. If a thief is just strafing, they are really hard to kill. However good players who want to fight will lock horns until the fight is over or more players show up. The same can be said for bunker D/D eles who are built for speed or some other bunker builds.

Many players simply don’t know how to counter thieves and run builds that aren’t very solo friendly. For example, standing in the red circle when fighting a D/P, push/pull when the hut comes up or setting a thief up for a shadow return death. A lazy thief going for cheap kills can be a hard class to kill but they won’t kill a decent player either.