Guild Wars 2

Considering there are hard and soft counters to this one move I don’t see the point in nerfing it. A list you may want to read. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon#Skills_that_remove_boons

For arguments sake and civility I am going to go through this piece by piece.

Sabbathius.1465:

Class balance plays a huge role in the whole “I get the impression that many player feel that with certainty they should always win” thing.

In many games, the outcome of the battle is decided when you created your character, weeks/months/years earlier. When creating a character, I chose a red triangle, and the other guy chose orange circle. Then, years later, we meet, and he slaughters me. Not because of skill. Not because of gear. But because years ago he clicked on orange circle, and I clicked on red triangle.

Howver that does not apply here at all. Rock, paper, scissors mechanics which you exmample partially illustrates are not in play in this game. While other games ( DCUO comes to mind) are reinforced with this sort of mechanic in PvP this game simply is not.

Sabbathius.1465:

Even in games where there are no classes, and you can 100% mix and match all the skills you want, like EVE Online, the system is still broken. The battle is decided before the combatants undock from the station, and is completely random. I choose a ship at random, which happens to be a turret ship. The other guy chooses a ship at random, which happens to be a tracking-disruption drone boat. We run into each other. All else being equal, I die. All because I chose a reddish-brown ship, and he chose a golden yellow ship, before each of us even knew the other person existed.

Same as before.

Sabbathius.1465:

It’s the same here. You can dance around the issue all you want, but we all know there are certain classes in this game that are both grossly overpowered and easier to play than their weaker counterparts. When class like that runs into a weaker class, all else being equal, the weaker class loses. Which is what people complain about.

This is not about winning. This is about fighting a character that the developers gave an equivalent of a built-in aimbot.

First off each and every build has a hard counter. Some may say no but yes they do. Most builds that are considered Overpowered to some measure are in the general perspective, they are still counter able. While it is a fact that due to mechanics some classes are easier to pick up and play than others this by no means will guarantee a win for the “easier” class. The last part is a reference to heatseeker I suppose and not to impeach your credibility but most players are will aware that this skill is easily counterable. TBH I forgot it was an issue still.

Sabbathius.1465:

And speaking of PvE mindset, for me personally, it’s the exact opposite. In PvP, I expect to lose 50/50 at least, all else being equal. Just simple statistics. And if I’m unlucky and run into better players, lose a whole lot more than 50/50. But in PvE, which is designed for leveling purposes and, let’s face it, just fodder to drag out the content, when I die I usually rage quite a bit more than PvP. Because in PvE, you often find poorly designed stuff. Like being swamped with impossibly large waves of enemies. Or fighting bosses (for little reward, may I add) that can hit or miss, but you can’t miss once because you’ll get 1-shot. And so on.

Just to note your more likely to be actually “One shot” in PvE. Higher level content does take skill and while it may be different from PvP skill it doesn’t require strategy thought and full knowledge of your build. I don’t like to compare the game play but the goal. In my OP all I state in that in PvE there is an expectation that you will win. The content is no designed to be insurmountable. In PvP you could quite literally hit the wall. What I mean is you could hit the point where you cant get any better and are still not on top.

Overall I think to a degree you might embody the mind set I am talking about. I can understand the anger over certain skills feeling over powered but at the same time I personally feel a need to “win” over those builds before the nerf happens.

Little bit of a long post

TL;DR

This is GW2 not eve or any other game. Every build has a counter. We should look first at our own skills before we proclaim that we lost to a build. There is no way to lose ot a build just a player. No matter how good any one thinks a build is it’s beatable. Its best to take your loses learn and counter. If you cant do that then your not growing. You will start demanding that something be removed so you can win. After you beat a build see if you feel the same way. That does not mean that every build is balanced but I still ask see if you feel the same way after you beat it.

Chakuna.6325:

^ I was going to post the same thing, but I think he’s just answering the OP’s question, not referring to my post.

I wasn’t. OP never mentioned a field so I gave the basic response stealth break on hit not before.

Daendur.2357:

@TheGuy: no, when you use a smoke field and HS you won’t appear when you hit. I used it tons of time. I reached lvl 80 as a D/P using Black Powder, Heartseeker, Backstab.
I think that the “leap finisher” trigs stealth when it hit, so when it is completed, and so it doen’t break stealth. Otherwise it will be a useless combo.

