Guild Wars 2

For a more detailed explaination, ask this question in the Thief forums.

Having said that, it’s really based on preference. Do you want to kill mobs through Condition damage or Physical damage? Are you a “stand your ground” melee, a “dancing butterfly” melee player, a “jousting in and out of melee” player, or a “pure ranged” player? Once you’ve indentified your prefered play style, then we Thieves can make you some suggestions.

Backstab is considered to be alpha strike damage in sPvP, which is why it’s currently on the chopping block. This already happened to Assassin’s Signet and Pistol Whip, so it’s really not surprising.

I’ve never heard anyone complain about the (non-stealthed) auto attack damage of a Thief, so I’ve been completely shocked to see that get penalized in any kind of way.

In MMOs, the unofficial standard for a player’s gear constantly changes based on what kind of gear is available. At this current point, the unofficial gear standard for an established 80th character is full Exotic gear. Once these new Fractual gear pieces get introduced, the gear standard will change to expecting everyone to have Fractal armor and Exotic weapons / jewelry.

I’m tired of the gear treadmills of other MMOs. Having a perfectionist streak, I know that I won’t be satisfied to weaken my character when there are better options available. This leads me to dungeon and gear grind to meet the new gear standard. If I fail to meet this new standard, then my performance will be sub-par in newer content and I’ll be socially snubbed by the usually MMO elitism that appears in any MMO. So as a result, I end up chain grinding for 1-2 months of my life to meet the new gear tier. Rinse and repeat for each new gear upgrade.

One of the key appeals of GW2 was that it didn’t want to go down that route. Based on everything that I’ve seen during the past couple of years, they gave the impression that GW2 was going to be more of a part-time MMO. Their core audience would be people who either played a 2nd MMO as their primary game or for people who had busy real world lives and couldn’t invest the time neccessary to keep up with the standard MMO pack.

Based on that interview article, it appears that ArenaNet is backing away from one of the key things that I found so appealing about the game. Assuming that the article is accurate, then a lot of us will have to seriously re-evaluate about just how we feel about the revised standard for GW2. Since it’s a Buy To Play model, lost “subscribers” won’t even make that much of a dent in ArenaNet’s short term finanaces. It will be interesting to see if switching to a cliche Gear Progression system will help or harm ArenaNet in the future.

Stealth will never get boosted, especially since it got its duration cap nerfed down just a few weeks ago. Beyond that, who knows. I’m guessing Traps will get a boost since that was almost a universal response. Other than that, I’m guessing that weapons sets like P/P and maybe Venoms will get some kind of boost.

Since the +Stats mechanics of GW2 give a constant increase up until the Stat Cap (unlike the diminishing returns system of other MMOs), there is really no reason to spread your +Stat points around.

On my own Venomous Aura AoE buffing Thief, I was supporting a decent amount of +Condition due to one of the buffs that I could share and for one of my ranged weapon’s attacks. However testing and discussion with the Thief community confirmed that my AoE version of Spider’s Venom (which grants Poison procs on your next x5 attacks) actually uses each player’s own +Condition for calculating the damage procs. Since it was clear that my own +Condition didn’t matter any more, I quickly dumped it and have become far more effective.

Yes, you can do some +Stat spreading with gear. I’ll eventually be running x6 Runes of Divinity and the Triforged Neckalce on my Thief. Therefore I will get +100 Stat into every ability score. However I really can’t convince myself to further invest in my weaker +Stats since I’m be intentionally hampering my own game play to do so.

HellsMachine.4083:

If so, when do you think it will most likely happen? I would like to start a thief character but would rather wait until after the nerfs, because there is nothing I hate more than getting my character nerfed.

Yes, the devs made a couple of response posts in the Thief forum that basically admitted that one of the Dagger’s key attacks (aka Backstab) was slated for some kind of damage nerf since ArenaNet seems to be anti-spike damage. Though why they released spike damage options with the game is beyond me since they’re slowly nerfing them all.

Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. ArenaNet did imply that they were looking to buff the weaker Thief weapon sets (like Pistol/Pistol) and their weaker families of Utility skills (for which Thief players constantly brought up Traps and Venoms).

From what people are understanding, a lot of the broken Skills and Traits for various classes should be fixed when ArenaNet rolls out their mega patch on Thurs 11/15. I would assume that this patch would also include any upcoming nerfs. If you want to hold off on making a Thief, then you should be safe to make one on Friday (since ArenaNet has a history of “accidentally” not putting some key Thief nerfs in the 1st round of patch notes).

It has been my understanding that AoE buffs (like the Venomous Aura sharing) only hit up to x5 targets. Assuming that it correct, you won’t be able to buff all of the temp pets and Mesmer players that you are describing.

I’ll join in on the S/P and SB bandwagon. However keep in mind that there’s countless variations of builds that use that weapons set.

