Guild Wars 2

Essa.5826:

Yes, but its different on the two auras. Should be the same on both.

No.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr's_Boon

Arc.9374:

I can’t believe you guys are crying about them fixing something that was never intended.

So you want them to only fix the Ele bugs that are detrimental to play, and just gloss over the ones that provide convenient benefit?

How anyone could think that getting blast finishers wasn’t a blatant bug is beyond me. All it takes is 10 seconds of cross-refencing the skills you’re supposed to get according to the tooltip with whether or not they’re blast finishers, and if you’d done that, you’d see that the only one is churning earth, which, had it worked as it should have, would have given you one blast every 10 seconds, at max.

Instead you got a blast every time you dodged into a field, with no internal cooldown, and irrespective of what attunement you were in, and you thought that was just going to slide by?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, it would have been awesome if they’d actually fixed the whole trait so that it worked as described, rather than half-baking it like this, but you can’t seriously believe that Evasive Arcana was going to remain in the state it was in, when it was clearly completely unintended.

And then you have the nerve to complain about it?

Well if you played stafff you would get it. Originally we though the bug (where every dodge roll was blast finisher) would be nerfed now we know that they intended for us to not have access to them at all through EA. As far as the meta game goes this hurts staff a lot.

The thing you have to understand is that we are decent as a community we trade builds discuss and usually were pretty peaceful around here. Anet manged to nerf the vast majority of us past where we thought we were getting nerfed. Many of us argued that the skill should be fixed. Many of us never exploited it. Right now EA is nigh worth less outside of water.

Right now EA has no blast and is piss poor as a 30 point skill. Your anger surprises me considering it killed many builds around here. Look I am going to get over it a redo my build but honestly your anger is a troll all of its own.

To be fare rangers were in the dog house. They had been thrown to the wolves as a class. I mean the classes’ bark was way worse than its bite. The bleed damage short bow build was soon figured out by everyone. Rangers and the devs realized that dog wouldn’t hunt and had become pretty poor as a class over all. Now it seems you have got a bee in your bonnet over our nerfs but fret not we have options just not as many as we used to. Now your barking up the wrong tree if your trying to use rangers as your example. Now I think I have got a bird’s eye view on the situation. For staff its terrible but for the rest of us its just a little sting.

Now those fat cats over at Anet have got us all like cats on a hot tin roof. Our class isn’t broken. Anet was just like a bull in a china shop all they caused was a mess. We as birds of a feather need to flock together now to show our disappointment. Now they may have got our goat but were not beating a dead horse. Keep Anet aware that this dark horse of a class still has a community and voice.

Not saying staff isn’t viable but the playstlye got much harder (I mean one blast with long cast its kind of overkill) even I know this and I have been D/D since I started ele. TBH our nerfs were likely the biggest this patch (Beside the S/D nerf and dancing dagger nerf for thief)

@Froze Steel Lower that fist a lil and raise just one finer (you choose) you will feel a lil better. All joking aside all we can do is adapt and hope for the best.

I know the whole staff vs D/D vs S/D for viability disputes we have had off and on on the forums, Even as a D/D ele myself I feel the nerf was too much. It was a small slap for me over all (3 stacks of might maybe 2 i never really abused EA) but for staff taking away all blast from EA was too much. A slap to me was a spit in the face to many of your play styles. From one ele too another I think its bullkitten.

Actually I’m pissed too I never used the bug I always did the attune 10 second thing so I wouldst get reliant but this is lol funny. I am not going to quit the class but kitten is this a slap.

Let be a little honest here. Depending on what they nerf and what they buff across the board many of our builds may become garbage. Some builds we toyed with may actually become viable. Some people may up and rage quit and other may return just based off the notes alone. Since they are important its just makes more sense to post them. The patch can wait we would like to see the notes. Well maybe that’s just how I feel but I don’t think it would hurt.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Yeroc.7516:

Noon in the pacific, to be quite specific.

Thanks folks, I’m here all day.

http://imagemacros.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/oh_you.jpg?w=720

On topic, where did it say this patch was being launched at Noon today? I must of missed that. And if so, it should of been launched about an hour ago.

Edit: I know about this: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/free-trial-event-november-15-18

But I never saw anything saying Lost Shores was starting on the 15th as well.

If you haven’t guessed yet since we don’t have general forum the complaints here are more generic. TBH the event is cool and all but the people stalking the forums pretty much only really care about the balancing patch notes. The event starts tomorrow. The patch was supposed to be an hour ago.

Honestly releasing the patch notes would have been enough. This cloak and dagger act is getting a lil old (pun intended).

TBH waiting isn’t the issue.

Look it makes no sense to tell us times you cant keep because all it does is piss us off. You could have said 6 pm tonight. No one would have complained since we all go by Anet’s schedule. We aren’t rushing them. Just don’t tell us to show up some place and not be there lets be honest its a crappy move.

boozer.7815:

TheGuy.3568:

Calle.8746:

Warmage Timeraider.5861:

regeneration is kinda the worst boon there is in my opinion.. maybe if it stacked in intensity it would actually be usefull

well in my opinion you’re stupid. I’d have a really hard time surviving without my regen, one of the best things I have when it comes to survivability.

