Guild Wars 2

2,200 is the total damage for all 9 hits.

You can still maximize the damage by landing a few extra projectiles that it throws out. This is done by turning off combat assist so you can whirl directly on top of enemies instead of to the side.

For reference, damage formula is STUFF * (your power)/(enemy armor). Damage values in tooltips use an estimated armor value for targets near your level.

I’ve never even considered using macro on thief; is there isn’t any combo complex enough for it to matter, especially considering you can rebind your skills to whatever you want to make it SUPER easy.

Half my builds use right hand strength anyway, I’m looking forward to a change like this

The most hilarious part about this thread is that elementalist probably can do more support in more different ways than both professions combined.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I love logic problems… and math. Math is fun. Sometimes. I’m just going to look at the build from the first and last clips, since a different trait setup is being used in the middle of the video (30 in virtues). I believe slightly different gear is also used in the middle clips…

Regen: 256/tick = 130 + 0.125(1008)
Rejuv: ~181/tick = 84 + 0.06(1008) + 0.25[84 + 0.06(1008)]

1008 healing power; 300 from traits, so 708 from gear.

18,309 max health with no nourishment or fortress buffs. 11,909 base, 3,000 from traits. 3,400 from gear = 340 vitality from gear…

Retaliation deals 330 damage per tick without any stacks of Might.
Retal: 330/tick = 267 + 844/13.4

Therefore, we can tell that he has 844 Power over the base of 916 (total of 1760). 0 from traits, so it’s a total of 844 from gear.

7 seconds of stability from SYG. 15 seconds of Regen and Protection from SY. Therefore, we know that he isn’t using any boon/regen/prot duration-increasing runes.

328 base Burning damage + 100 condition damage from traits + 140 condition damage from 4x Might lines up with the 388/tick seen in the video. No condition damage runes.

So what we know so far is:
0/10/10/30/20
844 Power from gear
708 Healing Power from gear
340 Vitality from gear
No boon duration runes
No Cond Dmg runes
Sup. Sigil of Hydromancy on GS

I’m tired, so I’ll just edit this a bit later. Tell me if I get close though. :> And someone else figure out the runes…I’m too dumb for those.

Blind Exposure
Meditation Mastery
Superior Aria, Wrathful Spirit, Pure of Voice
Retaliatory Subconscious, Absolute Resolution

The build switching might have thrown a couple of these off. Runes could be anything, didn’t see any obvious tells; if it were me I’d run melandru, but I’m not sure you’d get that much hp with those.

Nice build though, good to see retaliation hasn’t fallen completely out of the game yet. Good balance of not going overboard on healing abilities like many do.

Sig mastery is pretty standard even if you only use resolve.

Otherwise… this is not a great build. It is not optimized for anything, and its only healing comes from regen; which will not be enough to tank anything substantial. The sigils it uses do not stack… and crit chance is generally inferior to begin with. There is no good reason to split trait points to get aegis at 50% health when either tree has worthwhile traits to nab. Condition removal in the virtues line makes this look like a pvp build; that is more or less a wasted trait in pve.

You could likely figure out something better on your own. Personally I used a monk’s focus build pretty much the entire way through the game (it was easy mode). Frankly, symbols or altruistic healing based builds are likely a bit more powerful and party friendly, however.

For any tanky build, the first thing you should plan is where your healing is coming from. Besides the above three (symbols can be specc’d for healing), regeneration and selfless daring (from 15 points in honor) are important sources to be aware of. Monk’s focus has the advantage of not needing healing power or boon duration to benefit fully.

Protection is also important, but difficult to get in any good amount. Save Yourselves and hammer auto attack can keep it up pretty effectively though.

Well because shield of absorption is on shield, and you can’t have two #5 caliber skills on the same weapon.

Also it doesn’t match the boomy aesthetic they tried to give the guardian shield skills.

Neandramathal.9536:

Thread title just makes me think: “WAR huh, what are they good for… absolutely nothin!”

Haha beat me to it, I can’t tell if it was deliberate or not, but I can’t take this thread seriously ’cause all I can think about is edwin starr. link

Also I’ve seen warriors used to good effect in plenty of tourny games -_-. Even as a point holder, cause some builds hard counter thief burst better than guardians do.

