Guild Wars 2

Yes, Grenade, the weapon kit everyone just yesterday was proclaiming as the best damage source available to engineers, so much so that other options where useless, is at such a disadvantage now and secretly was all along. We just couldn’t see it because…

Just because, okay?

I guess you should have been more vocal when everyone was singing praises about Grenades from atop the heavens.

Disagree about the movement buff effecting D/D more than it does other elementalist options. D/D is * extremely* mobile in combat without a signet making me run ever so slightly faster. Between stun-locks and several “lunge” abilities I have a very easy time staying on something I want to kill. If I want to run away they work equally well.

If anything it evens the playing field ever so slightly for weapon options that don’t have a lot of mobility and methods of catching up to me. Only very slightly, however.

Keep it to one topic. You have yet to have that confirmed in your own topic about it, and several people are arguing against your claim. Don’t spread rumors you don’t know are facts.

Kill sigils applied a buff to your character, but you needed to kill them with your sigil’d weapon to apply them. It was kind of my go-to sigil for Engineers just because nothing else really… well, worked. I might have to change it now, but maybe not; they’re still friggin’ good.

You where living under a rock if you didn’t see the grenade nerf coming. Seriously. I never got too attached to it because I knew it had “balance me” written all over it as soon as I started clearing entire areas with my auto-attack.

Overall, from an Engineer perspective, I’m quite happy with this update.

I think Guild Wars has a lot of tactical options available, the game just isn’t necessarily challenging enough that its’ required to know about them. Dungeons aren’t difficult enough that you really need developed team co-operation to succeed. PVP is generally more of where that is going to be developed and take place, and we can already see it happening with its’ evolving meta-game. PVE, as per usual, is mostly designed around casual gameplay, and probably won’t ever get too terribly challenging as it would turn off a large percentage of players.

Weapon swapping on an elementalist brings 4 more weapon sets to the table. It doesn’t take a lot of thinking from this point on to realize what kind of ungodly, non-stop combos you can make. Just off-hand I can already think of a near perma stun-lock chain that would absolutely decimate.

I wouldn’t be against a method of hitting a button to swap weapons outside of combat, however, if only to avoid the tedium of doing it manually. I’d be all for that.

@Creslin

Just be glad its’ a discussion about video game genres and not, say, music. There are so many types of “metal” in music that I feel it should have its’ own periodic table.

There is nothing “new” about elementalists having fantastic mobility. The first time I used dagger/dagger with my elementalist I knew that she was going to be a speed demon of few equals.

That being said, I’d really hardly consider thieves to be some kind of sloth compared to them. My Sword/Dagger thief is quite capable of jumping all over the damn place without even walking. I have 3 different methods of just plain as hell teleporting across the map and back again, and that is before I even get out the shortbow. A lot of the time I can out-dps people simply because I can get to combat long before their 25-35% movement buff can.

Try to think of it like this, too: Would you really be very enthusiastic about taking an ability that only offered you a 10% movement increase? Neither was anyone else. Having abilities that are worth using isn’t some sleight against thieves, I assure you.

I’m fine with either, assuming I have options for both. Its’ not even necessarily from an angle of perversion either; some races are pretty neat looking when they are naked. Charr have interesting fur patterns and naked sylvari are damn near walking art with the intricate leaf designs of their skins and bioluminescence. I purposefully made my female sylvari an elementalist because they had skimpier clothing which allowed me to show off more of her body.

On the other hand, I really don’t want this to become Tera Online, where every article of clothing is so hyper-sexualized that I feel ridiculous playing any female. That’s actually a large reason why I quit playing that game, prudish as it may be.

Generally speaking I want my armor to look like as though it was designed with the chief goal being to stop pointy impalement things from impaling me. I don’t mind a few Conan the Barbarian style pieces as even those had a practical combat application, but I think armor should look the part.

Leather and Cloth armor gets more of a pass in terms of stylization vs practicality because cloth is already inherently missing the point of defense, and leather is supposed to be a sort of happy medium between impalement prevention and easy movement.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the armor models currently available, so I’m not particularly invested in what future things they add, skimpy or not.

Its’ a natural tendency of ANY game forum to mostly contain people who are currently frustrated with some aspect of the game. Its’ simple logic, really: People enjoying themselves usually continue to enjoy themselves. They aren’t going to stop playing just to let you know about it. People who are frustrated want a place to vent their frustrations, so they come to the forum where a bunch of other people are doing the same place and find justification in doing so.

