Guild Wars 2

We had a queue for EB last night on SBI. I was so happy.

Tier 4 SBI checking in. We’ve still been upgrading our holdings, but that’s because we only trail CD by 4.5k points (when I logged last night).

To be honest, the only useful bonuses are the ones that reduce siege and NPC damage. You can easily max those out. 520 WXP points for +5 supply? No thanks.

Agreed.

I understand people want to show of their titles, but what it is right now is visual pollution.

Flamenco.3894:

As a warrior I love it

Do you feel it was deserved?

Kinda wish mug was also nerfed. +1 sec revealed doesn’t change much for me except for the fact that I can’t be lazy and auto-attack camp supervisors to death by daze-locking them.

I still eat warriors and guardians for breakfast.

Xsorus.2507:

You will not land stealth every 3 seconds on the dot everytime…Unless you’re chaining stealth over and over again with CnD which most didn’t.

Yes and no to this comment. It depends on how many targets you have around you. If you’re doing a 1v1 or a 1v2, landing a CnD is quite challenging if your opponents are actually moving. In a larger fight or in tight environments (I’m look at you Pangloss camp and passages to SM castle lord), it’s pretty easy to hit something in melee range.

For those complaining about S/D and how you can no longer perma-daze someone if you “play skillfully” by sticking to them in melee range: Tactical strike daze is 2s and a sigil of paralyzation should only be a 15% buff (i.e. 2.3 seconds, which is pretty much 2 seconds). I guess that sigil is still broken because it adds a full second to the daze. Daze-locking was always a bug and it would have been fixed sooner or later.

Dual.8953:

bhagwad.4281:

As a mesmer, I’m happier with the longer duration of revealed. More time for me to target and damage.

They can still chain stealth off you, you know. In fact this patch encourages it.

I think I just might start doing this, but you really can’t kill anyone with CnD and it gets dull after a while. Completely useless in a small group fight. However, I’m glad that the devs did not implement their original plan of revealed no matter how you leave stealth. My D/P primary weapon set is saved.

Also, whatever happened to the shatter damage nerf mesmers were going to get now that GS auto pierces?

As a thief with only 10 points in the precision tree, I hope the rest of you enjoy keeping your fingers crossed for a crit on backstab like me. Until the bug is fixed, of course.

Thorp.7982:

From a WvW perspective, play a Thief if you like to solo roam or play in small groups. Otherwise there isn’t much reason to be one compared to other classes. They’re fun though, and if that’s enough reason for you to play one, go for it.

In a large zerg fight, particularly if you’re taking an objective, clusterbomb spamming into water fields/rangers’ healing springs will give allies healing in addition to regeneration. Useful if you’re ramming some gates while the defenders are dumping everything they can on your guys.

Also shortbow auto attack bounces and fires quickly enough. It can stack up a decent amount of damage in a bigger fight with enemies clumped together.

Syprus Soulslayer.1640:

1. Make thieves not able to restealth when attacking ( if stealth is the only means of defense then make it primarly a defense utility not a way to troll other players ) up their initial burst / stealth dmg and be done with it.

This pigeonholes all thieves into a D/D glass cannon build. S/D and P/D depend on constant stealth and stealth attacks. This suggestion is a crutch for poor players to counter the entire thief class, as it leaves only one viable build. If your idea is used, anyone who sees a thief in the field will know exactly the type of build he is running, what skills he will use, and plan accordingly.

Could I trouble you to link the gear and build you use? It seems you get a lot of burst on your S/D whereas the set feels slow and clunky when I run it.

I think it’s silly that you can come across catapults stacked right by the wall to a keep, which you can’t use, because the opposing servers built them. Or a bunch of flame rams in front of a gate which are unusable because you didn’t build them. I think siege should be server-neutral in the sense that anyone can take control of unoccupied equipment. It also slows down the karma train zergs marginally if they don’t want the risk of their own seige being used against them.

Put the onus to clear siege on those who build them.

Can we please make a new thread?

QQ that is all.

Edit: discussion below relates to WvW.

