Guild Wars 2

Instead of soldiers, why not go knights for the prec?

This idea sounds good to me.

I actually do play thief, and I know how stealth works. I’m saying to remove reveal. Its a buff to the thief play style for burst and a nerf to sustained fights for over 10 minutes because brain dead stealth spamming wont achieve massive damage. A buff + a nerf = class rework (or a compromise.)

This is something they needed to add for a long time.

I still don’t understand why Anet keeps updating skill facts instead of major issues. The longer they put major fixes off and delay new content the more players are going to spread the word that nothing is being done in this game except pseudo fixes (updated facts) to make people think Anet is actually doing something.

Well the idea is that a player who pays attention can see a thief charging in for a backstab. If the thief tries to follow the player for backstab, he is easier to kite or dodge because they see something bulging in the air around them.

Also, the only class that would have a hard time vs this would be mesmer who really never should have a problem with thief if they back into a clone. This way clones eat the backstab. Pistol often can also be evaded by standing behind clones.

This makes it so thief has to think before charging into the fight a whole bunch while in stealth because if he keeps running after a player and missing backstabs, a player will know where he is eventually. However, once he stands still he won’t have the partial stealth but instead complete stealth. SB porting would be useful in this case to move around in complete stealth.

The enemy wont complain about seeing the thief because those who pay attention can kinda figure out what the thief is going to do while the thief can strategies confusing his enemy from the shadows via running around to get located and porting away from that location while standing still to vanish without a trace.

Maybe thief losing reveal warrants thief to drop stealth on block the players and balance team can decide.

Watched the video and yes it is ironic. Melee phantasms can’t be kited, but some of the ranged phantasms and illusions can have their projectiles outrun.

What if stealth was restored to the way it was originally without having reveal after you leave stealth. Permastealth would be easy to access again and fun. However, make it so that perfect invisibility is only when standing still. create a slight distortion of the space around a character so they can be located if players pay extremely close attention. This is only while moving and the target would still be dropped. The only way to attack them if u do find them while moving is AoE or to direct your strike in their direction kind of like current stealth.

This means people might want to stay still, then Charge and backstab in an actively sneaky way. They wouldn’t over spam their stealth ability because if they move around too much the enemy will know where they are. It would also mean that shadow-stepping would have an enhanced function because a player would want to move to another location without running there.

Not a Buff or a Nerf. A change to satisfy players playing or fighting thief.

GS/Staff Is the spec for a tpvp build I recently posted too.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJARWnsISJaWoGmqB1aIR1YM3Jn9pkIVAlsjtB-TJxHABC8EAMuMAAXCA02fAA

The tpvp phantasm tank.

1. spam mantra of pain to heal party and phantasms and for damage
2. spam dodge to keep passive healing
3. never use signet
4. make sure to time staff phase retreat through null field and chaos storm to maintain chaos armor.

Like I posted in another forum the amount of complaining demands thief be completely reworked rather than nerfed or buffed. It just shows the players are being ignored and I’m sorry the players.

Stealth is something that I wouldn’t label op. However, this seems to be consistently complained about for a long time. I’m surprised nothing has been done to make this amazing feature more fun for those using it and those fighting it. Instead the updates are geared at hurting the users via revealed because it is hurting the player via resetting matches with prolonged stealth. Perhaps it should be made more fluently effective for the users while being less annoying for the players.

What I mean is completely redoing stealth rather than nerfing it or buffing it.
For example a player can stealth without revealed for 30 seconds on thief. However, after 30 seconds The player must wait 60 seconds to be able to stealth in combat. This is 30 seconds to not get revealed on attacks and be invisible. This could be achieved by using d/p combo fields, refuge, and stacking stealth same as it is currently stacked. Except, you can attack while staying in stealth for 30 seconds. That would mean that a thief can surly abuse stealth in a match for 30 seconds every 60 seconds; however, if they are unable to kill or stack stealth, they are able to be attacked out of stealth without vanishing every 5 seconds. It makes burst viable and killing thief in SA a bit less stressful. Of-course they can choose when they want to have accumulated 30 seconds of stealth and start their 60 second CD.

This is a ridiculous example but a big change like that might need to be considered.

I can kill them if they have the glitch or not. I’m just saying they can outrun players with swiftness. It may matter to some other classes who rely on kiting. I’m just pointing out the glitch.

No I’m actually saying it’s a glitch for them to keep ooc.

Sometimes phantasms get to be out of combat permanently and are impossible to kite even with swiftness.