While there is usually a good point or two in every rage-induced post, its’ important to keep in mind that frustration tends to be accompanied by over-dramatization. Don’t take anything you see on the forums too seriously. Most “veteran” mmo players already know this, but its’ important to reiterate it every now and then.

If you are used to WoW, this game is pretty dead.

If you are used to every other MMO, the population seems healthy and stable. I can usually send out a message in the map channel and 2-4 people will show up and partake in it. Keep in mind that I tend to play in the wee hours of the morning.

Rhaj.5261:

Warkupo.1025:

That being said, I’m not quitting a game over it. Neither are you, most likely. “Change it or I’m quitting!” is such a childish demand.

If you read my post correctly I said “Its one of the many reasons I’m quitting this game”

So Yes I am, I will defiantly be back though if expansions add more and change many of the pvp elements in this game.

I read your post. I just think your reasons are stupid. I continue to think this.

Now you read me.

Either remove it or balance it for PVP (pve too, but its’ really needed in PVP). I love/hate how capable my mesmer is when it goes down. Meanwhile my Engineer does the same thing and the best form of self-defense I have at that point is to throw… rocks. Friggin’ master of preparation right there.

That being said, I’m not quitting a game over it. Neither are you, most likely. “Change it or I’m quitting!” is such a childish demand.

“yolo”

And,

“No, that’s fine. You just keep using your auto-attack while I bleed to death over here. Hopefully my corpse will distract the boss long enough for your massive DPS contribution to kill it. I hope you die.”

There’s a new game balance patch in 2 days, btw.

Everyone has already heard your personal gripes a thousand times before on every internet forum for every MMO ever. Just stop playing games, I guess; you will never find one and be happy with it when you keep picking apart the one or two aspects you don’t like and promoting it to the status of some insurmountable insult to your persona.

This change to other classes speed capabilities will most certainly spell the end for all thieves everywhere and forever. Never again will we be able to marginally outrun out an opponent. Truly a sad day for thieves everywhere. RIP.

tigirius.9014:

Nekroseth.5186:

Totally fully agree.
Basically you should have given all classes all roles if they want to, but still keep the current game play where we dont need to take any role at all. THis way all would be happy.
You could take up a role, but would not be forced to take any up at all. You could complete anything without any role still.

Some would argue they have support roles for all classes but really they don’t not all classes heal the same when in support roles and some only remove conditions, not the same as healing I’m afraid I agree with you there.

“Support” does not specifically mean “healing”. Damage mitigation comes in a lot more flavors than just green text.

Great Samuel.5346:

I mean really people this guy has viable gripes. He tells you how he feels and you come back with a childish smart@ss response. If you have noticed there are many others saying the same thing. He may leave then another so on so on. I bet more people are leaving everyday than buying this game.

He started his post with a poem about his belief system based around a video game. Champion his defense all you want, but don’t act all surprised that people aren’t able to take this terribly seriously.

This is a game forum, after all.

There’s not really a holy trinity so much, but there are still healers. They just aren’t the be-all-end-all method of damage mitigation. They are simply an option. Heals fall into the role of support along with status debuffs and buffs. You need to use all of them to be effective, and all classes have some means of using them. While building to be the healer may not technically be completely feasible, building for support definitely is and you will definitely notice a difference in doing so.

TANKING is also very much alive. We call them “bunker builds” in this game, but the concept is pretty much the same. There isn’t a lot of ways to manipulate “aggro” in this game, but you can always just… you know, physically stand in the way of an enemy and a friend.

Step 1: Get Mug
Step 2: Kill people

I find steal useful.

Would you say its’ an ALLUSION to apple products?

Yeah, I pretty much ignore this move entirely. It can be okay if enemies are really grouped together for a bit of AOE, but its’ such a hassle to use and I usually just forget its’ there. The rest of the set is good enough that I don’t mind one kind of sub-par ability.

I’m relatively certain they do not. Playing around yesterday and today we killed the Blood Witch (krait group event boss) about three times and I hadn’t noticed my sigil of air go off at all. I can try with fire, but I imagine the results will be the same.