Actually I think Warmage has it right. At the moment regeneration is one of the worst heals stand alone. It scales 12.5% of your healing power. So its on the low side. A boon like protection takes away 33% of dps since healing scales terribly vs dps a boon like protection will in most cases help more.

I mean if you look at all the defensive ones in order of usefulness swiftness, protection, retaliation, stability, aegis, vigor, and then regeneration.

Actually no, your both wrong. Passive heal/second is never a bad thing, and the effort it takes to get some decent regen stacks going is negligible. Its actually kinda dumb to run without it.

No one said not to use it (you need to read more carefully). We said its not as good as others that’s about it. The other thing is your confusing passive healing and regen the boon. The boon isn’t that great passive signet healing is insane if you use it right. Both for us and warriors the ticks are very good.

Do you still use regen? Of course you do. However, its not one of the boons to prioritize. Regen wont save you in a pinch what it will do is help you heal on the run.

TGSlasher.1458:

Regen when kiting and using terrain to prevent damage is good, protection when taking damage is much better.
With full healing power and in water with Soothing Mists you will regen about 600hp (double 300) per tick, better then a kick in the teeth. But if you are getting kicked in the teeth that heal isn’t much, burst of 2-6k per second is going to knock you on your but.

Back on topic, regen and soothing mists regen stack (2x regen, not duration)
The soothing mists regen is less then standard regen I do believe.
This is the case for anything that says regenerates health (but doesn’t apply regen).
So doylacks gear will stack again. (though 30 hp regen is crap)

I don’t really disagree bu in mos situations what will be the most likely things to save you are cc and running away/kiting. The best boons for that are swiftness and stability (and cc skills earthquake etc). regen its more damage mitigation for incoming damage but at my level of hp and healing power it would take regen by itself 76.9 seconds to get me to full health. A direct heal or protection will do a better job of mitigating damage. (more info http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Regeneration)

Calle.8746:

Warmage Timeraider.5861:

regeneration is kinda the worst boon there is in my opinion.. maybe if it stacked in intensity it would actually be usefull

well in my opinion you’re stupid. I’d have a really hard time surviving without my regen, one of the best things I have when it comes to survivability.

Actually I think Warmage has it right. At the moment regeneration is one of the worst heals stand alone. It scales 12.5% of your healing power. So its on the low side. A boon like protection takes away 33% of dps since healing scales terribly vs dps a boon like protection will in most cases help more.

I mean if you look at all the defensive ones in order of usefulness swiftness, protection, retaliation, stability, aegis, vigor, and then regeneration.

Gear>build as far as Orr goes. I never remember having major issues but the mobs hit much lighter once your full exotic. The other thing is in Orr being mobile is half the challenge.

Its not about GW1 its that no one really wants to gear grind this early in. That being said the WoW guys are 100% right resistance gear was hated to no end.

Aviate.9457:

I am so SICK of everyone complaining about thieves, we have been nerfed countless times when classes like the warrior have yet to even be touched! Everyone cries and cries simply because they themselves do not understand how to defend against the class, this is the main reason I have quit playing GW2, I was really hoping to log in to the forums and see somewhat less QQ then when I left a few weeks ago but that seems to be asking too much. Too many of you WoW cry babies decided to come to the Guild Wars universe I believe.

People that say thieves spam 1 or 2 button clearly need to play the class themselves and if they say they are playing a thief and spamming 1 or 2 buttons, they either aren’t actually getting kills or have not played a thief whatsoever, the nerf to heartseeker and pistol whip took care of that, which I completely disagreed with the pistol whip nerf as it should have been a quickness nerf instead but wtfever. Izzy is too busy enjoying his 25-30k charge -> stun -> hundred blades to even do anything about warriors.

And another thing, no thief can stealth that often, there is a debuff that prevents it, so quit blowing up the forums with lies just because you don’t know how to PvP against a thief, or better yet, you are probably crying because they can just shadowstep to you and prevent your wussy kitten from running around kiting the whole battle.

Ok so yeah my mains ele but my first was P/D Thief. I will tell you now there is no such thing as a good defense against a shadow thief. Its not like back stab you can run but mind you if you stay you will eat dirt.

Since I don’t want a wall here’s the gist.

1> Perma-stealth is possible and with good timing you can dps as it ends and get your stealth skill off without the debuff

2. Properly speced into arts and trickery condition damage will be a joke to you and if you have some healing gear it just wont matter you can out heal the dot on stealth.

If you play warrior you would understand that any claims that warrior is OP are simply not true. For all you say about how others should play a thief I would advise you to play each class and realize the weaknesses and strengths. If you took the time to do that your post would make more sense.

For the OP. Your best bets are snares, cc, and properly utilizing your range. If you cc the thief unless they have utility skills to shadow step etc its over just burn the thief down. If he goes stealth keep attacking in a circle use what ever aoe you’ve got. You can hit them while stealth so likely if you just keep shooting or place your back to a wall your going to hit. If you see refuge attack it. Most stealth can be beat by strong cc. Honestly stealth is a defensive and offensive crutch without it most thieves are at a loss and cant win. If you can get them to the point where stealth isn’t help the smart ones will run. Its that simple. Any sort of survivable thief will lead to stalemate or worse for you a loss.

