But she isn’t this end-all-be-all powerful figure. She cannot foretell the exact future, especially not at all times (else she would have foreseen the attack on the World Summit), and she doesn’t show any mental capabilities beyond her ties to the Dream which is literally an insignificant portion of the Dream that expands barely beyond the sylvari’s collective memories (the only cases of her knowing more than sylvari know is with A Light in the Darkness and with her ties to Mordremoth).
Or maybe she is, and simply played out a series of calculated losses to unite the world against her former master. Would the pact have gotten as much support as they did without the attack on the world summit?
In that case, I counter propose an ability to toggle an MMR limiter – essentially having the option to lock outliers from joining your game (ie. preventing low mmr’s from joining high mmr’s and vice versa). This would mean higher ranked MMR’s have the option to wait hours for their top ranked games, while everyone else can just get on with it.
If you really want to change the PvP culture though, you could pick up a thing or two from PvE Dungeoneers. Pick up a newbie, teach them what you know, and send them off into the wide world to teach someone who may one day carry you.
shrugs or they could add another daily profession achievement. I like the concept of exploring other classes I usually wouldn’t try; but I agree that it gets a bit monotonous when you’re teamed with 3 Thieves on Thief day.
Shouldn’t we buff sub-paar players instead, to try boost their performance? It just doesn’t seem fair to empower people who are already getting kill counts in a match.
I think that such a mechanic would only encourage players to be sub-paar, whereas buffing players that carry their teams would encourage players to carry.
PVP is a team game, and should be as strong as its weakest link. Rather than encouraging solo heroes, the focus should instead be on teaching people how to play – aka when and how to fight effectively. What we shouldn’t be doing is outright destroying overaggressive newbies (because, in all likelihood, that’s probably who you’re going to kill to achieve this “carry” buff).
Shouldn’t we buff sub-paar players instead, to try boost their performance? It just doesn’t seem fair to empower people who are already getting kill counts in a match.
I don’t think this example was a good case of ranger sustain – his survival was more dependant on him kiting a lot of your attacks. Plus, you spend a good portion of the video swapping targets – you rarely focused on the druid himself.
Based on the damage he took however, I would agree with usned’s assessment – it was probably a ranger support build.
The flaw in this reasoning is – if a character can’t thief, what makes you so sure they can play any other class? Just because a player can’t do something doesn’t mean they can immediately do something else.
I personally think blind group/build selection and the community are to blame – if I want to play a role in the team, then I want to ensure my team can support what I want to do. And the community as a whole has gotten so bad that asking for advice/tactics in a pvp PuG ranked game ranges from silence to “go play unranked” to “go kill yourself”.
Try:
Marksmanship/Skirmishing/Druid (sustained dps/minor support with astral form)
Marksmanship/Beastmastery/Nature Magic (personal burst)
For map exploration, if you’re intending to be on the map for a long time and making exclusive use of your bow, put a sigil of bloodlust on your bow to increase your overall dps. Sigil of fire can also help with tagging targets, as the bow is very much a single target weapon.
As for your second weapon set, I would suggest a staff (which you can use astral wisp to put some distance between you and the target – and has untraited piece), Greatsword for personal burst, and sword/axe for sustained dps and sheer fun. Ultimately, you don’t want to be using a bow in melee – especially if you’re outnumbered.
Have you ever stopped to wonder: What happens to my scaly little critters when I stow them out of battle? They seem to appear and disappear out of thin air, but that can’t be all there is to it… right?
Do they have pinpoint portal skills that would put any Mesmer to shame?
Maybe they follow you around inconspicuously, possessing a stealth timer that would make any Thief weep?
Where does your ranger pet go when it’s stowed away?
I understand this maybe necro’ing, and the age of the thread probably indicates this won’t get fixed. Regardless, my party encountered this bug just now; we had a party wipe of all except one person (who appeared to get out of combat). She waypointed out of the area, but the wall did not reset.
Do not wipe on the alphred fight on arah P2 – that bonewall does not appear to reset.
EDIT: It appears a group wipe will fix the issue, lowering the bone wall.
(edited by Westenev.5289)
it never works! i always get teleporter to another place, along the way back…
I read that if it worked as a teleport it could be abused by someone puting it in the door to an enemy fortress and then following the guy who stepped on it, directly inside
This actually seems like it would be a GOOD change for wvw, giving the thief an anti-fortress infiltration role currently reserved for portal mesmers. WvW honestly needs roles and flavour beyond the karma-farm zerg.