Hellmood.2097:

I also think it is strange that human’s first “nemesis” (like Svanirs, Inquest, Flame Legion and Nightmare Court) are completely ordinary bandits.

I thought this made sense. Your character is described as sort of a fledgling kitten; it makes sense that his first nemesis is the boss of some ordinary mook gang. It gives you a sense of progression.

As for the OP; I hadn’t really thought about it, and it does seem a bit odd, but I still feel like the Centaur war is appropriately represented in game. The majority of Kessex Hills is almost devoted entirely to fighting the Centaur army while introducing the Krait and fleshing out the Ettins and Bandits. It makes sense as the sort of backdrop conflict thats’ fueling your motivations, but its’ not really personal conflict unless you decide to make it be (as the case with your sister).

If I had to hazard a guess; The reason Centaurs aren’t majorly represented in story missions is because they don’t have any facial animations for cutscenes with them. You’ll notice that our nemesis’ tend to be other races.

colour me boggled. Infiltrator’s Strike is the primary method of avoidance in PVP aside from dodges and flanking strike. Dodges are limited in use (less so with acrobatics) and flaking strike is not always reliable with how so many moves auto-track and the ability moving you out of range. Infiltrator’s Strike lets you dodge a melee opponent all day by physically not being there when he attacks. It’s also one of the primary methods we have of getting rid of conditions.

Testing my sigil build against golems just to be sure; Normal attack chain requires about 12 hits of my sword to take them down. Using my sigils reduces this to about 7-9, depending on how obnoxious lightning strike wants to be.

Interesting on the signets, as that has not been my perception in gameplay. What is your relative power before and after signet use? I wonder if perhaps you are hitting some sort of diminishing returns on the amount of power you have acquired.

The problem with the thief “burst” build is actually not unique to thief, or damage in general. Stats in this game scale rather poorly in that you get unlimited effectiveness from stacking on particular stat which, when capitalizing on specific skill sets, allows one build to become inappropriately effective in comparison to others. For thieves and mesmers, who have a lot of escape mechanics, burst builds rule the day. For Guardians we have the more tanky “bunker” builds who are focused on mitigating more damage than anyone can conceivably put out.

While I do still think that more “focused” builds should have merit to them, the way stats in this game scale do not encourage anything but focused builds as being the most effective. Re-Scaling stats in such a way that you get greater benefits earlier, and lesser benefits beyond a specific “balanced” point will ensure better class balance can be achieved across the board.

In other words, Anet needs to implement a system of “diminishing returns” if it ever wants to encourage diversity among its’ playerbase. Nerfing one damage ability just ensures that people all jump to the next because the systems that let them achieve absurd “one shot” damage are still in place. Fix the scaling on Toughness/Armor so that is more effective around the 2500 range (and less effective beyond), and power/attack so that it is less effective after the 2500 range, and you will see a much more balanced PVP.

I really hate having to stop every couple of seconds to tell someone what I’m about to go do, or wait for them to get done doing whatever they’re doing. This game sort of groups you up “logically” anyway, and I love it for that. I love that I can come jump in on a monster fight and I’m not regarded as a jerk for doing it.

I’m still plenty social anyway between group chat (/map) and guilds. I just don’t like to party up.

I’m going to go off on a very slight tangent, but it bugs me that everyone in this game uses Body Shot… well, wrong.

The simple logic is that Body Shot isn’t worth using the initiative for because the overall damage increase for you isn’t better than what you’d get using Vital Shot or Unload. While that isn’t wrong, the true scenario where Body Shot starts to pull ahead is in a group and its’ multiplicative increase of everyone’s damage. Your personal DPS will suffer, but the speed at which an enemy dies when everyone hitting it is doing +15% more damage isn’t something that should be disregarded.

I would hope that if they look at Vital Shot they also look at Unload. Right now Unload does less damage than just using Vital Shot while simultaneously requiring initiative to use. The only reason its’ still viable is because power builds do better damage with it than they would with Vital Shot. If Vital Shot is fixed then something Unload does would need to be buffed in order to still remain even slightly viable.

I like either class, although I tend to prefer thief. Thieves are plenty defensive, they just require a much more active timed-dodge style of play to be effectively alive. Both classes are very much utility based and have a lot of ways to deal with every scenario. Initiative regenerates pretty fast and has plenty of traits and abilities you can use to get it back even faster.

