Guild Wars 2

So after repeatedly getting 1shot gibbed by thieves while playing my mesmer/necro/ele I decided that toughness/vitality/whatever just isnt enough, it does pretty much nothing to help you. I decided that active damage mitigation was required.

So what did I do? Rolled retaliation spec guardian and its SO hilarious watching a thief kill himself while trying to kill you through all ur amazing survivability cooldowns. Seriously, everyone should do this, just roll retaliation full tank guardian and just stand on points while thieves kill themselves while attempting to kill you XD

teams of 5 of the same champion would be really bad lol. Doesnt matter if that champion is the best AP carry or whatever that patch, still means you have 5 AP carries and get rolled into the ground…

This is why we don’t currently see 5 thief teams.

aphoxi.4378:

Confusion doesn’t seem that effective on MOBs. It seems to me that in pvp it represents a powerful tool that isn’t given as much attention as it should be and if it were buffed either baseline or through gear we’d hear a LOT more crying than already on the mesmer forum.

I dont think so. Mesmer has 1 build that isnt terrible: shatter (which is OP). If they buffed confusion it would merely make condition mesmer builds actually viable instead of a joke.

Team PZ have been running with warriors and they are currently undefeated in paid.

Since it effectively costs money to enter, would there be a problem with paid tournaments giving real money?

Oh look its another post by evilapprentice saying balance is fine XD

The backstab combo still does about 29k damage on squishy targets. That is way more than a mesmer’s hp. It is still broken.

Edit: Hence your only hope is distortion and getting your heal off, then restarting the fight on even terms.

I appreciate the effort but those thieves were beyond terrible. In a tournament with you playing like that vs a half decent thief you would get annihilated.

A mesmer’s only chance vs a decent thief (I assume backstab since its broken) is to stunbreak/distortion his opener (mirror images if you have it then smash distortion) then kill him when he is out of initiative. Getting phantasmal duelist on him is also crucial (after distortion). Note that this is only 50/50 at best, if you see him coming and are ready to react – there is still a chance you will just get instagibbed.

So why is this not sticky anymore?

@Killthehealersffs: Chill I agree with you.

Nope. Ping makes this next to impossible, and reaction time is the time for the human brain to recognise a stimulus, not recognise the stimulus AND choose an appropriate course of action.

So anything not a bunker is glass? I’m pretty convinced you’re just trolling now.

This vid shows why thieves need a hotfix backstab nerf asap.

That mesmer wasnt even glass… 22k hp and rock dog and still that happens.

I’m actually amazed that thieves are trying to defend this. You literally did a pve rotation and owned him.

“As top players have showed, the thief can be countered like any other profession, so if the means to counter them exist why people complain that much?”.

Xeph made a post just the other day saying that thieves are “broken”. I dont know of a single top player that thinks thieves are fine.

Jumper.9482:

Xeph- It really is a l2p issue. If you’re going to build complete glass there’s no reason for the glassiest cannon in the game to 1shot you if you don’t read his movement and blind or stunbreak it.
And as far as Mesmer goes the only thing I see wrong here is their portal ability which makes them invaluable in a capture/hold the point type PvP.

And no, I don’t ONLY play thief. My first class which I even PvE’d to 80 was a Warrior, which I stopped playing because I felt there was such a low skill-ceiling for the class compared to Thief. When playing with 3x less armor and 2x less health, the game becomes alot more twitch-reaction based in which any minor mistake will cost you a death. And quite possibly throw the match.

Are you seriously telling one of the best players in the game to l2p? Go 1v1 his thief then and win with another profession rofl…

There are effectively 40+ classes in gw2, just most of them not viable at all. e.g. tank mesmer, dps guardian, dps ele, conditions mesmer, etc. They should ideally all be viable and could be with some reworking of traits and tweaks to the ridiculous builds.

@Kid Taylor: You were talking about “stun then ulti” heroes. There are no invis assassins which do this. Invis assassins are based around physical damage and have no stuns. I could make another long reply about how they arent like thieves but I wont, its getting far too off topic.

Also thieves are definately op, there isnt even an argument here anymore. Xeph (top mesmer player) made a post the other day saying that thieves and mesmers are “broken” and that he is surprised that they arent being nerfed. I’m making a different point, that this sort of burst doesnt make pvp fun and raises the barrier of entry.

@Schwahrheit: Rofl. I played LoL for about 2 weeks and found it boring so I went back to DotA2 where I play consistently in the “Very High” skill bracket soloqueue. Calling me a casual noob is nothing short of hilarious. I’m saying that casual players are important because they are – I hope anet ignores players like you.

