Guild Wars 2

Craig.2403:

Very well said. I also want to point out that typically a thief has an in-depth knowledge of every class in the game, because he has to know what to expect in order to survive. .

This is an unfair comparison, especially in WvW. If you run a zerker build then, like everyone else, you will need to learn what skills are dangerous. While you may not have as much health to absorb a dangerous hit, stealth also lets you reset the battle at any point and take a breather.

If you don’t run a zerker build it’s even easier – not only are you tanky enough to make mistakes, you can keep messing up terribly, reset with stealth, and come back for another try.

I have absolutely no idea what rangers, necros or non-greatsword warriors do (have the other four classes at 80), and still fight them just fine. In fact, they are usually a joke to take down (not sure about post-patch Necro) with the D/P build.

Edit If you ask me, the issue is only in WvW, where Hidden Killer + >100% crit damage lets you build tanky and still output consistent high damage through the guaranteed crits. My Thief has 1600 toughness and still hits 7k backstabs every 4 seconds.

I once posted this in the Thief forum, but all of them insisted that roaming was still useless (I’ve since learnt to take everything they said with a massive grain of salt). Here is what I said:

Your server is outnumbered: would you rather your 30v50 fight become 31v50 – still a likely loss – or make sure (by following their zerg around) the fight never happens in the first place?

Archon.6481:

10k kills in wvw and you still dont even know your own class? After playing my ele in spvp, I can confirm that you CAN pass line of warding in vapor form. Invulnerability basically: Grants stability, Reduces all damage taken to 0, and prevents the application of conditions.

Immobilize is a condition. All conditions are cleared upon entering downed state. Immobilizing an ele prior to him being downed in order to prevent him from entering the keep is a moot point as it will be removed as you down him.

Question: How do you stop an ele from entering a keep when he has -97% immobilize duration?

Can confirm, I vapor-formed past a Line of Warding today. However, I’ve been immobilized in vapor form before even when mashing #2 (don’t ask me how) so it seems there is some way to do this. (might be lag, because my connection is sometimes unstable)

The answer to your question is: the same way you catch a roaming D/P Thief, you (and I paraphrase Anet) “give up and go do something else”.

It’s really only good on the scepter for putting out consistent ranged damage in PvP (where people walk out of your staff attacks)

-Scepter #1 hits hard (okay not really that hard) at range
-Attuning to Air strikes with a lightning bolt (15 point trait)
-Air #2 is instant.
-You can channel Air #1, swap to a different attunement, and due to the really high attack rate, Fresh Air will proc almost immediately.

Put it all together and you can do a good amount of damage every few seconds to a single target.

I tried to run this in berserker+cavalier gear with a 0/30/0/20/20 build but the damage is terrible for how squishy you become (at which point I realized that my D/P Thief has more health, armor, survivability, and damage). It works decently well with a combination of Knights + Soldiers though, so just run that.

(This is my opinion, you may feel that the trade off is worth it)

Our active defense is being able to heal a lot, and having decent amounts of control skills (chill, cripple.etc).

Stop comparing us to Mesmers or Thieves – they are bad game design. A class whose survivability is intrinsically built in to such a high degree (invulnerability, clones, stealth, super high mobility, no-CD teleports.etc) is really hard to balance because it leaves them free to build glassy while maintaining survivability.

How many glass Mesmers/Thieves do you see? Most of them invest heavily into offensive stats (maybe not completely glass) because they can.

On the other hand, a glass cannon Warrior/Guardian requires significant trade-offs because to deal such high damage they actually need to be less survivable by a noticeable amount (traits, gear.etc). This is good design. High risk, high reward.

Personally I think we are in a good spot right now – bunker builds scale well, and glass cannon S/D burst needs backing from traits+gear to actually burst someone, as well as sacrificing utility slots, which means that it dies fast.

Disclaimer: I’m not saying that there is no loss of survivability when a Mesmer/Thief builds glassy, but just less.

And yes, I have them both at lv 80 with full exotics. The Mesmer has at least one weakness in their natural lack of condition removal. The Thief? Only reason I don’t play it 24/7 is that it will inevitably get nerfed. (Also D/P 5-2-1 is really boring and OP)

I don’t think any similar traits should trigger on what an enemy does – it makes the build too predictable, and too strong against certain professions.

For example, refreshing water attunement upon gaining 4 conditions would make us virtually invincible to any condition build.

Personally I think the fire tree is okay, being the PvE option we all wanted (don’t quote me on this, because as a lazy person I just use the same WvW build everywhere), and the water tree already has very strong GM traits.