Any sort of sustainable condi removal will pretty much shut this build down, which is why it’s not tpvp viable except for special tactics (all those ele’s and guards running team cleanse). This alone won’t let you kill them, as they can heal for 500/s in stealth.

If you want to actually have a shot at killing it, you need to time some CC effects either to the end of their dodges or in the middle of their unloads. Some of these builds do not even RUN stunbreaks, which is absurdly ballsy.

EDIT: Also as has been said, dodging their cloak and dagger can be helpful. But if you have a pet, illusions, turrets, etc, they will just be using those to land their cnd anyway

Mufa.1326:

1. Unload is ranged, sword is melee. If you want safety of the range you should have lower dps. I do not know why people think you should be doing the same dmg standing safely on the ledge at 800 range as going into the melee and taking all the risks that implies.

This

Who, exactly, are thieves competing with for ranged burst? Rifle warriors? Cause thieves are already beating them out.

When I see any player running three signets, it immediately puts their personality in question. It really shows a lack of desire to play the game at the same level as the rest of us. I do not mean they are using signets because they are easy, but rather because they have not bothered to ask questions such as, “Is this really part of a useful build?”. Often, this attitude is reflected in all aspects of their gameplay, including mechanics, and they will often end up on the floor or otherwise not contributing to fights as much as a serious player.

There are exceptions, but this is my first reaction almost always.

Same speed.

I usually immediately leave after decap if somebody comes to stand on it, and it usually ends up with me getting more points anyway.

Similarly I let other players stomp for me too. They get to gloat and I get to play more, works out nicely.

To the build calculator!

This might have been related to some of the patch changes being implemented on the tournament servers before the patch actually went live; guess we will find out if they work again soon

yea just happened to our mesmer in paid, lost round 1 needless to say -_-

KansasFF.9410:

Do we know that chill doesn’t affect initiative regen? It very well might, I have never thought to check.

I does not affect it, it would be far too debilitating. The movement speed slowdown is already particularly brutal on thieves as it prevents a lot of their skills from functioning normally, and mobility is so vital to their ability to deal and avoid damage.

This is much better understood as “cooldowns timers run at 33% speed”.

There is a checkbox to turn on cooldown timers in your options.

So for a 3 second chill, you will only see the countdown drop by 1 (instead of 3) for the duration of the chill.

Something magical happens when you reach rank 30. It is like reaching enlightenment. The game is no longer a shallow playground for cheap thrills but a deep strategic arena for the mind. Tactics that used to thwart your attempts at fun become exciting opportunities to express your style and skill. New understandings bloom and you can’t get enough.

Be brave. Stick with it. We’re waiting for you.

The boons, effects, etc are just showing what that build is capable of putting out.

Just be careful, that build is very good but also has low hp and defense, so be careful

Most players post their builds in the description below; I have seen most classes except ranger and warrior streaming

Generally any builds pulled off of the twitch.tv streamers are a pretty safe bet to be competitive.

It has uses against good players because it is potentially so damaging. If you tone it down it becomes truly useless.

I am confident that as you log more play time, your reaction speed will improve and you will no longer find 100b to be a problem.

This is not a L2P issue. You feel like there is no time to respond when, in fact, there is time. New players’ reactions can be overwhelmed in any number of ways; guardian can teleport and mash autoattack and it feels just as unfair. The solution is simply to stick with it and gain more experience.

No I’m also seeing this with a superior energy sigil on both sets; this always worked fine previously. These have been a major part of many many builds, surprised there is not much posted

Zeke Minus.5720:

You know, it would be amazing if my Necro self could have a well that pulsed bleeds. Oh, how a Necro can dream, right?

Well if you have epidemic and a thief drops caltrops….

I agree that caltrops, in itself, is overpowered as a utility skill. However, it is literally the only thing making bleed thief remotely viable (in pvp); so in the larger scheme I’m inclined to let it slide.

I think it is absurd to think that this game could hold up if skill were all that mattered. It is not demanding enough compared to physical sports. The controls are not tight or responsive enough compared to other games. For example, snap interrupts, where you change targets and immediately press stun, are impossible because there is a delay between when you change targets and when you will actually target that person.