Sirevanac.3178:

what does the tier list have to do with anything? I’ve been playing and watching patch notes for more than 2 years and i’ve almost never (and i’m saying almost because i dont remember all the patches) seen unjustified nerfs because of community cry. What was “op” a year ago is still op nowadays, but, guess what: people learns to counter what they cant win (unless its a new champ, in which case its slightly more op for marketing stuff and other reasons its not worth saying in this case).

For example, tryndamere is “op” as a year ago, but people learned to use exhaust to counter him. And Tryndamere just stopped showing in random games.

Eve.

Peechez.4195:

Elementz tier list has been a joke since mid season 1

NoFrillsChampion – 1800 top elo/beta tester

Funny how you say hes a joke when hes like 400 elo higher than you have ever been. Also, do you even disagree with my point and think every champ is viable in comp games?

Kid Taylor.5479:

I would like to ask how is an assassin/killer in Dota2 different in role as compared to burst damage dealers in GW2. I would also like to ask what is the key difference between them, in terms of roles and complexity of use.

Since you did not give me an example I will pick one for you – Lina. I will compare her to gw2 thief.

Lina can stunlock down a hero that doesnt have much hp in the mid game (say 7-15 min). However her combo will be unlikely to kill strength heroes or people that have bought a defensive item. It can also miss. She also automatically gets weaker as the game goes on relative to other heroes (as they level up and get money they get more hp making her combo much less effective).

Also, lina is very easy to kill, has no escape mechanism and you can always see her coming (she does not have invis).

So in short, she has to setup her kills, has a small window of time in which to be effective, can only kill certain types of enemy hero and can easily die herself.

Contrast this to the thief: strong the entire game, can burst straight out of invis, very hard to kill and doesnt have to set anything up – you see someone alone you kill them.

Give me an example so I know what you are talking about.

Sirevanac.3178:

Um, excuse, but no. LoL balances on top ELO players. And DotA does little to aim to perfect balance.

Removing backstab, deathlotus, heartseeker and pw is the same as remaking the whole thief or removing it from the game. So, sorry man that i have to tell you, but you have to learn to deal with it.

I recommend you to read the about 100 posts that there are about these theme. It should clear all the upcoming discussion.

LoL does not balance only for “top” players at all. http://www.reignofgaming.net/tier-lists/competitive-tier-list. Tier 1 has been largely the same forever and guess what in any pro game most if not all the champions will be from that list. Riot even has an “antifun” policy where they nerf things purely because they are not fun to play against.

DotA2 has nerfed huskar/ursa repeatedly despite them being worthless in comp games BECAUSE the community thinks they are op. Also, like LoL, there are about 20 or so heroes at any given time which are pickable in comp games.

Maybe next time argue with facts instead of spreading misinformation.

If you are a new player in either of those games you are matchmade with other new players. No hero/champion can just come and gib you at lv1 in either of those games (mostly) so you have a chance to start learning the game. Furthermore most burst stunlock combos in any of those games requires some kind of skill to pull off. Contrast to gw2 where your first experience of any combat is likely to be “You are dead, skill breakdown: backstab 13k, steal 7k. Respawn?” (something that takes absolutely 0 skill to do as well, so a complete noob can noob stomp other noobs).

Though there has been some discussion of this topic in various places already, I do not think anyone has yet presented a clear argument for why casual players are very important for this game to succeed as an esport.

Every day when someone is complaining about something being overpowered 50% of the responses are something along the lines of “well if you have ninja reflexes like me then its fine, l2dodge, l2p”. Even if this was true it does not make the ability balanced.

Here’s why:

1. In order for a game to be an esport it needs to have paid players.
2. For this to happen someone (a sponsor) needs to be willing to pay people money to play a game.
3. These “sponsors” will want something in return.
4. Only thing a game can really offer is viewers/advertising. The more viewers the better – companies like advertising to gamers because they know they are willing to spend vast sums of money on computer hardware.
5. If the game has no casual players because every time they enter pvp they get 1shot by a thief then you have very few viewers. This is the case currently with gw2 – streams have small numbers of highly skilled viewers, no casuals.
6. It follows that you NEED casual appeal and casual players.

You don’t “make” an esport, esports grow out of a large base of players naturally. This could happen with gw2, but they cannot continue to ignore casual players. In particular the “noob stomp” combos in this game should be destroyed entirely: backstab thief, 100b warrior, deathlotus thief, pw thief, hs spam thief, shatterburst mesmer.