Earth could use it though, since to deal good damage you will need to keep the bleed stacks up. Just don’t make it dependent on what an enemy does, for the reason I stated above.

The patch is still very nice, and I don’t have any complaints (for Eles).

Hey you’re still here! Relax, I’m not gonna argue anymore.

*sits back and watches the show

Also, this:

Thieves complaining about another profession’s ability to escape is just too precious.

The range of Fireball (and all arcing non-ground-targeted projectile attacks) has always been slightly further than the stated range. The effect is especially noticeable when you stand somewhere high and shoot at lower ground.

Aeranima.2853:

This thread became a discussion about the comparison of the thief and elementalist mobility. This thread is for debating the vapor skill, whether or not it is unfair to be the only skill (and warriors vengeance mode) to go through the fort portal. Solution to this would be a better script to disable that possibility. This has nothing to do with a players skill level nor sacrifices to utility slots. It also has nothing to do with open field battles. Thank you.

It does, because the other person’s argument was that ‘Vapor form has no counter’. So I replied that the disengaging ability of the Thief, much more usable in a variety of encounters (as well as being usable without dying), has even less of a counter.

If one can exist in its’ current state with no way to stop it, then the other deserves to as well.

Yuujin.1067:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCUvIrH2BlU

59:40 onward comparing Thief mobility to Elementalist mobility. Continue on, to 1:00:15.

As for you being done, good. You have your own argument you want to bring to the forums, but it has nothing to do with what is being discussed in this thread.

And then RTL was nerfed so…? What’s your point?

Yuujin.1067:

The reason I haven’t bothered to reply to any of your post is because you are clearly ignorant to the fact that has already been acknowledged by ANet. Since you’ve asked me to respond directly to you, I will.

Proof?

Yuujin.1067:

Strangely enough, neither of those abilities allows a thief to dive into a situation where he is outnumbered, die, and then retreat backs inside of his keep to safely heal himself out of his downed state. Come to think of it! They occupy utility slots and you lose then when you die.

Strangely enough, it lets me do just that, and I don’t even have to die to use it. You gotta see how many times I try to 1v3 on my Thief, fail (because obviously it is 1v3), and get away scot free.

The only thing in your argument that remotely makes sense is that Shadowstep takes a utility slot. Are we comparing characters without utility slots now? D/D Ele is now the worst class ever, gotta buff them more.

I’m done here. You are obviously unable to comprehend any argument, so talking any more with you is futile. Hope the patch hits you hard!

Edit: oh and

Yuujin.1067:

And you can’t possibly be that blind. Watch a roaming thief video or get out and PvP in Tier 3 or above. Thieves always roam with Elementalist because they have insane mobility and burst potential. It is almost a staple these days for dedicated roaming duos.

I roam solo on my Thief in T2 just fine, thank you very much. And your last sentence really calls your credibility into question. Do you even WvW? Count how many Thieves you see, then how many Elementalists.

The equivalent would be stopping Shadowstep from being used when immobilized/stunned, and using it stops you from stealthing for 5 seconds.

Ele – best at escaping into keeps
Thieves – best at escaping in open fields.

Isn’t this the same?

At this point I’m pretty sure you’re either not reading the arguments, or are trolling. Seriously, the class with the best WvW escape, bar none (stealth), is complaining that someone can run a short distance into a keep if they aren’t immobilized?

Just ignore her posts, because there is nothing left to say.

Edit: Also, you didn’t reply to any of my posts. Probably because there isn’t anything you can say that would actually make sense in response.

One thing that I’m annoyed at is how people use ‘hit the stealthed Thief’ as a ‘counter’ to stealth, when obviously it is not.

Is the ‘counter’ to protection continuing to hit the enemy? No, the counter to protection is to remove/convert it. Even Anet agreed when they implemented ‘boon hate’, stating that bunkers needed a counter.

So how is the ‘counter’ to stealth continuing to (maybe) hit him? It doesn’t remove, negate, or reduce stealth’s effect in any way.

The only true ‘counter’ is the long-cast-time stealth trap, which is too expensive and clunky to use.

Aeranima.2853:

The majority is missing the point. Either all classes should be able to escape through the fort portal or no one should. There should be no exceptions.

I don’t agree. By that logic all classes should get a disengage on the level of Shadow Refuge or RTL, which is not going to happen either. After all, these abilities, along with vapor form, are (nearly) guaranteed escapes, depending on whether you are roaming or defending a castle.

Not saying that vapor form isn’t imbalanced, but that logic seems a bit odd.