For example, I’m running a Venomous Aura AoE buffing spec using that weapon combination and it’s turned out amazingly well once. Even without using Signet of Malice, I’ve got an insane healing rate from crit heals (via x2 Superior Sigil of Blood & Onomberry Pie) and the constant healing procs from the Leeching Venoms trait (assuming that you don’t activate another Venom power until you’re burned through all of the triggers from the previous Venom). Even though my Health total is pathetic, my use of Knight gear (Power / Precision / Toughness) has given me a rediculously high Armor score and let’s me take non-Condition hits easily (which I then quickly heal up).

On a note of interest, I was surprised to find out that your Pistol Whip damage output is completely based on your Sword damage rating and not your Pistol grade. I noticed that when my Thief hit 80th and starting to upgrade to Exotic weapons one piece at a time. From the Pistol Whip animation, you’d think that your Pistol was somehow involved in your dps output.

You can do a lot with the S/P set up. For example, I’m playing a Venomous Aura AoE buff spec using S/P. For my specific spec (once you get Leeching Venoms), I normally run x2 Venoms and either Shadow Refuge or Signet of Shadows (depending on the situation). (Standard choices for Venoms are Spider and Skale.) Or against pure burn boss fights, I’ll sometimes switch out my non-Venom skill for Ice Drake Venom (mainly for the Leeching Venom procs).

S/P can be a glass cannon. Or it can rather tanky between the persistent AoE Blind field of Black Powder (Pistol #5) and the built in evasion that comes from using Pistol Whip (Combo #3). Don’t be afraid to experiment and find a build that works well for you.

EDIT

Here’s a link to my Trait spec.

http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_1/thief#2.1.3.0-1.20.19.3.2-30.10.30.0.0-12.9.10.7.6.5.12

For soloing in high level play, I usually switch out my Critical Strike trait for Practiced Tolerance since I often need the extra Vitality. The reason for this is because I’m wearing pretty much every piece of gear with Knight (Power / Precision / Toughness) stats. Between x2 Superior Sigil of Blood on your S/P weapons, Onomberry Pie (which also heals on crits), and your constant Leeching Venom trait procs, you’ll getting a constant stream of healing. Then for your condition removal needs, you have your HiS heal to wipe off dots and you can also Sword #2 spam to remove conditions as needed. My built basically runs only 100 pts in Vitality gear and a bit of bonus Vitality from my Critical Strikes trait. While I would never run such a low Health build normally, spamming Combo #3 and using Venoms really help you to heal back up in a short amount of time.

From the common complaints, I know that there is only a Yellow grade set of those +Stats for the jewelry and not the Orange grade set that people are wanting. Beyond that, I’m honestly not sure since I don’t use those +Stats on my 80th characters.

Yes, they should stack. One comes from the Food buff, which has no cool down and doesn’t scale up from your +Healing score. Then the other comes from Sigil procs (at 30% for x1 or 51% for x2), which have a 2 second cool down and do scale up based on your +Healing score.

If you Crit, then each of the healing proc effects should calculate seperately. (Running multiple Sigils of Blood just increases the Sigil’s proc chance and don’t generate seperate Sigil procs.) This means that one proc, both procs, or none of the procs could trigger from a single Crit (assuming that the Sigil proc isn’t on a cool down).

EDIT

My own character who’s going to be running this set up just hit 80th. Once I’ve run some proc tests over the weekend, I’ll try to update this posted as needed.

I’m honestly not sure about the answer to the +Boon Duration question. However I have encountered similar questions as a Venom buff sharing Thief, so I’ll share what I’ve learned about AoE buffs and how they seem to work.

1) If you’re creating an AoE healing effect, then it seems to use your (aka the caster) +Healing value. (This even applies to the Venom proc heals that are granted by the Leeching Venom trait.)

2) If you’re grants an AoE buff which lets the buff receiver do damage, then it seems to use the receiving player’s +Stats as applicable. (This applies to the Spider’s Venom buff, which uses the +Condition of the receiving player to calculate the Poison damage. It’s my understanding that the damage of the Retaliation boon is also based on the +Power of the receiving player.)

3) EDIT: It appears that my conjecture about +Duration effects has been answered by the post above mine.

As it notes on the Wiki entry, the same issue applies to the Basilisk Venom skill that the Thief has. For a Thief, it seems to only proc on every odd use. Being able to use the Runes every 1m12s on a Venom traited Thief is still kind of useful, so I’m tempted to use it. However a 1m36s proc on a Sigil traited Warrior is a noticeable difference and I’d have a hard time justifying it. (This is especially an issue for Warriors since you’re chaining casting your Rune, which can cause procs to fire off at the wrong time.)

For a Warrior, the best description of the Longbow is that it’s like a shotgun. At very close range, it can be brutal. However it gets weaker when your target is further away from you (do to all x3 attacks of the Longbow #2 spread not hitting the target and your Longbow #3 explosion not being next to you for the purposes of triggering AoE Might stacks from your F1 fire field). While I’ve really grown to love the Longbow, I almost feel like it’s more of a melee weapon than a ranged weapon (if you want to maximize your AoE dps output).

