Guild Wars 2

Armour repair = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_sink

Just like waypoint costs..

kurtosis.9526:

The problem is, Crit Damage is the most optimal choice in terms of stat point costs for Ascended trinkets. So I’d rather go with Cavalier Ascended trinkets, Soldiers/Sentinels everywhere else, and completely sacrifice Precision, which you can get from Traits, Sigils, Boons, and Buffs instead.

Yep, well aware of how crit damage optimisation works. I think you are missing my point (which admittedly I didn’t make very well). What I am saying is you that when you try to put crit damage and precision into a tank build you are turning it into a balanced build. That is the answer to your question of “why are T1 warriors are tougher than me?”. Answer: You are doing balanced (partial tank) and they are doing full tank.

Try this: http://goo.gl/cojkHW
(also use a bloodlust stacking weapon)

Not sure how accurate intothemists.com is (and I’m not near my gw2 PC) – but that ends up with:

Health 28712
Armor 3290
Attack 3423 (not including Bloodlust stacking)
Critical Hit 4% (i.e., zero extra precision)
Critical Damage 15% (incidental)
Condition Duration (self) -65%
Stun Duration (self) -30%
Healing Power 300
Boon Duration 10%
Burst Recharge 15% (incidental)
Condition Duration 15% (incidental)

Apart from traits, everything involves stacking power, toughness and vitality in some form – then the build focuses on stun reduction, conditon reduction and dodging.

You have 3 stunbreakers (my favourite is Stomp), banner for rezzing the downies and buffing your team mates, 20% stability uptime and lots of dodges. F1 skill and weapon swap give 50% endurance return (extra dodge) and the two stances are giving you 8 seconds vigor. You have Blast finishers (stomp, warhorn 5) for water and lightning fields.

Sigil of Restoration is constantly healing you while people in the enemy zerg (that you have tagged) are being finished. That sigil keeps your sustain really high.

I haven’t had time to test the Healing Signet after the buff so I’m not sure if that would be a better replacement for Healing Surge.

kurtosis.9526:

This really depends on guild comp. If you have, say, 5 Wars and 5 Guards in your frontline, all running Soldier Runes, that’s more effective condition removal than Melandru + Lemongrass Poultry Soup.

But if on the other hand you run solo a lot, or with pug/militia zergs, or guild groups that don’t require specific builds, then Melandru + Soup + Dogged March + Cleansing Ire is a better option for dealing with conditions.

I think shout heal builds are better in PUG groups to keep the PUGs from dying. Guildies generally can look after themselves.

Melandru does stun duration reductions in addition to conditon reduction. In a T1 zerg ball the amount of warriors doing Earthshaker is usually off the scale. Reducing those stuns to nearly nothing makes a big difference to not getting steam rolled by the hammer train.

Even if you ignore the stun duration, then look at what you give up for that condition cleansing – it will be 1 to 3 utility slots taken up with shouts (depending on how many shouts each warrior runs) on all 5 of your guild’s warriors. Running Melandru means you can now get rid of your shout utility skill(s) and shout traits and put something better than a shout in its place.
You can also replace the shout traits with something useful.
Imagine your 5 condi clearing warriors now running Stomp.
Bodies flying everywhere while they use perma vigor to dodge the hammer train.

kurtosis.9526:

So out of curiousity, what stats do T1 zerg warriors run in that environment?

Full PTV (soldier) gear, weapons, trinkets – melandru runes and lemongrass.

Your main issue is you are trying to maintain some damage in your build – get rid of all the crit damage and precision and focus only on power, toughness and vitality.

I have used Melandru and Soldier runes – Melandru is better IMO – Melandru is a team play rune in that you don’t die as easily which means all those downed players you smashed with your hammer don’t get a rally.

Questions for Devon

Are you aware of the wholesale use of camera hacking in WvW with arrow carts?

Are you actively working on a solution to this?

Right now it is a real issue with one particular tier 1 server that is infamous for tolerating the use of arrow cart hacks by their guilds and players.

Please note: Reporting players is not a reasonable solution because you can’t always tell which of the 5 arrow carts is the hacking one – and we don’t want to report/ban the wrong person.

Thanks for any answers you may have.

Earthshaker > Banish

I have died countless times to rubber banding. It doesn’t only happening with assisted jump. It happens in WvW and all throughout the game.

The developers and QAs really need to test their game with a ‘slow ping’ simualtor turned on all the time.

That way the devs and QAs are developing for worst case scenario and not best case scenario.

Set that lag simulator to 500ms ping and now try testing and playing your game.

