Guild Wars 2

Perphection.8209:

DevonCarver.5370:

These particular changes are indeed on the client-side. They won’t impact lag, unfortunately. We are still both investigating additional ways to combat skill lag, not that there are any particularly good looking options at the moment, and continuing to make improvements to overall game performance as we can.

There are plenty of AMAZING options to reducing skill lag. The problem is you’re approaching the situation wrong.

First ask yourself, “Why do we get skill lag?” We get skill lag because it is completely advantageous to Zerg. So you promote Zerging and your game cannot support it. That is your first problem.

So, Mr. Devon Carver and WvW team what are some ways that you could reduce the amount of players who amass at one specific location? (Yes, big fights can be fun I know, I know some people play for them. But even they will admit the skill lag can get horrendous.)

A very real, and very simple start to this ongoing process of reducing WvW lag is this. DO NOT make it a requirement to be inside the ring in order to achieve WXP. The Havoc Squad on the other side of the map keeping 20 enemies from both opposing sides preoccupied surely helped. The players hunting Yaks, and cutting off reinforcements helped. Everyone helped, it was a server wide effort make it advantageous to separate your forces but still be rewarded for your effort.

Stop trying to treat the symptoms, and instead tend to the underlying cause.

Because turning WvW into 70 different SPvP matches is exactly what everyone wants.

ShiningMassXAcc.4735:

Gilgamesh.2561:

Why are world ranks not account bound? I’m almost more surprised that sPvP is account bound but WvW isn’t, because in WvW your profession’s role is more homogenized due to the massive scale of objectives and siege weaponry, whereas in sPvP your profession is very important.

In other words, you can be almost equally effective in WvW as an experienced level 80 Necromancer or a newbie level 80 Mesmer, as long as you are a veteran WvW player. Whereas in sPvP, just because you are a veteran sPvP player does not mean you are going to be good on a newbie level 80 Mesmer if you’ve never touched the profession before.

Anyway, rambling aside, just make WvW account bound. You’ll encourage people to mix it up and not get burned out.

I really liked this description.

However, I can also see the interpretation the other way around. If WVW is as you say “due to the massive scale of objectives and siege weaponry [class matters less]”, then being able to pick different skill tracks on different characters is what would result in ‘mixing it up and not getting burned out’. Where in s/tpvp, class is the only thing you can change. If it was account bound, you would play wvw fundamentally the same on all your chars? That I don’t know.

Being an alt-aholic myself, I would like account bound because I don’t play enough to reach that “mixing it up” point with traits. Probably takes 40+ points to really make a difference in how you play, to get deep into a particular trait line? And even at that point, are people really going to make differentiating build decisions? Perhaps a supply oriented build (taking repair/build/supply masteries) versus a seige build (AC/Ballista/Seige damage) versus a guards build (off/def/mercanaries)? If anyone has actually done this on 3+ toons, I’d be very interested to hear what their experience was – find themselves playing the class they like the most anyways or perhaps they play the toon with the wxp skills they like the most?

Overall, I can see where this particular argument could go either way – but I’d like account too

They could make the ranks account bound but point allocation soul bound.

DevonCarver.5370:

Shimdroid.2765:

Because with this system they can add ranks without touching the existing ones, in the other way you propose they should modify the entire ranking system each time they add a rank.

This is indeed why the system is built as it is. It is also intended to last for a very, very long time. Beyond that, we are going to be continuing to increase the rate at which you gain those ranks.

I assume you mean the naming system by saying this and have a question I want to ask.

Why are ranks not account wide? I personally don’t like going on my alts in WvW because on my main i’m rank 100+ and I feel accomplished by heading farther into the ranks rather than going on my alt and hitting rank 40 and feeling the whole “been there done that” feeling. I see no reason why ranks should not be account wide.

Why are the ranks player bound and not account bound? Is this system limitations or a design choice.

Olba.5376:

TheAmpca.1753:

Serval.6458:

Those are from people with arrow cart mastery.

Which upgrade does that?

The one called Arrow Cart Mastery might be it. Not sure though.

Well Mr. smart kitten which one of those skills is called “Fire Penetrating Sniper Arrows”

The moment that thieves have the same utility as mesmers do, aoe quickness, a portal, viel that stealths 50+ people (EXTREMELY important for open field WvW fights), an f2 skill that makes them unhittable, clones, and a reviving skill you can come back and complain about us having one mechanic better off than you do. (elongated stealth)

Achilles.2197:

TheAmpca.1753:

hex.3218:

TheAmpca.1753:

I personally am an FA NA member who plays on EB I can only describe Jade Bags and Dragonbags one way. Those two servers are like a baby’s butt; they are always getting wiped.

