Guild Wars 2

I used to run clerics on weapons and accessories for about 970 healing power in total. It’s true that our heals scale really well with healing power (Cleansing wave is 1:1), but even then the returns from healing power kind of suck.

It’s not really useless, but as the poster above me said, you won’t be killing anybody.

Personally I think D/D is amazing at escaping and in small fights, and could possibly be overpowered (or at least very strong). Certainly the mobility is what keeps us alive in most small to medium encounters, along with all the healing and stun breaks. Nerfing it slightly wouldn’t be too bad but if they do that please buff the scepter and staff. Seriously they both suck when the enemy knows how to move.

Anyway, D/D ele is the king of escaping. It’s very hard to chase me, and the few classes which can are GS Warriors (didn’t expect that, did you? Make a warrior and see!) and Thieves with Shortbow (which is basically all of them in WvW).

However this is an issue that is shared with Thieves. If you are losing, nobody can kill you. The guy above me has no idea what he is talking about, or is exaggerating. When I play my Thief, it is impossible to chase me down if I am determined to run. Four sources of stealth in D/P build is just overkill. Here’s a tip: you don’t have to stay in stealth forever, just long enough to hide behind a rock or something like that. And don’t use Shadow Refuge next to a zerg. That’s stupid.

That doesn’t mean either class is OP (it doesn’t mean either class is not OP either), but they are just really good at running away. It’s a completely separate issue from how good they are in combat. If Anet thinks this should be nerfed then I have no issue with it. But our mobility, and the stealth mechanic, should be nerfed together.

Anyway, I do think our in combat mobility is really good, and as a whole the D/D weapon set with 0 10 0 30 30 is excellent. A few nerfs here or there would be alright and wouldn’t break the class. The proposed change to RTL is something that might work.

Edit: But please buff Staff, Scepter, and Focus. Seriously.

Edit again: Warriors can move as fast as a D/D elementalist (maybe a bit slower or faster, I’m honestly not sure). Don’t just dismiss the claim, go read the wiki and see the GS skills:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rush
Same cooldown and range as RTL

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirlwind_Attack
Slightly less range as Burning Speed, but lower CD.

Look, I’m done here. In fact if you want to believe that thieves are easy to kill in WvW then…go ahead. I don’t want to read through that wall of questionable grammar either.

I wouldn’t mind if they gave us even more escapes! Then I’ll finally be able to decide on which character to get ascended gear on. Hint: it’s not the guardian.

Look I don’t understand why you guys are so defensive.

I said thieves are good at running away (low risk) compared to any other class.

Find anywhere where I said thieves are OP. You can’t (in fact I said multiple times, that thieves are NOT OP). I just said they are good at running away.

What is with you people and misreading comments?

Look at the previous page, there’s a screenshot of my thief.

I play ele, guardian, thief, and mesmer. If the elementalist is borderline OP, guess what? I speak out against it. If the thief has ridiculous escape skills and people say that they don’t, I’ll say that they are mistaken.

Edit: If this conversation keeps up I’ll just have to post a video of me WvWing and rarely dying. No edits, just one long clip.

Look where did I say it was OP?

All I am saying is that thieves are hard to kill in WvW. So maybe I have to use up all my initiative and cooldowns (depends), but I can still get away.

If you have a completely bunker guardian, guess what they can’t run away from encounters they lose. Even with all their cooldowns up.

Also if you use Shadow Refuge next to a zerg that’s kind of asking to get pulled. Use some skill to reposition further away and then use it. Any mesmers approaching? Just dodge a few times.

Edit: This argument is silly. You know what? Just keep the thief in its’ current state. I’ll be happy and keep owning people in WvW.

Risk? How easy it is to get killed when not playing like an idiot. If someone decides to run in 1v50 obviously a guardian will last (slightly) longer, but that’s just stupid.

If a group of 5+ meets me in the open field, I’ll escape. My Guardian will take a zillion damage while immobilized, and die. If someone decides to go 1v1 (due to just crossing paths or whatever) and I lose, my Mesmer will get hunted down and killed. My Thief lives to see another day.

Cluster bomb may be our only area damage skill (except poison field and dagger storm) but it’s spammable and really useful. With other classes 1 area skill means they can use it every so often. For us it just means the initiative cost is the only factor (and cluster bomb is really cheap).