Add TPG Internet for Australia.

Email your post + evidence to: exploits@arena.net

Dahkeus.8243:

Yes, pistols are very viable. I just posted this in another thread, but this is probably one of the strongest options for pistols in PvE right now:
0/30/0/15/25
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqaVlUmSO3eS+E/5Ex2DgmTe6zgsit/wVB-jAyAYLioRySEpCCZJviox2GKiGruGT5SEVbvLiWtMAVLA-e

Personally I would take Quick Recovery over Lead Attacks.

You are going to be spamming unload as soon as it is available – so your ini is always going to be low, so Lead Attacks won’t give much boost in damage – Quick Recovery combined with Infiltrator’s Signet that you already have will get you a bonus unload every 20 or so seconds.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Shadow-Trap-2/

Please see this forum post that documents many of the various issues we’ve been having with Shadow Trap.

Many of us want to use the newly buffed skill that allows you to teleport back to your original trap – but the teleport return is completely buggy and runs into many obstacles (which has resulted in my death during WvW testing).

Some examples scenarios that have failed for me:
- Place trap at Black Lion merchant in Lions arch – go to the bank, pressed teleport – it failed to move me back to the merchant (moved me about 5 metres)
- Place trap at NE supply camp entrance, went North a fair distance, pressed teleport – it failed to move me back to entrance (moved me about 20 metres)
- Place trap 200 metres away over lightly undulating terrain and it failed to teleport me.

It has actually never worked properly in any of the cases I tried to use it in WvW.

Many others are experiencing the same issue.

Virus.5706:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Virus.5706:

But it’s not supposed to be a 10k range leap.

I don’t understand your point – it is a 10k range teleport. It should work right? Don’t care how they implement it, so long as it works.

Thing is, it’s broken. If there is a small obstacle in the way you will only teleport a few units vs. the full 10k units. The whole shadow-stepping mechanic is very unreliable.

So are you disagreeing with me or agreeing with me? It sounded like you disagreed with something I said previously but everything you’ve said so far is just agreeing with what I have said.

Virus.5706:

But it’s not supposed to be a 10k range leap.

I don’t understand your point – it is a 10k range teleport. It should work right? Don’t care how they implement it, so long as it works.

Terrahero.9358:

Dont even start with “fair”. Retaliation isnt a Guardian exclusive, and they have a ton more tools. What happend to compensation for Mesmers and Engineers when Confusion was completely gutted?

I am happy for mesmer and engie to be compensated in some way for the confusion nerf

Converting Skale venom from Weakness to Torment is arguably a nerf given how strong Weakness is now compared to Torment.

Someone said in another thread that Roll for Initiative also got hit with the Withdraw nerf.

Yes i hate it – but i don’t think they’ll change it or consider it a bug.

I tried it this morning – set a trap at Black Lion Trading Post in Lions Arch – then I ran past the Mystic Forge to the Bank NPC and pressed the teleport (this is less than 10000 range but still a decent distance) and it teleported me 5 metres to the bank door. Fail.

It probably needs more QA testing and needs to be very generous with pathing.

I am guessing that it has to use pathing rather than be a true waypoint-like telelport, like Portal does otherwise a thief could just set a shadow trap inside a keep before it gets taken and teleport back inside the enemy keep when they have finished capping it (and revive a dead mesmer).

Perhaps raise this as a bug in the appropriate bug sub-forum or change the title on this post to BUG: <original title> so the developers read the post.

Arkham Creed.7358:

And now that we have it I think most of us agree we don’t want it. It’s pretty worthless even with a heavy condition build because it is impossible to stack above five. It’s a garbage addition to the game only there to make it look like they added something.

Agreed, with the buff to the weakness condition, dev’s must have thought Skale venom was going to be over powered. 15 seconds of weakness every 36 seconds (master trait – deadly arts) would have resulted in 40% weakness uptime on the thieves enemy.

The damage mitigation a thief could get by applying 15 seconds of weakness to an opponent in 1 or 2 seconds would be quite large. Percentages are assymetrical – so having an average -25% damage reduction from weakness requires your opponent to have a +33% damage boost to counter it. Noob players are already complaining how hard it is to kill thieves – the QQ would be even worse if thieves starting using a weakness-based Skale venom to nerf their opponents damage after their opening burst.

I think this change was just a quick and dirty hack to stop Skale venom being over powered – by giving us Torment they probably thought they could “sell” the change as either something new for thieves or as a buff to our venoms.

I don’t think the thief community is buying what they’re selling though it is a Skale venom nerf.