Mesiphidon.8324:

Cleansing Fire can still remove stuns, it removes three conditions. Stun is a condition. It’s simply not guaranteed anymore. But if between CF and all your other condition removals you still can’t break stun then quite frankly you’re in a position you deserve to die in anyway.

Stun is not a condition. Immobilize is a condition, along with chill and cripple.

Being knocked down can’t be condition cleansed.

Well, I do agree it is a bit unfair, but out of all the possible things to complain about, why this one?

If I fall off a keep wall, I’ll simply hit Mist Form and walk in.

Oh, and

Yuujin.1067:

There is no skill involved in hitting Vapor Form Shadowstep+stealth and running through a portal literally anywhere yet people are expected to have to save and time their immoblizes 1200 range gap closer or coordinate with people who have them to prevent elementalist Thieves from using this skill less, cheesy tactic.

Elementalists are almost guaranteed to escape into a keep (I dunno, most people don’t like to immobilize). Thieves are almost guaranteed to escape any encounter they don’t want to be in.

While vapor form is imbalanced in WvW ( at least in comparison to everyone else’ down states), there are much larger glaring issues like the one above.

If it was such a big issue, you would see mostly Elementalists defending castles. Yet this is not true. And if it was such a big issue, you would mostly see roaming Thieves. Yet this is not…waaaaiiiitttt

oZii.2864:

Sunflowers.1729:

Only three staff skills have no limit
-Meteor Shower (technically has a limit, but I’m not going to be pedantic)
-Static Field
-Unsteady Ground

The reason why stun breakers getting moved around will affect D/D Ele the most is because they need the survivability. Being locked into melee range is obviously more dangerous than wielding a staff and staying far from the action, so a reduction to survivability will affect them most.

Since you obviously play a Thief (and I do too) look at this: would a nerf to Assassin’s Signet affect a burst build more, or a condition build? Keep in mind both can use the same signet. The answer should be pretty obvious.

In any case I doubt the patch notes are real. GoEP a stun breaker? Does that even make sense at all? And my D/P Thief got no nerfs. I’m calling fake on this one.

Assassin Signet and Cantrips are different beasts you can compare Signet = Signet but cantrips would be more like comparing to = deception skill like shadow step.

It would be like a nerf to Shadow refuge no matter the build you are affected by it.

Yes, and a nerf to Shadow Refuge will affect the stealthless P/P (or S/P) more than the stealth-heavy D/P. So you just proved my point.

DiogoSilva.7089:

ARM.3912:

The OP is completely right. Anyone who thinks ele’s are getting buffed based on the leaked notes doesn’t understand the game at all. Anet is killing the class and after this patch the only ones playing it will be the PvErs who occasionally WvW to give away free kills to everyone else.

If you think a single nerf to bountiful power (the only real nerf in the leaked notes), amidst countless buffs to other skills, is going to destroy the elementalists, you are being dramatic.

And uh, while I don’t think the supposed patch notes would actually be that detrimental, there are a few more notable nerfs in them (other than the one you mentioned). The most obvious one is that Cleansing Fire no longer breaks stuns

oZii.2864:

Overreaction? Many Staff skills don’t have a limit its not like you lay down a field on the ground and if 5 people run over it then it becomes useless. If people keep streaming over your fields they get hit by it. Meteor shower each meteor can hit 5 people and the radius is about to get buffed for each meteor.

How are cantrips getting stun breakers moved to other utilities directly pointed at D/D ele? Last I checked a staff, s/d, s/f, d/f no weapon equipped ele can take cantrips.

Only three staff skills have no limit
-Meteor Shower (technically has a limit, but I’m not going to be pedantic)
-Static Field
-Unsteady Ground

The reason why stun breakers getting moved around will affect D/D Ele the most is because they need the survivability. Being locked into melee range is obviously more dangerous than wielding a staff and staying far from the action, so a reduction to survivability will affect them most.

Since you obviously play a Thief (and I do too) look at this: would a nerf to Assassin’s Signet affect a burst build more, or a condition build? Keep in mind both can use the same signet. The answer should be pretty obvious.

In any case I doubt the patch notes are real. GoEP a stun breaker? Does that even make sense at all? And my D/P Thief got no nerfs. I’m calling fake on this one.

Amurond.4590:

I beat 90% of thieves I run into on my Guardian (a small % of this would include those that run away/call in the support) however the very good ones still cause me some problems. That’s working as intended imo, better players beating lesser players. I have high DPS and an abundance of retaliation though so the glass cannon types are laughable for the way I run my Guardian.