As for my own experiences with this utility – it’s all about trial and error. I have had some amazing 10,000 range teleports (like on the south or east side of Stonemist or on the road leading from Speldan Clearcut to SM) that actually proced loading screens on teleport… while I’ve also had times where I could physically SEE the trap right in front of me and got blocked by a small incline of terrain.
I’ll be the first to admit it’s not a SOLID choice, but it is a good escape utility should you catch your opponent unawares.
This may be worth looking into! After all, where do many of those envelopes go? The Black Lion Trading Post!
For months, I have suspected Evon Gnashblade of arming the white mantle (what with him selling items commonly used by the White Mantle). Perhaps the tax skimmed off these envelopes are being used to fund this attack on DR, for reasons I have yet to determine…
Funnily enough, as a thief in wvw, I tend to find most of my love letters are from Warriors – especially if I disengage by shadow stepping away, making them miss their one shot at a burst before I get out of range.
And lets not even talk about what happens if I dare to down a warrior as a +1…
Headshot is actually actually a gobstopper dipped in a potent orrian pepper sauce, fired directly into the mouth. The oncoming heartburn then damages the opponent after a short duration. Creatures that aren’t interrupted won’t consume the pepper gobstopper, while creatures with break bars are immune to strong curries, and thus, cannot be hit.
As a person who plays thief often, I suggest going glassy to begin with (zerk/scholar) – thief has a lot of evades and manoeuvrability to survive, and you can’t learn to take full advantage of them if you’re under the assumption you can take a hit without consequences. Developing a healthy paranoia is the key to staying alive – especially in a meta that is so anti-thief.
2012Player:Things that would make me buy HoT
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Westenev.5289
HoT maps have many more chains due to the lack of hearts
There also gated off as it still irks me that Verdent Brink doesn’t have a single leylines or even updrafts that can reliably and routinely take you to the canopy level without event chains.
HoT gets easier with mastery but mastery is built around altoholics grinding for a single toon is mindnumbliy boring. It should’ve been locked per toon with a reduce exp grind to compensate. HoT is need of a qol patch that it obviously won’t be getting I know people who quit, took a break like myself, or took their one toon through HoT story and never came back.
Are you sure? Perhaps more careful exploration of the area will reveal some things you failed to notice up until this point? Here are a few hints:
From Shrouded Ruins waypoint, head west up the stairs to the top of the plateau. There’s a bounce mushroom seemingly leading to a dead end. Or perhaps it isn’t a dead end after all?
There’s also a wrecked airship next to Mellagan’s Valor waypoint. Have you seen the view from the top of it? No? You might want to use that updraft tucked into the rocks at the top of the trailhead to get over to it and do some more thorough exploration.
Finally, if you were to go to the top of Faren’s Flyer waypoint, you might notice a large vine stretching northward. Why not see where it leads?
Trust me. You can reach every point on that map without using the choppers.
As far as I am aware, this is only almost correct information. The top of the patriarch den (or whatever its called) can’t be accessed by day – the up-drafts simply don’t go high enough until nightfall.
I’m not sure if this has been fixed in a later patch, however.
I like them. They rank pretty far above humans and norn imo.
For generations they had exactly zero predators and grew complacent, and now that they have predators they aren’t going to lay down and die, they’re adapting and learning from races who generally had nothing better to do except try to creatively murder everything around them. (ie, every other race in the game).And hey, there’s a dragon, no problem, Quaggans are ready to fight that, too. They may not be strong, but now many Norn are out swimming to patrol for Tequatl?
(Useless Norn…)Good idea, lets round up all the quaggans and launch them at the next ED. With a bit of luck they wipe eachother out, and all else, they’ll weaken the dragon for us. No downsides to this plan
Orr they come back as to haunt us as super zombie-plant-whatever quaggan. You know, the sort of elder spawn that puts you to sleep with nightmares.
The main complaint I can see on this thread is, “why can’t I just get a mesmer to port me up to the top and call it a day?”. Well. Simple. Because this isn’t mastery in any sense of the word.
I do agree that the chalice of tears can be a little harsh when it comes to deleting saved checkpoints (such as after logouts), but it’s not something that makes the jp impossible. It’s frustrating, yes, but it’s just an obstacle to overcome. There are enough guides on youtube for the average player to piece together where to go next – and for others, there is the challenge of trailblazing up the goat track to reach the peak of the mountain.