If you’re looking to keep mostly at range, the Ranger’s pets (aka Bears) make great pseduo-tanks for soloing. Also specific pets have AoE condition removal or AoE heals, which can provide support in group settings. While I haven’t played a pet spec Ranger yet, it is on my list for future characters.

Thanks Cherry. I’m about to hit 80th and I’m figuring out my gear balance. Things are slated to have some +Condition on my jewelry slots and Shortbow, but that’s about it. With this confirmation, I’ve now got some peace of mind about just how little I need to dip into +Condition. My fear was that I would end up sharing a nearly worthless Spider Venom, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

diabluz.2860:

People don’t like that there’s no raiding in this game and they also don’t like that the instances are pretty lame and pointless. Most people that play MMO’s like raiding and or instances. They like the loot grind and this game just doesn’t have much to keep people coming back day after day.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m rather soul weary of the whole loot grinding syndrome. One of the major draws of GW2 is the fact that they didn’t want to do a raid progression. While I do agree that I was rather baffled when ArenaNet originally started talking about how they have an “end game” in GW2 (since I got the distinct impression that this was a game about the leveling journey and not the end result), I personally like that this game is devoted more to a casual player who either doesn’t have the time to play a “traditional” MMO or who wants to divide their time between GW2 and a 2nd MMO. (This is the advantage of the Buy to Play payment model.)

The only thing that really baffles me is that people always sound surprised that GW2 doesn’t have raiding or much of an end game scene. I always thought that ArenaNet was rather up front about those things. Now I do realize that people who only paid mild attention to GW2 might have missed those important details, but I still find it remarkable that some people came into GW2 expecting a pseudo-WoW formula with Dynamic Events instead of traditional questing.

I know that for the Trait called Leeching Venoms, the Healing amount is based on your +Healing and not that stats of anyone that you share your Venom buffs with.

How does things work with sharing the Spider Venom skill? Is the damage dot value of the Poison procs based solely on your +Condition (which would apply to every player)? Or does it use everyone’s own stat since it’s a shared Skill and not a shared Trait?

While I’m not a big WvW person, my own experience is that its hard to get WvW Tokens. With that in mind, here’s my suggestions.

1) The jumping puzzles do award WvW badges. I’ve heard that many people who are just grinding WvW badges towards their Legendary weapons will just take a stable of alts into the WvW jumping puzzles as a way to grind out their tokens. (These player just do the jumping puzzles for the tokens and avoid the traditional way of getting tokens from WvW kills.)

2) ArenaNet changed it so people who get WvW map completions will now get x10 WvW tokens amongst their rewards. If you’re got new alts who still have mob objectives undiscovered, then this could be another way to get a quick boost in the WvW token area.

3) All of the token farmers swear that +Magic Find is essential to increase the WvW loot bag drop rates. People are getting these bonuses from Guild flags, Food buffs, and a set of +Magic Find gear that they use for farming.

4) Defending a keep can end up giving out a lot of tokens when you’re in active conflicts. I once rushed into a mostly empty keep with a small zerg of about 10-15 people on my heels. Rushing to the top of the wall, I saw that someone had previously built a Boiling Oil weapon over the keep’s gate. Using just that seige weapon, I ended up getting a bunch of WvW loot bags (which appear at your feet when using seige equipment) and got some tokens out of them. If you’re in a highly activate WvW map, this is a viable strategy.

5) Otherwise you’re just going to have to run with a large zerg. Make sure to use as many AoEs as possible to flag the most amount of opponents. If a flagged opponent dies, then they might drop a loot bag for you. It doesn’t even matter if you only did a paper cut’s worth of damage to that opponent and someone else did all of the hard work.

Tanissa.9387:

Yea maybe I just get tired of soloing all the time. Im in a big world where people just run by me constantly going to DE. No one really needs each other it seems at my level everyone out for themselves. Kinda boring sometimes ya know.

Well if that’s your problem with GW2, then you might just be playing the wrong MMO for your personal tastes. One of the key design points for GW2 is that the DE system lets players interact with each other to take down a shared goal while still letting them run around as a soloing player. If you’re the type of player who prefer more formal grouping, then you’re not going to find a lot of it in this game.

People do make formal groups for dungeon runs. Just keep in mind that many of these dungeon grinders are geared out 80th characters who are just token grinding towards being eventually able to acquire a weapon with fancy graphics (and +Stats equal to their current weapons). These people can sometimes be very impatient as they’re speed grinding, so make sure you find yourself a dungeon group who is New Player / Lowbie friendly.

Also in the pseudo-End Game scene, people do have to really work together to deal with the waves of aggravating undead in the Orr zones. The higher you get in the game, the more you encounter DEs that really do have failures. In the Orr zones, there tends to be more non-grouped teamwork for mutual survival. (Or people might group together for the increased loot drop rates, then still run around soloing in the zone.)