Come play with the big boys and girls on a borderland during NA Prime. Measuring a server’s performance by roaming in EB is like describing a band’s sound y looking at their album cover.

How about this. Stop by JQBL tonight at 7 pm EST and we’ll revisit this topic after.

Lol i’m sorry is EB not “l33t” enough for you because you don’t know how to play that map. I should have expected this from JQ, just running from a problem instead of trying to get better. Well the more loot for me.

You stack your guilds into EBG. Our guilds take your BL’s. Nuff said, really.

That’s funny because we are the only server during NA prime who has their entire bl looked down and EB, even though we have an uphill battle due to our non-existant EU and SEA times.

hex.3218:

TheAmpca.1753:

I personally am an FA NA member who plays on EB I can only describe Jade Bags and Dragonbags one way. Those two servers are like a baby’s butt; they are always getting wiped.

Come play with the big boys and girls on a borderland during NA Prime. Measuring a server’s performance by roaming in EB is like describing a band’s sound y looking at their album cover.

How about this. Stop by JQBL tonight at 7 pm EST and we’ll revisit this topic after.

Lol i’m sorry is EB not “l33t” enough for you because you don’t know how to play that map. I should have expected this from JQ, just running from a problem instead of trying to get better. Well the more loot for me.

Serval.6458:

Those are from people with arrow cart mastery.

Which upgrade does that?

I personally am an FA NA member who plays on EB I can only describe Jade Bags and Dragonbags one way. Those two servers are like a baby’s butt; they are always getting wiped.

No superior arrow carts say stuff like “Fire Improved Barbed Arrows”

I keep getting hit by “Fire Penetrating Sniper Arrows” “Fire Distant Volley” “Fire Extinguishing Arrows” “Fire Staggering Arrows” but I cannot seem to find these skills.
http://i.imgur.com/hF4C69Q.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NHk7K1W.jpg

Because mesmer’s have viel which can effectively stealth a 50+ man zerg.

FA in first place this is quite a surprise. Let’s just see if we can keep the lead through SEA with our crappy coverage.

Well if they listen to this wouldn’t that be listening to player feedback. How do you know what you are asking for is really what you want?

Or roll a thief wait for a fire field and then spam #2 on the shortbow. Now wasn’t that easy :P

Iris Ng.9845:

Since when do people play WvW for Achievement Point? Such backward thinking…

So what you are saying is that I shouldn’t be able to get well rewarded for achieving things because I achieved them in one area of the game. Might as well tell people they can’t get drops for killing mobs because “that’s not what PvE is for”

After seeing TC try to take smc from us (FA) even though they have 50 more people than us and fail a few times even with ac creep I had to wonder. Does TC ac creep the mosquito event too?

A few patches ago the thief’s Signet of Malice was buffed to 33% (something like that) extra healing power on hit. The change took effect but the tooltip still displays incorrect numbers.

You get both titles but only have to wear one.#teamproblemsolved #thatwaseasy

Orion the Cursed.1206:

If it annoys you, don’t do it.

Ever thought of getting the ascended with the same stat as your exotic? Considering thakittens actually harder to get some Exotic prefix compared to the Ascended ones, i dont see the problem.

I had a build with exotics pow/vit/crit that stat combo doesn’t exist on ascended geat

Personally I find it really annoying to be building up my char on exotics and stuff and having to change my build when I want to upgrade to ascended fear since they have different stat sets. Why??

Pretty sure those sandals are just regular medium armor duelists gear. The pants are hard to see from that angle but they might be t3 human cultural armor

To mske sure no server got the “good” map. The best thing to do is to simply make new sets of maps instead of just singular ones so that all servers are on equal footing.

Katz.5143:

That’s a very comprehensive list.

I would like for them to move all of the skins that we get to a system like they have for the achievement skins now. And give us a choice to make it retroactive. I would like the Wintersday skins on the achievement tab and off the character that is holding them all in her bags. I would like the back items that had stats to be convertible to skins in the same place. The book from halloween, the two from Southsun cove (flower and tentacles), the wind, sun, and air catchers. All the skins and anything else that is appearance. I would use them more and be more excited about them if they were there. As it is I don’t want to hassle with moving them from armor to armor.