LoL and DotA2 both balance like this and they are arguably the most successful esports games right now.

I can give a couple of examples of esports games which ARE doing very well because they have a better philosophy: LoL and DotA2.

LoL is unbalanced at the high level and always has been with only 15 or so out of the hundred champions being viable for top level games. However, at the casual level it is quite balanced and they routinely nerf champions with “one-shot” combos or that the community does not think are fun to play against (e.g. tryndamere).

DotA2 is also unbalanced at the high level where most of the heroes never see the light of day in comp games. Yet icefrog still nerfs heroes that pubs complain about (lycan/ursa/huskar) to the point of being utterly worthless in comp games. In pub games all heroes have about 50% win rate.

Both these games are thriving because people are actually able to play them. Anet should follow this same route – games these days HAVE to be casual friendly. Anything else is simply not an option.

Well, imo they need to tone down burst in general. There is way too much burst flying around and hardly any condition or sustained direct damage.

This problem is not unique to mesmers.

@Xeph: Other than the mesmer’s map control via portal etc what makes them broken?

Um, its working as intended. Glass cannon shouldn’t be able to just instadown a Guardian bunker. They are there and were invented specifically to counter joke builds like backstab, I dont see any problem.

It is a matter of time, any prof can solo a bunker given enough time… I seriously dont know where all this misinformation comes from.

nobody rolls 3 bunker…

When I watch live streams I see 1-2 bunkers. Also I have not seen many 3 bunker teams at all.

“Main: Thief”…

seriously tho i do like it alot too, just needs some tweaking.

Don’t increase the total stats on items but maybe let people customise the stats that they have however they want. Maybe make this a feature cost glory so that new players can still use the preset items rather than make something ridiculously bad themselves and get rolled. Rune/Amulet/Gem isnt really enough customization imo.

Thoughts?

I think its great that Anet recognises the importance of communication.

Phantasms have about 3k hp if that with signet of illusions and +20% hp trait. They are mega squishy and will die to random aoe flying around.

Um… you can kill a bunker quickly with 2 decent players, whats the problem? (or 1 thief vs a bunker ele)

If everyone on your team takes 2-3 condition removal utilities, then yes…

You should have to have a defensive spec on your team in tournaments. I dont see a problem with this given that half the prof’s can build as a bunker.

Nobody can claim they are good at this game at the moment, since there is no ranking. When paid tournaments come, see if you end up making gems, then you can claim to be decent. Until then you are just another thief player who thinks they own because they are good when in reality it is likely just because that class is impossible to fail with.

P.S. I actually have credentials from other games which do have ranking systems… wonder if you do?

@OP: Save Yourselves is just asking to get rolled by a necro.

Also, one prof shouldnt be able to quickly take out another prof that it 100% traited for defence. That would completely nullify defensive builds. It should take two people a while and should only be somewhat quick with 3 people.

Um… conditions damage is what owns bunkers. Nobody plays that precisely because condition damage gets completely smashed by glass before they can do their damage.

It is 100% necessary to make it worth it to actually take a point though. If two people could just rock up and gib the bunker instantly there would be no point investing in a teamfight to take the point, the game would degenerate into small groups roaming and chain taking points without trying to defend them. This would be very silly.

Sounds like a good idea to me, how would you nerf the bleedstack spec?

How can mesmer be defensive? To me the class seems entirely to be go glass or go home… Can you post a build?

Why claim to talk about something abstract, then in your first paragraph say you want to nerf bunkers? (thief in disguise?)

As for MMR, I agree entirely. The game needs this and the ability to find players at your level via hotjoin would result in tons more people playing tpvp.

@Blazer: I dont see how you can complain about elementalists as a thief. Also, please stop posting these “well actually X class is worse than thieves” in every thread, its pretty obvious you are just trying to stop thieves getting nerfed.

What utility do you get by traiting for phantasms exactly? You lose 1 util slot (need signet of illus) and you also lose all your shatter util.

Slow windup on mesmer is deadly. Unlike necro for example, you arent tanky enough to just take it while your damage over time kills them. How can you think mesmer has staying power in a long fight?

By no target switching I mean say you do put your phantasms on someone and start killing them, then another more valuable target (e.g. Thief) pops out from stealth… too bad I guess cuz all your damage is on a 16sec cooldown which you just used, so you have to abandon the whole fight.