I began to notice how mesmer has 2 blocking counter attacks but and it gave a a brilliant idea!
Instead of slow counter attacks implement counter attacks with a 1/4 second cast time. For example, if a thief is about to get killed by an attack the thief can use this 1/4 second counter to deal say 3k or so and would seem to deflect the attack while sliding past his side. This would add some thinking to the game.

Unfortunately, this was supposed to go to the suggestion forum, but I am unable to post there for some reason.

manveruppd.7601:

These people need to stack the odds by giving the opponent free kills in order to WIN AT HOTJOIN? How bad are they???

Also, you do realise that the win bonus in hotjoin is TINY, and that if you get autobalanced away from the winning team YOU STILL GET IT right?

Of all the problems this game has, I would rank the bushes not being comfortable enough for the outlaw mobs hiding in them in the Kryta starting zone higher than this.

Your missing the point! It ruins a fun fair 5 vs 5 good match not just the win bonus and you get moved from teammates. Pvp hot join is no more than something to join for free rank points rather than to actually play.

Listen to this. If 1 or 2 players join a team, they can kill themselves and make the enemy win making their team lose. Next they spectate and cause auto balance. Finally, they join the winning team and gain a win bonus. If this is done at say 380 points the swapped players will be locked into the losing team at 400 points. This way the trolls get the wining bonus for trolling and killing themselves and ruins the fun of the game for lots of players.

The birth of troll guilds has been able to display why spvp needs to be fixed

Currently, there are troll guilds with almost 100 members and they have the ability to completely shutdown spvp hot join due to autobalance and spectate mode.

Plz fix it before pvp is completely ruined by trolls.

Fun porting build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAqY4alsMp7plOxyJ8PRBNBt1w5uGxYGaFgOPSQA-TJBFABCcUAiuMAAvAgd2fAA

It works by using port to skills before each shadow shot and buying time with stealth and backstabs for another porting burst.

For example, rapidly steel—>shadow shot—>infiltrators signet/shadow step—>shadow shot.

Also, don’t forget to dodge and stealth for might XD

With plenty of endurance and damage it should be fun.

After noticing that, with shadow shot, p/d zerker can hit over 3.5k shots between the two hits, I wanted to create a thief that hurts the enemy’s eyes. Here it is

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAqY4alsMp7plOxyJ8PRBNBt1w5uGxYGaFgOPSQA-TJBFABCcUAiuMAAvAgd2fAA

It works by using port to skills before each shadow shot and buying time with stealth and backstabs for another porting burst.

For example, rapidly steel—>shadow shot—>infiltrators signet/shadow step—>shadow shot.

Also, don’t forget to dodge and stealth for might XD

With plenty of endurance and damage it should be fun.

Geiir.7603:

I did this with my P/D build. I tried to just always time CnD to hit right after I left stealth, and then I just spammed evades like crazy and scattered caltrops. Very easy to kill bad players, but any decent player will quickly figure out what you’re doing and act accordingly.

Well this build can function like traditional p/d so if they are giving you issues due to condition clearing just play it like normal p/d.

Just a fun perma-stealthing condi build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoa6Yl8Mp7plPx5JsPNhMRx9JkDtg3bxY8haFAA-TJhAwAw2fowRBYcZAAvAAA

Here is a perma stealth build that players are sure to find fun in pvp and pve probably not for tpvp though. It never leaves stealth at all while dealing significant amounts of condition damage.

Here it is.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoa6Yl8Mp7plPx5JsPNhMRx9JkDtg3bxY8haFAA-TJhAwAw2fowRBYcZAAvAAA

How it works is….
-You dodge for caltrops
-You spam your heal
-You make sure to use steel
-Don’t forget to abuse your d/p 5-2 combo
-And finish with p/d if you need extra damage

Well if you continue to land HS, and have Ai (rune of the pirate), your damage will change as you begin to land higher damage such as over 6ks as their health gets lower. Also, because they almost never see you and it can’t be blocked like CnD which prevents stealth, you can easily go glass and rely on the might stacks you get from spamming stealth. You might be surprised at the damage especially with damage related sigils.

So me and my bro were testing a new concept. It is a process where you HS through Black Powder and stealth. However, Instead of backstabbing you remain in stealth go back to your Black Powder field and Heart Seeker at your enemy after counting to three for stealth to wear off.

As long as you go Glass cannon, you will be able to take down hp without ever leaving stealth! Well you will be leaving stealth but it wont appear that way to the enemy because you never get revealed. It also did much more damage than I expected.

You can also bring other things that don’t reveal you such as rune of the pirate or the thieve trap.