Compared to other classes, thieves are quite active, and I don’t consider initiative a limitation similar to a traditional mana-bar. It does take some management to play properly, but you’re never just sitting around waiting for mana to regenerate, and you still aren’t ineffectual just because you ran out.

Engineer isn’t any slouch either though. While it does rely on cooldowns, and it can’t switch out its’ weapon in combat, it does have access to a bunch of other weapon kits which more or less act like different weapons and don’t have any cooldown between swapping through them. To use a metaphor; you are the Batman of combat, with a ready contigency for kitten near anything that gets in your way. If you want to be, that is. You can also just throw grenades at everything until the problem goes away. Up to you.

Thief has less variety of mitigation techniques, but the ones it has tend to be very effective and quite spamable due to the way initiative works. There’s less memorization needed as you usually just hit one or two buttons that deal with the problem. Whether or not this is a good or a bad thing depends on how mentally stimulated you want to be when you play.

If you do go Engineer (and because it was brought up earlier) a good sigil series to look into is the “On Kill Stacking Effects” (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil). When you kill an enemy with the weapon out that has this sigil on it you accumulate stacks of a buff which increase your base stats. These remain on your character regardless of whether or not you switch out a weapon. Other sigils still work to some degree, but I find these have the best synergy with a weaponkit heavy build.

Some things to add to my qoute: I use hasten instead of another signet because I feel like it compliments the more bursty nature of my build. I could use Assassin’s Signet instead, but I feel like 3 signets is enough for most scenarios, and Hasten gives me the extra “oomph” when I really need it. If quickness is ever nerfed like it probably should be I’ll likely switch to Assassin’s Signet or Scorpion Wire. Scorpion Wire is just plain fun to use.

I’m using Runes of the Centaur which means I don’t need to use Signet of Shadows. It’s faster than just using the Signet and gives utility that the whole team appreciates without sacrificing any offensive capabilities. If there’s another Rune you’d prefer to use consider taking up Signet of Shadows again for 25% movement increase. Or just do whatever, I’m not your boss.

For Sigil’s I like Air or Fire, depending on my mood. Fire doesn’t do much less damage than Air and is usually better in wvwvwvwvw, while Air is better in PVP for single targets. Earth isn’t’ bad either, and we definitely have the malice to back it up with all our stacks of might. Experiment and see which you like better.

Sigil of Perception is the in-game name for Sigil of Minor Accuracy. In PVP you get +5 stacks every time you kill an enemy, but it may still be difficult to keep up depending on how good you are. Consider replacing it with Superior Sigil of Accuracy which gives you +5% critical hit rate without having to do anything special to keep up the stacks. Actually, consider keeping a Dagger with that enchantment anyway as there’s nothing stopping you from just unequipping the Sigil of Perception weapon once you got full stacks of what you want. Sigil of Bloodlust is also another option if you’d prefer power to perception, but I’m pretty sure I’m hitting some kind of diminishing returns on power as it is.

Assassin’s Reward is the final ability I take in the Acrobatics tree and worth a mention as a lot of people are iffy about taking it. It restores about 69 HP for every point of initiative you use. To give some better perspective that’s about 276 HP every time you use a Flanking Strike, and 828 HP if you blow through your whole initiative bar. It’s not enough HP return to let you just facetank everything and you’re still going to be mostly relying on Flanking Strike and dodging to mitigate most of your damage, but it does help take some of the edge off when you do mess up and definitely helps you outlast your opponent in a PVP scenario. Still, I can understand not wanting to take the ability if you have something else in mind.

I think that’s it for now. if you’re interested in my build and have any questions on it, lemme know.

Qouting myself here:

First thing you should know is that Infiltrator’s Signet is not meant to be used alone; you combine it with Acrobatic’s Quick Recovery for another 0.3 initiative per second. Base initiative regen is about .6 per second, so that’s 0.9 initiative a second. Throw on Signet of Malice giving you another 2 initiative every 12 seconds (traited) and you have a grand stinking total of 1.05 initiative per second.

I like to use Signet of Malice on cooldown or every 12 seconds because of how I am traited. I am getting 2 initiative and 5 stacks of might for 6.5 seconds (I am traited fully in acrobatics as well) out of every 12. So “half” of the time I have an extra 175 power/malice just from one trait. This is a really significant sustained damage increase by itself, and if these traits only worked with Signet of Malice I would probably still take all of them. It gets better though because they do work with more than Signet of Malice. I could activate 4 signets for a whopping 700 power for the next 6.5 seconds which is a ridiculous amount of burst damage. I can make even the most well fortified guardian stand in astonishment of his sudden and swift destruction. I can do this every 24 seconds.