In short, I applaud anet for giving us a jumping puzzle that cannot be inherently carried without time and effort. I’m not a great jumper myself, but I managed it (albeit with the help of mesmer portals) – and if even I can do it, so can you!
I’m not a particular fan of the shoulders, though more because it clips through my female-human-revenant’s chronomancer’s shield than any asymmetrical fashion concern.
Anyone notice how quaggans are the real humans of this genre, while we, the ACTUAL humans, are the equivalent of uppity high elves looking down on races?
Quaggans have proven to be highly resistant to adverse environments (jungle/ice), ferocious fighters, capable of understanding language, group tactics and technology… please remind me what exactly makes them any weaker than the other minor races of Tyria? Their only annoying trait is their pacifism and manner of speaking – both of which can be changed with effort.
If anything, I think the Norn deserve a little more of Darwin’s love over quaggan.
That’s sad to hear. The metal grate and the smooth sides made me certain it was an exhaust of some description…
If you’re on an EU server, feel free to contact me in-game with specific questions or for another attempt – but, as it stands, it sounds like you want to be babysat through the bossfight through mechanics simply for an effortless solo. I can’t support that.
If you can’t solo the fight, my advice is to bring some friends, or recruit some of the players standing around in the Hearts and Minds instance (if you don’t mind the possibility of sitting in the time out chair for half of the fight). Mordremoth doesn’t really scale to player numbers, so a two or three person group should have a much easier time.
So you lucked out in placement and you’re here to tell people that didn’t that the system is awesome? Sweet. Thank you for that.
I think you missed the joke. :p
If a person is… “smart”… enough to be hit by 3 consecutive head shots (and three different pulmonary impacts), should they not be punished for face-tanking such obvious spam?
Whether you spam your skills or you spread them out tactically, this should be left to you, the player, to decide what will work best for their situation. As it stands, we have 3 strong daredevil major master traits (2 for staff, 2 for other weapon sets). Lets try not reduce this to 1 for other weaponsets, okay?
I kind of agree – the maps have a story, but beyond that, it’s just zerg farming for ascended trinkets and the occasional bout of scenery porn. I’m kind of hoping they will be revisited in future LS episodes to maybe expand on what they already have.
I won’t argue about the fights though! They do tend to keep exploration… interesting.
I think it’s because the pact commander actually feels guilty about Traehearne’s death – we didn’t exactly stop to look at our options. He said kill, so we killed him without looking for other options.
Regardless of what we think as players, Traehearne mattered a lot to the commander – enough to throw a roaring rampage of revenge into Mordremoths heart. The less reminders we have of him, and the busier we are, the less his loss hurts us.
In short, I chalk this up to grief on the commander’s part, since ultimately WE killed Traehearne.
Better if we sacrifice Braham and bring back Prince Rurik.
Do you think Lazarus might have a solution for this?
There isn’t a whole lot you can do as an old player without HOT – the jungle provides a large powercreep from the core game. Though, if I were in your shoes, I would want to go to Lions Arch to find a guild. From there, I’d probably do story, the christmas event or head to Dry Top/Silverwastes. World bosses and map exploration are still a thing too, if you’re into that.
Fractals of the Mists and Dungeons are also a great way of making gold. The community there is USUALLY pretty chill, and people are often willing to explain encounters. If they aren’t, then they probably aren’t the sort of successful group they think they are.
Living story 2 is also on the gemstore if you want to review what happened between LS1 and HOT – if you played through living story 1 like you say it have, it might make more sense to you (to the some of us, we STILL don’t know who some of these characters are in ls3!).
2012Player:Things that would make me buy HoT
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Westenev.5289
As a player myself, I relish the chance to explore more maps like Tangled Depths and Verdent Brink. To begin with, these maps are beyond INFURIATING (more so pre-nerf)! But that’s what friends are for – it’s forced me to communicate with others for advice and help, eventually building up my core level of play. As I did so, I found lots of cool stuff tucked away in little corners that you would never find in linear maps!
Because, at the end of the day, that’s what this game is. A place where people can come together to throw down a massive one-sided beatdown! In this regard, I find the old maps to be both anti-social and frankly kind of boring (since everything with the exception of world bosses can be easily solo’ed).