However, I think the main problem with thieves above all else is their ability to dis-engage the fight whenever the hell they want and come back with pretty much full health. Their high mobility makes them very hard to successfully keep pinned down so they re-engage the fight back at full health while you’re still being beaten on for the second they’re in your range.

This is coming from the perspective of a guardian though whose range DPS is lols and general mobility is pretty weak.

I don’t know about you but they would have to be really terrible Thief players to die to any Guardian

How to escape from a Guardian
1) Press Shadowstep
2) If Guardian somehow catches up to you, use Shadow Return.
3) If he still is on your tail, stealth and run somewhere.

Simple and fail proof. I don’t even use Shadowstep, and can count on one hand the number of times I’ve died to a solo Guardian. Obviously I don’t always win, but dying is just out of the question.

I’m not going to write a long post about why roaming Thieves are broken, but it really should be obvious from the massive number of Thieves that something is wrong.

covenn.7165:

Here is reality:

New stun breakers:

Signet of Air – * No reason to ever slot this because it is still useless *

Glyph of Elemental Power – * Cool, but I will never be popping glyph for the stun breaker specifically, which means by and large, adding the stun breaker to this ability is useless and wasteful *

No longer a stun breaker:

Lightning Flash – This is a heavy nerf to one of the best survivability tools a staff ele had. Staff eles have no mobility and this was the tool to use to allow you to break stun and reposition yourself.

Cleansing Fire – this is now a useless ability, I sure the hell never slotted it for condition removal because I have enough of that already. It was for the stun break

Why can’t you let me be happy?! Gosh!

But seriously, I think Lightning Flash will still be able to be used when stunned, except that after you port, you will still be stunned. I’ll definitely keep it on my skill bar.

However, I don’t think these notes are actually real, or at the very least, complete. And if they are, it’s time to play my D/P Thief because it somehow got zero nerfs (5-2-1-5-2-1 I win!).

ensoriki.5789:

stuff

I’m just posting the general train of thought, no need to get all worked up over it.

Edit: And your argument about ‘class flavor’ is just nonsense. Warriors would fit well with this condition, they need it, but they aren’t getting it.

iCryptik.1496:

Well I would agree stealth would be op if thieves had access to regeneration, protection, stability, retaliation, confusion…

Oh wait, they don’t.

If stealth was taken away from thieves, what you would have is a class without any defensive capabilities.

And if you took stealth away and gave them most of the boons that i mentioned, and gave them a pet, then you would have a ranger…

Toning stealth down doesn’t mean completely removing it.

Look at this way – how many zerker Guardians/Eles/Engis/Rangers/Necros do you see? If these defensive buffs helped as much as stealth, they would all be running berserker gear too.

Look on the Guardian forums at the zerker build by Stunningstyles. Even he admits that it is bad for taking on multiple opponents. Yet Yishis routinely does so in zerker gear.

In other words, the fact that most Thieves are able to run zerker gear, shows that stealth is by far the best defensive mechanic (equal only to Mesmer clones and invulnerability, and coincidentally they are the only other class that routinely runs full zerker). Edit: Stealth and high mobility.

And if people argue that “well zerker Thieves explode in team fights”, guess what? Zerker everything explodes in zergs. Do you really think a zerker staff Ele stands in the middle of the hammer pain-train and absorbs everything with his ‘OP heals?’. No, they stand far away and hope not to get hit.

ensoriki.5789:

Thieves do not have a condition spec.

Yeah, neither do Guardians, or Eles (Have you ever seen a condition Guardian?). At least there are some P/D Thieves out there.

Also, the general question is that since these two classes are already dominating (albeit not with their condition builds), why is Anet going out of their way to make sure that they get more buffs, instead of fixing classes which actually need it?

I don’t see any reason for this buff. If it’s because Thieves and Mesmers don’t have viable condition builds, then why is the new condition not given to Eles and Guardians?

If it is because Thieves and Mesmers are terrible and need a buff somewhere, then that’s even more ridiculous. Surely you have seen the large number of Thief complaint threads?

New stun breakers:
Mist form (no change)
Signet of Air
Glyph of Elemental Power
Armor of Earth (no change)

No longer a stun breaker:
Lightning Flash
Cleansing Fire

Seems fair, and since Signet of Air breaks stuns, I can now run Ether Renewal to replace Cleansing Fire, while maintaining permanent (pseudo) swiftness while in WvW.

However, I don’t understand the change to the Air GM trait. Shouldn’t this trait really be in Earth as well?