Eh I would only really want this for event skins although i do like the idea of being able to use the dungeon set from coe that i like and spent forever getting to be the look for all my builds.

Is an entire fractal about fall during the time of abbadon. Hmm you see in this instance here all the trees have no leaves very very interesting I must say.

#teamhashtag

Make a Marluxia class plox. Them sycthe combos.

That’s cause anet nerfs all of our builds except backstab.

Jscull.2514:

TheAmpca.1753:

Jscull.2514:

TheAmpca.1753:

genowefapigwa.5769:

TheAmpca.1753:

Zumos.2056:

TheAmpca.1753:

And no don’t bring up that lame skill lag argument that is a problem with the servers not zergs. Zerging is a big part of WvW for a reason, it’s all about servers with large playerbases fighting eachother. Servers can decide to put everyone on the map on one commander which is fine. There is lots of counterplay here. For instance you can split your force so that the enemy zerg can only engage one group at a time allowing one force to die while the other is busy taking something.

Zerging is not a problem however one thing is. It’s the fact that the most useful strategy is to simply ball up and run at the enemy. Forming convex/concave or other shapes is not only harder but less effective. THAT is the problem in WvW.

Zerging is not a problem for people who only care about meaningless server points. It actually is for people who seek good challenging fights instead of spamming #1 with 80 ppl.

sPvP is that way —->

It’s your first www game Newbie

Nope Aika Online was. I don’t ser your point though. The main difference between this game mode and sPvP are server wide point distribution and the size of the fights. If you want small scale tactical fights why don’t you just go to sPvP. WvW is for large scale tactical fights. Before you tell me zerging is not tactical i adresssed this in the second paragraph of my OP.

All “go play spvp” sayers are just idiots. IT ISNT FUN

Well why not. It’s the small group tactical fights you are asking for.

Dont say to do something if you dont fully understand it. Sorry buddy, but experienced players dont want to fight bunker / flavor of the month builds over a capture point. IT is the OPPOSITE of open field fighting. No thanks.

Well then what do you want you said you don’t want large scale fights and now you say you don’t want small scale fights because there are capture points even though you don’t need to play with them since you earlier said points are not important to you
Edit: looks like someone else said pts werent important

Jscull.2514:

TheAmpca.1753:

genowefapigwa.5769:

TheAmpca.1753:

Zumos.2056:

TheAmpca.1753:

And no don’t bring up that lame skill lag argument that is a problem with the servers not zergs. Zerging is a big part of WvW for a reason, it’s all about servers with large playerbases fighting eachother. Servers can decide to put everyone on the map on one commander which is fine. There is lots of counterplay here. For instance you can split your force so that the enemy zerg can only engage one group at a time allowing one force to die while the other is busy taking something.

Zerging is not a problem however one thing is. It’s the fact that the most useful strategy is to simply ball up and run at the enemy. Forming convex/concave or other shapes is not only harder but less effective. THAT is the problem in WvW.

Zerging is not a problem for people who only care about meaningless server points. It actually is for people who seek good challenging fights instead of spamming #1 with 80 ppl.

sPvP is that way —->

It’s your first www game Newbie

Nope Aika Online was. I don’t ser your point though. The main difference between this game mode and sPvP are server wide point distribution and the size of the fights. If you want small scale tactical fights why don’t you just go to sPvP. WvW is for large scale tactical fights. Before you tell me zerging is not tactical i adresssed this in the second paragraph of my OP.

All “go play spvp” sayers are just idiots. IT ISNT FUN

Well why not. It’s the small group tactical fights you are asking for.

genowefapigwa.5769:

TheAmpca.1753:

Zumos.2056:

TheAmpca.1753:

And no don’t bring up that lame skill lag argument that is a problem with the servers not zergs. Zerging is a big part of WvW for a reason, it’s all about servers with large playerbases fighting eachother. Servers can decide to put everyone on the map on one commander which is fine. There is lots of counterplay here. For instance you can split your force so that the enemy zerg can only engage one group at a time allowing one force to die while the other is busy taking something.

Zerging is not a problem however one thing is. It’s the fact that the most useful strategy is to simply ball up and run at the enemy. Forming convex/concave or other shapes is not only harder but less effective. THAT is the problem in WvW.

Zerging is not a problem for people who only care about meaningless server points. It actually is for people who seek good challenging fights instead of spamming #1 with 80 ppl.

sPvP is that way —->

It’s your first www game Newbie

Nope Aika Online was. I don’t ser your point though. The main difference between this game mode and sPvP are server wide point distribution and the size of the fights. If you want small scale tactical fights why don’t you just go to sPvP. WvW is for large scale tactical fights. Before you tell me zerging is not tactical i adresssed this in the second paragraph of my OP.