The only real issue beside being an easier target for other players to pick up is Flanking Strike not making it all the way around the back on bigger models that’s about it.

Some thieves can one shot anyone that’s the point (for technical reason 3 shot is more appropriate). Also access to stealth + shortbow (not as individual mechanics but together) means thief is very survivable even on glass builds with that much burst damage.

To say it again just because it can be countered doesn’t mean it’s balanced.

RamataKahn.4283:

Kain.3485:

it’s funny i posted this to see the different responses from here compared to thieves section, it’s ridiculous at the amount of people who kitten about thieves hitting this hard compared to warriors :|

When two warriors can come even remotely close to doing this then you can maybe say a little something:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9gM9YAdYLo

Put it in perspective please. The players they were fighting used terrible tactics. They literally left them alone in while in refuge didn’t go near it no aoe in it at all. They used next to ) stuns/ other cc on those thieves. Its really a sad pvp vid because it inexperienced players vs what seems to be a semi experienced small group.

Eles are not perfectly fine but its true the build and gear are king. The way you play it factors in right under that. I think some complaints are valid but most survivabililty complaints are baseless.

Can’t have it both ways. You have aoe, range, and support on staff you don’t need the uber single target dps it just doesn’t make sense. Why even have other weapons then?

CommanderPC.8609:

But can an elementalist do good in PvP?

Yes we do fine in PvP.

Best advice your goign to get is to look at the forums and see the numerous post on popular builds then go otut and try them. Spvp is a good cheap way to get a feel for a build even if its not PvP it gives you access to the skills and allows you to play around vs dummies and the class training npcs.

That being said both class are as complex as you make them. A grenade engi can destroy pve spamming the “1” button. They could go dual pistols and range condition spam or even equip kits and switch them on the fly making engi the class with the most potential for complexity as you could literally carry 4 weapon kits giving you access to 5 skill bars total (this would likely be a crappy build but you could).

Engi on the other hand does not require you to switch attunement (you can play just fine sitting in one kit) but yes to play it at top level much like engi you’ll be pulling off combo fields no matter what weapon set you choose. Because attunements have cds its not as trigger finger as engineer but its complex that you still juggle 4 bars and their cds.

The honest truth is without playing each one yourself you will never know. Most people will tell you how much their class owns and how good they are. That might be true for them but you may literally be kitten at the class and you’ll waist your time and money trying to achieve what they could.

Play them both and go with what feels natural.

angmar.1256:

posting videos like this on the official forums will get us nerfed even sooner. i know they will do.

Not really. You can do this on just about any class in full exotics. Seen a guardian and thief do it in person so it’s not that big a deal.

Ok D/D ele 101

You main combo fields are burning speed and ring of fire. By using a blast finisher in these fields you gain 3 stacks of might which last 20 seconds. Might increases the dps of both Power based skills and condition damage skills. With D/D ele you have 2 blast finishers naturally both in earth. One being earthquake the other being churning earth. Your build also utilizes evasive arcana. The only real reasons to carry evasive arcana is to have an extra heal/cleanse in water attunement and to have 4 more blast finishers one in each attunement (more info here http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evasive_Arcana).

Going to use abbreviations for this part since we all know the skils

A good combo to pull off is

RTL→ UD→ SA→ fire attunement→ BS→(I have evasive arcana so I usually roll backward to get might)→ RoF→ earth attunement→ Earthquake→ CE

This combo will have you at 10 stacks of might and fury for your churning earth uping your 12% crit to 32%

Either way not using your fields is a waste since you have so many tools.

First off from the start it was said no real healer. Nobody can keep a focus fired glass cannon up all by themselves.

That being said we patch and pitch in here and there but healing is a group effort if you need it run to the guy who has it and his fields. The other thing to note is that the personal heal every player has is the king of all healing heal speced or not. Our job isn’t to keep players alive they do that on their own all we can do is help them survive. We cant carry a single player who’s not on their game and its as simple as that.

I have done this before and that was great but and please seriously don’t take this the wrong way. Fire to earth you BS/RoF to earthquake churning. You have evasive arcana use it for your might stacking.

Ill say it for the millionth time play what you like its gotta be natural to you in the long run. That being said a proper D/D combo depending on traits (I use aura so). Assuming I have no cds it goes like this

RTL→UD→SA→fire attunement→BS→(I have evasive arcana so I usually roll backward to get might)→RoF→ earth attunement→Earthquake→CE (f the targets/target starts to move away Lightning Flash to reposition or dodge interrupts)

things to note I did fine in PvE with this before the traits etc but D/D started to really shine once I got into Pow/Vit/Tough gear.

I honestly believe D/D is more of a stance dancers weapon. I also think its the least pick up and play of our weapon sets.

Power, vitality, toughness you probably have enough karma to get some pieces now out the temples. Also like above run AC. In specific run AC path 2 speed run whether your’e in the cd on or not you’ll make a ton. All path are good (with enough dps) but path 2 is easy mode and very fast a good team will be done in 15-20 minutes if not less.

Had a long response but here’s what a wall of text summed up looks like.

Eles rock some players suck that’s about it.

Does it really matter?

