Guild Wars 2

Banish.

Mighty Blow is close second. Simple, good sound, cool particle effect, great damage, blast finisher… great.

Thieves’ Guild is pretty OP for 1v1, unless you’re fighting AoE heavy classes, which is… everyone? Basi Venom is bad, but it at least doesn’t something. Dagger Storm is just here to reflect the 19 million rangers in WvW.

Nike.2631:

TexZero.7910:

runeblade.7514:

I disagree.

Self rooting melee skills is for the high risk and high reward which is needed for skill based games.

Meanwhile “Rapid Fire” exist and is basically a mobile, ranged version of Hundred Blades.

Risk, Reward ?

Tell ya what — I’ll swap you Rapid Fire + the dumb-as-rocks pet/medium armor/medium HP for your HB + a class mechanic that actually works/high armor/high HP and see if you feel the exchange is equitable. If you want the class as a whole, roll a Ranger, but you can’t take the skills one at a time. Sorry.

You don’t want that, honey. Glassbow Ranger is stronger than Zerker Warrior.

MrForz.1953:

What’s the deal with greatswords?

I wanna be Cloud!

But seriously, fast paced acrobatic “swordsmaster” type would be pretty cool in my book.

P/P, venoms… yeah, prepare to get disappointed even more when you start competing with other people for the PvE spot or in PvP.

DeceiverX.8361:

Risen.1360:

I personally would love a rifle, with weapon skills to imitate a sniper rifle. Sniper rifles, although a heavy weapon, are silent and deadly. I think Thieves fit the description of ‘silent and deadly’ too. I’d expect a 800-1000 range on most of the rifle skills. The auto attack dealing moderate damage (850-1200), a cc (possibly a knockback) or immobilize, a shoot-and-stealth skill similar to the ranger’s, aoe poison or blind is an option as well.

Ever shoot a .50 cal?

Without high-end ear protection, you will not hear for around 12-15 hours because they are so loud. Silent or even remotely quiet “sniper” rifles by concept are made up by the media; most “sniper rifles” seen in this light are just low-caliber hunting rifles.

This is why they’re so un-fitting to thieves. The weapons make quite literally no sense whatsoever for them to have, seeing as their use at such long ranges would also inhibit any kind of stealing/burglary.

A flintlock pistol is pretty loud too. It really doesn’t matter.

If you want a “lore” explanation that much, remember that Thieves use Denial magic, which serves to manipulate time and space, so making things silent or invisible is totally possible for them.

Zero Day.2594:

There’s a rumor floating around on reddit that we will be getting a torch/focus.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2ydzfk/i_spoke_to_colin_for_45_minutes_at_the_community/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2ydw3c/pax_east_dev_talk/

The thing that scares me the most is:

“When asked what profession’s specialization a developer was most excited for his initial response was Thief (he mains warrior and is still excited for warrior)”

I REALLY hope it’s not a torch/focus.

I’ve heard a rumor that Thief is getting dual-wield hammers. Of course my source isn’t as reliable as THE REDDIT.

CMF.5461:

Guardian Virtues are almost worthless unless you trait them.

Might + Blind +Vulnerability = VoJ

Condition Cleanse + Burst Heal + Regeneration = VoR

Block + Protection = VoC (stability and/or burst heal if you trait for it, but not many do)

VoC is probably our most situational and least well utilized active virtue.

VoJ gets plenty of useage, and VoR has good group utility.

All of the above synergize extremely well with self healing via Altruistic Healing if you are in a group environment that needs it (wvw)

The passives are really unflattering and I feel they should be given a second look

VoJ and VoR passives are okay. VoC’s Aegis every 72 days is less useful, yeah.

Ivonbeton.6814:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Shiyo.3578:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Thief isn’t bad, people are just upset that you can’t spike someone down the way you used to. It actually takes a little more skill to fight. You have a crap ton of evades, blinds, interrupts, and easy access to stealth. Once you learn how to use those it is almost impossible to die in a 1v1 fight.

Thief is intentionally designed to be the worst 1v1 class in the game by the devs.