Condition builds need to maintain bleed and burning (or poison/confusion) to put out good damage. Whenever you swap out of Earth, you are locking yourself out of your main damage source. It would be a good trait for the 30 point Earth tree.

In any case, there are so few condition builds for Eles that I doubt anyone will be annoyed that these builds are still bad.

(Also, why is the anti-movement condition given to Thieves and Mesmers? Are we supposed to only use these two classes for PvP? Good thing I got them both to lv 80 :/ )

Martin.6381:

All of the internets to the person that can put this in to notes for me

Epic Sax Guy:

2234 6- 666566 666566 86-54 (repeat forever)

Harbinger.8637:

List of songs:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/14w8be/choir_bell_songs/

Since it uses similar mechanics to the bell. Don’t see why it won’t work.

For the reddit choir bell page above, you need to subtract 1 from everything, because it also uses a major scale but starts on the 2nd note. So a #2 on the horn becomes #1 on the bell, and a higher-octave #1 becomes #7 .etc But everything else should be the same like he said.

Edit: Is it just me or are some of the songs on reddit incorrect?

Auld Lang Syne
5-8788-(3-23-321-1356—65-33-1-2-12-321)-6658

You Raise Me Up (Josh Groban)
⁵⁵⁸31211⁶⁵⁸
1135165532
56787765453
⁵5433321⁷1
56787765453
5678776532
5787765458
⁵5433321⁷1

Lullaby (you know, that classical piece that makes you want to sleep)
335-335-3587665
2342-234-24765-78
118-645-314565
118-645-314321

Jurassic Park
[8-878-878]-2-44
312-⁷⁵-312
5143322
Then repeat it one octave higher. Or something like that, I dunno.

Edit: The ‘(’ and ‘)’ brackets somehow disappeared. Just press ‘Quote this post’ if you want to copy-and-paste it.

It’s not that people in sPvP are generally better, it’s simply how the game is played.

In sPvP, if you stealth away, the enemy gains points from capping the point. This means the Thief ‘loses’.

In WvW, if you stealth away, there is no penalty (except time). The ability of a Thief to reset the fight over and over becomes much more valuable. Obviously this doesn’t only apply to Thieves (Mesmers, D/D Eles.etc), but the point is that being able to disengage is much more valuable in WvW.

Add in the fact that Thieves can CnD off random monsters in WvW, the difference in stat builds available (making the D/P perma stealth stack-crit-damage build much, much stronger), and you see that the two game modes are vastly different.

Mesmer Phantasms will attack you the instant you leave stealth, however they can’t attack you while you are in stealth.

The easiest solution is to use your stealth attack, then dodge immediately because all the phantasms will be ‘waiting’ for you to leave stealth. Obviously, this doesn’t work as well for P/D, but it is worth a shot.

While I don’t necessarily agree with the OP’s post, aren’t you all forgetting that transferring servers costs gems? Why would anyone pay gems to get less gems back? (Unless winning gives >800, which I doubt). With the new server randomization it is very hard to consistently win too.

But yes, the outmanned buff change is a good one

Edit: Okay, everyone will go to Jade Quarry.

It seems pretty solid for zerg-versus-zerg combat. Some people will take issue with the lack of Blasting Staff (staff radius increase) and points in Arcana, but if you are okay with this or can aim static field really well, it’s not an issue.

In smaller group/solo play, the points in the fire tree are useless because people will just walk out of your Lava Font/Meteor Shower.

Sigil of bloodlust is amazing, because in WvW you can kill a lot of people and it stacks quickly (especially if your guild is coordinated). Just make sure you don’t get downed too much.

By the way, the generic Ele build (for all weapons) is 0/10/0/30/30 so if you haven’t tried that, give it a shot. Ether Renewal is an awesome healing skill too.

But anyway props to you for coming up with something creative.

Not a lot of guys play Elementalist

Source: Notice how a lot of the Eles are female (and human)?

I don’t think it’s the Scepter’s fault – while the weapon does have lots of flaws, it is only a bit more effective at melee than at range (Phoenix is easier to hit).

The reason everyone says the scepter is a ‘close-ranged’ weapon is because it is almost always paired up with an offhand dagger, which is close ranged. Because of the stupidly long delay (I’m looking at you, Dragon’s Tooth) on everything, it can only be landed with the offhand dagger CC abilities. Trying to set up a Phoenix + DT burst combo without any knockdowns is just not possible. The easiest S/D combo involves air attunement because you can’t miss with those spells (notice how there aren’t many videos of people using DT+Phoenix+Fire Grab to blow things up, because landing it is hard and you have to get lucky)

As another point, consider S/F. It’s not a close ranged set, even though the scepter is used. Once again, it shows that the problem with the scepter isn’t that it is better in melee (it is better, but not by much), but that it is terrible for hitting anything that moves.