What do you guys think about it?

I have to complain about auto attack as well. I hate have a full energy bar while unable to dodge while auto attacking with the sword.

EvilSardine.9635:

If a thief tries to backstab me and I use an actual smart tactic and BLOCK their backstab then they should be revealed.

Why can a thief spam a super hard hitting ability like backstab on my warrior who is using shield block until it eventually lands? That requires zero skill on the thief’s part. Just spam until it lands and they have 4 seconds in stealth to spam it.

If they did this change, I would never think stealth is an annoying thief ability lol. It would make fighting and playing thief more fun. In fact, if they would make thief attacks cause them to appear when blinded or blocked and attacked, I would be even happy to see revealed be reduced to 3 sec instead of 4.

Shockwave.1230:

Zelulose.8695:

I am mainly for preventing thieves from stealthing long enough for their healing skill to recharge If a thief refuges after a withdrawal they will have 20 secs of stealth while their healing skill is only on a 15 sec CD. Their regeneration in stealth is bad enough. This is really what resets a duel. Also, they just stealth for 10 secs to reset the duel a second time.

This applies to wvw and in spvp for capping points specifically if the enemy player is killed by the thief. If a player can be killed by a stealth spamming thief, it wont matter that stealth can’t cap. The thief will just kill the player and take the point after that player is downed.

A 20 second refuge means 3 trait points at least down the Shadow Arts line. The shadow arts line is only useful for roaming and a 2v2 or smaller scale skirmish that is not near an objective. It has a very specific strength and is bad otherwise.

3 trait points into SA means you miss out on either damage or utility from Trickery, Critical Strikes, Deadly Arts.

This arguments sounds like a complaint that the game isn’t balanced around WvW roaming, which is intended by the devs. It’s obviously not fun for the majority of the player base to deal with, but the devs aren’t willing to do very much split balancing specifically towards WvW, if they’ve even done any.

When I spoke of capping, I was talking about spvp. Wvw roaming was separate. And if stealth is the issue then the thief will have at least 3 in SA. I am just saying if a thief wants to be immortal without losing the ability to kill an enemy all he has to do is bring enough stealth to reset his fight. However, its only annoying to me. It’s perfectly balanced. For example, many classes can have insane sustain like elementalists, mesmers, or engineers.

The thief’s method of sustain bothers me personally because the player’s have more influence on their deaths based on accidental reveals than the enemy does.

Again, it’s perfectly balanced in my opinion. It’s just annoying enough to see why the OP wanted no stealth.

Something that many players often overlook with phantasm attack chains is that they were supposed to be recasted rather than be unkillable. This concept changes phantasm damage and changes the issue with phantasm deaths in spvp or even pve.

If you recast phantasms during a phantasms attack you can get a sort of double hit which increases the damage. Phant recast should also be included in calculations of damage.

I have found the solution!

1. If it’s bugged, don’t use ileap. It is easy for players to dodge and I have fun dodging it myself.

2. Don’t use blink. Staff skill 2 is much better anyway with a better CD.

3-4) Don’t stealth. It’s a wast of time when you could be doing damage and, while you are invisible, people and ai attack your phants killing your damage.
5). I have no idea what you were saying, but the izerker should be used for its aoe and cripple. Stop complaining that your ai isn’t attacking on your command XD.

Have fun with mesmer.

Swagg.9236:

Josh Davis.6015:

In your opinion, what should the strengths and weaknesses of each profession be? What’s your profession’s kryptonite?

Consciously implemented hard counters are the foundation of lazy class/balance design. You shouldn’t walk the awful MMO game balance path blazed by a bunch of poopsockers from Everquest. Stop developing an expensive, online version of rock-paper-scissors with a lot of pretty colors.

A profession’s strengths and weaknesses should come from its operator and his/her ability to mindgame opponents by capitalizing on a game’s fundamental physics with the abilities provided by that profession. GW2 provides no player with any real opportunity to manipulate or capitalize on its physics engine via player abilities outside of a few gimmick situations which ultimately have no bearing on combat.

These sort of ability-based physics manipulations typically manifest themselves in player movement (rocket-jumping, wavedashing, aiming/timing projectiles and close-range/directional melee attacks, etc.) which leads to certain players consistently capitalizing on other players by achieving better positioning. GW2 has effectively none of this. Aside from leap skills, there is not a single skill in GW2 that can be utilized in a manner outside of what its description details. Outside of blinks, mid-combat maneuvers in GW2 are slow and clunky. Moreover, achieving “superior” positioning on an opponent is often instantly negated by ranged, sticky targeted abilities and/or direct-to-target teleports. If positioning doesn’t mean anything, the game is effectively equivalent to Runescape. Everyone just equips their skills and gear, walks up to someone, selects a target, and presses a lot of attack buttons. The only difference with GW2 is that, in this game, the player can strafe while pressing attack buttons.