That’s not all though; Because I’m using Signet of Malice every 12 seconds I also have the availability of several runes which offer very good bonus effects for using a heal ability. Runes of Centaur gives me and those around me Swiftness for 13 seconds, or indefinitely. Runes of the Adventurer would give me another stack of might for 26 seconds, long enough that I could sustain 2 stacks of it on top of the 5 I already get from just popping Signet of Malice. Runes of Lyssa gives me a random boon every time I heal for 13 seconds and allows me to make Basilisk venom really ridiculous by giving me every single boon in the game whenever I use it. Rune of Vampirism bulks up my heal and adds a bit of damage by giving me a 975 health drain on my next attack.

By the way, 3 signets restoring 2 initiative every 24 seconds is another .25 initiative per second, so my total initiative regeneration is at 1.3 initiative per second. Most of my initiative goes into timing flanking strike, so not only am I wtf-murdering someone every 24 seconds while still maintaining a healthy steady damage increase from Signet of Malice, I’m also evading pretty much the majority of what is thrown at me between Flanking Strike, and Acrobatics/SignetofAgility/Dodging. This is great whether I’m in PVP or PVE.

Here is a link to the build I usually run with after the most recent patch:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAsY6alcmCOncS8E95Ex2DfKUeqVgmdPuqV1KA;TABA2ynEOJdS9kyJqZMzImxOjbG5MLKGUsLYGB

Katsumoto.9452:

Warkupo.1025:

Male human with the “from the streets” background. It’s about as generically “thief” as you can get.

Human female noble. My thief was such a good thief when growing up that she never got caught and made her way into the aristocracy. I associate the street thieves with poor quality, small heists.

Heh, it totally fits my character too. I barely use Cloak and Dagger or the stealth heal skill, and mostly dodge/brute-force my way around. He’s a very nimble fighter, and quite charming, but stealthy sneaky assassin he is not.

Not something I haven’t commented on before. A lot of the problem with thief is that initiative forces us to choose the ‘best’ abilities, and a lot of the time you only wind up need one or two things from your skill-set to be effective, which results in a sort of simple and boring playstyle. “Hit one button to hurt things, hit this other button to mitigate damage, forget everything else” tends to be what happens to a lot of our skillsets.

I still don’t think I am wrong on my previous point, however; We have very few weapons to choose from, so when you nerf one thing you wind up inadvertently nerfing the whole class. More weapon combos would allow us to escape this a little better by giving us other options.

First thing you should know is that Infiltrator’s Signet is not meant to be used alone; you combine it with Acrobatic’s Quick Recovery for another 0.3 initiative per second. Base initiative regen is about .6 per second, so that’s 0.9 initiative a second. Throw on Signet of Malice giving you another 2 initiative every 12 seconds (traited) and you have a grand stinking total of 1.05 initiative per second.

Now, Shadow Arts is a good way to go about it as well, and for Backstab dagger/dagger builds I can see why its’ so attractive and obvious. Infusion of Shadow lets’ you keep CnD used more or less indefinitely, and that’s really all you need. Patience is okay on top of that, although I think there are much better skills you could be utilizing since Patience requires you to accept a DPS loss by sitting in stealth to regain initiative.

Still, it doesn’t really compare to the disgusting amount of damage that I am granted from utilizing Signet of Power in conjunction with signet use. NightyNight keeps overlooking Signet of Power, so I’m going to spend a little bit of time explaining just how kitten useful it is.

I like to use Signet of Malice on cooldown or every 12 seconds because of how I am traited. I am getting 2 initiative and 5 stacks of might for 6.5 seconds (I am traited fully in acrobatics as well) out of every 12. So “half” of the time I have an extra 175 power/malice just from one trait. This is a really significant sustained damage increase by itself, and if these traits only worked with Signet of Malice I would probably still take all of them. It gets better though because they do work with more than Signet of Malice. I could activate 4 signets for a whopping 700 power for the next 6.5 seconds which is a ridiculous amount of burst damage. I can make even the most well fortified guardian stand in astonishment of his sudden and swift destruction. I can do this every 24 seconds.