Travlane.5948:

i didnt say they were useless sunflowers i merely state/intended to show that shooting trick shots for MOST people is boring….we wanna use our teleports our blinds our big bursts our cool moves with evade like death blossom or in a zerg u dont really escape. more pull back. if u have to escape with your tails between your legs yes. but then again zerg v zerg isnt about escaping. you have to kill as many as you can depending on th ings like location….waypoint advantage…..how long would it take to run back if you died…..can you be revived…..only sometimes is it better to run “incase” you might die. those cases are USUALLY bc you are in a small group or solo. not in zvz. and i dare say d/d ele can do it better. and people that talk about 1 v5s and 2 v 1s a 1vXs really annoy me (no offense) bc it doesnt matter there is no 2 v 2 or 3 v 3 tournies like in gw1 and there is very rarely those cases in WVWVW….and if there is they have 0 bearing on score or reward. personal satisfaction is all that can be achieved and very ararely that bc usually people help and jump in less it be a civilized mutual duel. back to point. thieves have to stay on the edge of fighting. utilizing very few skills they actually have. if you can try SS into the middle of a fight in zvz…..not into the middle of their zerg just at the Point of Contact area….i guarantee u port back in less than 2 seconds having done very little of anything. you really have to…..or die from ranged CC/dmg. i have 12k kills on my thief. (not sure if thats alot but i know its enough to know what im talkin about) so its venom share and sb for me helping my guild in zvz. and we run a VERY organized ZVZ. to the point where running anything else is hurting my guild.

Yes, so in the end you agree with me that the risk to a thief in WvW is low.

The ‘boring’ argument is kind of pointless though. You don’t think mesmers want to shatter, or eles don’t want to use churning earth? Neither of those work in zergs either.

I don’t see glass cannon mesmers run into the middle of zerg fights and try to shatter people with 3 clones. Obviously if you do that on a thief you’re gonna explode too. It’s the same with every class. Some mechanics are locked out when you decide to stay at range.

Edit: @Dasorine Yeah we can’t escape if we get locked down or bursted, neither can any other class. But when I’m on a thief, having 4 ways to stealth (Pistol 5 + Dagger 2, Blinding Powder, Hide in Shadows, Shadow Refuge) means I can escape almost all the time. If they are all on cooldown then I just die. So will any other class without their escape abilities.

Basically what you’re saying is that thieves can escape if certain conditions are met. What I’m trying to tell you is that these conditions are extremely easy to satisfy.

Travlane.5948:

@SUNFLOWERS zergs score in wvw…thieves are bad in those too. unless u like shooting trick shots all day. but thats no fun. pickin off strays is fun but not helping much. venom share is helpful but not really doing much action (again with sb)

I like shooting trick shots all day, thank you very much. Spamming cluster bomb and poison fields is alright too.

While thieves aren’t the best when massive 50v50 battles happen, I wouldn’t call them useless, not by any stretch of the imagination. Smokescreen is effectively the same as Guardian WoR, with a shorter cooldown (but it doesn’t reflect. Still makes your team immune to projectiles though). Dagger Storm is nice for massive area damage.

I’m not arguing that thieves are overpowered, but simply stating that the claim of “thieves are not low risk in WvW” is ridiculous. No other class can escape as easily as a well played thief (maybe D/D ele). Other than when I do stupid things like walk out of shadow refuge or try to fight 1v5, nobody can kill me.

Does that mean I can beat everyone that crosses paths with me? Certainly not. But actually killing me is stupidly hard.

Asomal.6453:

Thieves are the second worst pvp class in the game, just ahead of warriors. If you think they are somehow OP, low risk/high reward, I suggest you L2P. I know it sounds harsh, but someone had to say it, I’m tired of this nonsense since September 2012.

/thread?

@edit

About WvWvW balance, gtfo. It was never meant to be balanced in the first place.

I do agree that thieves suck in sPvP, but this isn’t because they are somehow underpowered, it’s just how thieves are designed.

Is it a wonder to anyone that a mobile class designed to engage and disengage at will, is bad at standing in small circles? Stealth doesn’t work in sPvP for capping. If you can’t beat someone in sPvP, you lose the point (in WvW, you just run away so nobody wins).

And as for your point about WvW balance, where do you think the 4s revealed debuff came from? Certainly not because thieves are amazing at sPvP. It’s a game mode that loads of people play, even more than sPvP. Why shouldn’t it be balanced?

Edit: When people say high reward low risk it usually refers to WvW. Believe it or not a lot of people like to play in there.

Travlane.5948:

Sunflowers.1729:

I did make a thief, why do people claim that the thief isn’t low risk?

If I can’t beat him I will stealth and run away, simple as that. How is that not low risk?