I am a stance dancer by nature and D/D has yet to fail me. I have yet to feel squishy on ele in this weapon set. I melee whatever I want I rarely get downed. I respect any ele who uses a staff or S/D well but I don’t need to stroke my ego by saying D/D is better. It just so happens I play it better I can’t see what matters past that.

There are like 3 threads dedicated to this one video. So lets review it under 20k hp on a warrior is kitten low hes as glass as glass gets. We see no decent melee go near him. Kill shots cast is actually easy to recognize and dodge. We actually see a thief run up to him and run to rez. The guys he were fighting were pvp newbies who mostly ran glass builds themselves. At one point he got just 4 bleeds and lost half his life.

I am not even defending the build I am laughing at how ludicrous it was he didn’t go down. This guy saw no real attention.

Ill give you the short answer anyone can win but its not really worth it.

If he uses caltrops you know hes got at most 2 stun breakers. Caltrops can be rolled out of and just don’t stand in the spot again. If you really want to beat him or her know the fact. Condition thieves are mobile usually rock some sort of stealth bonus including healing and maybe even a condition wipe. The range on DB is actually pretty short and you can literally just move away if needed. DB burns a good bit of init but not enough to make a bow escape useless.

Honestly your best bet is to run. You can all but stop his dps but there is a good chance without proper aoe and stun you wont kill him.

This D/D vs staff bs needs to end. You can use both wherever you like.

As far as siege goes I will tell you about the perfect weapon. Go to siege master pick up an arrow cart then thank me later. Trebuchet , ram, and other are also acceptable.

BTW you can run D/D in any situation. Situational awareness concurs all. If you know your class and aren’t playing fast and loss with a glass cannon you can run any weapon set up.

Baladir.2736:

Course the easy answer is that it doesn’t do much of anything else. It’s a DPS build because there are two but only one useful group combo field, the healing and aoe is subpar compared to other weapon sets, and there is no aoe or ranged attack of any kind. I don’t know what else you could call it. It does not offer much of any support to other players. It’s singular strentgh is melee combat.

To get this out of the way staff is a better support weapon hands down. That being said D/D is pretty complete. No we cant heal like a staff player but we do heal. We Can CC like mad and we have a lot of AoE. Fire 1,2,3,4,5 are all aoe or cone. Water 1 Pierce 2 cone, 3 aoe. Air 1 is cone (but admit it is limited to 3 targets) 5 is aoe and superb. Earth 2, 4, and 5 are all aoe and make up the majority of our aoe dps.

We do have certain amount of ranged but its not the much the beauty of team play with D/D is mobility. Fact is all the support in the world will not keep a glass cannon up. Support in the game entails mostly boons and cc. Healing has it place but its not “HEALING!” like other mmos but more patching where you can. What D/D brings to the table isn’t blinds and superb healing but CC and mobility. The cc comes the form of snares knockdowns. Offhand gives access to the KDs Main hand dagger the snares in earth and water.

Our patch healing if traited is good too. Honestly I know it doesn’t compare to staff but if you really don’t want to pop your main heal you don’t need to.

The other thing is the 1v1 thing. Actually D/D is much more useful 1 v group (so is just about every other ele weapon set). In PvP D/D when played right can go in and hassle a group and survive. In PvE taking on less than 2 mobs is a waist of energy and the most I can fight (so far) is 10 regular or 4 vets (doesn’t matter if ranged is mixed in).

I think each weapon set has its advantages and disadvantages but imho D/D isn’t the dp weapon set but the balanced weapon set. It mixes dps with mobility, cc, and support for survival.

I think it needs to be mentioned that mobility is the strongest form of defense in the game. If your’e not getting hit your’e not taking damage. Much like some alchemy tanky/bunker based engi builds we survive off our mobility it just so happens almost all of it is in the left side of the bar. The right is freed up for what even you like.

Baladir.2736:

Homitu.7216:

…….I don’t know what more to say other than the class is seriously not the problem. Some classes are just more intuitive to some players. Warrior might just make sense to you. Ele makes sense to me. I have an 80 of both as well, and I personally find it significantly easier to sustain and survive on my ele, although that’s probably because my ele is support specced. ……..

That struck a chord when I read that. I have always played casters in every game and they always wear light armor. The tactics are very similar across all the different variations of the class as is the terminology, “glass cannon” for example.

For players who are not familar with fantasy light armor wearing casters ie. wizards, mages, sorcerers etc. , the Elementalist as GW2 implements the profession must be a big shock, especially with PvP and the entirely new level of difficulty and playstyle that involves. But, still, there appear to be more players than I would have expected having issues.

In all fairness, this has to be the hardest profession to play well, in all the different venues of the game, that I have ever played.

Shin megami tensei imagine (ftp Japanese game based on Persona series) Had a class called rush mage. Basically it was a combination of warrior traits and mage. Not ranged it would rush and stun lock aoe in a straight line. If you messed up your were downed quickly if not you could solo dungeons and bosses.

My point is that its makes no sense to worry about classic game archetypes. Many games have had melee version of mages. If you consider the combat in this game there is no point in sitting still and casting from a distance. Every class has to move to survive. As one person put it the best defense is not getting hit.