TLDR: Easy way to fix Scepter to be ok at range is to make everything faster (and reduce the damage?) or make focus have more ranged snares. The spells themselves don’t favor any particular range.

Edit: Edited for more clarity

Alright I’ve decided to stick to 1000 healing power and a Staff

-Regeneration and Geyser’s healing is doubled
-EA, heal-on-attune are about 175% of the normal heal
-Using a staff because Static Field and Unsteady Ground bypass the AoE cap

I know it’s not the most effective, but don’t care (it’s a game right?). Hopefully Anet will decide to fix the actual balance issues instead of randomly nerfing things and seeing what works.

Okay, everybody hates walls of text, so here is the summary first:

Does stacking healing power work in WvW zergs?

The longer version:
My guild does WvW every day, we are pretty coordinated over Mumble, and generally adopt the zerg-ball-run-through-spam 1 tactic (because, even though it is kind of cheesy, it works well).

After doing that for a long time with various classes including D/D Ele, I’ve decided to become more supportive and got 900 +healing, and switched to a Staff. Has anyone else done this, and if so:

-Is the loss of damage worth the increase in healing?
-Even though Elementalists scale well (comparatively) with healing power, do you find that it makes any difference? After all, Static Field/Frozen Ground/Unsteady Ground are unaffected by how much +healing you have.
-Do you use a staff, S/D, or D/D? (Or even S/F & D/F)
-What traits do you use? I’m currently thinking of 0/x/x/30/30 with all the standard traits.
-What utilities do you use? Glyph of Elemental Power seems like a good one.

Bear in mind that I don’t care too much about loot bags, and the main aim is to help my guild win more. If that is better achieved by doing more damage, then unfortunately that’s how the game works (but I’ll be very sad).

After a day or two of testing it out, I don’t think stacking +healing is the way to go, but just posted this to see if anyone else has tried this before.

Bonus question: Full healing power Guardian/Engineer? Waste of money or awesome idea? Gotta do something with all those badges of honor.

Arbacus.8296:

players carry supply

kill player that is carrying supply

why don’t I get the supply that character was carrying

when someone has supplys dies that supplys goes on the ground and is free for all as say a little cube varrying in size based on how much it is and if you can carry more supplys and you go walk over this cube you will gobble it up

I think this would help balance wv3 as a whole

Yes, my Thief would like this. We should have even more roaming Thieves (as if there weren’t enough already)

But on a more serious note I don’t see how that will fix the issues that people have with WvW.

Um, the 60 gold is the total cost to level all 8 crafting disciplines to 400.

At a slow rate of 5 g/hr, It will take you 12 hours to farm the gold, and then add in another 3 hours to craft. If you use a crafting booster, the total cost decreases by 33% to 40 gold, which only takes 8 hours to farm.

Nobody can level a character from 1-80 in 15 hours, so if you are just concerned about the time, CoF P1 is the fastest way to level.

However, there are people who like to explore the world, so that always remains a decent option. Personally I get bored of exploring after lv 30 and just craft all the way.

I think Anet once said that they do not want any targeted heals (why? I don’t know)

But apart from that, it would be a nice change, since nobody uses Water #1 to damage things anyway, and it might as well do something useful.

Iavra.8510:

-Many Mesmers use a Staff, but here she does not. Mesmer Staff gives a low CD stun break

Just to clarify: Phase Retreat (Staff #2) is not a stun break.

Oops sorry

Well, I didn’t watch the entire video, but a few things that you can do are:

-Avoid the shatter combo. You seemed to catch on to this in the later matches.
-Dodge into the shatters.
-If you are stuck and can’t break out of the shatter combo, attune to Earth for protection
-Many Mesmers use a Staff, but here she does not. Mesmer Staff gives a low CD stun break, so this particular Mesmer is more vulnerable to Updraft→Burning Speed. (However, most Mesmers will use a Staff, so this isn’t too useful)
-Stealth has no counter (ignore all the Thieves who tell you otherwise, they are just bad. Many Thieves, including myself, can attest to this). The best thing to do actually is run away until the stealth times out. Mesmer stealth doesn’t even last that long anyway.

Many Mesmer builds do one thing (but do that one thing really well), and here the build is designed to land hard hitting shatters. If you can avoid them consistently, which I’m sure you are already trying to do, you will win more.