The duration and intensity of Torment is not high enough to make it an attractive choice for a utility slot. Not when all those juicy Deception utility skills are sitting there.

Lightsbane.9012:

deal with it.
just one more way to balance this class. in place of a single 1200 range damage skill, thief class got something it didn’t deserve or need: torment, you now get to punish people for running away from AND chasing you. despite how you feel, no one really cares unfortunately. everyone has taken 6k backstabs, and now you get the new condition. don’t expect a public outcry outside of the thief community.

Your understanding of the thief profession is very low if you think a “6k” backstab thief is going to waste a precious utility skilll on the Torment venom.

I doubt even a full blown ‘venom share build’ thief would use that one – they would take Basilisk, Spider, Ice and Devourer.

Travlane.5948:

@dzernumbrd there really isnt anything OP in the suggestions of mine however perhaps if u apply them in venom share i could agree. only a 10% chance on auto attack to cause poison for only a lowly 2 secs? :P when that triggers apply 3 stacks of bleeding for like 5 secs?

The reason I think it is OP is this: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lotus_Strike

Thieves already apply poison during our auto attack (without your trait), so your bleed and chill traits would trigger on every Lotus Strike chain of the auto attack and on every pulse of choking gas poison field.

So every rotation of our auto attack would apply 3 stacks of bleed for 5 seconds (which on a condition thief with full duration bonuses would be very damaging) and you would be perma chilling them so they couldn’t move away (because our auto attack chain is so fast the next 1.5s chill would be applied just as the previous one was finishing).

If someone stood in our poison field from shortbow for the full duration they would have 12 stacks of bleed (4 pulses x 3 stacks) for 5 seconds and 6 second chill (4 pulses x 1.5seconds) and we would be able to spam it to where ever they are trying run because they would be permanently chilled. Players would melt to a condition spec thief with shortbow. Plus you can lay those poison fields while you are stealthed so we wouldn’t just be deadly – we would be invisible death. Can you imagine the forum crying…

Dawdler.8521:

I dont play a thief, but from seeing everybody play its quite clear that letting go of the 2 key means you loose 90% effectivness and cant kill anything.

That joke was funny 6 months ago – everyone has moved on since. The new meta is spamming 3.

EDIT: until the patch nerfs the proverbial out of sword/dagger

Travlane.5948:

Arctic Venom
“Whenever you apply poison you also chill that enemy for 1.5 seconds” Passive
Spiders Speed
“10% chance to poison enemy for 2 seconds on auto attacks” Passive
Serpent Strike
“Apply 3 stacks of bleeding whenever you poison an enemy” Traited

Nerf incoming

3 stacks of bleed + 1.5s chill on every auto attack chain of my daggers – yes please
3 stacks of bleed + 1.5s chill on every pulse of choking gas – yes please

I think venoms suck mainly because of the venom share trait.

1. The dev’s can’t make the venoms too powerful or they will be over powered when shared with a group. However, when not shared they are fairly weak. If they got rid of the venom share trait and buffed the venoms to be quite powerful then I think we would see more players running condition builds with venoms.
2. The other problem is that venom share AoE is far too small – it needs to be 600 or 1200 range rather than “everyone can you please stand right next to me so i can press some buttons before we start fighting”.

Assuming the leaked patch notes are correct:

“Torment: Added a new Condition called Torment.”
“This does damage every second (75% of a bleed), and double damage to foes that are moving (150% of a bleed).”
“Stacks intensity.”

and

“Skale Venom: Replaced Weakness with Torment.”

If anything this is a nerf to thieves because I would rather have 15 seconds of Weakness on my enemy than 3 stacks of Torment for 5 seconds.

If I had a thief with 2000 condition damage (approximate numbers):

1 stack bleed = 150 per tick
1 stack torment (moving) = 1.5 × 150 = 225 per tick
1 stack torment (not moving) = 0.75 × 150 = 113 per tick

Assuming you can’t clear conditions – which most people in WvW can…

Applying full Torment stacks from Skale venom would give you:

torment: 3 stacks x 5 seconds (not moving) = 1688 damage
torment: 3 stacks x 5 seconds (moving) = 3375 damage

In comparison – the same condition from bleeds:

bleeds: 3 stacks x 5 seconds = 2250 damage

No thief (except for venom share build) is going to take Skale Venom on a 45 second cooldown over something as good as Shadow Step, Shadow Refuge, Roll for Initiative, Blinding Powder, etc.. so I don’t think you’ll find many thieves using it because it is so weak. Venom share builds are so rare I don’t think you’ll find thieves having Torment being a major issue for you.