FKNrocked.7421:

look up slayer build on youtube I guess, probably wont be worth it in a few days tho just warning you again

I believe this is the build in question: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/17zx77/slayer_ultimate_wvw_daggerpistol_thief/

This is also the build I use with some slight modifications because I am too cheap to pay for scholar runes, so I run ruby orbs instead. The rings she uses aren’t full zerker rings – they substitute 18 precision for 18 vitality. It’s up to you to decide if 360 extra HP is worth giving up 2% more critical chance. I was also too cheap to use omnomberry pies even before the nerf, but Bowl of Meat and Winter Vegetable Stew is a nice alternative that synergizes well with the Feline Grace trait.

With the supposed change to stealth (i.e. Revealed when you exit stealth regardless of whether you’ve dealt damage), you may want to change the offhand weapon set to shortbow instead of S/D as the guide above indicates. D/P’s strength is independent stealth chaining, which doesn’t necessarily mean perma stealth. It was great as an escape mechanism because you could BP + HS once, run, and do it again when you leave stealth. A better escape now might just be Blinding Powder (utility) and then Infiltrator’s Arrow to gtfo from a fight.

Mister Mustard.7203:

I’m guessing that they actually sat down and went over every repercussion they could think of with the change. While I’m sure they didn’t come up with every single one, I would think the effect on certain builds would certainly have been discussed at length. If they’re putting the change in, logically what do you think they’re saying about those builds?

…

There will probably be some tweaks in other areas to compensate, and you may have new, viable options if you give them a chance. Let’s wait and see before we jump off a bridge?

I have no issues changing my playstyle. However, if the new viable options require gear that is significantly different in stats to what the “current” build options use, then I will be extremely displeased. Some items, like amulets using laurels, are limited in how rapidly they can be acquired. Even if it’s normal exotic gear, that’s time spent doing something I don’t enjoy (farming). It’s bad enough that we already have power creep with Ascended items.

This build looks fun, but I’m wondering how effective it would be in WvW when you’re not contesting a capture point like in sPvP. I do expect zerg diving to be pretty effective, but on a smaller scale would P/D work better (i.e. both being condition builds).

Edit: title says PvP, I feel foolish now. Still curious though

If time is not a constraint, then having more alts equates to earning more money in the long run.

I’ve never tried a condition build, but there are a few that seem interesting (mesmer confusion stacking being one of them). Here’s my question though – does power matter for condition builds? On the wiki it says that only the condition damage stat affects my DPS output, so hypothetically my damage should be okay if I end up with 1200 power and 1600 condition damage?

I’m sorry if this is a noob question. I’m just looking for some Internet reassurance/confirmation before I commit a lot of gold to new gear. Thanks!

Thanks for the advice all! I think I will spend my time tonight looking for enemy thieves to practise my CnD dodging. Here’s hoping it won’t end up being too expensive

Nex.2450:

Something that you can do right off the bat is make sure to have traits blind on stealth, and remove conditions while in stealth activated. The blinds will make it much harder for the opponent to land C&D, and the constant condition removal will nullify most of their damage.

…

They can do this by:
C&D off surrounding NPC’s.

With the build I linked above, I’d have to sacrifice one of the following for blind on stealth: initiative gain on stealth or regen in stealth traits. Seeing as how black powder + HS burns a lot of initiative, would you recommend ditching the regen?

The second part usually isn’t an issue. I lead the fight away from areas with mobs when fighting thieves (learned from all the D/D ones I fought). I’d like to remove the terrain advantage that they have when I can

I will learn to dodge that CnD. You’d think that for something with such a long animation it’d be easier to notice…

kenshinakh.3672:

You can also counter P/D with GC D/D. P/D thieves are still squishy and hitting a P/D thief with a D/D burst can kill them or cause them to retreat as quickly as possible.

A friend of mine plays a P/D condition thief as part of a havoc squad. He’s told me he has 2600 toughness and 16,000 HP. I don’t believe P/D’s are built squishy.

kirito.4138:

S/D or S/P has can immobilize a P/D preventing them from CnD.

Many people swear by S/D but the setup just feels clunky to me. The auto attack hits harder but feels slower, and Sword 2 immobilize is only 1 second. I’m actually not a fan of the skill because it becomes useless for 12 seconds when it’s on Shadow Return mode (or whatever it’s called). Use it once, and I’m out of gap closers until the weapon swap cooldown is up.

Thanks for the input so far. Perhaps it’s just an experience issue, since I don’t meet all too many P/D thieves, and the ones I do meet are really annoying to fight (more so than D/D).