Mathog.3157:

You get something FOR FREE and you’re STILL complaining? Sweet jesus mother of god, people these days.
As Lord Trejgon said, destroy or collect them, it’s always better to have anything than nothing.
I guess you also don’t like 1g from these chests, feel free to send it to me.

Well if you are getting something you will never use why even get it at all

Zumos.2056:

TheAmpca.1753:

And no don’t bring up that lame skill lag argument that is a problem with the servers not zergs. Zerging is a big part of WvW for a reason, it’s all about servers with large playerbases fighting eachother. Servers can decide to put everyone on the map on one commander which is fine. There is lots of counterplay here. For instance you can split your force so that the enemy zerg can only engage one group at a time allowing one force to die while the other is busy taking something.

Zerging is not a problem however one thing is. It’s the fact that the most useful strategy is to simply ball up and run at the enemy. Forming convex/concave or other shapes is not only harder but less effective. THAT is the problem in WvW.

Zerging is not a problem for people who only care about meaningless server points. It actually is for people who seek good challenging fights instead of spamming #1 with 80 ppl.

sPvP is that way —→

For WvW if you run in zergs/are a commander like me you are going to want to run full zerker armor and weapons with healing power and defensive trinks. You could probably get away with healing power on your armor as well. Take 0/10/30/30/0 traits taking condi removal while in stealth as well as every single trait that gives you regen especially the one where you heal on initiative use.

Take signet of malice, blinding powder, shadow refuge, signet of shadows and dagger storm.

When in large group battles pop your dagger storm then spam 1 and 2 on your shortbow. If you get low pop blinding powder and shadow refuge and find a safe spot to regen up. Do not pop either of your signets. Once you are at 40% ish health head back in and dpam 1 and 2 again.

Another thing you can do is spam blast finish on your shadow refuge for mass aoe blinds which is highly effective. Remember if traited right thiefs have the highest self healing in the game mext to guardians.

Ebg faster paced due to closer structures and involves a lot more open field fighting.

And no don’t bring up that lame skill lag argument that is a problem with the servers not zergs. Zerging is a big part of WvW for a reason, it’s all about servers with large playerbases fighting eachother. Servers can decide to put everyone on the map on one commander which is fine. There is lots of counterplay here. For instance you can split your force so that the enemy zerg can only engage one group at a time allowing one force to die while the other is busy taking something.

Zerging is not a problem however one thing is. It’s the fact that the most useful strategy is to simply ball up and run at the enemy. Forming convex/concave or other shapes is not only harder but less effective. THAT is the problem in WvW.

Nayah.9410:

Nice suggestions!

TheAmpca.1753:

COMMUNICATION

• Dev finder for the threads: Like on the league of legends forums I want to press a button to find the first dev posts in the forums

I would like to point out that there is a Dev Tracker on the forum under “News & Info”.

yeah i know the problem is running across a thread marked that it has a dev post and having to search that thread for it. For all you know he could be on page 1 or 49

reserved for if I has more ideas (my only reserved post)

PLAYER INTERACTION

• Home Customization: I would like to be able to decorate/design my home and home instance in a way to dare I say it the runescape method. I would also like to be able to access my home via an asuran portal in LA or via an item
• Guild Halls: Same thing as home instances but on a grander scale and for your guild.
• Decorations: Ideas include a weapon rack where you can preview 5 pieces of armor/weapons that you own. Basic furniture. Mystic forge, Bank, TP, and crafting benches as well as farming patches maybe?
• LFG UI: Not really a high priority since there is already a website for this but personally it would be more convenient to just click a few buttons in game to find a group
• Guild Raids: Large scale dungeons that can take from as low as 15 to a max of 50 players. Would increase guild interaction and would make it feel more like “Guild” Wars 2. Guild bounty and such were a step in the right direction

SHORT TERM EXPANSIONS

• Living World: Keep doing a great job bringing lots of free content that really enhances the game! I am thinking about buying gems I don’t need just to support the company since I love their business model (NO SUBSCRIPTION FEES YES!)