Edit: If you get perma-locked down by someone with tons of cc, find the dodge button and press it. Use Shadowstep. Dodge while inside Shadow Refuge. Nobody will ever catch you.

ur not a thief very long or ur lying about even having one. in a 1 v 1 its kinda easy to get away. but guess what there are no 1 v 1 scenarios in this game. well maybe 2% of the time in wvw u might run into one. so its irrelevant. anyway ….no blocks….. no defense to take dmg….no dmg reduction….. we do have decent condi removal although thats not what kills us…its direct dmg….we are very easy to CC so in a 2 v 1 or more you are goign to get CCd its why i run 30 in acro for wvw. thief is the HIGHEST risk. if u look at which classes die most….thief is up there. unless we are talking about 1 v 1 scenarios. and as ive said those are irrelevant.

Are you even kidding me? No amount of blocks or armor is going to save you from a 50 person zerg. Nobody can cleanse 10 immobilizes off. What IS going to save you is being invisible so the zerg doesn’t try to chain-CC you. The best way to not die is for them to not be able to target you. To be fair, I run blinding powder and HiS, with D/P so stealth is very easily accessible at any time.

Oh and for the record here is my thief. Not sure how having a thief makes my argument better, but since you didn’t believe me…

The seal always works, but it just works in a very odd way:

First, it gives swiftness in pulses. If you walk over without it pulsing, you won’t get any swiftness. The workaround is to cast the seal so you are on top of it when initially cast, by aiming it slightly ahead.

The second issue is that if you already have swiftness, seal of swiftness won’t add the proper duration. Instead it will give 3-4 seconds (not sure exactly). Presumably this is to stop people from standing on it and getting really long duration swiftness, but anyway that’s how it works.

So if you just cast it slightly ahead, and when you are running out of swiftness wait for the swiftness to completely fade before using the seal, you can get perma swiftness. If you have a lot of swiftness already, just use the seal because why not.

However it is really annoying and I wish they would fix it by making the seal pulse faster, and give max duration swiftness every time. That or just have a Signet of Move Really Fast. Or simply buff [Retreat] so it gives 60 seconds of swiftness base.

Every time I play in WvW (don’t really sPvP very much) and face someone with a lot of conditions or is a bunker build, I lose.

Currently using 20/20/0/25/5 with zerker/knights gear + runes of the centaur. Utilities are blink, feedback, and either the condi-removal mantra or decoy. Even though I traited to remove conditions on heal, most condition builds can keep re-applying them.

Bunkers just keep doing damage while healing through all of mine. Due to having little sustain, eventually I lose or have to run away.

People keep telling me that conditions are our biggest weakness, but surely there has to be some way to trait/play around that weakness.

Do I just have to dodge more and trick people with clones?

I did make a thief, why do people claim that the thief isn’t low risk?

If I can’t beat him I will stealth and run away, simple as that. How is that not low risk?

Edit: If you get perma-locked down by someone with tons of cc, find the dodge button and press it. Use Shadowstep. Dodge while inside Shadow Refuge. Nobody will ever catch you.

You can try a 0/25/0/25/20 build for staff – I feel it gives a good mix of damage and utility. Just build berserker on everything!

D/D elementalists can’t continuously heal 6000 damage every 4 seconds, that’s impossible even with full healing power gear. They will still counter this build by having tons of untargeted slows such as Earth #2 and Water #3 + high mobility with just about everything. It’s very hard to land backstabs on someone who keeps slowing you, not to mention they can reset the fight at any time (although to be fair so can you)

I also run a similar build but 0 30 30 10 0 (for the regeneration in stealth) and while it does a pretty good job of keeping my health up, I still have to run away sometimes. Against bunkers it’s just means neither of us will die.

Also try shadowstep or the movespeed signet, both of them are pretty good.

I just don’t like it when people lie to prove their point. It’s even better when you can’t think of a proper argument and resort to insulting me.

All I did was fact check some of the things you claimed and you get annoyed?

I know right, the 1/2 second cast time of CnD is the same as a 2 second blurred frenzy. Backstab also takes 1/4 second to cast which is definitely very significant.

Also to your second point I’m just pointing out that what you claimed earlier is completely untrue. It doesn’t have anything to do with ‘balance’.

Edit: Oh yeah I just checked, phantasmal duelist takes 2.25 seconds to complete the channel. Just to reiterate, I don’t think thieves are OP (definitely very strong), but you should get your facts straight.

randomfightfan.4091:

bhagwad.4281:

swinsk.6410:

MrForz.1953:

bhagwad.4281:

Wake me up when other classes can one shot GCs without warning and at range.

Well, even an Engi’s Static Discharge Rifle build can do that, if you really want to open debates.