Completely correct but OP said they appeared out of stealth at some point. I would be a little shocked (considering smoke fields are relatively small) that the OP didn’t realize he was standing in a field. The most likely thing is that the rendering bug hit and he didn’t tab target.

No, stealth drops once your attack lands (note: if the skill doesn’t land a “wild miss” or swing at the air hitting nothing stealth stays up). You likely had rendering lag in which case you can tab target the person.

Well it can be for low stealth builds. However as an escape button it is weak. You have to consider that stealth doesn’t stop damage just lets you move away a bit. Gap closers and range will be unaffected by this (if they know what they are doing) once you pop out of it.

OP you said you don’t know much about thief. Here’s one thing. A thief worth his or her salt is going stealth on escape if they can but most know our best escape tool is short bow #5 (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator%27s_Arrow). If you use utility skills that aren’t dps related my best escape is my best gap closer shadowstep (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadowstep).

Nice responses guys. I think what spurned on this question is the idea that instant gratification comes from winning alone. Often teams break down over loses some times fingers get pointed (sometimes rightly so) but rarely is introspection vocalized ie I could do better. The meta game plays a vast role imho its also a big part of this.

What Valhallen says is correct to some great extent. I think learning would be key for the skill threshold but the community aspect of PvP is sometimes lost. Competition even in the game environment can be a catalyst for growth but often I wonder if it is. I have to question whether many of the other players try the other classes to get a better feel for what they will likely face.

penatbater.4710:

I think some people really aren’t cut out for pvp, like me! but all this talk about bunker-builds makes me wanna try out spvp sometime :P

Well why do you say that? Anybody can PvP while fast twitch players do tend to run things early on any player willing to try can make a build that slows the pace of combat down. Atm bunkers are considered nigh unbeatable but in all honesty its far from the truth. Most players play glass cannon builds that usually cant handle Bunkers defenses (there are some exceptions). Fact is most bunker builds can be hard countered with boon rips cc etc. These just happen to be somewhat uncommon. In tPvP group synergy and strat could be considered kings right next to player skill. If you had a good team even if you don’t like PvP it could make the experience more palpable.

Every class has there own version of the tanky bunker build (thief included). Its just high survivability usually coupled with healing and a bit of cc and low dps. However since most builds rely on boons there are some hard counters. Mesmer is the best equipped overall to disrupt the rotation with the proper utility skills.

This thought has been rattling around for a while. PvP is a zero sum game in the long run. Yo either win or lose. There will always be a loser and always a winner its just the way it is. I get the impression that many player feel that with certainty they should always win. However, that type of logic cant hold in a competitive situation.

So I figured instead of talking about how some players should learn to play (I don’t even know if this is a good argument anymore or if it ever was). Lets not even discuss that. The real question I am asking is if the mind set that PvE lays out and most games in general (where the end is generally the player wins) is really ok to have in a PvP environment?

ddrake is right its the player not the weapon set. If your awesome on D/P and someones see that and gets beat they will call for nerfs on forum. Even the off builds are getting targeted now. i fear PvP is now solely about stroking individual egos. I once asked if mesmers and thieves were ruining PvP but I only asked fro ma Population perspective as there are so many. I realize now that with the blatant cries that thieves are OP and the fact many players want to win that the problem likely started here. All of us who have played realize that thieving can be countered just takes time and skill. the fact is most players want to win right now the minute they log on and feel superior. How do you explain that every one loses sometimes? How do you tell some one they just aren’t cut out for PvP?

Sevati.6724:

The problem is that Thief stealth abilities when used properly allow permanent uptime.

One thing to consider every 3 seconds a Thief gets 2 initiative back meaning every 6 seconds they can just use cloak and dagger to stealth with what I show here.

Assuming the Hidden Thief for stealth while stealing, Meld with Shadows trait for an extra second of stealth per application, Infusion of Shadow which grants 2 initiative per stealth skill use, extra initiative for a total of 15 you get a build that can maintain permanent uptime.