Even the “tanky” classes benefit from not standing still. After you play a few combat mmos (for me Tera and DCUO for much longer) you realize the keeping/getting distance, evades, and blocks far surpass eating hits.

Honestly I don’t know exactly how to respond. L2P always sounded dumb to me but tactics aside knowing your class is the difference between survival and getting 2 shotted. The more I play ele the more I realize I can escape most situations.

Imho pve or pvp ele is a hit and run pressure class. The way I play it in PvE and PvP is run in do my cc combo get out heal wash rinse repeat. This may not work for everyone but it works for me. I honestly believe the more time you spend playing it the better you will get but if you don’t get better and start disliking it just play another class. If your’e not having fun on ele whats the point of playing it?

BTW

I run a pretty balanced build 1700 power 1600 tough 1500 vit & only 1000 prec I have 750 healing power I do ok healing (not great). I run D/D and have enough power to drop mobs at a rate that I find acceptable. I honestly value the gear over the build but I run 0/10/10/20/30 and it works well for me.

I have to ask how many of you actually use your heal skill? The reason I ask this is that I realized the other day I only pop heal for swiftness or when kitten absolutely hits the fan. Any other time I attune to water and heal that way.

ASP.8093:

TheGuy.3568:

I never meant it cant be done what I am saying is that the build that does it will rely on caltrops.

You know those god-statue skill points in Orr, with a bunch of enemies? A few of them gave me a lot of trouble as a warrior. On my thief, a bit of positional cleverness is enough to just roll through ’em.

Now, I’m a better thief player than I am a warrior player, and my thief has better gear. Both those factors certainly contribute to my improved performance. But it’s also because thieves have better active defense than warriors, and active defense scales much better than passive defense does.

Pure crit build. No Caltrops, ever. I think the only time I’ve equipped Caltrops on my bar was for running past dungeon mobs.

I don’t understand your point. We were discussing how you solo the maggot spawning champion in Orr. I merely said that the dps from caltrops (while aoe) is lack luster. I have no idea what this has to do with skill points.

You have to understand that I am seeing it both ways. For instance my best PvE class is ele. I can solo a supply point in WvW on ele (that’s 4 vets 2 are ranged both ranged mobs blind). I once saw a thief run in an try to burn down the Guild champion solo. He seemed to be doing ok but all his dps was on one mob with avoiding dps from the others using blinds, stealth, etc. The way I saw it yes he can do what I can do but his aoe is weak (compared to other classes) and hes taking more risk. I Saw a guardian do it pull out a great sword and do basically what I would do without the kiting.

So while we can all do the same things fact is thief lacks the aoe and tools to do much of PvE as easily as other classes. I play a thief too I don’t feel I suck at it or even feel I am a better ele. I just have many more tools on other classes.

Simple answer get some range. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_Blossom 130 range you can avoid the attack. Let them burn init catching you. If your D/D the bleed is an easy cleanse. You wont win every time but you can always run regroup.

Weapon X.5163:

Just out of curiosity, why use evasive arcana with D/D? You only have a fire field, i know everyone praises up and down about that skill, but to me its only effective if you use Staff.

EA on D/D is for the might and the extra cleanse/ heal in water its as simple as this. Besides that with vigor from cantrips you basically have a blind, a burst, a tick, and a heal just from evading. I am sorry to say but using it only when you have a field is a little simple minded. No matter the weapon set EA works well with it on ele.

We can critique all day but if it works it works. Picking on someone for doing well with a build your not running makes no sense imho. Whatever you run realize that it may work for you but not for others. By no means does that mean that your’e running the superior build. If that were the case the last time I took on a supply point solo and won I could have declared that my build was the best for soling multiple vets. I don’t even think that but I know it works.

mouse.1689:

Using Dagger/Dagger, you combo Air Trait 1 (Zephyr’s Boon) with Water 4 and Air 3. Each one will give you 12 seconds of Swiftness (assuming you have 30 points in Arcana.)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr's_Boon

Keeping it all in the community the only arua that give you 12 seconds is Shocking the rest are 6.5 (when traited of course).

Honestly it doesn’t even matter. None of the racials really shine neither do out ele class elites. Play whatever looks good to you. Sorry, but that’s all there really is to it.

Lordryux.9785:

yea i admit that too on group support thiefs are poorly lacking in that area but. that pretty much sums up the class is a solo. class it can be equally effective in groups as well because of shadow refuge and other stealth skills that stealth ur group members as well so u can get that chance if they are downed to heal them or need a quick break

I agree this can be a powerful tool when things go wrong. I remember a month or 2 back my first run through AC I was doing this. My logic is this “Stealth can save a team from wiping.”, and it still is. When i started playing ele as I leveled I didn’t think that i was better on it. I came to the realization that other classes simply have more tools than thief. The thief bag of tricks imho seems to be sorely lacking.

If we continue to say things are fine the devs will think that BS is all that needs to be looked at. While I am in favor of the BS nerf I am not in favor of abandoning the class when their are other builds that need some positive attention. Flanking Strike for instance is rather weak. The responsiveness is too iffy. P/P could use a lot more utility and a little more burst. Pistol 2 is nearly worthless on P/D. There are more however my point is that we should recognize these things now.