Mesmer with s/p + shatter and illusionary leap.

This happens without warning? Really? I can’t take evasive measures? Thief’s can one shot GCs who don’t even know they’re there. No question of evasive measures.

the pistol shooting, the immobilize and blurred all happen at pretty much the same time. Not sure exactly the damage pistol can do but blured is the same damage as backstab but you’re invuln while using it, don’t need to position yourself awkwardly, and are visible.

Not to mention a shatter mesmer can do higher burst than a thief if they crit all and pull off steal cnd backstab. The illusions are melee but the mesmer doesn’t have to be

This guy right here has no idea what he is talking about.

Pistol phantasm has a cast time
Blurred frenzy deals the damage over 2 seconds.
The immobilize from sword is iffy at best and can be easily dodged.

Shatter mesmers won’t do as much damage as a thief unless they are fully glass cannon with illusionary persona – which requires them to be in melee range.

If he shatters from range you can dodge into the shatter to negate most of it as the clones run SO SLOWLY.

Dasorine.1964:

They excel at stomping roamers and bads in WvW, in actual wvw battles (aka zerg battles) they don’t bring much

In WvW battles a 4s vs 3s revealed debuff does nothing. The nerf was aimed at small scale battles which thieves dominate in.

I don’t understand it at all – thieves aren’t very good in sPvP because a hit & run class sucks at standing in circles.

They excel in WvW because of all their escape options and ability to pick fights + higher burst available through equipment.

Shouldn’t they just make the revealed debuff 4s in WvW and revert it in sPvP + PvE?

Auesis.7301:

FletchTalon.8320:

BTW the stealth stomp thing. Stupidest kitten idea ever, might as well make it so when a thief kills you you don’t get a downed state, the result would be the same in most cases.

Opposed to Mist Form, Obsidian Flesh, Elixir S, Endure Pain + Stability, Distortion? You know, stomps that are LITERALLY unstoppable. Rangers and Guardians could still slow down stealth stomps with downed skills, and allies can AoE near the downed person to either down or force a retreat from the Thief. But of course, with these skills I mention, you can SEE the person who CANNOT BE STOPPED IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM, but the important thing is that they are visible. Therefore, they are perfectly fine.

I’m sick of this garbage.

The cooldowns on those skills are really long, and they are still counterable. The thief’s own downed skill counters them!

I don’t even think stealth stomp is op but if you’re gonna use that kind of logic, nobody will bother arguing with you.

You can’t 1-shot someone with 100nades.

If you don’t immobilize them it won’t land. Same logic right?

Humorless.1573:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Humorless.1573:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Humorless.1573:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Dual.8953:

Except the Backstab isn’t a true one shot, it’s a combo

And neither was 100nades. It was 2 skills and also all but required cc as a setup, and even when you do get cc’d there’s still time while you’re watching them walk into your character model to do something about it.

It’s also a thousand times easier to set up, you can’t anticipate it as easily as backstab and can be repeated relatively fast as well as being kittening AOE. Who do you think you’re kidding?

It’s also a thousand times easier to see since Magnet takes forever to cast and Net Shot is blatantly obvious, then the engineer still has to walk into your model, and its AoE is pathetically small, where it will only knock out a second person if they’re practically standing inside of the target as well, and if they’re that close to a player cc’d by an engy then they aren’t smart enough to live anyway.
Granted, it DOES have a shorter reload time.
If you’re going to try to shoot down comparisons at least be correct.

Magnet doesn’t need to be used. Net Shot can be used by any engineer and is not a que for 100nades, it’s on a 10 second cooldown and can basically be spammed. That doesn’t even compare to 40-45s cooldown on steal, 45s cooldown on basilisk venom, 45s cooldown on assassin’s signet. The AOE is big enough to have uses. If you down a player in a 1v2 and the other player tries to res the downed player, 100nades would basically finish the job because you’re putting a ridiculous amount of pressure on both where a GC burst backstab thief would be kittened. The video posted earlier is a perfect showcase.

Any GC would more or less destroy someone immobilized for 2.6s if they didn’t use something defensive, nothing particularly special about 100nades there. Net Shot’s short cooldown is because the attack is so slow and obvious, meaning if it’s not at short range you should easily avoid it. If it’s at point blank then it’s basically unavoidable, which Steal has except at 900 range. And if you get Net Shotted and the engineer closes in you’re already sure Blunderbuss, Pry Bar, or Jump Shot is forthcoming anyway, so even if they aren’t 100nades you’d sure as kitten better be doing something to get out of there.
And barring a GS guardian pulling a few people in, being used against someone getting rezzed is about the only circumstance you’ll ever hit more than 1 non-moronic person with it.