LONG TERM EXPANSIONS

• Classes: Would like the addition of a third heavy class. Some ideas archetypes I like are: Mystic Knight (spellblade stuff), Dragoon/Dracomancer (fight using an aerial style and breathe dragon breath), Monk (uses knuckles), dark knight (self explanatory), Amphibious class (all available weapons can be used both above and below water. e.g. can use greatsword underwater and can use harpoon gun out of water)
• Races: Some races I would like to play include the Tengu, Kodan, and Centaurs, although I know some people want stuff like skirtt and quaggan as well
• Map expansions: Perm map expansions like southsun cove. I feel like there is a lot of untapped architecture styles that could be used in the crystal desert.

GEMSTORE

• Harvesters: I want the ability to buy the permenant harvest items I missed from taking a break from the game either to come back in the same event next year or with a new theme in a new event this year. e.g. add a mining pick that is water themed instead of fire themed
• Instruments: These things are so cool and so much fun. Want MOAR
• More Dyes: I want expensive dyes from dare I say RNG
• Less RNG: Just for temporary event items. I don’t like having to open boxes to get content that is going to go away in two weeks.
• MF Conduit: I would like to buy this item that people spent about 3g making that now costs 72g and is honestly not worth it. At least make it a rare item from an RNG box. Granted though there has been mass inflation for everything.
• Voice packs: Self explanatory.

COMMUNICATION

• Improved patch notes: For me whenever I am reading the patch notes I will come across things that say something like “Skill X now does 5 damage” which means absolutely nothing to me. If instead it said “Skill X damage has been increased from 4 to 5” I would easily be able to tell what changed and by how much
• Clearer traits/runes/skills/etc: I find that there is a lot of missing information in skill descriptions. E.g. I don’t think that portal states that it only works for 20 people and I see no reason why it shouldn’t state that. Other things such as the superior rune of the golemancer have a 5% chance to summon a golem. Great 5% chance on what to summon the golem? Also when I summon it what exactly does it do: how much hp does it have, what skills does it cast, etc.
• Improved info on the UI: another thing that I have noticed is that when you look at your skills they say they do X damage even though they don’t. They do damage from a range of damages based on the skill and your power, so why don’t we have the ability to see this range? At least in the weapon skills part of the hero tab skills should have their base damage with no power or weapon as well as the range of damage they do with all your stuff equipped.
• Improved UI cont’d: Also I would like to see how much damage each of my conditions will do per tick on the UI. I want to see that say with my 500 condition damage I will do say 100 dps with poison, same thing for the regen boon. As well as knowing how much I heal for with my blast finishers in water fields.
• Improved UI cont’d: I also would like to see many things as a percent. I want to see how much extra condition damage I am getting per tick with my condition damage as well as how much healing I do with my healing power and how much damage I mitigate with my armor
• Dev finder for the threads: Like on the league of legends forums I want to press a button to find the first dev posts in the forums

WORLD vs. WORLD

• New Maps: I personally would like a total of 3 map sets that get rotated through each week: Classic set, Water set (70% water for water battles), set containing lots of choke points (tunnel dredge map?). This would expand and give more sets of valid tactics. Would make WvW a bit less of the same thing every week. RNG for matchups was a step in the right direction.
• Fixed Ranks: Make your rank account bound like your sPvP rank while allowing players to allocate the points separately on different toons. Make rank points resetable with the cost of one badge per point reset.
• Increased commander options: Separate commander chat channel that goes across all borderlands only open to those with their tags on. Ability to change the color of your commander tag. Ability to set attack and defend markers on the map visible by your squad with just the click of a button. More stuff I can’t think of
• Capture the X events: events that award server X amount of points for capturing and holding certain objectives on the map and holding them until the timer runs out (could be a new use for the skrit/centaur areas of the Bls)
• UI tab for player distribution: Gives the number of players on each bl as well as a breakdown of how many people are representing each guild there.
• Achievement Progression: I am all for having really hard titles like the 250k ones but I would also like to show off my progress towards that like how sPvP has the title progression based on your rank. I would also like other achievements such as doing X things with X class.
• Increased Achiev Point Gain: Just increase the number of points you get for each achievement (WvW really barely gives you any)
• Titles for rank progression: I want to be able to show off to not just the other servers but my own server as well that I have say become a golden invader or maybe a squire.