Your game is crippled. GW2 will never be good. You could try again with GW3, but it would be irresponsible to waste that many more millions USD knowing full well that the fundamental roadblocks to player-driven, skill-based combat that plague this game wouldn’t be fixed in the transition.

Very harsh but its kinda of true. Why should I play a game when my class is guaranteed to lose to something? I might as well not bother to get better at that point. If I have no reason to get better, I have no reason to continue playing.

I am mainly for preventing thieves from stealthing long enough for their healing skill to recharge If a thief refuges after a withdrawal they will have 20 secs of stealth while their healing skill is only on a 15 sec CD. Their regeneration in stealth is bad enough. This is really what resets a duel. Also, they just stealth for 10 secs to reset the duel a second time.

This applies to wvw and in spvp for capping points specifically if the enemy player is killed by the thief. If a player can be killed by a stealth spamming thief, it wont matter that stealth can’t cap. The thief will just kill the player and take the point after that player is downed.

I don’t like that when targeted you can see us using the leap. Its like asking players to dodge it and most mesmers have to use it from stealth to actually land one without it being dodged. I don’t like the rage limit. And absolutely hate the way I turn my character and auto cancel leap or leap into the ground…. there is a long list of issues with that skill.

Lol what is sad is that any player can chose to kill himself and make the enemy win. When the teammates realize they are losing they will be mad and leave. This means around 370 points, you can spectate auto balance and join the winning team. at 400 points they can’t auto balance. That is the system to always win lol.

Well that’s why I post on forums. To get impute. I am aware that every build can be countered. Also, based on popular opinion, lich is completely balanced. I’ll just have to play a different thief build since p/d is shunned in order to boost my social status. thanks guys.

Yes the point is lich is imbalanced.
exaggerations aside. DS/lich damage should at least be looked at again.

Actually if you go full bunk with vitality and protection lich will kill you in almost 2 hits (earth runes) so it seems.

18k hp, carrion ammy, typical p/d, 300 traited toughness, and i get killed in one hit from litch? I wouldn’t mind if DS was a squishy kill but is not.

Please stop necro DS from two shotting and lich from 1 shotting thief

Mantra of pain is an ideal mantra if it is traited to heal. This is because it will heal the phantasms as well as the player. Something even more interesting is that mantra of pain can crit for significant damage. I often use it with signet of ether’s passive heal so their healing power can be easily combined, and even better, I can hit for over 2k crit with mantra of pain even while stunned. (The key to using it is casting mantras in stealth most of the time).

Well An idea would be anti condition armor XD. Make an ammy that reduces condition damage but has no toughness.

NinjaEd.3946: Again, your forgetting about initiative and weapon skill 3 combinations that function in addition to steal. Just as steal gains an ability, warriors have an ability. By far, warriors should complain about their profession skill mechanic more than thief given how hard it can be to power up untraited. Elementalists untraited have 4 attunements but lose the ability to have weapon swap combinations. Mesmers have no special mechanic but instead has 4 profession skills. The same could be said about guardian. Rangers have pets but no special weapon system and untraited they have a weak little pet that can barely catch up with simple kiting. necromancers probably have the most useful profession mechanic. However, due to DS skill recharge and DS recharge, it can technically have a double CD making it hard to use consistently. The engineer untraited uses its profession skills along with kits. Still, in Comparison to the thief, none of these classes have a weapon skills without a cooldown except for skill 1. Steal is honestly a bonus that allows a thief to hold its name. Steal does what its supposed to do. It takes a skill depending on the profession each of which I have found to be very useful. For example, the stolen Whirling Axe is essentially a warrior skill which, if saved, can be used after another steal giving it a technical duration of 6.5 sec.

NinjaEd.3946:

The issue is, that’s a build. Not a profession mechanic, and those traits you listed are heavy investments.

Steal on its own, without any investment is really really weak. It offers little utility for a long cd and its not 100% guaranteed steal due to reasons listed earlier in this thread. Are some stolen skills quite awesome? Absolutely hands down. I love consume ectoplasm, and in small group fights the water field is incredible at making my thief feel like a group player and not some selfish outcast. But it’s not always set up like that.