I rather poke holes in the thief are best in pve ship now so that a few month down the line players don’t just wake up a realize their are better options out there. Lets hope the devs shore it up.

@Dacromir

I don’t really think we need another. Thread addressing this topic as there are many active ones still going. Among these numerous threads are many with bunker builds showing their gear and the dps that was done.

Your question is also a trap. The reason being that you say both stats and play need to be accounted for. IE if they show you stats you’ll say its their build, and if their stats are weak (defensively) you can claim stats. It also empowers you to judge a build. Now you may have never played the class but you set yourself up as the authority on build making.

You set up a statement with only one logical outcome. That is that it could not possibly have been the backstab thief it must be the player who lost who was fully at fault for losing. Conversely I could make the argument that if you cant 3 second shot with backstab build than you must be dong it wrong because I can.

I said from the start I routinely beat backstabber but that doesn’t mean its balanced. Just because you can beat backstabbers doesn’t mean its balanced.

See my point?

Do you think bunker builds are balanced? I have beat a few bunker players on both thief and ele. If I use your logic all bunker builds are balanced since they can be beat.

Also there is no need for a new thread closing this one would be a good idea.

Tulisin.6945:

TheGuy

Crazy PvE comes from necro and ele taking on 5-8 and sometimes 10 mobs at a time. I was literally soloing a champion in Orr (you know the one that summons the maggots) on D/D ele. I know I can’t do that on my thief effectively.

10 mobs at a time isn’t hard as a thief, especially if you’re bringing AE and Signet of Malice, heck just pop caltrops followed by Dagger Storm and most of them will be dead. For champions you can kite most of them but for the one you’re talking about in specific I bring a sword so I can heal off the maggots, definitely doable as a thief.

Your going to have to note my use of the word effectively. I make an effort to choose my word carefully. I never meant it cant be done what I am saying is that the build that does it will rely on caltrops. I admit I have done this before and it has been sufficient to drop the mobs. However, strictly from a factual point (note the whole Thief is BEST in pve) the aoe isn’t all that strong on thief. Caltrops will do some strong tick damage but it really doesn’t compare to warrior, ele, necromancer or engi unless your using a SB in which case if your not power your not doing much dps. I don’t use this criticism to lower thieves (like I said I wish it was better myself) but through blunt comparison thief aoe is very weak.

By no means does this mean thief cant aoe but its not designed around it and does no do so as effectively as other classes. My comparison does not come from not being able to do these things on thief. To the contrary I find thief capable of doing it all (except effective group healing) its just that other classes do this particular thing much better ie more dps aoe, more aoe skills, and more aoe cc.

The more classes you level the more you get to know the weaknesses and strengths of each one. Thief is not the weakest class by any means nor does it have the weakest builds but for general dps, tank, cc, heal, in PvE a few other classes have better options.

My hope is that they look at thief support and see the gaps like shadow protector providing regen vs a big direct heal to the team, the fact we have limited ways to stealth the team in pve and often need them to stealth themselves through fields etc etc. I am not saying the grass in greener, but I can see both lawns and one needs watering. I have openly said BS is OP but I am not going to pretend the other builds are great. They do need help in places. It makes more sense to me to call it like it is where a class is weak so that hopefully the devs see that and empower it. Not only this class but any.

Look if we stop the bullkitten those of us who know each class know this build. It’s got no real burst, daze doesn’t always hit, and flanking strike is kitten. Can you be good on it? Sure. Will most people? Nope. Please move one.

This rage isn’t an attack on all of thiefdom. Its one kittening gimmicky build let it go so pvp can be better.

Auesis.7301:

Thief is easily the best PvE class aside from perhaps Warrior or Mesmer. Using S/P or S/D with SB and Shadow Arts/Acrobatics trees properly invested, I can steamroll from one side of Orr to the other and any dungeon with relative ease. We have an INSANE amount of blinds, evades, stuns, stunbreaks, escapes and condition removals at our disposal, and we can choose any and every battle with mobs via stealth.

Of course, this only applies if you do what I said (invest in survivability trees). If you roll pure DPS, you’ll get ruined in PvE. I mean COMPLETELY ruined.

There’s nothing better than running a sword support build in a dungeon. You can manage enemy aggro all by yourself, revive any teammates without issues, kite/pseudo-tank efficiently and deal formidable damage while you’re at it. Thieves are SEVERELY underrated in group play because of the many bad apples that think backstab builds are still viable in large-scale PvE.

Sadly to say thieves are not the best PvE class. If your talking about Orr Eles (D/D usually), Necro (Staff Mark), Engi (Alchemy any weapon set really) and Guardian (just about any build that’s not glass) will do better there in survivability can dps also. That’s if their played correctly obviously.Everything you say about what thieves can do is true.

In dungeons thieves are not my favorite class to have around. Honestly its due to a lack of support and weak Aoe outside short bow. Thief doesn’t suck but its also one of the classes that brings the least to the table.

I would love to see thieves get more support outside of heal when you stealth an ally and transfer/give boons of steal. I honestly believe thieves should have gotten more group support put into tree. The support / survivability is all very solo friendly. Blind on stealth, regeneration on stealth, heal on stealth, wipe a condition on stealth, are all very solo not group support.