Yet one of the key draws for GW2 is its very casual atmosphere. If you’re looking for more of a group focused game that’s oriented towards grinding, then GW2 might not be the best choice for you.

The original version of the Thief in GW2 reminded me about my old EQ2 days.

In that game, you have a few different “Thief” family classes that could full under the GW2 Thief heading. EQ2 has a melee AoE class who debuffed a mob’s offense, a single target melee class who can debuff a mob’s defense so low that the mob takes insane damage, and a melee glass cannon spike dps class. While there were many people playing the debuffing “Thief” classes since they were useful in many situations and had high survivability, the major of the “Thief” players were from the spike dps class. These glass cannon characters could do insane mega hits, but would then die in a bloody red cloud if they didn’t have some kind of stealth / aggro drop ability that was currently refreshed. (More often than not, the spike class was known as the “noob” class since its big damage number tended to attract people who cared more about their “highest damaging hit” record than they did about party sustainability.)

GW2 Thief builds can follow any of the x3 class paths that I just described.

1) We’ve already seen a 15% damage nerf to the melee AoE damage path (using the Sword / Pistol combination).

Now the only thing left to do is to someone handle the “Boom! Head Shot!” version of the GW2 Thief.

2) We had our Signet which did +50% Damage on the next hit changed into +15% on the next x5 hits. This reduced the alpha strike hit capability of the Thief (which is the common PvP complaint) and it made the Signet skill viable for a lot more Thief builds.

3) The Dagger remains the only problematic weapon to deal with since its skills are the ones that are causing all of the problems. In the Dagger Nerf v1.0, the Dagger #2 (Heart Seeker) leaping attack was changed from giving a hefty damage bonus at 50% mob / player health to giving the damage bonus at 25% mob / player health.

4) At this present time, the ArenaNet devs are looking at the Dagger’s special “attacking from Stealth” attack. This melee attack does a higher than normal amount of damage and its damage is doubled if you hit someone from the side or rear. I think every Thief is expecting it to get nerfed down. No one knows if it will get changed into another useful skill (like the Signet) or if it will just remain the same while getting its dps output gutted.

5) The final and eternal complaint about the Thief is the fact that they can go into Stealth. While we’ve got a few Stealth abilities with cool downs, the Dagger #5 melee attack can proc a short Stealth if it hits your target. When this is combined with ArenaNet’s server rendering issues that often make people invisible for a few seconds when they first come into the view of your character, a Stealth based Thief in PvP can sometimes act as if permanently chain Stealthed between their actual abilities and the rendering bug. Once ArenaNet gets the rendering issue ironed out (which doesn’t help the Thief against PvE mob AI), we’ll just have to deal with the cliche and expected complaints about Stealth.

All things considered, the Thief does have some interesting options and the ArenaNet devs have been trying to subtlely get the Thief community’s feedback about what areas of the Thief class could get buffed (under the assumption that the power of the Dagger is going to get a partial or mega nerf). From a PvE point of view, I would personally suggest against making a new Thief that’s built around the Dagger since ArenaNet has already admitted that they’re going to “adjust” it in some kind of way. Yet once you get past the Dagger issues (which is one of the main reasons that many people play Thief character in the first place), there are some unique ways of debuffing and controlling your enemies while also granting your PvE allies Stealth to help them survive.

There have always been complaints on this subject. It happened back during Beta and they’ve continued into the live version.

The fundamental issue is sPvP. It is this setting that the game is balanced around, which is why Venomous Aura is so rediculously hard to get. A well organized sPvP team that is being supported by a Venomous Aura (VA) character is very strong. It’s the common opinion that Venom powers are as weak as they are because VA builds could potentially unbalance the sPvP meta-game. Even with the high investment in Trait points, you still hear about VA builds running around.

If ArenaNet actually put VA in the Deadly Arts or Trickery trees, then many more people would include VA into their character builds. This would throw off the sPvP team meta-game, which is against one of ArenaNet’s unofficial rules of game “balancing”.

While putting it in Shadow Arts is a royal pain, it does make sure that all of the devoted VA builds are going to be running Leeching Venoms (which will be buffed by the +Healing in the Shadow Arts tree). Normally I’ll run x2 Venom power and Shadow Refuge in my Utility slots as a S/P build. Since you can get a T1 Shadow Arts trait to reduce the recast timer on Shadow Refuge, it ends up working out rather nicely as a Support Thief build.

I guess that’s the heart of the matter. If you want to use Venomous Arts, then you have to commit to a support oriented build that will likely have a lower dps output (which will compensate for the dps output buffing that you’re doing to other players and pets). We may not like it, but I can see where ArenaNet is coming from on that issue.

Milky.2816:

now i do have some more questions on them. if i remember correctly, in guild wars 1 i know there were 2 weapons i think twilight and dusk, not sure of the name, but when combined, the weapons changes depending on the time of day. is that the same for some of them on here? also is it random what legendary weapon is created when you create one? like say i want to create a great sword and theres 10 different legendary greatswords in the game. will it be random the one i get or do i get to choose?