If this is true they failed miserably…

I’d like to think this is true when talking about two players of equal skill with neither player having the element of surprise. Thief could potentially drag out fights and be a real nuissance, but the lack of sustain combined with the fact that you can’t simply burst people anymore have made it so that you can’t go toe to toe with a lot of classes/builds. Having decent in-combat mobility won’t do you any good in a prolonged fight with a lot of AoE cripple and conditions, especially considering the lack of condition removal. That’s why D/P and resetting of fights is so popular, it’s the best way for a Thief to contribute.

It’s still a good class though, the utility and unique gameplay it brings make it more than worthwile. A good thief picks a fight he can win, but that rarely means aggressing into a straight up 1v1 without some trick or strategy in mind.

That’s actually true. Thief is used in PvP for it’s mobility and decapping potential. A Thief is not a good “fighter” in sPvP. WvW is a different matter.

All Thief is really used for is decapping. It can’t even attempt to fight against certain builds. The very nature of Thief is spamming his most powerful abilities and relying on cheese like permastealth, permablind or permadodge. You can’t just take it away without ruining the whole profession completely.

swinsk.6410:

Great sword fits thief better than staff but I’ll take either.

I played Daoc 2h shadowblade. Was fun.

I’d also take offhand axe. Sword/axe. No clue what styles to suggest but it’s raw dps not condi…

PA with a huge kitten 2H axe was fun, I want that in GW2 too.

Virtues are incredibly strong even when soloing when traited. Not so much otherwise.

I hope he brings some more fresh meat to slaughter with my medi Guard. I mean to enjoy the game with.

He will probably get bored, because PvE in GW2 is nowhere near WoW’s level. When he realizes there’s nothing to do in this game but zerg or sPvP he will go back to WoW.

A 01616 medi Guard can provide a good amount of support as well. Overall, it depends on your enemy composition, but a bunker guard deals absolutely no damage, while other bunkers do. I’d say a medi Guard is overall better in these grim days of Celestial meta Might stackers.

Why would you think that? Rampage is an Elite that takes away your U-skills, so they’re giving it this effect.

What I’d be worried about is Lich form being immune to CCs too. Rampage is crap anyway.

BurrTheKing.8571:

YuiRS.8129:

My bad axezerker build that’s been moderately successful for me:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQRAnZ8ejMd0FaVImhwJagqgC9iHANg6eoxj9UbAA-TpBFwACeAAIOCA12fo9BBoaZAAnAAA

Sigil of Generosity can be swapped with Hydromancy, but I like the Intelligence + Generosity combo, Warrior’s Sprint can be replaced with Vigorous Focus, Endure Pain with Signet of Stamina, Destruction of the Empowered with Mobile Strikes. The usual options.

I find Brawler’s Recovery to be incredibly good, Leg Specialist is paramount for dealing with kiting, setting up Final Thrust, and helping your team collapse on someone with a well aimed Throw Axe.

The builds deals good damage, can tank a bit thanks to Defense traits, stances and Shield Block, has a good amount of Cripple and Immobilize, can cleanse condies okay (obviously not nearly as good as Longbow). I find this builds to be one of the few that can actually pressure Cele Eles enough to force them on the defensive. The mobility offered by Savage Leap doesn’t need to be explained, you can juke very effectively with this build.

One suggestion, Destruction of the Empowered isn’t generally very good, especially with the decrease in traditional bunker guards. I would go Vigorous Focus.

Yeah, it’s definitely a good option. I still like that Trait for axing Elementalists.

My bad axezerker build that’s been moderately successful for me:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQRAnZ8ejMd0FaVImhwJagqgC9iHANg6eoxj9UbAA-TpBFwACeAAIOCA12fo9BBoaZAAnAAA

Sigil of Generosity can be swapped with Hydromancy, but I like the Intelligence + Generosity combo, Warrior’s Sprint can be replaced with Vigorous Focus, Endure Pain with Signet of Stamina, Destruction of the Empowered with Mobile Strikes. The usual options.

I find Brawler’s Recovery to be incredibly good, Leg Specialist is paramount for dealing with kiting, setting up Final Thrust, and helping your team collapse on someone with a well aimed Throw Axe.