That’s not all though; Because I’m using Signet of Malice every 12 seconds I also have the availability of several runes which offer very good bonus effects for using a heal ability. Runes of Centaur gives me and those around me Swiftness for 13 seconds, or indefinitely. Runes of the Adventurer would give me another stack of might for 26 seconds, long enough that I could sustain 2 stacks of it on top of the 5 I already get from just popping Signet of Malice. Runes of Lyssa gives me a random boon every time I heal for 13 seconds and allows me to make Basilisk venom really ridiculous by giving me every single boon in the game whenever I use it. Rune of Vampirism bulks up my heal and adds a bit of damage by giving me a 975 health drain on my next attack.

By the way, 3 signets restoring 2 initiative every 24 seconds is another .25 initiative per second, so my total initiative regeneration is at 1.3 initiative per second. Most of my initiative goes into timing flanking strike, so not only am I wtf-murdering someone every 24 seconds while still maintaining a healthy steady damage increase from Signet of Malice, I’m also evading pretty much the majority of what is thrown at me between Flanking Strike, and Acrobatics/SignetofAgility/Dodging. This is great whether I’m in PVP or PVE.

Signets are not useless. So much so that I really didn’t even want to share this because of how much more it can add to the performance of backstab builds which are already grossly overpowered without my help. I can only hope that the developers nerf that one day instead of taking another swipe at my S/D build.

The reason a lot of thieves use signets is because our abilities aren’t that great while our signets are actually quite a bit better than those offered to other classes. Also, yes, we have a lot of abilities that help us capitalize on their use. I’m not usually dead either.

What I personally use:

Signet of Shadows: Lets’ me run faster, which is really all I want. Obvious PVE benefits, but being able to get around combat quickly is something a lot of classes strive for and we have such an easy obvious solution right in front of us. I rarely use the blind portion of the attack. I don’t find blind to be a really powerful mitigation technique in PVE; Most of the things you’d want to blind are immune to it, and most of the things that can be blinded don’t have enough HP to worry about in the first place. Its’ really good in PVP, but even then, I’d still rather just walk faster. Its’ usually the last signet I’d pop for might/initiative.

Next up is Infiltrator’s Signet which is just straight up initiative regain. This is useful just because initiative fuels the majority of what I do. I usually combine this with acrobatics’ initiative regen trait to have a ridiculous ability spam potential.

Signet of Malice. Yes, I already know what you’re thinking and I don’t necessarily think you’re wrong for thinking it either. Still, it becomes a much better ability, and I think worth using over your other heals, when its’ giving you 5 stacks of might and two initiative every time you use it (which is 12 seconds instead of 15 since we’re traited.) I’ve thought about using one of the heal activated runes since I tend to just spam the crap out of it anyway.

Signet of Agility isn’t much precision, but its’ active ability is actually pretty kitten powerful; It refills all your endurance and cures a condition for everyone around you. I don’t tend to use it because I have so much friggin’ initiative regain already that using Flanking Strike to dodge everything is very much an option, but I definitely has the potential to change a battle for you.

Hey guess what, this post is ending abruptly because I have to go do thanksgiving.
I’ll finish it when/if I get back.

Thief, in particular, needs more weapon choices. The most recent patch really illustrated how fragile our choices are in that the nerfs effected so much more than what I imagine their intended target was.

Besides, a greatsword thief would just be stupid-awesome.

No, see, the strength of P/P is that you use Black Powder, and then get blind combo fields from pistol’s auto-attack to just keep re-applying it to a single target. It re-applies blind if you just stand in it, which is what most Sword/Pistol users are used to, but it gets some extra perks from using a pistol instead.

Still, I’m not really worried about it. Black Powder is borderline overpowered in PVE because your enemies are too stupid to do anything but run directly at you. A smart PVP player will figure out a few ways to punish you for using such an obvious tactic though, and because Black Powder is so expensive you probably won’t be in much of a position to fight back.

If this becomes a flavor of the month tactic I’d be… Surprised and disappointed. Backstab is overpowered indeed.