So, again: 100nades deleted, BS remains. Unjustifiable.

You don’t get it, do you? Backstab damage doesn’t come near 100nades in most cases. You can’t counter a oneshot. Backstab doesn’t oneshot anything in 80 exotic. It’s the combination of skills that makes it lethal and counterable at the same time.

I mean on one hand 100nades does hit harder than the steal CnD backstab combo, but your logic is kind of odd.

100nades (as far as I can tell; never played an engineer) requires a stationary target or is completely useless.

Therefore it’s also a combination of skills that include netshot, that allowed an engineer to do such massive damage. In fact it’s so easy to counter: once you see an engineer immobilize you and walk near you, just use some defensive move (same as how you counter burst thieves!) and their damage is negated.

The thief combo of steal CnD backstab might not be “1 hit” since it is 3 separate attacks, but those 3 attacks hit almost instantaneously.

If anything, it was unbalanced because it did way too much damage. Not because ’it’s uncounterable’. (Edit: This is referring to 100nades)

Ursan.7846:

Sunflowers.1729:

That is true until you can no longer farm fast enough to keep up with inflation, or are a new player who doesn’t have any upgrades at all.

Personally I just don’t like mechanics which exclude newer players so much.

No one likes run away inflation, which is why gold sinks which scale with inflation (TP tax, gem exchange) exist.

Well, if the economy stops inflating it might cause the gold→ gems rate to stabilize too which would be nice. I hope they have some mechanic to enable that because it doesn’t seem like it will stop any time soon.

I just hope it does, at some not-too-ridiculous point..

Sounds like this is a 2-part problem

1) Other than WvW (mass PvP) there is only 1 game mode for PvP, which is capture-these-circles. A few more like the FA one he mentioned above would be nice.

2) There is no incentive to sPvP unless you are super hardcore. Most people don’t like it because it doesn’t progress your character at all, outside of the Mists. Putting in such an incentive will attract more casual players.

Ursan.7846:

Sunflowers.1729:

Pretty sure she will keep buying transmutation stones, if anything.

Well he said “account upgrades.”

But the reason why I bring it up because these account upgrades, while expensive, stay with your account for the rest of your lifetime. So while yes, assuming inflation keeps on occurring, on the flipside you also need to buy way fewer upgrades.

That is true until you can no longer farm fast enough to keep up with inflation, or are a new player who doesn’t have any upgrades at all.

Personally I just don’t like mechanics which exclude newer players so much.

Ursan.7846:

Lane.3410:

Needless to say, my in game income remains fixed while prices continue to rise. It’s eventually going to mean I won’t be able to afford anything because I’ll be too poor both in and out of game to buy anything.

This is a curious statement. By your own words, you’ve already purchased your account upgrades. Will you foresee yourself continuing to buy account upgrades (I’m assuming bank slots/char slots) in the future? Because once you purchase enough of those, you don’t need to purchase more, no?

Pretty sure she will keep buying transmutation stones, if anything.

Well, I’m one of those people who thought that thieves were OP and decided to level one.

Turns out that they aren’t as OP as they seem (obviously), but they are still an amazing class. I can’t see where the ‘oh thief sucks now’ complaints come from.

What I hate is that countering a thief is so difficult compared to playing one. I use the D/P 0 30 30 10 0 build (Yishi’s build, but I came up with it independently) and honestly the only thing I need to do is press 5-2-1 and position properly, and most opponents will fall in a few rotations. I could do fancy stuff like immobilize from stealth with shortbow, into a poison field + dagger storm, but that’s really unnecessary.

Compare this to having to dodge my invisible backstab and predict where I am, not to mention all the ‘oops I messed up’ skills that the thief has, and an equally unskilled player has absolutely 0 chance.

I still get beaten by good players (sometimes), and it is a much fairer fight, but these are rather uncommon. Most mediocre players will die.

TLDR: Thieves are too good at owning bad people even if the thief sucks. That’s why people complain.

I agree – there should be some sort of regulation of gem prices.

While it is true that neither bank and bag slots, nor transmutation stones, are necessary to play the game, most players will want to buy them at some point.

At the current rate of gold -> gems, I am still able to farm up enough gold to buy most things within a couple of days provided that I just run CoF over and over again.

However, the rate is rising. How fast, I am not sure, but it definitely is. In a couple of months I will likely just quit this game or buy gems with real money. The only people who will to use the gold -> gems conversion are the ones who have a lot of gold to spare, or really really need something from the store.