If these maps were missing from the expansion, and anet continued to deliver more core maps, what reason might I have to spend more time than necessary on them?
I don’t understand all this Braham hate. The PC over-stepped the bounds and deserved it. Simple as that. Also, all this talk of killing off a character just because you don’t like him and he doesn’t obey you is ridiculous. The PC has no authority outside of the Pact.
Another thing, there’s just a lack of character development with the PC. The PC is the typical hero character. What are the PC’s dreams, background, struggles, flaws, addictions, traits, quirks, habits? The only development you see with the PC is in the first half of the personal story, and with….Aurene.
In a way, I understand why. Since this is an MMO where thousands of people play, the PC’s character development has to be as uniform to satisfy as many players as possible.
I think that’s simply not true – our character is far from the copy-and-paste personality of, say, a FPS shooter protagonist. Our character has a fair amount of characterisation – and a few loose ends (at least, as a human – did my sister die in orr? Why have I not tried to contact my family at the tavern?).
Think back to a light shining in the darkness – the level 60 story before the retaking of Claw Island. The Pale Tree gives us three fears – the fear of getting someone killed by our actions, The fear of being disgraced by those kittenpect us, or the fear of having someone suffer for our actions. At first, they all might seem like reasonable cut and paste fears – but at their core, all choices amounted to the same thing. The Commander simply doesn’t want to be ostracised from their peers.
These fears are exhibited several times throughout the story – the most potent of which occurs when Caithe ran off with the egg, causing the commander to exhibit extreme paranoia. The effects of this betrayal travels well into LS3 – why do you think the commander refuses the job as Pact Martial? Simply because they can no longer trust other people to do their jobs without screwing up and getting people killed. The Commander can’t trust Lazarus to Marjory, just as they want to mother Brahm. The commander failed to realise they had strong opinions about this treatment – and weren’t willing to oblige us with their usual “YES, COMMANDER!”.
At the root, I think the commander is a very caring person who simply fears being alone. The way the story is turning, the commander’s available friends are dwindling – causing them to panic. Perhaps their true companions are moving on, with the commander forced to “watch” the dragons alone? Perhaps the commander feels they are in the same heading down the same precarious situation as Eir with Destinies Edge, where they are forced to helplessly watch as their family fragmented?
This is just my interpretation though.
(edited by Westenev.5289)
You’re assuming that a thief MUST spam every skill off cooldown (metaphorically – thief weapons don’t have cooldowns) – staff in particular doesn’t always work this way. Staff 3 and 4 are EXTREMELY situational, with 2 and 5 being your main dps buffs. The only reason I could imagine one would have to continually spam 2 or 5 would be either to burst down an opponent or proc Lead Attacks to 15 stacks – both of which should be punished if executed poorly.
Pistol does have access to stealth though – Bounded Leap + Pistol 5 or Pistol 5/Dagger 2 or Pistol 5 + Blinding Powder… all of which are fairly easily accessible. I agree that stealth should be a main mechanic of thief, never dispute that, but it shouldn’t be a free action either.
As for mobility, there’s always shadow shot. I will agree that P/P S/P has a lot to be desired in this regard, but there’s always Dash.
As for buffing shortbow, it’s a utility weapon – I’m all up for buffs, but given the amount of projectile hate already flying around, I feel it would actually be detrimental and irresponsible (in my opinion) to give it a dps upgrade. I’m also afraid that by turning it into a dps weapon, you’d see MASSIVE initiative requirements – in place of a weapon that already holds some of the best utilities in the game.
If shortbow were to be buffed, I think projectile speed on 2 would be a better area of focus – or a 1200/1500 range rifle elite spec!
(edited by Westenev.5289)
Snip.
I don’t mean to be mean, but what’re you comparing and how does it relate to the capabilities of the thief shortbow? How does the amount of hits a Thief can do per minute relate to how its shortbow should be buffed?
How about in order to discourage stacking, you offer more tickets for finishing 3rd, less for second and few for first.
But then wouldn’t it just be a fight to see who is the most inactive?
If anything, second place should probably be the most lucratively rewarded (if we’re following this train of logic). Even then, the only people who would stand to gain by actually doing anything would be the 3rd place server.
It’s entirely possible that (depending on your timezone) you’re playing with people who don’t speak English (or other language), and also haven’t done dungeons before. Simply having a high MP simply means you have played a good amount of time after HOT was released – and after the “Golden age of Dungeons”. It isn’t an indication of playtime or play style.