Yes and No. Most Group Event enemies will just straight up laugh at your little blind field and swat you away. Aside from that, what monsters ignore blind and to what degree just really depends on the type of enemy you are fighting. Do keep in mind that anything which is an AOE, or throws down a field can’t really be blinded. The enemy isn’t supposed to technically be able to see you or know where you are to cast such an attack, but he still totally friggin’ does.

Basically, yes, black powder is probably overpowered against things it works against, but you’ll really notice when it doesn’t work.

Eh, it would be hard for me to give a hard number rating for a lot of abilities. The usefulness of any ability is going to depend very much on how you use them with other abilities. Infiltrator’s Signet, for example, is very useful when combined with Acrobatics for regaining a lot of initiative naturally which is really nice for a power build utilizing pistol/pistol to maximize the damage output of unloaded while captalizing on mitigating damage by being at range. Infiltrator’s Signet is also nice on S/D when you use Infiltrator’s Strike, Signet, and then Mug to literally FLY across the kitten battlefield and then have an escape set up so far away that there is very little chance you’re going to get chased down.

ultimately too situation-based for me. It’s neat to hear your guys opinions though.

The traditional mmo-ish definition of a “tank” is someone who keeps the attention of enemies on himself while building to mitigate as much damage as possible, to the benefit of his team. Just having really good survivability isn’t the same as tanking; you have to be actively keeping people alive as well.

I could kind of see calling a Mesmer a tank, albeit a bit more indirectly than the usual tanking strategy. If you ever played FFXI, I tend to think of clones as Utsusemi from the Ninja class; They show up, absorb a hit, and then bugger off. If you’ve never played FFXI, you probably don’t know what the hell the crazy person on the forum is talking about.

Just to point something out:
Pistol Range: 900
Greatsword Staff Range: 1200

I’m sure mesmers can figure out a few methods against Blinding Powder. Just give them a bit to adapt.

Well, hope they adapt, otherwise prepare for more nerfs.

Mantra of Pain is the only one I’ve used seriously so far. When traited Mantra of Pain gives you three shots that each do 324 damage (discounting attack rating and whatnot) and hit from 1200 yards away. If you get a bunch of clones out, have them all explode at your enemy, and then use this while that is going on you can do quite a bit of burst damage which usually has the effect of surprising and putting your foe on the offensive and hurting him quite badly. If you’re Sword/Something like me then try to get yourself close to the enemy by the time you fire off the third Mantra of Pain so that you can follow up with some angry close ranged burst damage to try and finish him off.

Problems with Mantra of Pain are that its’ not that great outside some ranged burst qualities, and its’ not that much better than just using a Greatsword’s auto-attack. This fact alone makes their spot in your trait trees really questionable besides; One of Domination’s better traits is Greatsword Training. Figure that one out for me.

Mantra of Concentration can be useful if you need a stun breaker. 3 Charges should last you awhile, but I’d still always recast it whenever its’ up if nobody is currently munching on your face. Compared to our other options it has a lot more casts to it and is ready much more often. Everything else has a recast of an upwards of 40 seconds, and while that’s good for one stun, it doesn’t really help you much if you get hit with another. Mantra of Concentration also offers stability for a measly 2 seconds, which you can extend to 6 seconds if you really need to. If you’re quite a bit better at this game than I am I could see you using this ability proactively to sort of “dodge” condition effects that stability protects against.

Mantra of Distraction Is hard for me to recommend. It can daze your enemy for 3 seconds, but that’s only if you are traited and that’s the only thing it does. Maaaybe if you have a really heavy boon duration build, and maaaybe if you stack it with some other dazes you have, and maaaaybe if you pair it up with other defensive moves you can use this to harass your enemy and keep him in a state of frustration as he can’t hit you. That’s an awful lot of specialization for one ability though.

Mantra of Resolve is another ability that I can see being useful, as it would technically break stuns even after you get hit with them and remove that dastardly blindness from screwing with your phantasms. Again, it also has a very short recast timer, meaning that you can refresh it as soon as your done being chomped on by an enemy. This along with Mantra of Concentration are probably two of the most under appreciated skills in the game as they can really help keep the pressure off.

Ultimately the key to using mantras effectively seems to be the idea of being proactive about them. They can be quite beneficial if they’re ready before you go into combat, but trying to use them as a more traditional reactionary ability is just going to get yourself killed while you stand there for four and a half seconds casting your spell. Mantras can also be a bit tricky to use effectively the more of them you have. While you won’t be using all your mantra charges every fight, its’ quite a bit different to spend 4 seconds casting between a fight and to spend 12 because you blew all your mantras. Having to go 30 points deep into the Domination tree is also a bit of a detriment, though a few of them still retain some use even if you don’t.