Therein lies the problem – one of the big attractions of this game (for me at least) was the one-time purchase. Not ‘one-time but if you want to have a bank space that’s not ridiculously small you need to buy more things’. If the rate keeps going up, the gem store will not be accessible (through gold) by the large majority.

Perhaps I could suggest a different approach – a Karma to Gems conversion that has a static rate. It doesn’t even have to be very good, but I think a lot of us want some assurance that a couple of years in the future, it will not be a requirement (effectively a requirement) to use real $$ to get anything in the gem store.

If you can never use transmutation stones, or survive with 30 bank slots and 8 lv 80 characters (it’s bound to happen in a couple of years!) then…sure go ahead. But I doubt there are many people like that.

EDIT: I just proof-read this post and the obvious counter-argument of ‘but gem prices are player-demand’ controlled will obviously surface.

As long as there are rich players who are still willing to convert gold into gems, the price can still go up (well…I’m not very well versed in economics so this might not be completely true)

You are probably not one of those rich people. New players are definitely not one of them either.

I’ve got the same problem as you but on a smaller scale with ascended jewelry (doing dailies is tedious ok).

You’ll never be completely happy after getting your legendary (whichever you choose) because you’ll see an amazing player of another class and be like ‘wow I wish I could do that’.

With that being said the skill cap on thief is the highest. However the most useful is the guardian but they are really easy to play.

1) Look up thief trait builds (this will also tell you what to buy for step 2)
2) Buy some equipment of yellow or higher quality. Most importantly you want an exotic weapon
3) Read what other classes can do (in general, I’m not asking you to memorize everything)
4) Practice a lot because a lot of roaming people are pretty good at 1v1s so don’t expect to beat anyone your first time

The other option is to run in a zerg. This is really easy: equip a shortbow, bind every key to either 1 or 2, and roll your face on the keyboard.

Guardians and Mesmers now have +25% move speed signets.

Really, that’s all I ask for.

Let me be very clear:

We do not want a ‘trinity’ in the sense of ‘tanks’ and ‘healers’.

We want players to have to do something other than DPS.

I’d even wager that the people who argue that we want a trinity, are themselves stuck in the old ‘tank healer DPS’ mindset. Evidently if we want something other than crap loads of damage, we are looking for a ‘tank’.

NO. See what I typed up there.

Edit: I don’t think my original post was clear enough so here’s an edit using easy words.

We don’t have tanks or healers.
This leaves us with doing ‘tons of damage’ as the only thing
This is boring.
We want something else
This ‘something else’ is not tanks or healers.

Everyone wants greatswords! I wouldn’t mind having one on my thief as well!

But honestly I think the problem here is that we have so few weapon sets that a few more should be added. Since everyone likes greatswords the general consensus is that they should be the de-facto choice, but anything will do, really.

While the game was advertised as ‘no trinity’, it wasn’t advertised as ‘no teamwork’.

On one hand while there is no need for anyone to stand around looking for a ‘tank’ or ‘healer’ (which has ironically been replaced by ‘LF1M guardian’), it is sort of boring when everyone has just one job – build for as much damage as you possibly can.

There are some exceptions of course – why does everyone want a Guardian when their damage is usually average? As someone who has a few lv 80s including a guardian, I believe their supporting/damage absorbing abilities are just so good (wall of reflection & altruistic healing!) that people are willing to overlook the loss of damage.

The same can’t be said of any other class except possibly mesmers. And we wonder why the top 3 classes for dungeons are warriors, mesmers, and guardians.

It’s really boring when my thief’s options are damage, damage, and damage (but from range this time. Amazing I know). Give everyone more skills that benefit the party, then make the dungeons harder to make up for all the buffs!

disclaimer: this will probably mess up PvP balance again : (

Kasama.8941:

Primernova.5791:

There is nothing wrong with keeping almost everything the same. Some chars can be made more damaging, some can be made more tanky or healy. All should still have to avoid fire, obviously. That makes it really fun.

But tank and healer types, deserve their place. It brings order and we just love to help.

This is already how the game is..

All professions are able to deal burst damage in one way or another. Tanks are known as bunker builds. And the Elementalist, Guardian, and Engineer makes for fine healers. There are even runes and sigils that heals allies.

I’m pretty sure most classes have a ‘healing’ build. Shout warriors and mantra mesmers are 2 more examples. The problem is that even the most focused of these healing builds are a) not needed if the team knows where the dodge button is and b) don’t heal for that much. The same applies for the runes and sigils.