Just wanted to pick the Thief subforum’s brains on how to counter those pesky P/D builds. I run a D/P build myself:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAoa8YlYmiOHfy9E+5ExWhdy9wpGtpdPwqV1KA

Gear-wise, I use a mix of zerker and knights armour with ruby orbs for 13,805 HP (usually 14,500 after world buffs), 2100 power, 45% crit rate, 76% crit damage, and 2616 armour. I use hardened sharpening stones and the 80% dodge food (because I am poor lol).

I run most fights in D/P because it’s got a nice burst and an excellent interrupt with Pistol 4. I don’t use S/D much unless I’m fighting a tankier class like the guardian or necro where bursting isn’t as effective as harassing them.

That being said, I’ve always found P/D builds especially hard to play against since they can kite me from far away, and CnD off me once I close the gap. I’d like some advice on how to deal with such thieves as I just run away currently (not worth the headache to fight), but it always leaves a sour taste behind.

If possible, a change in my play-style would be most welcome since I am poor and re-gearing is expensive :P

Xsorus.2507:

I’m actually kind of amused you think its QQing over population..

Since there as none of that to be had.

Pointing out that the reason servers win matches in World vs World cause of population isn’t QQing, its stating a fact….Last week we won for that reason, Unless you magically think we’re just better players then IoJ and DR.

Thinking its funny that some person bragging about taking half a map in a match he/she has already won cause he/she is upset about someone /laughing at them is the other amusing part of this thread.

I think any discussion of population is moot because everyone is aware of the “facts” and issues. It contributes nothing positive or constructive. Instead, it invites bickering and fosters animosity.

saiyr.3071:

Nobody is, or ever was, saying that it mattered with respect to the outcome of this match. But whatever, let’s move on.

I agree. Are we really going to start QQing over population like the DR forum warriors we had to deal with for the past three weeks? I thought we were better than that.

2 zerker rings, cavalier backpiece, zerker amulet and I have an increase of 5% crit damage. Bad deal.

I can see there being a difference once the whole set is available though, but as it currently sits there is no difference. I still die a lot.

jazzllanna.1278:

2nd day in a tougher match up and we are outmanned on EB and no commander lol. Where as last week almost every day eb had a queue and a commander on most maps (even if I never heard of them before). Nice SBI, Fair weather people left quicker than I expected. Oh well so it goes.

Convince more of your guild to join in! Last month it used to be just me in wvw, nowadays we usually have enough for a full party. Progress is being made.

GuardianOMS.8067:

Empress is the feminine title for… never mind.

My apologies. You know, Many Men Online Role Playing Girls, so I defaulted to the incorrect assumption.

GuardianOMS.8067:

loneknight.8425:

please please please try not to kill me

World vs World vs World
Maguuma vs Crystal Desert vs Storm Bluff Isle

No.

They don’t call him Sgt. Killjoy for nothing.

Pinko.2076:

What is SBI’s prime time usually?

Now

Looks like [Kiwi] is gonna be busy tonight

Edit: I am not a [Kiwi]. Just commenting/hoping lol.

They don’t like us. Just deal with it (all parties involved).

LordByron.8369:

Yams.6082:

People also need to learn to interrupt the thief stealth heal. Hide in Shadows has a one-second channel.

are you suggesting that 1 second channel is reactable in an online mmorpg?

Well, I try to interrupt any heals that I see, especially in a small-scale fight. 1 second is actually a long time. Unless I’m rolling in a sizeable group I don’t even bother with the Warrior’s hammer 5 skill because the cast time is so long.

I agree that latency is an issue. But if your connection speed isn’t as strong then that should affect all of your skills – not just the interrupts – and consequently your overall performance.

Per the wiki fleet shadow is bugged and thieves do not get a 50% speed buff: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fleet_Shadow. Can we clear up this misconception?

I agree that thieves using CnD on mobs end up being very annoying. However, there is nothing wrong with using class mechanics and the environment to one’s advantage. Should we nerf Fear in WvW because fighting a necro near a cliff means getting feared off?