A condition thief can apply 5 stacks of bleed for 4 seconds (3000 damage) in a matter of seconds using Cloak & Dagger then Sneak Attack. So thieves have far more effective ways to apply damaging conditions than devoting a utility slot to it.

TL;DR – Don’t worry – be happy.

Every nerf to traits should result in a full refund to players so they can re-select the traits based on the new information. If I grind for 100+ levels just to get Applied Fortitude then I want a refund if they nerf it to +10 or +25.

I know that having 15k instead of 13k health on my thief would be rather helpful – so I’m putting all my points into that tree. If they nerf it I want a full refund so I can select my traits again.

I don’t remember any thieves seriously QQing about beastmaster rangers.

If anything the thief forums are the most accepting of other professions being considered OP – because we are constantly accused of being OP.

Your anger is misdirected.

GreenNekoHaunt.8527:

I disagree with Fractal 20 slot bags. However you could make it like in PvP where you can buy leather bags from 4-18 slots depending on your rank.

Explain logic/reasoning – why 18 but not 20?

p.s., I wasn’t asking for the fractal ones, I was asking for generic bags with 20 slots not the actual fractal 20 slot bag items.

Player Character.9467:

WvW players get the advantage of exotic gear using only 1 pool of tokens. Dungeon runners must make do with their tokens not being a shared pool and not every stat possibility being available from every dungeon.

So what? That is a separate suggestion thread that you can make about dungeons equipment having their stats range expanded. WvW used to be restricted to soldier (Invader) stats but unlike dungeons – we asked for it to be changed and it was. Instead of just settling for things being the way they are – you could try changing them rather than be a naysayer to people asking for change.

Player Character.9467:

There is also a heavy DR on your token rewards per day from a single dungeon making earning a full set something that the game itself stretches out, this does not happen to your returns in WvW. WvW values a few hours of badges as a 10 day shortcut to laurel items.

It takes me 5 hours to make 50 to 80 WvW tokens (not tagging/zerging and I play a zerker thief so my damage is up there). There are classes that do less damage than me – they make way less badges than I do in 5 hours. You can do three CoF runs for 180 tokens (60 × 3 – using alts). Not to mention the gold/lodestones you accumulate doing that.

So a head piece from CoF costs 180 tokens.
A head piece from WvW costs 150 tokens + 80 silver.

So I have to play for 10 to 15 hours to enough badges to get 1 head piece. You have to play for an hour or two for 1 head piece and you make significantly more gold than WvW players.

So trying to say that WvW players are getting an easy ride is plain wrong.

10 days shortcut you say? So that’s what 20 minutes to do you daily – multipied by 10 – gives about 3 1/2 hours. The amount of badges that offset your laurels take more than 3.5 hours to create. So the actual time duration earning that ascended item in WvW is more than it is in PvE.

Player Character.9467:

Things aren’t available to everybody if you pigeonhole your gaming experience. Your style of playing shouldn’t get the preference of having everything at your fingertips when others do not. There’s a simple reason that many of us look for more things to do with WvW badges, we have THOUSANDS of them collecting dust while still pumping out more siege than we can go through.

So what? You may be happy with the status quo but the status quo can be changed.

If I want to ask Arenanet to change something by suggesting it then I can.

I don’t see why you want to doggedly stick to the status quo and deny WvW players access to better equipment. I think you’re just being disagreeable.

pricer.5091:

The real question is why is there a downed mechanic at all? I killed you, you’re dead. Go respawn already and stop hiding behind your friends.

… but you didn’t kill him. You only downed him. You have killed him when you finished him.

Or my other suggestion:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Selling-Ascended-to-Laurel-Vendor-for-Laurels

Player Character.9467:

Nothing you hold ever upgrades enough to get merchants and you never have a reason to waypoint? I highly doubt that. Waypointing, even back to spawn, frequently cuts down the distance to a defense or a resupply point that isn’t the pile of the nearest tower.

If our guild is treb-sieging Garry from Cliffside and my bags are full from farming the zergs that keep attacking Cliffside to kill our trebs then I am not going all the way back to spawn unless the guild needs me to. Hills / Bay often don’t have waypoints for me because they are capped by the euro/US players and we only end up taking them back during oceanic/SEA timezone (just when I get on).

So yes, it is the case that I can’t leave to empty my bags and there is no nearby waypoints. So I need 20 slot bags just as much as Fractal and Dungeon players do. I don’t see why you are so against WvW players having 20 slot bags. Are you scared that Fractals suck so badly that you would lose Fractal players if you gave them the option to acquire the same items via WvW instead? I really don’t see why you argue the point other than you trying to protect Fractal equipment’s exclusivity.