BTW warrior is strong in regular mob auto attack 100b PvE. Mesmers ok but has the lowest base damage in game. Crazy PvE comes from necro and ele taking on 5-8 and sometimes 10 mobs at a time. I was literally soloing a champion in Orr (you know the one that summons the maggots) on D/D ele. I know I can’t do that on my thief effectively.

tOss.9024:

My definition of overpowered still stands

It does not I quoted merriam webster’s dictionary lol. I used the actual definition not one I made up.

tOss.9024:

and your pasting the definition only supports my previous statement. Sure, people my be initially overwhelmed because they don’t understand how to counter it, but the fact still stands it is easily countered. So it can appear overpowered, when it is not. There is a difference between appearance and reality. You can just go swinging the nerf bat like crazy when it’s not a game breaking skill. Proper counters, or even having one other person with you when you get jumped makes a backstab thief a joke.

This tells me you haven’t really played thief. First off as long as you have cnd you can burst someone standing right next to some one and go back into stealth to finish them off without interruption.

tOss.9024:

The requirements to stop the burst are very, very low. Simply turning your character when the thief steals can buy you time, or make the thief mess up his combo. Even if he does down you, a teammate can either rez you, or down the thief before he stomps you. (trust me, they melt fast)

This tells me you don’t PvP or at least against anyone good. The example you give is atrocious. Most smart thieves venom (Basilisk in particular) before they burst you so your stunned. You need a port or a stun breaker to stop it. If you have enough time to turn your camera and face the other way (assuming no quickness was popped) and eat the 2 HSS coming your way, then your playing against a crap thief and your on a bunker build.

What shocks me even more from the person claiming thief is not OP is that your best strategy requires 2 PEOPLE LOL. Funny story this kitten doesn’t work either. You can literally down someone from stealth.

tOss.9024:

If it wasn’t so easy to counter, I would be looking at this argument completely different.
Oh, and there is no pitfall for me to fall into, I play an ele.

Funny thing I play ele and thief P/D. I have repeated said (check my post history if you like) that its can be countered. The thing to remember is just because it can be countered doesn’t mean it balanced. Bunkers can be countered too. Fact is a BS thief can toss down more damage than any one in a short period of time and has all the tools to chase down the target. On top of that stealth (Combat kittening Stealth) gives it one of the best defensive tools at the same time.

If anyone is willing I would love to hear a justification of having that much front end damage from stealth without the word “counter” in the argument. Its not good enough.

/edit

So explain to me why the thief burst is not ok while other classes burst is? 100b cool yes?

Warrior no stealth. 100b even with quickness slow as hell. You always see it coming. If he misses he turns to glass. Best he could possibly do is switch to shield and block. And here some game knowledge if he can down you with 100b flat out hes not speced into the lower trees no weapon swap cd reduction. Once he goes shield and he block ends its game over. If anything is on him its over. Burning bleed anything its over. If its not over he wasn’t speced for glass you would have to eat every hit of 100b. Cast time without quickness 3 1/2 seconds. that’s more than double the time of the backstab burst and that just the dps part of the warrior chain. to hit 100b you need to immobile the target. So your probably going to bullrush bolas. This does very little dps. Os the only dangerous part is the 100b which can be rolled out of considering 100b roots.

BTW if a thief get evade on backstab stealth doesn’t break you can go right back into it thus rolling wont do kitten. Another funny thing if his damage doesn’t break stealth you can go right back into it no cool down.

100b vs backstab is not even comparable.

to address quickly. First off your rank means nothing as far as class balance goes. Second without knowing what weapon set you use there is no way to put your comment in context. I suck on warrior. I rock in ele. That doesn’t justify me saying warrior is not balanced its needs improvements. Even if your Ele is 80 its makes no difference.

If you want to comment on how traits need improvement for more dps specs I understand. However be mindful that ele is rather good in PvP in the hands of a good elementalist.

Sigh if you look at the big picture its rather funny, thief barely have a bunker build that goes for warrior too. Rangers have pet AI issue and a host of useless traits. Necros barely have a working Power build and are pigeonholed in conditions. Mesmers have nearly no good condition builds. Guardians have a pitiful ranged option in scepter and engineers have no decent melee options. Compared to others we are about the same.

See my point?

your talking about one burst build and proclaiming that the entire class and all it weapons “suck” because we don’t have a burst build. Yet this forum is flooded with videos and testimonials of eles doing well if not superbly in PvP. And yet day after day some one comes on and proclaims that because they did well on a warrior ele must be broken. This pity train absolutely needs to stop.

TL:DR

If you think ele “sucks” it just may be that certain players suck at playing ele.

tOss.9024:

And, if you can come up with many ways to counter it how exactly is it OP? Overpowered means unbeatable, uncounterable, if it meant anything less the word Over would be different. The word overpowered as gotten thrown around so much in recent years that its used to describe “somewhat tough to beat.”

You missed my point but that is Ok.

The video is there to illustrate that in its initial stages rogue classes have a strong tendency to be OP. Now you took “issue” with my use of the word OP as in overpowered. Afaik OP has never meant unbeatable. In fact akin to terms like overwhelm it just means to do something with more force than is needed.