I guess you could build more tanky too, since Mesmers don’t have that much sustain. By the way, you’re not that bad. Mesmers are always hard to fight, don’t worry.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Sunflowers.1729:

Are you still complaining about this?

Spectral Recall has no stated range, therefore it is infinite
Shadow Return says ‘1200’ range, so it is not.

That’s why.

Then why portal has finite range?

Hmm, you are right. (I think it’s more to do with a balancing issue though)

Anet, please fix portal to have infinite range.

Are you still complaining about this?

Spectral Recall has no stated range, therefore it is infinite
Shadow Return says ‘1200’ range, so it is not.

That’s why.

Chaosky.5276:

This seems to be the best damage I can manage while retaining enough defense to not keel over at the mere sight of mesmers, rangers, and thieves.

I mainly roam solo, and in my experience the scepter isn’t the best 1v1 weapon for eles, but I hate playing without a ranged option, so I’m stuck with it.
As for why more people don’t use it in WvW, I imagine it’s because it doesn’t excel at group support or roaming.

Wow, I use the same build too (except with 20% cooldown on air skills).

Before anyone directly copies his gear and accessories, there’s an important point to consider – not all slots are the same with respect to crit damage.

Here’s the post, not made by me: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18q7oe/not_all_slots_are_created_equal_dos_and_donts_of/

In other words, it will be better for you to take Berserker Gloves, Boots, and Shoulders, and change the ring to Soldier stats (or anything that has no crit damage).

I like your idea (I like all ideas that encourage single attunements), but doubt Anet will implement it any time soon because of all the balancing and bug fixing issues that will inevitably come with it.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Master a burst build with s/d that is not glass and all thieves become the easiest enemy to kill regardless of their player skills, following bunker/cleric eles as the second easiest to defeat.

What do you do if the Thief has enough toughness/HP to survive your burst? After all, if you aren’t glass, your burst is not going to be anything amazing.

Edit: Unless you are referring to the RTL>Updraft>DT+Ring of Fire+Phoenix combo, which is easy to dodge.

oZii.2864:

I am curious are the people that have a hard time killing thieves running some kind of full clerics build. I have a thief so I know how they work. If you have a thief and a ele I just can’t see how fighting a thief is difficult on a ele. All the pbaoe who cares if he is invisible he is till there.

S/D thieves just phase back and forth over and over. Just put fire all around you kite in fire. I just can’t wrap my head around these claims of no way to beat a thief on ele.

I run knights on helm, shoulders, and top. Soldier on legs, pants, boots. Cav stats on back, rings, and all stats on accessories and amulet 2 divinity runes and the other runes are monk and water. I do enough damage to kill thieves. I just don’t know why you guys seem to have such a problem with them.

I haven’t been using my Ele for a while, in lieu of a Grenade Engineer and D/P (now S/D for a while)Thief, but my Thief rarely dies to any Ele.

They don’t have enough damage to instantly burst me down (I have 1600 toughness + 14k hp, and still pull off consistent 6-7k backstabs with lots of crit damage), and both D/P and S/D provide easy stealth that is nearly impossible to stop.

The only way to beat a Thief is to CC+burst them down while they are revealed and not dodging (short of bombarding the entire area with AoE damage, which only works with 5+ people), and Elementalists are sorely lacking in that area.

S/D zerker burst may be enough, but in that case my backstab takes out 3/4 of your health

I might not be able to kill all Eles because of their continuous healing, but rarely do I ever die to one.

Edit: You can kill bad Thieves who stealth and walk in a straight line, but that’s cause they are bad. Alternatively if a Thief decides to go “FULL OUT BERSEKER” then, like any glass cannon, he will die to a stiff breeze. Just not as easily because of stealth.

Most of the OP’s points make sense, however there is something that I’m worried about: the implementation of such a DPS meter (or any kind of metric) will change how much importance people put onto it.

Right now, other than CoF farm groups, high level fractals, and Arah, nobody really cares too much about your actual DPS or support (unless you die every 3 seconds, who really cares how much damage you do in SE, for instance).

With meters easily available for DPS (as well as healing, stuns, and whatever), it will encourage people to enforce a minimum skill/gear level. So, for instance, it might be that you need a minimum of 5k DPS (or 5 stuns per minute, or 3000 healing done per 10 seconds, or something like that) to do CoE.

The inclusion of such an easily-checked metric (and if anyone refuses to show their actual DPS-meter readout, it can be assumed that they do not know/are below the threshold, both of which are reasons to group kick them) means that there will now be people excluded from doing content.