Player Character.9467:

Karma training WvW will give you much easier exp and karma than fractals will. You would only get it faster in fractals with optimal group setups and decent fractal rolls.

Nope – you need optimal conditions in WvW also. If you get a defensive commander or a scaredy cat zerg you don’t farm as much karma as you would in fractals. You need a rampaging zerg that dwarfs every other zerg on the map and not everyone plays on Sanctum of Rall or Blackgate.

Player Character.9467:

Quivers/books take ONE vial to make. Sure it’s a FotM item but it’s the lowest tier and it’s just ONE. Sclerite requires nothing.

Doesn’t matter how many it requires. I don’t want to do fractals even ONCE and WvW players should have to. So the easy answer is to drop mist essences in WvW (because WvW is in The Mists). I don’t see why you are so against it – other than some desire to make Fractals maintain some exclusivity over WvW – which it will anyway with Fractal skins and Prototype Capacitors.

As for Sclerite, I play a thief – Toughness/Healing Power/Condition Damage stats are next to useless to me. I have not completed even one Southsun achievement because I took no part in the event – PvE end game is for scrubs.

A few tips:
- Make sure you are using your mouse to turning your character and not your keyboard – that allows you to rotate much faster – so you can run through your opponent’s model, turn quickly with the mouse and backstab
- You can pre-cast skills with teleports – e.g., if you press Cloak and Dagger and then quickly press Steal you will be teleported onto your opponent just as your Cloak and Dagger is landing, you can also use Infiltrator’s Signet for another teleport
- You can use Fleet Shadow trait to have 33% swiftness while you are stealthed
- You can use Dagger #4 to slow your opponent temporarily so you can Cloak and Dagger on them
- You can Cloak and Dagger from NPCs in the game (and you can cloak and dagger on ambient creatures – the creatures that die in 1 hit)
- Try dagger/pistol – it is a better chasing weapon set – you can use Shadow Shot (#3) for chasing
- Try sword/dagger – you can immobilise (#2) and then Cloak and Dagger while they immobilised
- I don’t use Signet of Shadows myself but you may just be lacking enough speed to stay on them so give that a go
- You can use Caltrops to cripple your opponent
- You can use venoms to chill your opponent
- You can use Basilisk venom to stun your opponent

The most common use of dagger/dagger is the burst attack which goes:

1. flank your opponent (behind/sides)
2. charge Basilisk Venom
3. CnD (precast) + Steal (these must be done quickly in sequence)
4. Backstab
5. Heartseeker spam

So try to practice the CnD pre-cast into Steal.

I find dagger/pistol is far more common in WvW now. So that might be telling you something.

Zepidel.5349:

Idk how to feel about offhand pistol, the ini cost for that 1/4 second daze seems pretty high, the blind field destroys melee, but not so good without projectile finishers for ranged (unload + blind fields gonna suck ur ini dry quick)

I think the 1/4s daze is deliberately designed to be a very short duration.

Daze has two effects:
1. Interrupts the target – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Interrupt
2. Stops target using their skills

By choosing an ultra short duration the dev’s are saying they want this skill to be used for the #1 effect but not the #2 effect.

If you put a 1s or 2s daze on 4 ini a thief could permadaze a target while the thief’s team mate kills him – it would be OP.

So what I think the dev’s wanted was for you to use the 1/4s daze to interrupt heals, stomps, rezzes and channeled attacks – but you can’t spam long dazes to lock someone out of using their skill bar.

I think 4 ini to stop your guildie being stomped or delay your enemy from using their heal for another 5 seconds is a fair price.

I love Head Shot and don’t mind 4 ini cost – just wish I remembered to use it more!

I agree with you that Unload and Black Powder are mutually exclusive choices because of the initiative cost.

For us to choose to use Black Powder we need a buff to the projectile finisher % chance because 20% is way to low for me to spend 6 initiative creating a blind field that may never proc a combo with my auto attack.

I would want a minimum 50% chance because our auto attack is so slow.

I think the real issue with pistols is the lack of stealth due to no blast/leap finishers.

If #2 (which I think most people think is a useless skill) was converted into some kind of blast/leap (for 3 initiative) then I think the set would be usable.

I kill thieves easily when I play my warrior with a GS or axe. I have a level 80 thief though so I know how to play against them.