People also need to learn to interrupt the thief stealth heal. Hide in Shadows has a one-second channel and the thief glows blue. It’s very obvious. Mesmer pistol 5, shatter 3, GS 5, Focus 4 will interrupt it. Warrior hammer F1 and physical utilities will also interrupt it. Thief pistol 4 will interrupt it. I can’t comment on any other class because these are the ones that I play. You can also interrupt the heartseeker combo that D/P thieves use (obvious because once you see the black powder circle, the next move will be a heartseeker for stealth).

Maladon.5760:

That might end up being a good fight. I don’t think we’ll win necessarily because CD has a very active off-peak presence but it’ll be interesting. I don’t know much about Maguuma so we’ll have to see how the numbers compare once things get going. At least it’s a new matchup.

Looks like [Kiwi] has their work cut out for them

Gab Superstar.4059:

CD passed EB who are less than two rating points from moving down now.

Let’s hope our numbers stay at current levels, we’ll stand a fighting chance.

Why does DR QQ all the time about coverage and numbers? What do you want us to do about it, not play?

Kyuzo.4675:

It would be best to have it on the BL where the host server is not contested much since the host server has the farthest to travel. So that means SBI borderlands southcamp windmill should be fine.

Can we make this a regular thing? (i.e. certain time period, this location = fight club)

Creepy Silent.9801:

lol isnt that the thief from MoW? I’ve seen him and his guild of thieves, I can see why they would be mad at m black, hes just too bsty.

Imagine that guild of thieves all running Thieves Guild as an elite

I can sympathize with the vocal DR minority that’s clamouring for open field fights. Having spent the past few weeks first against SoR and TC, and then against Yak’s and CD, we know that it sucks to PvDoor your own borderlands back every day and seeing your forces repeatedly wiped by the opponents’ much larger ones.

I think that once we’ve had our fill of winning again (it’s been a long fall for us from T1), you’ll see more roaming groups and less zerging. I doubt anyone is in a hurry to go back up to T4. However, I don’t believe that forcing the issue by implying SBI WvW players are a skill-less bunch with a mob mentality is productive. People laugh in map chat whenever another post shows up complaining about our numbers. If anything, I think it encourages us to zerg more.

KinkyGiraffe.4123:

Still lots of great fights, gettin real sick of SBI trebbing our towers and keeps from the safety of their on keep/tower i.e the whole push on our keep tonight, you guys can get through outer wall a breeze, but once you dont have walls protecting your trebs, cant do too much to us.

I’m confused – is SBI supposed to build trebs in an open field?

Fallout.1798:

Why is Warr Machine coming to our server? Of all places, to DR. Why?

Where/from whom did you hear this from?

That being said, just played some of the best WvW against DR for the past hour or so (SBI native here, since headstart). When I left we got the outmanned buff on our own borderlands.

Props to DR for their multi-pronged assault – it was great fun defending.

Unknown.

Nobody wipes a zerg better than that guy.

Johje Holan.4607:

Wait, what? You can make a party with the enemy?

Yeah I’m wondering about that too. Whenever I click on an enemy the only option I get is Report.

Dutch Master.7208:

Yams.6082:

Nope. I am happy this game finally has one activity with substantial farming rewards. Ever farm for charged lodestones? Now that’s something that doesn’t scale well with time and effort spent.

So you agree with me! The “farming rewards” from CoF path 1 are vastly superior to every other dungeon path in the game. I’m glad we could see eye to eye.

Yams.6082:

Now I’m going to go run CoF p1 multiple times on both my warrior and mesmer, since the updates on DR mean I get more tokens now. Maybe after gearing up my alts I can even convert leftovers to ectos.

best of luck to you! I hope you have fun.

No, I feel the rewards for CoF p1 are balanced. My expression of satisfaction with the reward level for CoF p1 does not imply I agree with your opinion that the rewards are imbalanced. My personal view is that CoF p1 should be the norm, and other paths should receive a boost that award speed runners (done within the bounds of the game, without glitching, like CoF p1) with even greater returns.

Seems to me like you’re not getting a slice of the pie because you don’t play a warrior or mesmer.

Dutch Master.7208:

Yams.6082:

I do not agree with you.

You are lying to yourself.

Nope. I am happy this game finally has one activity with substantial farming rewards. Ever farm for charged lodestones? Now that’s something that doesn’t scale well with time and effort spent.

Now I’m going to go run CoF p1 multiple times on both my warrior and mesmer, since the updates on DR mean I get more tokens now. Maybe after gearing up my alts I can even convert leftovers to ectos.