Cloak and dagger (dagger-5. costs 4 initiative, grants 4 seconds of stealth, 0.5 sec cooldown, can be used 5 times for 20 seconds of stealth normal initiative regen )

Shadow refuge (utility. grants 2 initiative per stealth, grants 4 seconds of stealth 3 times if you are good with it, 60 sec cooldown)

Hide in Shadows (healing. grants 2 initiative, 4 seconds of stealth, 30 second cooldown)

Blinding Powder (utility. grants 2 initiative, 4 seconds of stealth, 60 second cooldown)

Shadow Trap (utility. grants 2 initiative, 6 seconds of stealth, 30 second cooldown)

Steal ( mechanic, plus trait grants 2 initiative, 45 second cooldown)

With mechanic, utility and healing skills that grant 14 initiative and with the passive initiative regen capability of 2 initiative per 3 seconds. There is your permanent up time build when coupled with rendering lag issues, that’s how you shut down a zerg or group attempting to cap a point.

It needs a huge nerf and its just to simple to do, imho.

First off yeah its possible. Second you do next to 0 dps can be hit the entire time and anyone willing to fight you in a situation like that should blame themselves.

Another note burst thieves cant do this. It requires way too many points in defensive traits. The battles are long and those who lose them cant blame anyone but themselves.

There is also a lot of misinformation and like a month ago we discussed this and a realized most thieves don’t really know the class.

Rules of Stealth

1. Stealth can be “permanent” with initiative control C&D and hide in shadows. As long as stealth runs out there is no reveal debuff (since you never revealed your self).

2. Even with rend issues tab target works so…..

3. Stealth does not make you impervious and blind in stealth applies to 1 (that’s right) 1 swing of you opponents weapon. Any multi hit skill will till hit. Swings at the air will hit. Aoes will hit.

4. to spam C&D you would have to be in close proximity to something that takes damage (like a npc or player or gate etc) so one on one just doge after 4 seconds and watch his C&D miss.

5. When stealth you cant cap a point so…….

6. Illusions cast on a stealth player home on on you once you pop out of stealth rendering issue don’t change that.

If anyone thinks stealth should be nerfed then I believe PvP is not for you because even with revealed a good thief with ports and dodge and vigor trait will wreck you. In the long run learn how each class plays and stop complaining over every loss. If you cant cope you weren’t that good in the first place and that the truth. Today alone I have seen a complaint thread about each and every thief build save P/D but this is basically that thread. This garbage needs to end. Sorry to say this but as far as PvP goes you don’t always get to win and if you lose often then spend some time learning.

P/D here (what OP never sees) and surprisingly his biggest griefs don’t apply to me (meh). As far as L2P no one should be able to one shot that being said a Heatseeker or Backstab thief is usually on the easy side to handle because their builds are utterly predictable. That being said glass vs glass just about any other glass is at a disadvantage. Balanced builds with a decent stun break or port will usually win and bunker is bunker.

As far as thieves being able to run. The vast majority of thieves carry next to no utility skills to run away. The problem is most players refuse to carry a range weapons and don’t spam 1 unless they have a target. Lets remind most of you of something stealth does not provide invulnerability. If you spam skills in a thief’s direction they will hit. Most glass cannon thieves can only take a few hits and dots will surely burn them down. The thieves you cant catch usually wont burn you down fast and if you cant catch a glass thief who’s low on hp that is something many of you will have to learn on your own. There are thieves who carry 2 ports another invis and a sb and watch their init but you don’t see them often.

The reason I know all this works is because after my first day of PvP on a thief as P/D I got wrecked often by Backstab heatseeker and pistol whip. 1 month later I could care less if I have to deal with those builds as they are old news and easy to handle.

TBH you don’t have to be some pro PvP player. If players took the time to learn the weaknesses of each class and the most popular builds they would have a much easier time in PvP. Granted you wont always win however you will see your overall game increase and you will learn to stop following the cookie cutter builds and run one that works for you and your team in PvP. The advantage of running something off the beaten path is that it is hard to counter.

Whether you run cookie cutter or not as long as you know your build and utilize your skills wisely you will beat most twitch players by simply killing their rotations with easy counters.

Red Falcon.8257:

Bad news first:
Against a good Warrior there is no way to win through burst.
Against burst Thieves I simply EP then open with quick stunlock combos for 12-14k total, then if they run I toss a 8k goodbye Volley to close the deal.
Against dodgy ones I outlast them – though most times those get to escape my hands before I finish the job.
Against condition Thieves it’s a close call. I wait until they stack all bleeds (out of init) then remove them all with Mending and heal the damage they did so far, but they are very slippery so the thing gets long unless someone else jumps in.
Against pistol whip thieves… easiest fight of my life, Balanced Stance/Last Stand = 20s immunity to stun, gg, just save time and ready your cursor on waypoint.