S/D still does pretty good in PVP. The Auto-Attack is really under-appreciated by people who don’t play the set for any significant amount of time. For reference, Crippling Strike, the third attack of our auto-attack chain, hits for 317 damage. Cloak and Dagger hit for 365 before the nerf. CnD+Tactical strike would have done a total of 584 while one sequence of your auto attack did 707. Aside from Dancing Dagger spam, our auto-attack was and is our best DPS option.

That’s not all though, our auto-attack also has a very wide cone and range and Crippling Strike applies Cripple and Weakness for 2 seconds which meant that we where really good at keeping an enemy from dodging around and fleeing.

S/D auto-attack is the primary reason we’re still competitive even after this most recent patch. Infiltrator’s Strike is still great for mindgames/evasion/running away heroically and Flanking Strike is still great for tearing away boons. It’s no glass cannon burst king, but you can still definitely kill a guy with it if you’re smart about using it.

Male human with the “from the streets” background. It’s about as generically “thief” as you can get.

Thief is still mechanically good, the problem is that our abilities are in direct competition with each other due to the way initiative works. A skillset that would seem complete on any other class is often loaded with a redundant variety of utility skills which often has the effect of us picking one or two abilities that generally cover all situations while we ignore the rest of our skillset. Personally speaking, I find this to be boring in that it forces a playstyle of “hit 1 to attack, and 2 to not die” that isn’t very mentally engaging.

The most recent patch further emphasized this problem by removing many of the “burst” damage capabilities that we have giving us less tactical options to utilize in combat.

All of this said, thief does still do a good amount of damage. I just don’t find it very entertaining to play anymore either.

Marduh.4603:

Warkupo.1025:

I dont’ know about boosting the damage too much. If they never fix the animation, I’d rather that the damage be mostly front-loaded with the ending swipe doing significantly less. If they do eventually fix its’ pathing to be more reliable, then I think it’s probably good.

Flanking Strike does a lot of things all at once as it is (damage, dodge, boon removal, re-position), it’s just unreliable so most people don’t like using it. Fixing its’ pathing is probably enough.

So I suggest just remove the second hit, and its damage is added to the first strike.
This burst and defence boost, rather than damage.

I’d be really okay with that. Just change the animation slightly so that we simply hit and then fart around behind the enemy and then keep auto-attacking.

Let’s go tell the developers. I’m sure they’ll love the idea

Carighan.6758:

Oh yeah, my 120 damage from my Defender or Disenchanter! I forgot about the fields of dead bodies they leave in their wake! 20k 100b Warrior is nothing against those 120 damage every 6 seconds! Totally worth being blockable as a whole.

Let’s face it, no one ever summons the Defender or Disenchanter for their AE Absorb Field or their Condition removal! Why would they, if they can use them for their 120 damage every 6s, a crazy 20 DPS!!!!one!!!eleven!!1!!1!!!

You’re just lovely, aren’t you?

I did not mean to imply that Defender and Disenchanter where the harbingers of destruction, but that their damage was not so low as to be insignificant. I am more hesitant to change them in a way that they do no damage without expecting some sort of compensation. How much damage they do doesn’t really address whether or not they should be able to be mitigated anyway.

Let’s try not to take this so personally.

clipnotdone.9634:

Not entirely for you, I know there are a large amount of people that have never played the class making ‘lel you got nerfed deal with it’ threads right now.

That does get annoying, I’ll admit. I tend to play all the classes, and as such have no silly notion of “loyalty” to any of them. My general opinion about a video game, especially an MMO with a PVP environment like this one, is that it should be a relatively fair environment so that it remains challenging. If I just wanted to steamroll everything I’d go play a console game.

I dont’ know about boosting the damage too much. If they never fix the animation, I’d rather that the damage be mostly front-loaded with the ending swipe doing significantly less. If they do eventually fix its’ pathing to be more reliable, then I think it’s probably good.

Flanking Strike does a lot of things all at once as it is (damage, dodge, boon removal, re-position), it’s just unreliable so most people don’t like using it. Fixing its’ pathing is probably enough.