1) Each of the Legendary Greatsword recipes require a specific Exotic grade Greatsword and specific ingredients.

2) The starting Exotic versions do have different Greatswords for both Day (aka Dawn) and Night (aka Dusk). If you’re throwing in 76th+ level Yellow / Orange grade Greatswords into the Mystic Forge, then your game clock’s Day / Night cycle will influence which Greatsword you’ll get. (If you do it during the Day, then you can get Dawn as a potential Mystic Forge result. Or at Night, you can get Dusk.)

3) Yes, you can combine the (Legendary) Sunrise and Twilight final Greatsword products together to make a new (Legendary) weapon called Eternity. From what I’ve heard, the graphic will switch back and forth between Sunrise and Twilight to fit the current Day / Night cycle.

All of the specific information about the x3 Legendary Greatswords can be found on the GW2 Wiki page entry (toward the bottom of the page).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary

If you’re running the Signet, then Superior Rune of Lyssa is another option. Instead of an AoE Aegis buff, you wipe off any conditions on your character and you gain EVERY boon type for 5 seconds (before your +Boon Duration kicks in). That would still give you a personal Aegis buff and a whole lot more. Though that’s more for condition removal and self-buffing, which is different from the AoE buffing mentality.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_Lyssa

Kerithlan.1659:

@Wiser with Age:
But do charr constantly reference their ethereal foe while activating skills, acquiring boons or earning achievements?

No, they mostly just reference it when using their Battle Roar racial skill (which got nerfed down into obscurity during the final days of Beta). Battle Roar gives a Charr specific line out of around x4 random choices. “Remeber Ascalon!” “To avenge the Foefire!” “Remember Pyre!” “The Charr need no gods!”

You are correct that the Centaur line spam does cover all races and classes. However the mob populations are about the same and the Charr do have a racial skill that is basically devoted to talking about the events involving the human ghosts. So I think that it starts to balance out in the end.

Kerithlan.1659:

@AliceJutta:There were so many centaurs, everywhere. It… It was horrible. I fear for my sanity.

In the human lands, it’s Centaur spam for infinity. However I’d argue that it still isn’t as bad as the Ghost spam from the Charr lands. Both of these races seem to have an over kill of their “racial enemy” mob type and it really gets old.

This has been brought up before. I did my own Suggestion forum thread a couple of months back on the subject and I’ve seen other threads as well.

From the player feedback that was seen, people believe that the issue with adding a Warrior F1 skill to Banners comes from it being an Environmental Weapon. Anyone could wield the Banner, while Engineers can get away with their own unique F1 mechanics due to how their own class Kit environmental weapons work. However now that I know that Engineers can give their Kit weapons to other people when Downed (due to a specific Trait), I know that this common belief must be incorrect.

I’d love to see an Adrenaline skill on the Banners. If ArenaNet could work something out for Engineers, then I don’t see why they can’t do something similar for Warriors.

To convert a 70’s item to an 80th result, I know that Yellows have to 76+ to create an 80th Exotic. I’m assuming that the same level requirement would apply to your Green drops.

You’ll want a Ranged weapon for dungeons. If you’re running some +Condition gear, then the Longbow is a really nice weapon. However you’re running a Crit build, which is going to be inherently oriented towards the Rifle.

You’re on BP. That’s the issue. I’m on Fergusson’s Crossing, so we’re in the same boat. For your own reference, head over to the WvW forum and take a look at the sticked thread at the top which covers the current WvW’s matches. You’ll see that both of our servers are on the lowest of the low tier rankings. Since we’ve been on the bottom rung for so long, a lot of players have fled our servers for other servers that historically do much better in WvW.

Yes, the 1/week transfers have started (as of Thurs 11/1). In theory, the Guesting system should be implimented in the near future. However I don’t believe that it’s functional yet, which has created a lot of PvE complaints about the needs of the WvW crowd messing up their PvE experience.

Blude.6812:

Now I have to figure out where to get a decent no level requirement gem to add.

There really are none. You’re going to use a +3 Stat gem (or maybe +4 after it’s been Adorned) from the T1 gems and that’s it. The issue is the Back piece since it’s effectively a T1 item, which what is preventing higher tiers of gems from being used. That’s why guilds are always quick to add the Guild Armorer upgrade since that NPC lets you buy 80th Back pieces for a few gold.

1) Traps are pretty much junk. If they could trigger more consistently, have a larger AoE effect range, and actually do something substancial, then they’d be worth using. As it currently stands, I’d only ever use them in a specialized build (which isn’t even viable at this time.) Like everyone has been saying, the only “trap” worth using is Caltrops and it isn’t even a Trap power.