Now the good news.
Most Warriors are awful terribad failscrubs of noobdom.
They don’t know anything of the above, will just frenzy->bull’s charge->Hb and chicken away if it fails, perhaps doing some very laughable Whirling Axe during the process as a confirmation of they bad status.
If you meet these types, please do your worst on them, and wave them on my behalf.

Noticed how you failed to mention P/D could it be because you don’t see it much (since least played style). Either way I rarely have issue with warrior over all it has the least amount if skills to counter my build. Warriors are by no mean a free kill but are usually not all that hard to handle.

Emotes, a banner, anything would be nice.

I have been using a P/D build the whole leveling process I run it in sPvP also. I play without venoms or power. While my dps is on the low side (as far as burst goes) I routinely run over folks in sPvP and in PvE content is far from hard. I run 0/0/30/20/20 and do just fine. Between the dodge and stealth might stacks and the boost to boons I usually keep up 4 to 6 stacks which helps with dps.

smh

This might be the first time I have truly encountered a learn to play issue I felt was actually L2P. Despite all that is said about other classes these are builds not classes. Everyone muddles their way through PvE but we all do it differently. Not all Guards run retal or warriors GS/LB or engis run grenade/bomb or thieves run SB/DB etc. My point is AoE is not the making of a good PvE player just survive the content. Right now Mesmer has the most amount of builds that can be tossed together and work. You have so many tools at your disposal that its ridiculous. If any player cant get it to work that’s on them. While it requires a delicate touch its one of the easiest classes to play if not the easiest. If your mesmers sucks in PvE its you. If your mesmer sucks in PvP its you. If your mesmer sucks at any aspect of this game guess what its you.

Yeah its a waste should have given us a poison or something instead.

Forget a long post the build is counter-able and not that hard to do. Its not a l2p issue. this build is troll as all but its bunker with no hp and susceptibility to range, dots, and counter stealth. I’ll put it like this if you bleed poison or other wise dot most of these guys you win as long as you evade the DB yourself. Above poster is right single dot removes will likely lose to DB builds. Thieves get a break as “hide in shadows” removes bleed, poison, and burning all together. “Pain response” pretty much solidifies that a long fights will go in your favor if you play well. And Tbh in my build “Shadow’s Embrace” means I can do what ever the hell I like with other condition builds.

There is no I win button in this game just builds and counter builds. I get the OP frustration but it is not unbeatable.

Zplus.4217:

Everyone knows every class has only ONE skill that removes condition.

Lets just remove the thief and call it a day please.

Hope this was sarcasm lol.

Is backstab OP? Possibly by itself, but any player who knows its coming has the stun break ready and usually ends up winning. The problem is anything plus haste seems to be stupidly one sided. Fact is no class should be able to down another in 3 seconds.

The real question is whether you can beat a back stabbing thief and the answer is yes, but not usually on other glass builds. Lets be honest most of the complaints come from those who cant beat the build. those of us who can not because of skill but because of the sheer number of times we have fought this type of play realize its like op but far from something that cant be dealt with.

Players who consistently shift attunements (especially D/D) tend to get good results in PvP. In the long run its not OP, half the fights you have to be baited into chasing and most players get beat by the kiting and Pseudo-invulnerability of Earth/Water. In the long run Ele is going to need a lot more love in a few areas just like engi and the other “hard to play” classes.

Edit:

On another note bleeds rather conditions as a whole and ripping buffs is a decent way to counter the bunker-ness of some ele builds as they will have to run to survive. When a glass cannon loses it should not be a surprise because you cant win them all. If the goal is to get them off point pressure pressure pressure is the best way to do this. 2 hammer players could effectively cc the buffs away and force a flee. In fact anything that disrupts the rotation fears, knockdowns, launches whatever can garner the desired effect getting them to move away. Just play smart. Little rant over.

I main thief and i think its fine. Stealth is not OP by any means but it is so useful as a defensive tactic that being able to hold a point while in it seems a lil too much.