I also think it is absurd to say that randomness is out of hand; when crit rates are “balanced” at the 40-60+% chance, this is anything but random, it is statistics. There is no 1 in 100 chance that you just win or lose. Nobody uses a build that has +60% crit damage and only a 10% crit chance, even though there is a chance it will outperform all other builds. By the same token, nobody makes a build that will only survive if somebody misses half their crits. Why? It would be too unreliable. GW2 is not about what happens in individual encounters, although there are specific builds that try to maximize this specific outcome.

Eurantien.4632:

Do you think removing RNG would favor bunkers too much? If I don’t know what you roll I can’t prepare for it. If I see you use a certain signet or elixir and the affect is not random then I can be prepared to defend against it. How do you kill me now when you can’t get that lucky perfect shot?

This is the kind of situation I’ve been referring to, props for pointing it out. Players who want RNG removed would say that you either need to bring an “anti-bunker” build, or bring another player to kill him (assuming equal skill).

What do you do, then, if you are in a losing situation? It becomes impossible to make that clutch, risky play, where your roaming thief solos their bunker, unless you are literally banking on your opponent making a game-breaking mistake.

Immo.9217:

ens.9854:

Players will always feel like this, and you know what, it is often true.

Take table tennis for example; sometimes the ball lands on the very very edge of the table, making it impossible to return. Should the player be complimented for his skillful shot or should the volley be replayed because of the randomness? In reality neither happens—the point is tallied AND the player apologizes because both players know that it was by luck and not skill. These things are accepted and the game goes on.

Part of becoming a mature competitor is realizing that chance occurences are just that—you play all your cards right, you do everything you can to MINIMIZE the possibility they will happen, but they do still happen. Immature players allow this to affect them emotionally (ie. tilt), and are never able to reach the highest level because they do not see the games for what they are.

Often it becomes a matter of hubris; they take their victories to mean they are better than their opponents and their losses are purely due to chance or error. They think by removing any possibility of randomness that their true skill will become apparent.

I still dont see how this would help noobs win vs “pros” as the main reason I would want randomness toned down is to make evenly skilled fights more entertaining the better skilled player who makes less mistakes should win.

Now I had a paid match yesterday that was very close the score was in our favor at around 365 to 350 when one of our team died he waited about 7 seconds before he relized he got the infinite load screen bug by the time he relogged and entered we were down my 20 points at the end of the match we lost by 8 points. Now this had to do with a game bug and not something that was intened either way I dont like losing because our team got the bug and theirs didnt, just like I wouldn’t like to see a engineer lose because he got stealth when he wanted stability or vice versa.

Obviously some skill gaps will be too large to overcome by RNG no matter what; we all encounter players that are just that much worse than us. There is also a point where the “chance” occurences are just too much; I am not suggesting that everything be a pure die roll.

However people are being far too overly-dramatic. Things are not as bad as all that, and some element of unpredictableness is healthy to the game. I don’t think any reasonable person would argue that randomly being taken out of the game is a challenge that we have to fight through to obtain victory; even though it is easily possible when playing worse teams.

From a purely GW2 perspective, it is silly to say things like crit rates, etc are RNG and pure chance.

Take a step back. Suppose you play thief and 1/4 times your entire backstab combo crits and makes you an 80% favorite to win that fight. It becomes a strategic decision; is the upside high enough that you are willing to fight it out the other 3/4 of the time? Do you need to be guaranteed victory when you crit to make the build worth it?

You want GW2 to boil down to single encounter dynamics, but it is much deeper than that. Adding pure defense is one way to mitigate the effects of RNG, and blocks/blinds/evades can often completely stifle them; but ultimately how often these are used effectively is just another statistic to be taken account of.

Chess, I think, is a terrible example, most games end in draws! There is certainly an element of luck; there is no way to choose the best strategy at the start of the game; so maybe you choose a strategy or openning that turns out to be a huge underdog. Can you still win? Yes of course, but it will be much more challenging, or you can choose to be safe and play for a draw. It is the same in GW2, maybe something unpredictable happens and you are a huge underdog for no reason related to skill or strategy; do you fight it out or try to retreat? It’s things like these that make every game different.