It’s an unfortunate side effect of how the game was designed. In making everyone able to build in any way they desire (so no tanks or whatever), the classes are homogenized and everyone plays much the same role – deal as much damage as you can without dying.

I would actually welcome more support oriented roles for different builds. This doesn’t have to simply be healing or tanking in the traditional sense, but just more skills that focus on the team. In addition the dungeons are designed so that there is no need for such support roles (and anyone who traits for such a role doesn’t even support very much) which is another problem.

Imagine if I could build a guardian to put out a ridiculous amount of blinds and aegis boons (e.g. 5x as much as now), but dealt pretty bad damage. If the dungeon difficulty is increased in tandem with similar changes to all classes it might actually work.

Honestly I wouldn’t hold my breath as such a change would take months of planning. But it’s a change that I personally would like to see.

In this game where any PvE content can be done by any group without regard to team composition (except maybe high level fractals), there will always be a handful of top tier classes because balance can’t be 100% perfect. So in a few patches later the CoF groups may just look for 4 ranger 1 engineer (although…there would have to be some pretty severe changes). Elitists will always gravitate to the current popular class.

With that being said I think there is still a lot of balancing to be done in both PvP and PvE. Some of the more glaring issues in PvE are:

1) Warriors do too much damage while being pretty tanky (compared to everyone else, anyway) even in full berserker gear. Everyone knows this.
2) The projectile-reflection capabilities (and general usefulness) of the guardian and mesmer are unparalleled.
3) There is rarely any need for anything except “Tons of Damage” (and projectile reflection which makes certain encounters so much easier).
4) Did I mention that warriors do a lot of damage?

Your video is so biased it isn’t even funny. Less than 1 minute into the video you say “2 thieves can’t even down a guardian so this is OP”?

Guess what
1) The guardian isn’t even doing any damage to either of you.
2) A thief can survive against 2 of any other class as long as the player doesn’t suck.

I don’t believe thieves are OP anymore but your video is just…biased.

Edit: I don’t really care if you play well or not (after all it’s just a video game) but the conclusions you are drawing don’t make sense.

The best thing to have would be some kind of built in toggle that works for all classes, that allows you to swap between different weapon sets out of combat. E.g. my Guardian uses a staff + GS but sometimes the range just isn’t enough and I have to equip a scepter.

This might be troublesome to implement but it’s a suggestion.

Here’s my Guardian, went for a futuristic look that really fits well with the newly released 8 bit weapons.

Sleel.8365:

Yes, because if a person stealth and you can no longer see them, you should still be able to target them. Makes sense

Balance issue, not a ‘is this realistic’ one? After all people can’t sling fireballs in real life so obviously elementalists should be removed from the game?

If they feel thieves should be balanced by allowing someone to target stealth, then it will be this way. I personally don’t think such a nerf is needed, but your argument is rather silly.

To all the people who think this change will stop zergs, think again:

By removing this cap it may make them spread out (who knows, really, it all depends on how retaliation and area boons are treated with such a change), but people will still zerg. If all 50 of us focus one person, he is going to die. It doesn’t matter if there is such a cap, zergs will still be powerful.

I thought about the effects of such a change for a while and decided that it doesn’t really make anyone that much more OP (although there will be a bazillion elementalists everywhere because there are still chokepoints where everyone has to funnel through).

I agree that it would remove zerg balls, but am of the opinion that it won’t really be for the better as we will now have messy cluster kittens everywhere. At least zerg balls get stuff done. Anyone who’s ever fought in large fights but without any coordinated stacking knows what I mean. The two sides just poke at each other forever. Also choke points might actually be useful. Although there’s so few of them anyway.

Edit: Any sort of coordinated spike into the enemy formation will be (you guessed it!) AoE-ed down without any cap.

Why is ascended gear intended primarily for fractals? If it gave the same stats as exotics, but with added agony resist, I could see the reason. But it doesn’t – ascended gives more stats, and makes a difference everywhere: normal dungeons, DEs in Orr, and (especially) WvW.

Would you be saying the same thing if ascended gear was only available from WvW? I can just imagine: “It’s fine if you can’t get ascended gear through fractals – they are meant for hardcore WvWers. Everyone else should have to grind laurels to get any ascended stuff.” Now replace WvW with jumping puzzles and you have an even more silly sounding argument.

Viking Jorun.5413:

If any of you have watched TL talk about this on Tales of Tyria you’d know how we stand on this. Organized WvW teams can only go so far against zergs which triple our own numbers, which should not be the case. In my opinion, the AoE limit is the primary reason as to why zerging is so effective compared to legitimate tactics and strategies.