Considering you have the capability to transfer servers pop drop should not be a problem. The pop drop could simply be level area drops (because everyone is leveling out of them). Lets forget about players who log in straight to sPvP. I have yet to see an empty server just low to mid level areas with less players that’s about it. PvP still has ques on my server and some zones still get flooded. This doom and gloom is not only premature its irrational.

I don’t think there could ever be enough difference between the current thief and the possible assassin to justify making an “assassin” class. Call your thief an assassin and realize the design is at its core a just another assassin, rogue, ninja, stealth class.

Honestly we all know the best counter is a balanced toon. One stun break and they can kiss their dps chain good bye. About running away with a bow. Elixir B and engi’s with alchemy trait can have Swiftness up all the time with CC and the fact he will run out of initiative there should be no successful running.

Karast.1927:

You can do P/P power but going 30 firearms for coated bullets is a must.

When you get 4-5 enemies tightly grouped you can do massive damage in a power build since the 1 skill will pierce and explode for each target. So to a small group you can do 4-5x your normal damage.

Which with crits can be 4.5-5.5k per skill. Add in quickness and it’s monstrous

But its not easy to line it up, and you need lots of enemies tightly grouped to make it work, and outside of the 1 skill you really don’t have many other hard hitting abilities. You can use grenade kit / tool kit to make up for that, but after running it extensively I have found that it’s really niche like a lot of engi builds.

In certain dungeons, solo pve, and zergy keep defenses it’s great. But for 1v1 / small group pvp, bosses with adds, tpvp / spvp it’s really lack luster.

I run a 0 30 0 10 30 rifle crit build and I swap in pistols when I know I am heading into an area I can use them.

Otherwise the damage is fairly low for power builds.

They are nothing like Thief pistols. Just like how rifle is nothing like Warrior rifle.

Engineer weapons are very unique in their roles.

I see ty for the info. Btw I play my thief P/D pure condition no power. With engi I was looking for a change of pace maybe quicker kills since thief when played that way is all about control not so much burst dps.

Boloth.6879:

If certain professions are truly ruining PvP the best thing the community can do at this point is issue a soft-ban against them.

Don’t play them and refuse to play against any team that’s using them.

The best way to get a point across in PvP is to refuse to play.

I don’t thin that would work in this game as each profession has a build that is considered OP by the community.

I am fan of pistol builds in this game my main is a P/D Thief and I am looking to make an engi, but I would like to have a clear idea before I start. I don’t really have enough experience with engi to start making one on my own. Any advice referring to P/P is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

@Romeo.4378 your right. However norn thieves roll and stealth has nothing to do with size. I have seen some pretty chunky magicians do their thing. Its all smoke and mirrors anyway.

Stun Breaker or Port skill he’ll be out of endurance you should be able to burst him down then. However if your glass too good luck. The other thing like what has already been mentioned is that WvWvW is naturally unfair.

As far as I can tell an attack that was already in progress will still hit you as you enter stealth usually I just dodge roll and all is well.

Never thought this thread would go on this long. Like I said from the start this was less of a QQ thread and I wanted ti to be about how under populated the other class are. The honest truth is the more you play the more you see it coming and the better you get at avoidance and pacing. On P/D the vast majority of thieves (in 1 on 1 situations of course) running D/D spike will lose. I am not some great player its just the more time you spend fighting them the less surprises there are. And it goes for Mesmer too Bunker classes etc etc. Are some things OP? Sure it always like that. Now I realize that the class doesn’t matter but the build does. I doubt we will see many changes to the demographics because Ele and Engi have high skill caps in the long run. Everything else that inst burst or bunker is simply undesirable. So atm I doubt we will see much change but look on the bright side the tricks never change with burst.

If I am correct Anet pioneered making skills work differently on mobs than they do on players and yet every patch that changes a skill even when balanced against PvP is applied to PvE also this makes no sense and frankly is a disappointment. Just because something has an unintended or unfair benefit in PvP does not meant it should be nerfed in PvE.

Thadren Calder.1397 is right except for one thing. You can attack just as stealth runs out if that attack is C & D guess what you just chained a stealth. I am not going to lie the timing is stupid hard but I do it regularly worst case I am visible for half a second.