Dutch Master.7208:

Why can CoF badges be turned in for high level rares?
Its an absolute goldmine for the path 1 farmers who salvage them for ectos to sell.

People run CoF p1 for the money drops. Token DR hits pretty hard after the first couple of runs. And really, if the entire party swaps to alts to maximize token rewards then I admire their dedication.

Dutch Master.7208:

I think we can all agree that the rewards are not equal to the required time/effort/difficulty for this particular dungeon path.

I do not agree with you.

That is a terrific idea. I fully support it. As a mesmer whose only purpose is a portal and time warp bot, I now have the added usefulness to stealing that buff and spreading it to those 4 zerker warriors. Now we can finish in 5 minutes instead of 7

Wethospu.6437:

Updates forces you to take care of your teammates and that’s a good thing.
And I run mostly with pugs.

A good group already focuses on bringing downed people back. Pre-update, it was possible to work with a couple of not-so-competent players without having the run become a significant time sink.

The point that I’m trying to illustrate is, barring a few good souls, there is a disincentive for most to take inexperienced party members because of the increase in expected completion time. The amount of preparation (which itself is ludicrous in a game touted to be good, casual fun) becomes irrelevant if new players are not taken along on runs.

Wethospu.6437:

If bad player drags whole team down that’s absolutely fantastic. That’s exactly how it should be.
I find the whole idea absurd that you can quite freely carry bads in your team. How is that supposed to be challenging?

What if someone is new and doesn’t know the mechanics? Let me anticipate some of your rebuttals:
1) The team can res. Have you tried reviving a player from defeated? Takes kittening ages, not to mention the very noticeable 1-second lag when you hit dodge. More often than not, a defeated player stays defeated. This is especially relevant when the boss is at low health because it is much more efficient to burst the boss down and res after.
2) Reset the boss. Which group will reset a boss halfway through so one player can run back? You won’t get this in a pug, and I am even reluctant to do this in a guild run.

This waypoint update imposes a utilitarian mindset to dungeon runs where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. One person is defeated? 4-man the boss, it’s faster to kill and subsequently res. Four people is defeated? Last guy needs to either die or reset because he won’t be of use by himself.

I love taking new (or bad, to help them improve) people through dungeons. I play on SBI, and the more people I can help gear out and move to WvW the better. However, I only have a certain amount of time I can play and my priority is to maximize my own utility. Because each run with inexperienced players take longer, I have a disincentive to take them.

If you have a consistent dungeon group and manage to res all downed players, I applaud your fortune. This update does not affect you in any way. In that sense, you should be indifferent if the patch was reversed.

The same thing happened to me in AC with Kohler. A party member went down in the water, and I jumped in to res her. Kohler was probably on the last 5% of his HP bar, and I still didn’t get anything.

On a completely unrelated note, I know of OP from in-game in the sense that we are both non-representing members of the same guild. I just wanted to share

1) Remove the delay from dodging while ressing.
2) Improve the speed of ressing a defeated player.
3) Give a free WP to the first time you enter the instance (I disconnect sometimes. I feel it is unfair to be punished for something that is completely out of my control.)

Developers,

The negative feedback you’re receiving is because you’ve taken away something that affects the difficulty (read: increases) of ALL dungeons whilst only adjusting for some. On this note, I have a few suggestions for future updates:

1) Please speed up the reviving of dead players. I am not a programmer, but I’m sure that somewhere in the code is a line that says (if reviving defeated player, X health per second per reviver). Just make it 2X, although X^2 would be greatly appreciated

2) The transition from reviving to dodging. Others have mentioned the significant delay due to the stand-up animation. If we are to constantly revive players, then we need to know that as soon as we hit that dodge key our toons will haul kitten .

3) This is a general suggestion on future updates that remove features – please give us something that balances out whatever it is you’ve removed. This is distinct from patches that fix bugs, as bugs were never an intended feature. With this dungeon update, you’ve decided that something shipped at launch did not suit your fancy and removed it without introducing anything to fill the void.

Furthermore, you yourselves have acknowledged that mob and boss behaviour in dungeons need work. WP zerging was one way of dealing with these encounters, and here we stand with no fix to the problems and having lost a method of coping.

Thanks for reading.