Here’s a definition

overpowered past participle, past tense of o·ver·pow·er (Verb)
Verb:
Defeat or overcome with superior strength.
Be too intense for; overwhelm.

Right now the burst damage from back stab thief has a strong tendency to overpower other players.

To keep this very simple any class with too much front end or back end damage literally overpowers other classes.Honestly I am disgusted with all this talk. It would make more sense to nerf the dam build asap and see who dares QQ.

If you do choose to watch the video you might learn something about the personality and mindset of the common backstab rogue I mean thief.

Edit to address your edit.

“The main issue here, in my opinion, is people sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling, “lalalala it’s op, I’m right you’re wrong lalalalaicanthearyou.””

No I hear all the discussion loud and clear. However, just because I understand your point doesn’t mean your right. History is a real kitten. If you choose to learn from it you will avoid many of the pitfalls that your predecessors feel into. If you choose to ignore it you will face the same problems. right now in GW2 if anyone took a small amount of time a reviewed WoW or Warhammer even LOL Shaco SWToR you would find forums full of comments that stealth and burst are OP. It does not mean its always OP. It just so happens in this case it is OP. The requirements to dodge avoid or stop the burst is too high.

tOss.9024:

Sky.9347:

tOss.9024:

TheGuy.3568:

Its OP what else can be said. Same bs we have seen in every mmo since the start. We can argue here on how to counter, and how only good players can counter this, and regale each other in stories about how good we each are, and how great we are at countering the BS. That doesn’t change the fact its OP bullkitten now does it?

I love my P/D thief and blah blah I’m so good in pvp with it. Fact is if you use stealth than burst is a no no and if you have burst stealth should be a no no. I find it funny that the mmo that has seen the most amount of attention to detail and design in the last 5 years has failed to realize rule number one. Nerf the invisibility, burst, and/or stun lock in beta.

Say the OP sucks maybe hes not a good pvper it doesn’t change the fact that so many run this same kitteny build and everyone acts like they don’t know why. I scoff at any attempt to defend this. The quicker we get this nerf over with the quicker we get back to demanding the bugs be fixed and that the classes that actually need help get it.

There are tons of classes in other mmos with stealth and burst, usually the stealth helps them survive and get close enough to do their burst because they melt when you focus them. (this holds true here in gw2 as well)
And, if you can come up with many ways to counter it how exactly is it OP? Overpowered means unbeatable, uncounterable, if it meant anything less the word Over would be different. The word overpowered as gotten thrown around so much in recent years that its used to describe “somewhat tough to beat.”

But that isn’t true, because GW2 has Dodge. A well timed (or lucky) dodge can negate ANY amount of damage.

If we used your reasoning, the simple fact that dodging existed would mean it was technically impossible for anything to ever be too strong.

I said if there are several ways to counter it, not only if you could dodge it. Backstab can be countered with protection, gearing, other forms of damage mitigation, dodge, general situational awareness, distance gaining abilities+heal, there are a lot of options. The fact that dodge exists simply makes it even easier to deal with front loaded damage, it doesn’t harm balance.
Instead of picking at an argument to spin something your way, perhaps it’s best to read a post in it’s entirety and think critically before responding.

Like I said in OP….you know what why rehash this in a years time well be having this same conversation.

4:03-4:26 is pure gold

Like I have said before it’s just history. One backstab build vs every other and its like still people don’t get it. Trying to explain is nigh pointless.

Spera.8629:

Alright, Paid Tournaments are out and with that, the update process of the game needs to get on a higher level.

Some stuff that has been in the game for a huge amount of time which should have been hotfixed a long time ago:

1* Guardian Mace Block Bug
2* Removing the Portal of the Mesmer and give it some other mobility skill (Mesmers
no longer required for competitive tournament play)
3* Ele on the enemy treb (You can’t kill the ele as fast as he kills the trebuchet)
4* Removing Quickness altogether (This game has a lot of burst already and does not need this)
5* Thief culling Issues and maximum burst of the class (C&D + Steal + Backstab / Dancing Dagger)
6* Weapon switching cooldown too long (should be maybe 1-2s on most classes, current system feels awkward)
7* Bunker builds that have no single counter (good against conditions, burst and continuous damage, includes all healing builds e.g. ele/guardian)
8* All the broken traits and skills (every class has plenty of them)

Numbered to make this simple

1. Legit bug and they know

2. Afaik its working as intended and its not OP outside of Wv3

3.Ill take this one as a joke. You can cc the ele like you could any other player. Ele also has weak burst I could down it faster on engi.

4. Agree.

5. We all agree.

6. No where it is is fine. Any change would undermine weapon swap trait namely the warrior’s. Also if you did this thief would go OP in all builds. No cd + insta swap in battle. Very bad idea.

7. You make a valid point. The problem is it would pigeonhole us all into DPS if they nerf it too much more. This also speak to the fact that every game type at the moment is a point hold. Bunkers rule this by default. When more game types get mixed it it will change but atm your right bunker is a little much.

8. Don’t see that happening anytime soon but it should.

Tab targeting for clones is fine. Turrets also. These are all things you can destroy. It make no sense for the game to target a specific enemy for you. Click on them if you want precision.