And hat comes down to the difference in play style between P/D + Short bow and P/P + D/D. With P/Dagger I keep trickery 12 the 1 sec daze and just cast C&D which puts me in stealth anyways then if I want to caltops (but I don’t use it in PvP cast time is way to long and the other players going to be moving anyways) When I did though I never had an issue.

The whole thing is when I do steal its for the utility. Mesmers (Save yourself buff) Warriors (Death spin) and Thieves (extra stealth) are my usually targets. If not those I only use to close in on the target unexpectedly and set up C&D again.

With any other build I could see the value of the 2 seconds actually 3 seconds of stealth. If you stay P/P + D/D I could see marginally help with initiative as you burn it for DB.

Kyus.3812 is right the toughness just doesn’t cut it your main defense is you cant be seen or cant be hit or both. Vitality helps you from getting ticked to death when they land or burned down by crits.

Grolm.7410:

Thanks for your feed back, I use this build in pvp but I was thinking also about using it in pve.

I use 0/0/20/20/30 mainly for fleet of foot for pvp.

But I’ll try a 0/0/30/10/30 with your suggestions to compare.

Ok the fleet of foot thing. I had thought about this myself tried it and hated it for good reason. In PvP I dodge big attacks and to run away or gain mobility (Expeditious Dodger). The thing is that means I like to keep my endurance as long as I can I when i do use it frugally. FoF only removes cripple and weakness and its on a 10sec cd. Shadow’s Embrace removes one condition once you enter stealth and another if you stay in 3 secs with the trait. That’s 1 sec before it runs out. Combine this with Hide in Shadows which removes burning, poison, and bleeding, and you have just covered the likely gambit of what was on you. If you want to be a real pain let stealth run out naturally miss the revealed debuff and enter it again you just removed anything that you could have had on you and you have a regen buff the entire time. This also means you don’t burn your shadow Step cd for conditions. This plus a condition necro = a very funny story.

Good duels. I play P/D myself and it plays kind of like that (except I sit on near full initiative half the time lol) But I have to ask shadow refuge in PvP? Usually most players aoe the area or I will dagger storm or pull out my bow and poison the area. wouldn’t blinding power or the initiative signet (which shadow steps you toward him and breaks stun but probably only work with P/D to set up C& D to sneak attack.) Work a little more fluid?

Is this for PvE or PvP?

Ok lets say PvE for now. If you got 0/0/20/20/30 you dot get all that much from the 20 in acrobatics beside more health. Going 30 in shadow arts opens up heal in stealth plus 15 seconds might in stealth and might does effect condition damage. In my build im 0/0/30/10/30 to open those up.

Your build looks focused on stealing. You can steal Every 31.5 seconds which is not often at all. To add to this all the traits you have in stealing you miss aoe blindness on stealth, remove condition on stealth, caltrops on dodge, 7% chance extra initiative on first skill, and flanking as options. Imho its too much to give up for a skill on 31.5 second cd.

As far as P/P goes personally I prefer P/D and here’s why. You don’t need unload as your build is condition your spamming attack one and every other skill is to help you spam attack one faster and better. Second Sneak attack need stealth and your quickest access to stealth is cloak and dagger with a dagger off hand. You don’t use much initiative so if your timing is good ( and it doesn’t have to be if you have blind on stealth) you can basically spam this off reveal cool down. Third in some situations where you want to steal what ever get in and gt away and an evade wont cut it shadow strike will port you away faster than the roll and much farther. Bonus dancing daggers plus caltrops and circle kiting = lol win vs melee mob groups.

Support skills um here what you have imho is fine except I would carry shadow refuge over blinding powder in PvE because it has more utility or both for dungeons and Dagger Storm or Thieves Guild over venom in all situations.

As far as runes go I would take Vitality over Toughness but keep condition damage and and bleed duration over all because you really don’t need to swap weapons with this type of build but you do need to keep your stacks up.

Balanced builds work with a good team and half of condition builds are balanced lol.

The other 2 posters are right. However, I think the best advice I ever got was control + T the mesmer before the first clone drops. Another sure fire give away clones don’t jump. Another clones don’t back up on their own they keep you in range.

Same here. I am pretty sure they will fix the problem soon.

sorrow.2364:

I’m sure your post is full of interesting things and acute observations and I really want to have the pleasure to answer it, but the total absence of commas is an hard challange to my poor english skills.