Why not? The side with more people should have an advantage. It’s just a matter of how much more of an advantage, which is entirely subjective.

Isn’t the point to make ascended gear available from every aspect of the game? Putting more ascended stuff into fractals is the opposite of that. The selling point of this game isn’t “Just do these fractals to get what you want”, it’s “play however you want”.

Something like a universal currency that is earned from doing anything – fractals, dungeons, farming, WvW, crafting (?), map completion, and jumping puzzles – that can be used to buy ascended things. It could even be gold, I guess, but that might screw with the TP. Better to have something that can’t be traded, but can be gained from doing anything.

Edit: I know how to get ascended gear, but don’t want to do fractals cause they are repetitive. What I want to know is why WvW and jumping puzzles don’t give ascended gear.

Well in the skill description, it should say Blast or Projectile. There’s also Leap on dagger earth 3, and Whirl on Tornado (lol who uses tornado).

If you get the finisher off there should be some text that pops up.

The Rooster.2615:

Reward vs. Being punished less is just arguing semantics. The point still stands. There is a bonus for having 10 people stand in an aoe as opposed to 5. The bonus is that 5 of those 10 people take no damage.

2. I don’t think anyone is suggesting removing the aoe cap for buffs. Even so, this is in itself a counter argument to the “aoe is OP” argument. You can’t argue both that AOE would be OP without a cap and that it would be suicide to use an AOE on a group because of stacked retaliation. You’re on two different sides of the argument.

3. A spread out zerg instead of a clumped up zerg is a step in the right direction. It opens up opportunities for tactical game play, exploiting weakness in formations, etc. Much better than ball up and charge in.

1) It’s not arguing semantics – 5 of those 10 people will still be hit by AoE. The AoE still damages them. Right now there is no downside for me to use meteor shower on a group of 10 people. It just doesn’t hit 5 of them, but it doesn’t give those people any benefits either. All that is happening is that for some technical or balance reason, I am not allowed to damage every single person inside the circle. If the zerg spreads out, I might hit 5 people. If the zerg clumps up, I will hit 5 people. How does this support a zerg?

2) The effect of a no-limit meteor storm is enormous. So is the effect is a 50 man retaliation buff. The retaliation counters the meteor storm, but this doesn’t make the meteor storm any less overpowered – it just has some form of counter play. Compare this to a hypothetical single-target-only class (sorta like thieves or mesmers). There is NOTHING that that class can now do, that will rival that single meteor storm. That’s overpowered. In actual play, sure it is up to anyone’s guess whether bunching up will still be effective, but that is just up to the relative overpowered-ness of the different area effects.

extra bit: Why should they only remove AoE damage caps, but keep the buffs at a 5-man limit? Seems a bit unfair to me.

3) In lower tier servers I found a lot of spread out zergs facing against each other. Nothing happened, we just had a big messy fight everywhere. In addition, current zerg-balls are not just ‘charge up at each other and spam 1’. Sure it works, but a coordinated guild will still destroy them. Might stacking, water fields, chain veils and all that stuff.

The AoE cap does not reward people for standing in AoE – it simply punishes them less, as each individual aoe has a smaller chance of hitting any person. If it really did reward zergs for doing so this would be a bad game mechanic, yes, but it doesn’t. It just puts a cap on how much hurt one single player can do.

The cap does reward people for clumping up, but that isn’t the same as standing in AoE. Think about it – if a 50 man zergball had a choice, they would prefer not to get hit by any aoe effects.

Even as a staff elementalist I don’t support removal of the AoE cap as it just leads to too many problems.

1) Balancing of loot in WvW, again. Professions with low AoE (mesmers, thieves) will get so much less loot than anyone who can put out consistent area damage.

2) Stacked retaliation + regen + protection + fury + every other buff. Try and use any area skill on a cluster of people with retaliation and you risk instantly downing yourself. While the case can be made that corrupt boon works really well on this, see point 1. Guess we should only have necros and elementalists.

3) Zergs will still exist (after all more people = more damage), just spread out more. While it will stop the (rather cheesy, I admit) zerg-ball tactic, how does this change anything? I’ve transferred from a T4 server to a T2 server, and while there are no zerg-balls in T4 (at least on Crystal Desert), there are still zergs. We just didn’t all stand in a little clump. It was boring, to be honest. Just poke at each other forever until one side had too many people, then rush the other team in a giant disorganized blob.

4) You think lag is bad now?

A better solution I think, is to remove the AoE cap for siege weapons and/or increase their damage + area. Zergs will still be effective in the open field, but clumping up to attack any fortified structure will become less of a good idea.