And I think enough is enough on the sporting examples; anybody who has ever played a sport at a decent level knows that “lucky shots” do exist. Sometimes they coincidentally make that perfect choice. Over the long haul, statistics will win out.

Immo.9217:

Players should never feel they lost because of lol random the chance to lose should be on the player not because you rolled a 1 and he rolled a 20.

Players will always feel like this, and you know what, it is often true.

Take table tennis for example; sometimes the ball lands on the very very edge of the table, making it impossible to return. Should the player be complimented for his skillful shot or should the volley be replayed because of the randomness? In reality neither happens—the point is tallied AND the player apologizes because both players know that it was by luck and not skill. These things are accepted and the game goes on.

Part of becoming a mature competitor is realizing that chance occurences are just that—you play all your cards right, you do everything you can to MINIMIZE the possibility they will happen, but they do still happen. Immature players allow this to affect them emotionally (ie. tilt), and are never able to reach the highest level because they do not see the games for what they are.

Often it becomes a matter of hubris; they take their victories to mean they are better than their opponents and their losses are purely due to chance or error. They think by removing any possibility of randomness that their true skill will become apparent.

Coming from quake, I find this to be an old discussion. Most quake players would say these games (mmorpgs) take no skill at all, because by skill they mean motor coordination. Many players believe motor skill is the only thing that matters, and reject duelling because it forces you to keep track of item spawns, learn arbitrary geometry and movement, and deal with random factors such as respawns and unusual tactics. They would rather be placed in a small empty arena with all their tools and their opponent in front of them; and this is exactly what they do. A quick googling of “quake thunderstruck” will show just how incredibly shallow and boring this becomes. Ultimately the only lasting form of competition in quake has been duelling (and team play to an extent) because it is so interesting, challenging, AND unpredictable (eg. deep).

Random elements are a tried and true element of competitive contests, players should never feel like the winners have been predetermined. There is no sport where the most skilled player wins EVERY time; and if this requires a certain amount of RNG to be added to the game, then sure as hell it belongs there.

Comparing a video game to the Olympics is not a fair comparison; you are forgetting that games are as much a test of strategy and tactics as much as skill. But even so, there is still randomness in those sports as well; any player could have an ‘off’ day, the weather might not suit their training, their equipment could fail; if we wanted to find the absolute best, we wouldn’t try to determine it by a single result (world records are often better than Olympic records).

Poker, one of the most purely strategic and successful games around, has an inherently huge amount of randomness; it is basically pure luck on any given day. The most successful e-sports are only made more exciting because there is a chance of “build order win”, an essentially random situation that players must accept if they adopt high risk high reward strategies.

A more practical argument: Like hell I want this game to be about skill with its single server location and unresponsive targetting.

edit: I realize people may try to pick this apart on an argument by argument basis and claim that it is therefore completely false. I simply ask that you let players worse than you have their victories to keep them, and you, interested in the game. There is always a chance you might lose no matter how good you are, and that is appropriate.

Not sure if this is known but it’s a bit absurd. Immediately got 25 stacks of +10 healing instantly off a lich form. Does this work on normal jaggies too?

I would think that for upgradeable.pendantv1 there would be a recipe to make upgradeable.pendantv2

You are still one step better than guardians when fighting against walls.

Just use caltrops.

Caltrops + deathblossom
Caltrops + shorbow

solved

edit: seriously caltrops damage is off the charts

I really really really really really really want to like conjured weapons.

But they have so little synergy; you can’t chain with normal skills because of their cast time; there are virtually no powerful traits to augment them; their impact is not high enough to warrant chaining them with utility skills.

I think Anet is taking the position that guardian, warrior, mesmer (possibly thief) “feel good” where they are at, so they do not want to change them much.

Granted it makes 0 sense that, instead of buffing other classes to bring them up to the level of guard/mesmer, they are nerfing half their abilities (cya later ele).

Mug is a huger problem than most people realize… it is INSTANT (and thus usable any time) ranged 4-5k damage.

You think HS spam is bad? Wait til they learn that they can HS……HS…….HSMUG.

I started laughing when this happened to me; anet has gone full on struggle bear with some of these bugs.

Tested selfless daring. Heals for 1200 in HoM, but only 650 after joining a spvp server. This is a fairly substantial nerf to bunkers on top of the removal of block bug (hopefully this time….)