“challenge”

“English” http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_the_English_word_begin_with_a_capital_E

No one likes a grammar nazi especially when they’re a hypocrite.

If you don’t want to read that fine but I could care less if there were a typo in what someone else had to say the content is what is important. Please don’t pull down the quality of this thread as we have had decent discussion.

Class vs build you would need to specify as a build can have more advantages than weaknesses and in many situations skilled or not skilled works in such a matter that you will win whether you put a lot of effort in or a little. Structured teams are a different story the combos you can run there are unique and team work trumps all all the time. A gourp full a thieves with team work could burn just about anything down same with mesmers or any team of any class mind you.

I find it funny how in situations full of opportunity we are surprised that opportunistic hunters tend to thrive in pre formed teams isn’t the point to keep opportunities low for the other team?

As the question states how many of the hundreds of possible builds are actually viable? When I say viable I mean builds that generally do not necessarily “win” but do allow you to affect the course of battle to you or your teams advantage with great effect.

Schwahrheit.4203:

sorrow.2364:

Schwahrheit.4203:

Its just Battle of Khylo in Tournament mode for Mesmers. Thieves are just a learn to play issue.

Nice well argumented and intelligent post. Your contribution is indispensable to this topic. You opened my eyes, now I know that you are a very good player and everyone here who complains about game balancing are just baddies.

Thank you.

I like the sarcasm in your post. Allow me to annoy you a little more. Thieves take more skill than Warriors at full potential.

That is debatable however most Mesmers if you control + T them cant do too much except play well (as has been stated many times before).

As far as skill goes if the majority uses the same builds and wins the most with those builds does that mean each and every one of them playing the same class with the same build is equally skilled as they get the same results with the same effort? Seriously take a second to think about it.

Ohh and as far skill goes I have seen some eles chain all four elements keeping up with the unique cool downs of each one and have much success. As far as skill does imho that is the epitome of skill in this game.

Lets be honest here for a second some action MMO games Tera DCUO etc have combat to the point where its all skill even the best “builds” can find themselves countered and fights take time. However, that takes time.

Now 3 seconds may be an eternity to some of you and one on one I could see that but some of us aren’t key mashers (and i am not using that term as an insult). Now pvp should be fast paced but honestly what are you really doing? You start a fight and end it before most players can even respond. Now that plays to many of your advantage which is speed.

Now honestly no matter how many buttons there are lets state the fact you hit 6 in a sequential order that maximized your dps and usually win. Frankittenhat is a skill but its not “skill”. It is a build designed to win and no matter what way you cut it that many others who are “less skilled” have dominated with.

Now I know elite players feel offended say L2P etc etc but how long have we been playing mmos? Every game the same thing a build or a class goes above and beyond the capabilities of another and eventually they get nerfed. As of this moment the only thing that has gotten nerfed is guardians defenses one by one and likely this trend will continue but in the long run thieves that burst down full defensive players don’t help but hurt the game and its pvp. The risk for the efforts is an in combat stealth and wait for the cds and so that it can be done again. By no means do I feel thief should be nerfed into the ground (as a play one P/D and well enough for me to not feel the qq over D/D) but that doesn’t change the facts. Any build that requires that much micro management in more than a 2 on 2 probably should not exist outside that environment.

The real question is why do “elite” players fear getting hit by a nerf? I have wondered this for many years as we see this situation all the time. If you truly are better at pvp whether the pace be fast or slow you should win shouldn’t you? Even if it was brought in line for the so called “care bears” and other terms of that nature should not a lick of difference as your skills would still be far superior?

TL;DR

If you truly are one of the best players then no matter the nerf or balancing you will always win on skill alone. Stop using the idea of a nerf as a crutch the truly skilled stay that way no matter the build end of story. If you truly look at the number of thieves in sPvP you realize its not the incredibly high skill threshold that keeps them coming back for more time with thief.