2) Even though I’m running a Venomous Aura (VA) build, I often have a hard time justifying my Venom powers. With all of the paranoia about VA builds in the sPvP environment, Venom powers remain in a quasi-gutted state. If you’re not running a VA spec, then you’d maybe use Spider or Devourer Venom in very specific builds and situations. But beyond that, I’d never use them. Then that doesn’t even begin to touch how I loathe Basilisk Venom. The only reason to even run that Elite as a PvE VA Thief is for grouping situations, but I still only use it them for triggering my Superior Runes of Lyssa (for the condition removal).

3) Right now, I feel like condition removal is a bit of a problem for Thief characters. You either need to take 10 pts in Shadow Arts for a Stealth build, use Hide in Shadows as your heal, or use Shadow Step (which most PvE people will probably refuse to do). Our own Signet power only removes x1 condition, which doesn’t make it the most attractive for condition removal. Beyond that, you’re reduced to Sword #2 spamming for x5 Initiative to remove just a single condition. Since ArenaNet seems to be against introducing more Stealth abilities due to the constant sPvP / WvW complaints about stealthing builds, we really need some other way to get condition removal (aka Burn, Bleed, Poison, Confusion) that doesn’t involve Stealth.

4) I completely agree that Main-Hand Pistol needs a serious buff. Once I unlocked those skills on my Thief and so how ineffective they were, I un-equiped my MH Pistol and never used it again.

karma.8763:

i tried thief…. i love how the thief is….but you die so kitten easy, the class has to beable to solo a mob easily.

If that’s your issue (which is something that I understand since I originally started with melee Warriors as well), then I’d suggest trying out a Thief who uses either Dagger / Pistol or Sword / Pistol. Pistol #5 is Black Powder, which creates an AoE Blind field that constantly reapplies Blind to everyone within the field. Against PvE melee opponents, Black Powder allows for god-like tanking. However Blind is only 10% effective against Champion mobs and Black Powder isn’t good against ranged mobs, which helps to balance things out.

Black Powder spam and auto attacking with your Dagger or Sword is a very viable soloing method. It’s not as flashy as 100 Blades, but it’s far more survivable. Even after the damage nerf, I still prefer S/P due to the options that it grants. Sword #2 can slowly remove conditions if you’re willing to burn through Initative and Combo #3 (Pistol Whip) is still a good choice when you’re dealing with mobs immune to Blind or when you need a quick spike of AoE dps. (Though after the damage nerf, the Sword #1 dps output is about equal or more even a bit more than Combo #3. While it lacks the frontal arc ranged of Combo #3, the Sword’s auto attack arc does reach noticeably farther than the Dagger’s auto attack arc.)

At this time? It’s not worth keeping. Other than using it for Salvage Kit bait, the ring basically has no function beyond helping to gear out a 1st level character.

1) ArenaNet didn’t want to deal with Trade window “scams” which are caused by slight of hand and clicking reaction time. Technically the scammers didn’t do anything illegal, even though they essentially have. In far too many MMOs that I’ve played, Customer Support has always got bogged down by these issues. That’s their officially stated reason for not having a Trade window in GW2.

2) The whole point of the BLTC auction system is to act as a Gold Sink to remove money from the economy as a means of preventing inflation. If ArenaNet were to create a Trade system that was user friendly, then that would encourage people to bypass the BLTC (and thus lead to more currency inflation). As a ripple effect, ArenaNet might then feel compelled to raise the Gold Sink costs on other game aspects like the Waypoint travel system. People already complain that Waypoint travel is far too expensive, so increasing those costs would just cause an even bigger set of problems.

3) Back during Beta, ArenaNet basically said that player to player trades were a complete gamble. If a player did get ripped off through an attempted Mail trade, then ArenaNet wouldn’t feel responsible to help the “scammed” party because that player voluntarily ignored ArenaNet’s anti-scamming system of the BLTC. (The fact that the BLTC imploded for a couple weeks after the game launched is rather ironic after ArenaNet put so much importance on the system during Beta. However now that it’s functional, their original philosophy should apply.) Since the game has gone live, ArenaNet has backpeddled from their original stance and claim that they will “try” to help the injured party. However I still swear that I once saw a dev refering to Mail trades as a game of Russian Roulette. I really think that ArenaNet is claiming to help Mail suckers as a means of PR and not out of a genuine desire to protect people from their own gambles.

RanDaman.8642:

Some say keep others say sell. If you can please give me a legit reason on what I should do with this weapon please post your opinion!

Legendary weapons are essentially giant gold and time sinks. Just check out the Legendary Weapon page on the GW2 Wiki.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary

You’re looking at having to spend 120g in pure cash and around 350 Skill pts (depending on your Mystic Forge results). This doesn’t even get into the karma and material grinding, which is very large.

The only reason to make a Legendary using Dawn is because you have a Greatsword wielding character who likes the appearance and FX animations of Sunrise.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sunrise

Otherwise I’d suggest trying to trade with someone to a different Legendary precursor weapon or just selling Dawn for the cash. I’d personally go with the cash because I don’t care about the “brag” factor of Legendary weapons, but everyone has different tastes in matters like this.