Player Character.9467:

bags – no, while you need 80 empty inventory slots to go do a long dungeon or fractal run, in wvw merchants are available long before you fill your bag

You obviously don’t play WvW very much.. or you die all the time. Either way, you are wrong. I run into full bags all the time and I can’t leave my group to go and empty them at spawn as I put my guild’s needs above my needs.

Player Character.9467:

exotic back piece – you do know the ones sold in fractals have substandard stats because they’re ascendable right?

Happy for them to stat match fractals – so long as it is equal.

Player Character.9467:

gift of ascension – no, the purpose of this item is to build AR which is why it is not a pve item, it is a fractal specific item

I thought you could do non-AR infusions but OK – I am probably wrong. Either way, doesn’t change the fact we need a way to ascend back pieces without doing fractals to get the forge recipe ingredients.

Player Character.9467:

obsidian shards – wvw already gives karma which is what everybody else buys these with

Fractals give more karma per hour than WvW – so by your logic – we should remove Obsidian Shards from the Fractal merchant and Fractal players should buy them with karma. I’d be happy with removing obsidian shards from the fractal merchant, so long as everything that can be equal is equal. Otherwise WvW players should be able to buy them with badges.

Player Character.9467:

glob/vial/shard – because you really need that +5 AR on your rings when an AC is raining down on you?

Currently the only way to get ascended back items (that I know of) is the forge using ingredients (mist essences) that you get from fractals.

I want ascended back items without playing fractals – because fractals are terrible/boring grind.

Care factor zero if those items comes with or without agony resistance.

As part of Arenanet’s statement of being able to ‘play the game how we want to play it’ (paraphrased) – some really great work has been performed recently in equalising WvW with fractals.

As WvW takes place in ‘The Mists’ (like Fractals) and ascended items already drop in the chest (like Fractals) – then it is reasonable to expect hat Mist essences also drop in WvW and other Mists/Ascended related items are available in WvW. Fractal specific items like Prototype Fractal Capacitor and Fractal Skins should NOT however be available in WvW.

These are the areas I see that still need addressing:

The vendors are still missing some items:

• 20 slot bags – cost: badges + small amount of coin
• Exotic back pieces with various stats – cost: badges + small amount of coin
• Gift of Ascension – cost: badges + small coin (like the Gift of Battle)
• Obsidian shards – cost: badges

Random drops that are still missing:

• Glob/Vial/Shard of Mist Essence

The drop rate on ascended items in WvW chests is also too low compared to Fractal chests.

The only time I have used it is in WvW when we found an engineer using teleport hacks to escape from us and we still managed to corner him and kill him. I did /laugh to be rude to the hacker because I don’t agree with using hacks in a game.

I personally never see thieves using /laugh on our server – most times it is always another profession.

Aaruhn.7049:

fix it. No reason that a class should have so much mitigation (i.e. stealth) in it and damage burst. No way a class should be able to go into a 20 man zerg without fear of dying. Get in trouble? Go into stealth and run.

Video or it didn’t happen.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Again, they need to fix it to a set percentage of damage, dependent on how much damage you do to the opponent. Meaning burst attacks are going to get retaliated hard, and those with weaker attacks (those who hit for under 300 damage to their foes) aren’t going to get wiped out by something that is doing more damage than they are.

Immolator.5640:

Destroying Guardian’s ranged effectiveness – try catching a Thief spamming ranged at you, espec. Unload, without any good retal. On top of that if you get 2 thieves doing the same thing, you’re doubly screwed. If you haven’t noticed, we aren’t really fast and our ‘ranged’ weapons can’t hit for the world, the only one which can has just over greatsword range and does ~200dmg per hit maybe. Rapid-fire ranged attacks in general do need to have some counter from Guardians, else you can just completely destroy them with anything @ 900 range. Try to find a solution that doesn’t shaft guardians plz.

Agreed – it is fair that guardians are compensated in some way for retalation being changed. Perhaps adding or extending the Protection boon when they apply retaliation to themselves (-33% damage is rather over powered in itself – but i’m sure someone will bring that up in another thread).

The scaling damage to the incoming attack damage is probably the best fix for now.

I would say the scaling retalation damage might actually be a buff to guardians because people would be reluctant to use their most powerful burst attacks on guardians because retaliation would now hurt them more than it used to. Example: Eviscerate from an axe warrior would now cause reasonable damage to warrior whereas previosuly it would only be a mosquito bite of damage returned – so a warrior would think twice before Eviscerating now.