The builds deals good damage, can tank a bit thanks to Defense traits, stances and Shield Block, has a good amount of Cripple and Immobilize, can cleanse condies okay (obviously not nearly as good as Longbow). I find this builds to be one of the few that can actually pressure Cele Eles enough to force them on the defensive. The mobility offered by Savage Leap doesn’t need to be explained, you can juke very effectively with this build.

witcher.3197:

Metabattle does have the answer: having no lonbow sucks. Hard. :P There are some WvW builds that are perfectly viable without longbow, but they all fail in PvP.

And longbow is not a bunker weapon at all, many burst builds use for instance Axe or GS warriors.

Oh yeah, I’m aware of that. I just meant that cele LB builds typically do low-ish damage until they can get those Might stacks.

Thanks for the answers, by the way. I was curious to see what the community thinks about it.

That’s the question. I hate the Longbow bunker brainless playstyle with a passion. Is there any way to play something else without being a detriment to your team? Metabattle.com doesn’t have an answer.

Rifle is a very bad version of Ranger’s LB. They need to buff the crap out of it to be on the same level, but it will just introduce more anti-fun cancer into the game.

Drennon.7190:

brannigan.9831:

Bunker guardian is not about winning 1v1 ever. It is about supporting your team and holding and fighting on points. And even with Bunker guardian being out of fashion because of op aspects of elementalist and engineer it still is what Guardian’s do best in spvp. So if you want to continue to play Guardian in spvp I would suggest bunker and change your definition of what success means to you. Your victories as a bunker guardian are team victories not 1v1 conquests.

Bunker guardian has fallen out of the meta. 0/1/6/1/6 hammer medi is the new meta.

Anybody besides kitten playing that on high level?

brannigan.9831:

I think its unreasonable because some people have preferences and in some extreme cases perfer to play one build/class 99% of the time. So you are telling that person they are banned from a match basically or they have to play something they don’t want to play. Ultimately you are telling a player they can’t play what they want and that’s bad for business.

It works for MOBAs. It even works for the current GW2 2v2 tournies, where Cele amulet is already banned as overpowered or other tournament where races locked to standard Human. Sometimes a few players need to be inconvenienced if it helps to preserve the integrity of the whole game.

Bran.7425:

So really this really isn’t about balance at all it is about you wanting an easy way to avoid aspects of the game you do not like.

Sometimes I will have my favorite classes banned, I’m willing to accept it for the ability of players to forcibly change the meta if it’s broken.

Roe.3679:

So what stops all Mesmers from voting no thieves, or all engineers to vote no necromancers, or all thieves voting no meditation guardians? Not sure this really works as an idea.

That depends on how the voting is handles. If a random player chooses for the whole team, he may ban a direct counter to his class and attempt to carry the team or ban a meta build to help the whole team. The concept works for MOBAs fairly well.

coglin.1867:

Sure. get a private arena and you can do that right now. Anet was way ahead of you.

Private arenas don’t get as much rewards, cost money, can be difficult to access etc.

At the start of every match each PvP team gets to vote which class to ban and which amulet to ban from using in the upcoming PvP match.

We all know which classes are going to be banned, which, of course, doesn’t mean that said classes are broken, according to the players that play these certain classes and it’s fine. No need to nerf anything. Just give the players tools to balance the game themselves.

I don’t think that’s unreasonable, considering the nature of sPvP and profession acquisition.

The wing buffet has a huge tell animation. Besides, it’s okay when mobs do it.

Kaiser.9873:

I really don’t see where HEAVY armor just screams, “Give me a bow!”

I mean c’mon, bows and rifles for warriors? Longbows for guardians?

Heavy armor screams, “I WILL BASH YOU IN THE FACE!”

Just fix the freaking scepter for range(fix traits or otherwise), and give us axes or offhand swords as our new weapon.

Guards aren’t getting knives or guns. That leaves with an axe, which is not very paladin/guardian, and a bow.

Bran.7425:

You both do realize that every projectile has similar properties and that complain would have to be applied across the board.

No, they can leave other projectiles, because they don’t matter. Ranger LB makes WvW extremely frustrating at times and should be adjusted, that’s the main problem.