ITEMIZATION

• Skins: We already have 10000 rouge and bandit skin sets for the medium armor and the same deal for the other armor types. Lets have more unique armor sets like the Aetherblade ones! (less fire themed ones as well)
• Back Skins: Some back skins I like are the flower ones so why not have more kinds of flowers/colors for them. I am low on ideas in the skin department help me out here and post your ideas!
• Thiefs: 1200 range weapon PLOX

How to be a tanky beast in WvW fights do to insane regen and excellent condition removal as well as dealing out decent damage. All you have to do is press dagger storm and once it ends you spam cluster bomb. I guarantee you will not die and you will tag a lot of people. Don’t forget that your last pistol skill is an aoe blind so use it as well.

Don’t kid yourself, we aren’t pigeon holed into the lame backstab combo.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYEQNAV4alcmiP3ey5E+5EyWhKk7hF6UNV3jrSriPA-jEDBEEAEFwEBQJPFRjtQsIasqZRWZDT5CQFLp2bCxWco2cRTIg+LAA-w

kishter.9578:

seen all white knight in this post are thief.

kishter.9578:

This place is to discuss NOT to insult.

.

kishter.9578:

seen all white knight in this post are thief.

Thieves have absolutely no idea how their class works. They don’t know their strong and weak points and are incapable of making well informed posts about something they regularly do.

Dual.8953:

Did you just stand there for the 3+ seconds it took to do the three heartseekers? You have, fears, deathshroud, wide access to AoE, marks, and a high health pool, is it so hard to actually use some of them?

You forget. Thieves have the best CC in the game. It’s an aoe passive ability that all thieves have where all enemies within 1500 range are only allowed to sit there. They can’t move, they can’t cast abilities they just have to sit there and get farmed.

Paulytnz.7619:

Absolutionis.9427:

You cannot “pick” a weapon skin once per day. You pick a skin now and can obtain unlimited quantities that chosen skin at a rate of once per day.

I never said you could, try reading AND comprehending next time huh?

Oh nm OP did, my bad, errr I mean his bad lol – carry on…

eh yeah forgot to write receive it. meh

Aberrant.6749:

Dual.8953:

Why is this a thief thread now?

Every thread about being solo in WvW eventually becomes a thief QQ thread : /

Idiots see thieves and automatically forget that they have buttons they can press too.

Iluth.6875:

It’s just mathmatical fact that they’re a faceroll solo class.

Where is this math you speak of.

Iluth.6875:

thieves have a class mechanic which allows them ignore damage mitigation or health as a valuable stat.

I never knew thieves had invincibility.

Iluth.6875:

If You Are Squishy Running Solo Don’t come complaining to the forums when a thief destroys you.

Squishies die to thieves because thieves do too much damage. Bunkers die to thieves since they cant burst them before the thief runs away.

Thieves are badly balanced in wvw. This is not a difficult concept for anyone to grasp, aside from thieves.

People really shouldn’t be running squishy builds in WvW and running solo (including thieves) sine they die easily. Your second sentence is self-contradicting, a thief that runs away is not a thief that is doing any damage since they are running away.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

TheAmpca.1753:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Fenrir.6183:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Yes they were co-ordinated, that doesnt change the fact they had a HUGE benefit with how Broken the class is. When you can down someone in SECONDS and be right back into stealth within 2seconds that is broken. You can deny it as much as you want, doesnt change it.

The game shouldnt require EVERYONE going Bunker to stop themselves getting killed by Thieves just because Anet are to lazy to fix it, But this is Anet they are renowned for being awful at this sort of thing, thought they would have learned from GW1 – i guess not.

Gibberish. How is that broken when you take damage anyway. It’s not like being in stealth grants invicibility or something. Just throw down some AOE, traps, wells, whatever your class has as a mean to fight this. And in case you haven’t noticed yet, this game wasn’t made with headless roaming in mind but coordinated action.
Be it pvp or wvw, you’re not supposed to go alone (well it obviously happens more in pvp but this is a different case). Why are you fighting a thief, alone, when you could be with some friends, fighting over a tower, capturing camps, defending towers or keeps, etc. ?
You need to understand what the game is about, and stop roaming aimlessly like a headless chicken.

edit:
My main character is a ranger.

not everyone is as lucky as you to land it perfectly when they have pretty much EVERY direction to go in….

If they are not on top of you and are going in EVERY direction away from you (which is where you should be placing your Aoe) then they are not doing massive damage to you, they are running away.

Again, other the the Necro which class has has all this AoE that he/she can place around themselves? they could easily be just out of range waiting for the AoE to end to come and attack.

Every class does. Take your AA chain for example, none of them require a target to be selected. Most skills in this game do not require you to select a target and can be blind fired. I wont list all the skills because it would take too long. Rather if you would like help with a specific class I could help you.