Wolfe.3097:

Hype.9361:

Not sure if anyone has brought this up yet, as I skipped 90% of the flame posts in this thread. But…. Has anyone mentioned the new 1 shot thief build? It’s been going around in WvW lately and it’s immensely annoying. The hardest I’ve been his is 12k as someone who specs toughness and survivability. However, I have friends that have been hit as hard as 19k. That’s 19k in one hit. If that isn’t unreasonable I don’t know what is. I don’t care about any other thief spec out there. They all have counters. But any class that can do over 25k damage in a matter of 2 seconds is over power in my book.

its very well documented adn even thieves think its stupid. its more of a problem with certain traits/utility skills tho rather then base damage

The thing is the devs seem to be wanting to favor glass cannons even more in the future regardless of the class and focusing less on defense. Which for many players such as myself who aren’t quite bunker but realize glass is far from truly being glass have to deal with cannons all the time. The game is still young so balancing will come with time but for now its hard to say what class/spec will end up on top. hopefully all of them.

@Lawbringer.1956 (since I cant quote atm)

I will say it again of you nerf stealth you break all not one all thief builds in one go. Basically you break the class. All the build you don’t see p/d p/p go bye bye and the worst part its a pve punishment as well. If we cry nerf stealth that wont help the situation. I think we have discussed here is that the reward for melee stealth is way too high given how much dps a thief can put out.

I will admit I have a vested interest my main is P/D that build is beyond over looked with out stealth it would become unplayable.

Good players realize you cant win them all and that there is always somebody whos better at pvp. They strive to do their best but accept defeats when they happen and try to grow.

Bad players QQ about everything they cant beat.

Great players use team work and realize a fist almost always beats a finger.

and the best players realize its just a game.

Ashanor.5319:

Stealth is INSANELY strong in this game, stronger than any game out there.

Obviously, you have never played WoW. lol I would take WoW stealth any day.

Quickness is an extremely stupid mechanic, the game is bursty enough w/o it, make quickness classes have to actually set up spike like Ele/Necro/Engy.

The problem is that the classes that have quickness effects have been balanced around them, which is why I am all for removing quickness and balancing classes without the effect (speaking as someone who plays Thief main and Ranger alt).

Thief as far as I can tell is not balanced around quickness just stealth. Ranger on the other hand is to a degree. thief would not break without quickness it would likely be fine as no build actually requires it. Range with short bow on the other hand have to gain positioning in order to fully utilize quickness crits make this possible. Noticeably rangers are far from the top played in sPvP on WvW the story changes but that is another topic entirely.

The term “OP” has been tossed around a lot. Mesmers are not “OP” if you target the real one we cant do much except play well (Moa Withheld as I do not use it). Thief isn’t “OP” over all the health pool is usually small and requires stealth to accomplish most task that not saying all is well and balanced but “OP” isn’t what I observed just a multitude of one class and another up and coming. In all fairness I could have asked if guardians do the same or earth/water ele or bunker engi but bunker build for the most part can be bled down and aren’t as common.

Aelona.8572:

Tbh I think that the funniest class to play is by miles the necromancer. That class have it all, yet everyone think it’s underpowered, haha

I agree with burst being the current way and condition wipes being more of a staple of balanced and bunker builds I imagine a well played Necro could have a field day if not burned down quickly. However Necromancer still has some glaring class issues. Its far from UP and far from Op but not quite balanced yet. Kind of like warrior its in the middle.

Elyk.3947:

TheGuy.3568:

. One on one you realize even vs burst if they miss is skill it will likely take a good while.

Right, but if they don’t miss, you are dead. If they do miss, than you have a slight advantage to get some damage in before they try their combo again.

In higher numbers the problem is multiplied like you said. Since you can’t survive the burst the only thing you can do is deal as much damage to try and down a player before you go down, and since doubling or tripling your health and armor only gives you a couple more seconds of survivability you are still better off playing glass cannon.

Offense is so much better than any defense in this game that its become silly. There isn’t a “counter” to high damage builds right now, except another high damage build.

Right now the devs seem to be targeting bunker classes so I would expect this trend to continue. Personally glass cannon and me don’t mix really well. I honestly don’t need to win every match but I would like to stay alive long enough to contribute and usually do but once I had 3 thieves jump me and there wasn’t too much I could do 3 on 1 yes any combo of players and class should win the numbers game but I think making TTL slightly longer in mass would make for better pvp. I by no means think the TTL in pvp is broken its just a little short imho.

Elyk.3947:

These forums have some strange issues, I have lost the ability to quote people.

Reload the page a couple of times. This bug happens to me frequently.