As for the AH hitting over 5 targets; I haven’t done wvw in months, but yes, it used to heal you for 1500+ per pulse if you had enough teammates in range, on top of the final heal. I’m guessing it was fixed since then.

Things are becoming suspicious. I suspect more nerfs incoming, either to our damage output or other healing sources (meditations). Seems most other professions have not improved with the last patch but we are still on top.

Guard bunker got nerfed fairly hard. Selfless daring now heals for ~650, where it used to heal for 1500+ per dodge roll. A 4 dodge roll burst now only heals 2600 instead of 6000

For those testers out there, only part of the nerf took effect in HoM, the 50% reduction is only visible in actual spvp maps

Nope, it’s just a terribly designed trait. It picks randomly, so you only get a 20% chance of any type recharging

Bear on the job.6273:

But let’s all say a collective “WTF” for this patch note:

•Many skills, items, and traits were applying healing to an infinite amount of targets and have now been limited to 5 targets.

I don’t really understand this one at all. In SPvP, you almost never have more than 5 allies around you at one time, so this was a non-issue. In WvW though, this was almost required. Between siege weapons and massive player AOE, group healing was the only way to survive. Now since it’s limited to 5 targets, you can bet player pets and people at full HP are going to be soaking all your heals, making them practically useless. Until they implement some kind of smart-healing measure (heal the players with the lowest health, in range, and ONLY heal pets/NPCs when all valid player targets are full health), you simply can’t limit healing to 5 targets. This is so dumb…I just don’t understand.

Presumably they did this to prevent the “stacking” tactic (which took an unusually long time to catch on, seeing as it is in other games). I’m curious to know if it nerfed the WvW altruistic healing build also? ie. empower and virtues could apply to 20+ allies and thus heal yourself for tons.

50% damage reduction on dancing dagger?

It now does less damage than a shortbow auto attack and STILL costs 4 init?

Methinks they did not think this one through very much.

also heart of mists

Is this a post asking to add tetra master? ’cause I loved that game

Nightmare.4316:

Alright before anything, spirit weapons are amazling, giving them 50% more duration, not destroyed on activation and burning dmg per hit, they can do a great amount of dmg and crown control.

The sad truth i am talking about is that the damage of spirit weapon is fix.
If you are lvl 80, no matter how much condition dmg or duration you have, the burn will last 1 second and do 528 dmg.
No matter how much power you have, the dmg of a normal spirit weapon hit will always be constant as well (but it has a range of damage like any normal weapon)

The only thing that seems to be based on player stat is crit chance, having a crit chance of 22%, i did 21 crit out of 100 tries.

Well thats it i just wanted to inform you guys!

ITS TRUE!

D:

well I guess this will help many players improve their burning builds?

SiNoS.2147:

Alnear Leavar.7453:

Quick question:

Any way to increase movement speed for exploring on map? Currently I play a thief on PvE and I like to be fast in going from point A to point B.

In general between retreat, save yourselfs, and staff symbol you can keep 33% run speed up without boon duration rune’s. With runes it makes it that much easier.

Late answer:

Sword teleport and judges intervention can be used for instant travel, just target something REALLY far away so you don’t accidentally hit them. Greatsword leap can be used without a target for a bit of extra movement.

Question:
In what order are conditions removed with removal?

Enemy players getting rallied from stomps is what I hate about down state.

Don’t forget you get a huge fireball (that does a LOAD of damage) to throw if you hit #4 twice. This is the main reason I used torch for so long, though I changed to focus at higher level for the extra blocking.

I always carry both a scepter and a sword; often times you will find that you don’t need the ranged advantage (because mobs are so weak) and the sword just kills faster and lets you teleport around. Dungeons will require you to have a scepter, however.

Depends on what you mean? Guardians can play tanki/heal, support/heal, DPS, evasion (blind/block), spirit weapons, symbols. They have swiftness/teleports, plenty of CC. Our ranged option ‘feels’ weak but has great DPS.

Guardians are based around doing strong damage through auto attacks (compared to other professions), so you will find a lot of utility just by switching weapons. There are also a few gameplay defining traits as well (monk’s line, spirit weapon line, symbol line) that will drastically change how you play.