I have been known to spam Unload on guardians and it really hurts (even though you can see the boon is there – sometimes you have no choice but to fight and I don’t always have the choice to switch to dagger/pistol if it is on cooldown). I think it rather silly that I get 8 times the punishment for using Unload (8 small hits – causing significantly less total damage) over Backstab (1 large hit – more total damage).

So let’s say retaliation gets modified to return 15% of the damage output.

So if I Backstab you for 10k I get damaged 1.5k damage.
If I Unload on you for 5k I get 750 damage.
If an Engie drops grenades into a zerg and causes 20k damage he takes 3k damage.

I would say currently with the way retaliation is I get about 25% to 50% of my damage returned on an Unload (depends on the guardian’s stats) and on my Backstab the damage returned is something around 3%. I barely notice retaliation when I use my dagger – which is wrong because they are significantly more damaging to the guardian.

The alternative is that I switch to sword/dagger and steal all your boons for myself – then you’d have no retaliation or protection and you would be easy meat given how slow you are. I just prefer to play the weapons I like and fix broken boons – rather than switch to a weapon set that will make boon reliant professions easy kills. It is always an option though if they don’t fix retaliation.

Yeah that will be fine, you can give other professions the ability to disable the thieves entire profession mechanic. So long as you give thieves a defensive counter skill that allows the thief to return the favour by disabling their opponent’s profession mechanic.

Upon activation, in 1200 AoE range – max 5 targets – the following profession mechanics are disabled:

• ranger – pet dies and goes on cooldown
• engineer – can’t switch kits
• mesmer – can’t create clones
• warrior – can’t use burst skills
• necro – can’t use death shroud
• guardian – can’t apply/receive boons
• ele – can’t switch attunements

As a thief can only be revealed once every 6 seconds under your proposal, we’ll make this new thief skill on a 6 second cooldown ok?

Stealth is the thieves profession mechanic – giving players the ability to completely nullify it is just stupid

iCryptik.1496:

Protip: It’s not up 24/7. It’s up for 5-7 seconds max every 24 seconds with traited, and a few more seconds if they run greatswords.

TL;DR: Watch their boons.

Protip: You’re giving terrible advice.

7 seconds every 24 seconds = 29% retaliation uptime.

Are you really suggesting that someone doesn’t attack someone for nearly 30% of the fight?

You must lose fights all the time if you think this is a valid strategy.

‘Sure let me just stand here and do nothing for 7 seconds while you wail on me.’

Retaliation obviously needs a major overhaul in WvW – either a cooldown, damage over time limit or it needs to scale linearly with the damage received.

Check out this guide for some good locations to pull the mobs

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18trtm/guide_leashing_and_solo_capping_supply_camps_in/

dannymichel.6019:

I’m barely at 50% health when solo roaming in WvW. Guess i’m just not that good. Does it make sense to go 5 scholar/one ruby?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plates_of_Lemongrass_Poultry

Use this as your food and scholars will be there when you are at full health.

It is better than the passive on the Assassin Signet when it activates below 50% health.

I think I worked out it is about 5.7 stacks of might when below 50%.

If I wasn’t a total cheapo I’d get scholar runes – but I would only want them because of the 6th bonus

bobross.5034:

i tried p/p a bit, but it really does involve a lot of 3 spamming, which was boring for me. If you like the ranged approach, try p/d, which is a bit more viable (as a condition build). it also has more interesting game play. still not the best weapon for pve or pvp/wvw, but if ranging and kiting is what you want, it’s a good option.

as others mentioned, there’s also the shortbow, which is great for aoe dmg.

p/d is not really ranged though, it is a hybrid – you have to get in melee range for CnD to access your damaging attack. In WvW there are sometimes so many AoE’s that getting in melee range may be undesirable. Shortbow and p/p are the only true ranged options. p/d doesn’t have significantly more variety either – it is 5-1-5-1-5-1. p/d requires more skill than p/p though. I’d argue that p/p offers more utility/variety than p/d because 2, 3 and 4 on p/d are pretty lame – so it is 5-1-5-1-5-1. Whereas 3, 4 and 5 on p/p are pretty good. I’d say the on demand interrupt and blinds makes you more valuable for a small team/zerg like the OP wants. If he is going to zerg though I’d say shortbow is better than p/p.

lvis.3824:

With your setup you lose 30% dmg to targets below 50%HP which is HUGE !!!!
Sure 2initiative all 10 sec is nice, but losing 30% dmg is just not worth it !

Matter of opinion, I value survival more than damage in WvW when running with my group. If I ran solo I would go full glass cannon.

It’s not really 30% though unless I pick on someone that is already on half health.