The Warrior and Guardian classses play so differently that it’s hard to make a judgement call like that. I’d say Warrior, but I’m also biased since I already have my own Hammer Warrior.

Per Grimm’s advice, I’d suggest that you look at the Traits and Skills of both options in the sPvP lobby area.

Spifnar.4712:

Is there really so little condition removal that we’re forced to use Hide in Shadows?

Yes, it’s the condition removal problem. Unless you have Shadow’s Embrace (Shadow Arts – 10 pt) and use at least x1 ability that generates Stealth, you’re going to have to “waste” at least x1 skill slot or more for DOT (Bleed, Burn, Poison) removal. Since most people don’t use the Sword (or don’t want to burn through that much Initiative for condition wiping), we’re left with Hide in Shadows as our Heal #6.

We do have some condition removal in our Utility skill slots. However most of the Thief builds that I’ve seen are just starved for Utility skills, so it’s really hard justifying your condition removal in those slots unless those specific skill are exactly what you need. The whole reason that I’m using Superior Runes of Lyssa on my Venomous Aura character is for the condition removal. While the Lyssa’s buffs are nice, it’s conditions that are my main concern.

EDIT

On a side note, I’ve always felt that Hide in Shadows was also pretty much required for any PvE who doesn’t normally use a Stealth generating skill. With all of the various PvE needs for an aggro wiping power, HiS just fullfills too many useful functions for your standard PvE Thief (or a PvP / WvW Stealth build).

If depends if you value Dagger #5 or Pistol #5 more. Dagger gives you Stealth, while the Pistol lets you spam AoE Blind fields. My personal choice is S/P since I like being able to use either Black Powder or Pistol Whip to fit the given situation. However there does seem to be a growing popularity for S/D.

The tokens and pieces are supposed to be Account Bound. While some of them were Character Bound at one point, I believe that they’ve all been corrected since that time.

My understanding is that the Legendary is Soulbound on Equip, which means that people can even sell the final product on the BLTC auction system.

Southern Lord.7254:

Slightly off-topic, but where can I fin dinformation about Legendary Items? Is there anywhere in game? Or just use a Wiki?

You’d really need to use the GW2 Wiki unless you wanted to drive yourself insane as you hunted for the countless bread crumbs of information.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Legendary

The only reasons to get a Legendary weapon are for the “brag factor” and because you like its special graphics effects. ArenaNet has always been up front about their intent on making people jump through hoops for items that have “style”, which is very different from a more traditional MMO philosophy about having people insanely grind for an extremely minor +Stat increase.

Yes, the whole process is a Gold Sink. However ArenaNet has created this Gold Sink in a way that people are happy to do voluntarily, which would make me consider it to be a successfully designed Gold Sink.

If you never had to worry about needing spike healing and there was no one else in the party who was granting +Regeneration, then the Banner healing technically heals a bit more (assuming that your Banners aren’t getting destroyed). Banner healing does use 100% of your +Healing score, instead of the Shout’s 80% of your +Healing score.

People use Shouts because it’s a pain to always have a non-destroyed Banner out while also making sure that no one else is negating your “healing” output by using their own Regeneration abilities. Then since you’re not using Shouts, you won’t get the free AoE conditional removal from your Superior Runes of the Soldier. Nor will you have the AoE buffs of FGJ, the stun removal of SIO, or the Vulnerability stacks from OMT.

Yes, you can use Banner healing. Techincally speaking it’s a bit better if people are ALWAYS damaged and in need of the slow healing dot from the Regeneration buff. Having said that, those are a lot of limiting circumstances without a lot of return.

Justine.6351:

Wouldnt mace mainhand be good for its maintainable weakness and its block skill?

With no Traits and no +Condition Duration, only the Mace will be able to have Weakness up 100% of the time. Now once you’re figuring on having Defense 20 pts, it starts to get closer (though you’d still need some +Condition Duration for the Hammer).

If you’re normally going to just use the #1 auto attack on the Mace, then it’s a nice source of Weakness. It also has a Block and a Daze, which makes it a good technical weapon. Also another reason to use the Mace is because you want a specific weapon in your Off-Hand slot (such as the Warhorn or Shield).

The Hammer can use Weakness, but I wouldn’t consider that to be its main function. Also the Hammer #2 move (for the Weakness) has a bit of an animation time delay. You character winds up, then sweeps the Hammer in a frontal arc. While you can cast Hammer #2 while moving to make it so that the animation ends when you’re next to your target, the time delay can cause you to miss on occassion. I’d say the main reason to use the Hammer for Weakness is when you’re probably not going to auto attack with your melee weapon for most of the time.

I have a Hammer AoE control character and a Mace / Warhorn AoE buffing Shout character. Both have at least 20 pts in Defense, but they have very different goals and go about reaching them in their own ways.

While this won’t help for the part about needing an immediate solution, there are also some interesting Mystic Forge recipe bows beyond the Legendary one. Unfortunately most of these are costing a boat load of Mystic Coins.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items

Oddly enough, I’m only seeing Shortbow entries listed. If anyone has discovered a Longbow recipe, it looks like they’ve not posted it (or I simply missed it when I was skimming through).