Tao.5096:

runeblade.7514:

Ele have 25 skills while Warriors have 17.

Ele have more utility than warrior.

Nope, Shoutbow doesn’t need a nerf.

Of course not.

All it needs is to disable Shout utilities and Longbow in PvP Arena.
+10 to Balance

What we need is voteban for classes and a PvP amulet. Player will cure cancer themselves if devs can’t/don’t care.

Shoutbow isn’t even close to be as broken as Ele and Engie.

Quakeman.9378:

I love greats word, which is why I roam with it. I don’t really use it at all in pvp unless I want to have some fun with frenzy + bull’s charge, but it is more certainly viable, if not necessary, for WvW! But yes. RIP the days of GS shenanigans in pvp!

SWORDS NOT WORDS

NeroGuilt.4720:

Check back in a good year later after a break and people still think their thieves are bad? Rip. I have no issues with an inch thick of rust. I swear the average player skill in all mmos has to drop daily.

If you have no problems in PvP on Thief while being rusty you must be dueling golem dummies. Thief has a high skill floor, because it’s the most squishy class in the game.

Dueling should at least be a thing in the PvP lobby, but, ideally, everywhere. A lot of people love soloing and small scale PvP, which does include dueling. It helps to get better in other PvP modes, creates a whole group of duelists with it’s own stars and rivalries, helps to pass by time, just gives something else to do with friends etc.

I’m completely baffled by the guys who are so aggravated by PvP requests. Really? Party requests are fine, guild invites are fine, but duel proposition? Le gasp!

Anyway, it’s been years without dueling, so not gonna happen.

For the longest time I wanted the orb explosion to be changed into something useful. E.g. using the orb again makes it stop in the air and float there for 20-30 seconds. Any ally who touches it is healed, any enemy suffers damage. It would benefit now obsolete bunker guards and even DPS guards, making them able to hold a point more effectively if they have to.

obal.3218:

We looked at camping each weapon using optimal setups to camp the weapon. GS + sword/focus rotations do the most dps ignoring pure scepter. GS2 does more dps than sword. It does even more if you stand in a target’kittenbox and hit all 14×. Symbol is a dps gain so it should be in the calc. Binding blades is also a gain. This is due to the condition it applies. It also will hit one target with all the blades meant targets around it if you stand in the hitbox which is nice for bosses with adds like alphard. It wasn’t considered as multiple hits for our calcs though since that is very situational.

The symbol may interfere with the fire fields, so it’s a nuisance to the team.

Azure Fang.8605:

Wow… people really WILL find a reason to complain about anything.

^

It’s not a quality of life change, it’s a straight up buff.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

One of the main problems I have with staff is symbol of swiftness.

Unless someone else is applying swiftness effects in addition to it you must stand still inside it to keep permanent swiftness uptime.

This effectively negates the purpose of swiftness which is to move from point A to point B faster.

I think if they were to cut the number of pulses in half but double the swiftness applied & damage done per pulse it would be great.

You only need to stand inside a symbol for a second if you’ve got Runes of the Pack on. The amount of Swiftness you get from just 2-3 ticks is usually enough to get to a point and then you will stack a huge amount of Swiftness while fighting so you never run out. Remember to place the symbol on downed targets so you get the buffs while stomping. I’ve had about 1 minute of swiftness stacked up in some matches doing just that.

Shanks.2907:

If Toss Elixer B on Engineers is 3 stacks, all the more reason why SYG will be 5-6. It’s the staple skill to bunker guardians in both PvP and WvW and not so much for Engineers. I don’t think they devs would be so reckless to just destroy the foundation of support guardians.

I think the stacks are roughly going to translate from how many seconds there were to how many stacks there will be. Balanced Stance is an 8 second stability, so that’s 8 stacks. Throw Elixer B is 4 seconds so 3 stacks is close, slightly toned down. I don’t think SYG will be any less than 4 stacks, with 5 being most likely.

2 stacks would be a slap in the face though, and certainly a nail in the coffin.

Staple shmaple. It’s AoE stab, so it will be much lower than single target stab. Expect 2-3 stacks.