Assuming they are full health when I start – I get the 10% bonus when ini > 6. As I use more unloads I drop below 6 remaining ini and lose the 10% bonus. After I get them to <50% then the 20% bonus kicks in but I am still below 6 ini so I don’t have 30% bonus.

The 2 in 10 trait is more for when I am using dagger/pistol rather than trying to get more unloads. It’s a hybrid build that supports both weapon sets.

Either way, this is more of a ranged attrition/utility build rather than an instant kill build. I often run as a scout for the commander in our guild.

I am still getting 5-8k damage per unload so I’ll kill most players fairly easily.

I was actually planning to get rid of rejuvenation and take executioner. I really don’t want to give up quick recovery. I also will try to switch to Infiltrator’s Signet instead of Blinding Powder. I’m not saying this build is perfect – everything is about compromise. If I give up rejuvenation I lose the healing and might stacking. If I give up quick recovery I give up an extra dodge (huge impact to survivability!) and i lose ini regen which means I may not have enough ini to re-stealth when I am in trouble. If I give up executioner I lose damage bonuses. It really depends on what you value…

P/P works well in small groups and zergs for single target damage in WvW.

I run this build and play with 25 stacks of bloodlust for most of the night.

http://bit.ly/10YnDqQ

Basically run around spamming Unloads and dodges until they die.

If you get in trouble either Hide in the Shadows, Blinding Powder, Shadow Step or Shadow Refuge (or a combination of them).

I also use Blinding Powder and Heal in the Shadows aggressively to allow time for ini regen and healing – then use Sneak Attack to re-engage just before the stealth expires.

Riellan.2590:

Last night 3 of us tried to kill perma stealth thief ofc we fail,its easy to kill bad ones but any deacent player that does not need to be super uber korean wunderkid can go form stealth to stealth and again.We down him to 20% health -look at me im a pro stealther and his hp goes full again.Not to mention pro lame ppl that dont have balls to play class without stealth,you can forget about killing those.

Use a stealth trap. QQ less.

Otaur.9268:

No being able to spam 2 – 3 buttons is Over powered and needs to be changed.

All profession specific mechanics are OP – that’s why they are profession specific mechanics. I’d love myself some OP Virtues, Illusions, Death Shroud and Kits — they gave thieves Steal and Initiative instead. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Profession_mechanic

LeetSauce.7210:

Quick suggestion for the devs to help fix thieves, Can we get expeditious dodger and fleet shadow out of Acrobatics and into the Shadow Arts line.. Thieves are lacking effective builds against hybrid bunker/condition builds.. These two traits could at least give us a way to run a viable build that is not overpowering but competitive with other class builds.. I find the ability to keep almost a permanent swiftness during a fight is key for thief combat positioning since current changes we need more leverage to match our survivability/damage ratio compared to other classes

No thanks, leave Fleet Shadow where it is. My Shadow Arts line is already full of great traits – Shadow’s Embrace, Infusion of Shadow and Shadow’s Rejuvenation. I don’t want to give any of those up.

Rather than re-work traits they need to fix Signet of Shadows so we are fast again. Plenty of professions have virtual perma swiftness (I know I can keep my warrior permaswift and engineer with speedy kits trait has permaswiftness). Others have swiftness signets – about the only profession without easy access to swiftness is a mesmer (I think).

Arenanet said in SOTG they want thieves to be the most mobile profession in the game yet other professions have more access to swiftness than us.

So Signet of Shadows should be buffed to have 33% swiftness.

So that begs the question – why would you lose 33% swiftness by activating the signet? You wouldn’t unless the active skill was very good/useful. So the active needs a buff at the same time.

So I would suggest:

Passive: 33% swiftness
Active: AoE blind + cure immobilise, cripple, chill + breaks stun

Zelulose.8695:

Whats wrong with thief is not stealth. Just the healing from stealth. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrVdPMetZ2o
This thief was pressured from confusion and retal and an iswordsman but It would stealth before I could finish.

So the thief couldn’t kill you because your skills (applying confusion, applying retaliation) stopped him from attacking you and allowed you time to heal — and you couldn’t kill him because his skills (stealth) stopped you attacking him and allowed him time to heal.

Mesmer vs Thief looks very well balanced from your video.

Enjoy your walk.

ZhouFusion.1826:

that turned out to be not the way u thought it would be.

OIIIIIO.7825:

ZhouFusion.1826:

Perhaps other people got other idea’s please share them.

Not spending unrefundable points until you are sure.

How can he be sure until he buys the trait and tries/tests it for himself?

By that point it is too late.

I support the idea but don’t think it is high priority.