Armor is fine up until it’s Broken (aka Falling Off). As long as it’s still just Damaged, then there is no real difference in the protection value that it’s giving you.

1) That is their Guild’s abbreviation (which can technically be far different from the guild’s actual name).

2) In theory, the Personal Story should be done as you level up. However I prefer to do a chain of those quests at a time. Therefore I may wait 3 or 5 levels, then go back and do a handful of Personal Story missions in a row. Keep in mind that you’ll get a lot of +XP points towards your next level from these missions, which means that it will be harder to level up if you’re not using them.

3) There is a Guild forum at the bottom of the forum choices on this website. That’s one place that you can look for a guild. Beyond that, just pay attention to the people that you’re playing around. If you’re enjoying how you’re randomly playing well with someone through a few Dynamic Events, then send them a Private Message (PM) and ask them about their guild.

4) That’s a VERY subjective question. For someone brand new to MMOs, you’ll want a “Newbie Friendly” guild ASAP. Since you don’t understand how MMOs think, you’ll end up asking some really “dumb” questions. They aren’t dumb for a new MMO player, but the answers are usually common sense things for a MMO veteran. By being part of an active guild, it’s like being part of a living library of MMO information.

Having said that, MMO veterans really don’t “need” a guild in GW2. They can be nice, but they’re not the most required. Once you get more comfortable with GW2, you could always go solo (if that’s more your speed).

5) “Looking for 1 More for the Twilight Arbor dungeon. This is an XP grinding run.” There is probably a MMO slang dictionary someone on the web. However people usually organize those messages by the # of people that they still need (or the specific classes that they want), where they want to go, and want kind of dungeon run (aka Story Mode or one of the x3 Explorable Mode routes) they want to have.

JumpingWarfish.1674:

Thanks so far guys.

After some thought, I realized that I didn’t give the Charr a fair presentation because of one key factor. This is a Background question about who’s your Warband “BFF”. You can pick between x6 different characters, each of whom is a different character class. Unlike the throw away Human question about Gods, the Charr question actually matters because your chosen Warband pal will actually help you out. For those early Charr personal story missions, you’ll be accompanied by a NPC pet (aka your Warband pal) who will help you complete the mission.

All things considered, the Charr missions really made me feel like I was part of a disfunctional family. That feeling hasn’t really translated in the Human and Asura races that I’ve played. Your NPC will fight using all of their associated profession’s abilities, can draw / hold aggro, and will even make verbal comments on the fly.

From the Charr forum, it seems clear that most of us like two specific choices (which were my favorite NPCs as well). Choice #1 is Dinky the Guardian and Choice #2 is Reeva the Engineer. For my Warrior, I felt that Reeva’s skills really helped to give me the support that I was missing. Then for my Engineer, I really appreciated shooting through Dinky’s combo fields and his tanking abilities. Both of them even have interesting personalities. Reeva likes to crack jokes and make verbal quips like she was in some kind of action movie. Dinky seems to be channeling the spirit of Minsk from the Baldur’s Gate game, meaning that he’s an amusing idiot savant who has surprising moments of insight.

When you finish up your Charr story line part and enter the phase where you are sent to Lion’s Arch, it was kind of sad. I’d grown fond of my NPC pals, yet I was now told that I’d never see them again (unless I stopped by my Home Instance). While it may have been ArenaNet’s way of foreshadowing how they would treat you throughout the story line, it still kind of stung a bit.

I’m kind of the opposite. For some reason, I feel compelled to make x2 characters for each class that I’ve played. While I’m usually quite satisfied with Character #1, then are always so many things that I can’t fit into that build. This leads me to make Character #2 to use everything that I can’t use the 1st time around.

While you can always try out a brand new class, keep in mind that playing another character of one of your existing professions could feel very different if you make other design choices.

1) Pseudo-heals do not trigger Rune set effects. Only the #6 Heal button will trigger those benefits. Adding bonus heals or +Regeneration onto other effects won’t count.

2) For a Warrior, the only thing that +Healing skips is the Adrenal Health (Defense – 15 pt) trait. That trait heals a set amount that is determined by your Character Level and your current Adrenaline Tier.

3) For your Vigorous Shouts trait, you apply either 70% or 80% of your +Healing score. (I think that it’s 80%.) All things considered, a Shout build does get a nice return for investing in +Healing through items like the Cleric’s gear pieces (though using all Cleric’s will mean that you have a very low dps output).

4) Yes, your +Healing score affects things like the +Regeneration boon. However the pay out for that boon depends on where you’re getting it from. If you’re getting them from the Banner trait (Tactics – 30 pt), then it applies 100% of your +Healing score. However that situation is more of the exception and not the general rule for +Regeneration. Normally classes get around a 20% benefit from +Healing (which we could access through power like Banner of Tactics).