Personally, I don’t really care too much, as it will help dungeon runs go smoother (you never need to wonder if that longbow Ranger is actually doing anything), but it seems to go against what a lot of people like about the game – that dungeon runs are not exclusive to a group of players above a certain gear/skill level.

TLDR: DPS meter will change GW2 dungeon-going culture to what people don’t like.

Edit: I know you can already pseudo-check by pinging gear. What I mean is that it gives people an easy way to check, thus encouraging everyone to do so, all the time.

Lokheit.7943:

There are multiple professions that can outrun a Thief in the open field. The Thief can run from them because running while invisible makes chasers lose track of you. If you both are trying to get to the same point others can do it faster (and if the Thief uses multiple Infiltrator’s Arrow to catch you, he’s out of fighting resources so he’s literally running to his tomb). There is only one trick that can make a super teleport combining different teleports but that blows multiple long cooldown skills and prevents him from running away.

I’m not saying that you need to kill all the people who are running to the keep. Obviously there are classes like Warriors who can make a speedy getaway, but there are also lots of other classes who can’t do so.

-Engineers
-Staff Eles (nobody uses D/D in zergs)
-Guardians
-Necros
-Rangers with a bow
-Mesmers (who are actually very slow)

And to the people saying that Thieves are only good in WvW roaming (and terrible everywhere else), even if it is true (which I don’t believe so), it doesn’t mean that it should stay this way. After all, you can warp it around and change the argument to say “Thieves are so good in WvW roaming, they should be terrible everywhere else” so you never get buffs.

Zenith.7301:

You don’t use the knoced down trait because roaming builds will have stun breakers or stability ready for updraft.

the thief combo is negated by any evasive stunbreaker.

Dat double standard.

I used Earthquake to try and maximize the burst damage, not because it is effective against actual players (although if you press buttons fast enough, it may be).

Edit: And the combo that you mentioned is even easier to break out of than the one I used, or the Thief combo.

Lokheit.7943:

@Sunflowers: I can do ANY of those things with any profession (and many can be done waaaaaaaay better with other professions, a Thief has to wait for many cooldowns as he eliminates targets to get a camp and can’t fight all the NPCs at once, others can solo it in one assault). No need to be the best roamer for that.

That’s not the point. I know everyone can kill Dolyaks, cap sentries, and take supply camps. But Thieves can do it risk free.

Every other class will probably die to a zerg, and in a small fight has a good chance of dying/being chased down by the other party.

The un-counterable mechanic of stealth lets Thieves reset the fight over and over, without having to waypoint back every time they can’t kill someone. Nobody else has this choice – they either win, or die. Thieves are exempt from this choice because they either win…or don’t die. Don’t you remember how there were lots of roaming D/D Eles before the RTL nerf? Their super mobility allowed something similar to happen.

As for just ‘running past the Thief’, don’t you remember that this class has the highest mobility in the game? Between all the steals and shadowsteps, there are lots of ways that a Thief can stop people from ‘running past them’.

And to your point about zergs not needing to stop to kill Dolyaks (which is true), it still kills just one dolyak. While a solo Thief may take 10 seconds or so to kill one, with enough Thieves (I think someone put the number at 10 or so) you can shut down all supply lines on a map. Even a 100 person zerg cannot do that.

Asomal.6453:

Blaine Tog.8304:

I guess I don’t see why it’s such a big deal. It’s high burst and it happens very quickly, sure, but a decent roaming thief could do pretty much the same thing, except you wouldn’t even be able to see them coming at all and they would have an even easier time escaping afterwards..

Yes, it’s the same burst as the thief. However, it’s ranged! Plus, the ele still have acess to all the CC’s, healing, boons aaand he doesn’t need to run full zerg to hit hard.

Thief burst can also be done from the same range (steal’s range is 900), and Thieves are not useless after their burst either (e.g. stealth)

In addition, I went to the mists and tried both combos on the target heavy golem (The Ele combo, and Steal+CnD+Backstab) with a berserker amulet.

The Thief combo, using Assassin’s Signet, a 25/30/0/0/15 build, and Steal+CnD+Backstab+Sigil of Fire, kills the golem instantly

The Ele combo, using Earthquake+Lightning Flash (for the bonus damage to knocked-down targets) + Arcane Power + Air Attunement + Lightning Strike + Arcane Blast + Sigil of Fire, took the golem to about 30% hp. The build is 0/30/0/20/20.

Now I did this test before mug was nerfed to be unable to crit, but the Thief combo will still do significantly more damage. However, I might have remembered incorrectly, so someone else should test it too.