I agree. Some classes, such as Engi, Dragonhunter or Druid, can even laugh off a d/p assault. The idea that one weaponset must be nerfed to make another meta is absurd – what we should be thinking about is how to allow other weapons to fit niche roles in a modern battlefield, not how to cut our arm off while regrowing another.
After all, it is unlikely Sword/Dagger, Sword/Pistol, Pistol/Pistol, Staff or Pistol/Dagger will ever be used in conjunction with Dagger/Pistol outside of personal preference (because the shortbow is just that strong in terms of escape ability). So why do weapons HAVE to be mutually exclusive?
From a balance perspective:
Shortbow #1: Is functional as a tagging weapon (that is nowhere on the level of the guardian’s lootstick)
Shortbow #2: Is a spammable blast finisher (VERY USEFUL)
Shortbow #3: I forgot what this skill was.
Shortbow #4: Poison field. Great for spraying downed opponents while I finish them to charge my bloodlust sigil, though admittedly not much else.
Shortbow #5: Is a very useful utility that has saved me several times (the teleport is in the projectile, and will still function if I’m hard cc’ed).
All in all, I think the shortbow is an excellent utility weapon that many thieves will be hard done by to replace. AND PLEASE, don’t suggest nerf’s to make your idea meta – because it won’t. If you balance around the weakest weapon set, you’re not going to create a new meta – you’ll create a dead class.
(This is coming from a rookie D/P – Shortbow Thief)
(edited by Westenev.5289)
I like the idea, but my concern would be in the required amount of player participation to receive the full ticket reward. Would they be entitled if they visited wvw once or twice a month for their “Daily Land Claimer”?
Shrugs The problem is, from my perspective, servers like Aurora Glade might start using this team chat to avoid involving Blacktide (who is currently server linked). There is some animosity against lower teir servers, largely because we are used to duelling over keeps rather than joining the face roll meta TS zerg.
While it would be cool to talk to other low-population server members, I just see this as a way to discriminate against linked servers.
Finding a fair/fun fight in roaming, or a casual non-ts wvw guild. I know WvW is geared towards Zerg-vs-Zerg, but it’s also the only true (fairly) unrestricted pvp in the game (where you can pick your fights).
It’s all about her, not the team. How many times has she told the team to go do whatever but she won’t be budging from whatever she’s doing?
To be perfectly fair, she’s never really been part of the team. She’s more of a mascot. She’s been sidelined by the team more than once because she’s the youngest and smallest, even when she had her golem handy. She even had an extra dialog option with you in one of the HoT missions about feeling like she wasn’t treated as part of the team.
Now, without her golem, it’s not like the team would be taking her along anywhere, anyway. She does the most good researching dragons right now. It’s a bonus that it happens to align with her interests.
Taimi is a part of the team – only, the way we were using her in combat durring LS2-HOT was as logical as using a thief-healer in raids. Her talents lie in the Lab and Asuran politics – not in directly combating Inquest or busting down Mordremoth’s doorstep.
I think promoting herself to bridge-bunny was probably the wisest move she could have made.
Phalanx Heavy-Armor Skin and Vipers Medium-Armour Skin, please! I’ve been cooking these gems for a couple of weeks, waiting for this sale!
Honestly, the map isn’t really big enough to justify another waypoint (well, besides the the freeze, but who wants to spawn in the freeze? You’d die from cold on spawn!)
The major farm areas are already around the way points provided, anything else is just exploration. And, in all honesty, you can’t realistically explore a sparsely populated wasteland with a re spawn every five steps – it just isn’t sporting, and honestly would kill the desperate mood/genre of the map. The map isn’t designed to be a quaggans picnic – as the icicles at those "hot"springs can likely tell you.
I’ve played this map on five classes, and while it seems like an endless battle to begin with, you’ll begin to realise that mobs hang in easily avoidable groups outside of events. If you can dodge the first chill (usually the first attack they will leap/shoot you with), you can typically outrun them to avoid combat altogether.
I’d have thought he’d have blamed us regardless of what the commander might have said. The man had a mission, and it was clear he wasn’t going to listen to what we were going to say to the contrary – or worse, he WOULD listen and just take it as a personal challenge.
While they’re not really a defined character, I sure did miss the presence of the Tyrian Explorers Society in the HOT maps!
Seriously, what happened to TES between season 2 and HOT?