Fafnir.5124:

I though it is called the mute button. Could be wrong though.

You are.

Chaith.8256:

Anyone thinking how warding effects (slick shoes, ring, line) will remove infinite stability stacks at once, I recommend the tinfoil hats be re-equipped immediately to prevent an ArenaNet conspiracy.

It rips one stack of stability per instance of attempting to cross the warding effect, this means in practice, the very moment you get caught in it, simply move away and cease using stability stacks on it. These warding effects do have a short global cooldown if you examine them closely.

However, abilities that have only one stack of stability will not always counter Slick Shoes every time, like currently how the Ranger’s ‘Shared Anguish’ trait plays out. You have to employ GTFO tactics for the warding effect to not eat a second stability stack, as the warding abilities function right now.

No, ring and line won’t. Slick Shoes fields can be stacked a huge number of times in a single area. Step on them once – all Stab gone and you’re dead.

Khenzy.9348:

You can’t change an anti-CC mechanic without a balance pass on some of the CC skills. Just saying.

Sure you can. You probably shouldn’t, but you can.

Serval.6458:

Let’s see…

• Massive hitbox
• Stationary (every “30 seconds” or so)
• Takes enhanced damage during this period

A single ice bow #4 will do more damage than you could with a full hb, killshot and eviscerate. So just grab a disc banner and sit in an elementalist to make sure they get the buff.

^

Kagamiku.9731:

Warriors did not receive a huge amount of buffs.

They got buffed way back and then people started calling them OP, and then they started receiving nerf after nerf after nerf…With no buffs in sight. At least any meaningful buffs. Rifle is still garbage after the buffs. Arcing Slice is still garbage. The only thing that I’d consider a decent buff was the extra vuln stacks from mace skill. But mace offhand is pretty much pve exclusive and they nerfed just about everything else related to warriors damage and pve.

They got a huge amount of buffs and then nerfs. They’re one of the most actively evolving professions, it’s just that A-net takes their sweet time to do any balance updates, so it feels like you got punched in the teeth and then you wait a whole year for them to address any new issue. Warrior still has one of the best trait selection in the game with only a few useless ones. Arcing Slice isn’t that bad in PvP, that’s why GS/LB build became viable.

I wish Warrior wasn’t so dependent on Longbow and Defense trait line, but that’s the nature of Conquest. Still, as long as Warrior has that, it remains one of the often used meta classes.

I don’t mind underwater stuff at all, I just want it to stay out of PvP, because it’s rather poorly balanced for that. Exploring underwater caves has always been a blast in this game and I hope it stays that way.

That’s a massive buff to Engineers. Good god…
Not only does that class rely on CC the most and will now able to stunlock more effectively, but Slick Shoes will be the only CC in the game that will bust through Stability.

Warrior received a huge amount of buffs too.

In PvE Warriors are wanted for their buffs. The PvP is just really terribly designed and is centered around unkillable people spamming AoE and DoTs everywhere, so Warrior does the same with Longbow. It’s extremely boring, but Warrior is a part of the metagame, unlike, say Guardian.

Squats are good for your glutes, though.

MethaneGas.8357:

I’ve heard this opinion before but I don’t agree that a cele ele supports better than a guardian. Maybe it depends on your team compo, but a support guard should still be pretty rocking. If you feel like you’re too much bunk and not enough damage, try this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApdWlsApVo1CxfH8DNBFBl9LS/6xOBRYCXFAA-TJxHwAILDM4EAob/BAPAAA

Slightly more squish than usual, but HUGE retal uptime for allies, nice boon duration, stability and extra condi clears. An easy 20 sec AoE retal = each enemy spell is gonna hurt em like hell. It can also 1v1 pretty well as well against certain classes like LB rangers and thieves if it ever comes down to it. Haven’t tried it in too many organized 5v5s or tourneys or anything like that, but in the many normal ranked games I played with it, it seemed to do really well

1v1? Nobody will ever fight you with build, because you deal no damage.

Bunker guards are still hard to kill, unless they bring huge condi uptime. Then they die in seconds. Ele is just better with it’s water fields and best condi clears in the game.