There are a ton of traits to make steal better, just like there are traits to boost pets’ performance, or shatter skills to have additional effects, or virtues, or burst skills ,etc. That’s not the point, the point is when untraited other people can still have some controlled benefit to their build regardless of how they spec, while thief doesn’t. I gata say pets untraited are rather sad but you can still choose what pet skill to get and for the most part, there is at least 1 skill for any type of play style. I’m not trying to paint some ugly picture, I’m comparing one stripped down class mechanic to the rest, something we don’t have a choice but to equip.

Any profession skill without traits is weak.

Your build is remarkably similar to the one I posted on the thief build thread. If used right this build really can take down anyone. The only trait I would look at is shadows embrace which removes conditions in stealth. The utilities used already will be enough to remove conditions sufficiently. Rather, Cloaked in Shadow will blind on steal and any other stealth hindering a mesmer’s ability to cast phantasms or a necro’s ability to place conditions on you.

ipan.4356:

The Steal itself is pure junk.

It doesn’t matter if you can trait it to make a worthless skill do something.

Every class mechanic can be traited.

It’s not the traits that are the problem, it’s the underlying mechanic that is completely worthless.

When traited it is extremely useful against any class. For example, A mesmer that is about to cast an izerker get interupted by steal. suddenly the mesmer is blinded and cant seem to find the thief. The mesmer has no time to react. Right after a steal that left him dazed the thief can now come out of stealth to apply conditions or backstab for damage in addition to the damage dealt from steel. It is very useful. Essentially the blind, daze, and stealth shut down the mesmer’s ability to cast phantasms. As for a warrior steal can work in a similar manner. If the warrior has stabability, it will still be blinded. If it cant be blinded or dazed you can stealth and will have received health while poisoning and dealing damage. Again very useful.

It should be noted that, technically, a thief has allot of profession mechanics which it traded for profession skills. It is the only class which changes skill 3 depending on different weapon combinations. It is the only class that gains an ability when stealthing. It is the only class with weapon skills that have no cool-down due to an initiative system. These profession mechanics add to steal. In short, steal is enough, and players should take the time to learn how to use it effectively instead of changing it.

wcker.2516:

Nice to see something new. I think i would change for Sw/Sh – Hammer, cause its easier to get interupts with it. But i also get it that MC/SW you get another block + (4)sw. Just gonna try this… And change the signet of stamina for “stomp(add another stun break!!)” or another shout.

Sounds like fun I’ll have to try out more stun oriented versions myself. XD

NinjaEd.3946:

Zelulose.8695:

To the OP, If you want steal can daze, poison, blind, stealth, steal boons, grant vigor, deal damage, and heal you on a 21 second CD.

You didn’t read the op i’m afraid. I’m well aware of steal traits, its not the intent of this thread to ask for more or less of those.

Top tier or not, you can’t say everyone is going to that option of using gunk. What if the thief has d/p and basilik venom or thieves guild? Headshot spam is a total waste of intiative, and #3 is only gana get 1 stack of confusion off before it moves you. If your goal was to surpress their condition removal so things like bleed can get through, then yes it works for condi builds which I already stated. But etheral fields are the last thing I care to get near my power build, because there are much more solid options. Whenever i see a potential group fight I avoid the stealing the engineer at all costs, because it simple isn’t helping me as much doing what I’m there for, picking off the weak ones with heavy hits. Wasting my time with a DoT that isn’t going to deal much damage 10 stacks or not just isn’t my priority.

Dancing dagger is great for picking off stragglers and using fields like ice, or static field, conditions that help me either stay on top of the enemy or hurt them more. Ill accept ur advice but not at all considering stepping into it, as it’d be a waste of time imho.

In comparison to what other classes can do to buff their profession skills with traits steal is enough. Your just trying to compare steal without traits to make it seem weak.

To the OP, If you want steal can daze, poison, blind, stealth, steal boons, grant vigor, deal damage, and heal you on a 21 second CD.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQRApc5ejkOBvpQOPMxBEkirALMKOCxL9ANGw0A-TwAg2CrIwShlDLDWSssYNOYdwujZHA
Burn on block is a great sour of damage functioning almost like retaliation.
Just be sure to spam terror with the sword and to interrupt at the right time. (Enjoy)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQRApc5ejkOBvpQOPMxBEkirALMKOCxL9ANGw0A-TwAg2CrIwShlDLDWSssYNOYdwujZHA

Burn on block is a great sour of damage functioning almost like retaliation.

Just be sure to spam terror with the sword and to interrupt at the right time. (Enjoy)