Guild Wars 2

You are allowed to play with friends in Tournaments by using the “invite Party” option or typing their name in with you to invite them to play with you.
In hot-join you basically have to swap teams to be with them, and are at the mercy of auto-balance and the forced swap upon round completion.

Ideally a better option is granted through Custom Arenas.

It’s redundant because of this
2. Body shot – leap back 450 units and apply vulnerability. 4 initiative
3. Shadow strike – Warp back (600?) units. 4 initiative.
4. Crippling dagger – Cripple foe, bounces
5. Cloak and dagger enter stealth.
The redundancy is this, Body shot and shadow strike both want to remove you from an equation, but they nerfed Shadow strike (which also has it’s own very short activation time) to prevent excessive warping. You now have a skill doing somewhat what the old Shadow strike did, at the exact same cost.
In addition Crippling daggers own purposes for kiting, and then the decision on CnD vs Shadow strike already as your melee attack of choice.

I think your change to body shot would be great for P/P but it’s very redundant in P/D while Shadow strike exists.

If you’ve played P/D you know the damage output does not warrant what you are suggesting, in terms of “evasion kiter”. It’s damage comes from Cnd + 1 even making the body shot change would not prevent this reality brah.

You don’t need a target for Shadow strike, you need the dagger to hit, so 130 range.

@ Evil) Putting aside the Leap-finisher it’s not that his suggestion doesn’t work. It’s just that it’s redundant with Shadow strike. If you had this, then it makes sense to remove the warp from Shadow strike and then adjust it’s damage range or if it should apply condts accordingly. In addition just straight out as a change it doesn’t change P/D’s core objective of 5,1. Which it’s arguably a more frequent user of than any other /D set.

Imo if you’re going to have a jump back (not shadowstep) with unrestricted range unlike Shadow strike, than you go for a skill like Distracting shot. Where the distance isn’t much. 450 is honestly quite a lot. P/P really can’t take ini costs down anywhere though. Unload is strong enough to warrant the 5 ini cost, headshot as well for its cost. BP kind of can’t be cheaper either so long as D/P can leap through it.
So putting a 4 ini skill on P/P won’t help much with it’s reliance on Unload…
Lulz. Thief problems.

Lulz I suggested similar, but yeah again stay away from Leap-Finisher.
P/P’s issue is not that it lacks stealth. Nor does it need expensive methods of obtaining it, when as it currently operates, it’s relatively starved for initiative to begin with vs other sets save for S/P.

But yeah it would improve a lot with having more mobility. That being said This + Shadowstrike + CnD creates a huge amount of redundency on the P/D set.
You can’t have all 3 exist in that state and not make it silly after-all, Shadow strike already fits the purpose of kiting, it is still neglected for Cnd+ 1 spam. Which is more or less Anet’s fault. Since if you look at the Shortbow Surprise Shot is barely stronger than the auto-attack but very effective regardless for what it offers you.
If you don’t address Cnd+1 being so linearly effective it still going to be what people fall back into. Otherwise they’d be using Shadow strike when they were in melee range.

This doesn’t apply to P/P and S/P because they don’t access stealth naturally, so Sneak attack is never degenerated into 5-1 play though if you give them steal it essentially does. Even looking at D/P that is somewhat of an issue where full linearity takes over.

Naturally yes.
I suppose some would disagree but I think I think it lacking is the biggest well initial sign of something being abscent from GW2. You can form a team, but you cannot directly face a team without going through the randomization process.

Arcade fighting games back in the dinosaur ages may not of had online play, but if you both had 25 cents, then it was on. 2013, The need for this remains constant essentially in any player-vs-player game as far as I’ve known, more than I believe anything else requested, and it is not here. Well assuming it’s not done incorrectly and doesn’t leaves me wondering why they did it at all.

Man I was on my 3ds the other day. People organize fights and even made clans for Kid Icarus, brah. All it allows it a) Random play b) Fight who you know. Gw2 is missing b) and it looks sloppy.

and that they don’t like mug lmfao.

It makes more sense, but they way they worded it back in the thread when they announced the change it seemed to be a “temporary” fix so they could monitor the results.
Obviously it’s been quite meager to the success of P/x

Daggers on the other hand are strong to the point that throwing another 10% on them is not necessary as they current are…post-26th who knows.
If I wasn’t a lazy kitten I’d find it and link you Jon’s reason.

Pistol mastery was buffed to 10%, because Pistol damage’s not doing well, and so they buffed that trait in January to try and solve the issue of Pistol being generally the weak weapon set.

Verdelet Arconia.6987:

ensoriki.5789:

Oni.5429:

^Which is what I fear the most, it’s an absolutely kitten idea and it’s why Guild wars 1 failed as an esport despite being such an amazing game. The majority of players in any game will always be soloplayers. And a huge part of those soloplayers will want to be able to play competitively and be aknowledged as a skilled player without having to pick up the chore of playing with a full team.

Hopefully arenanet understands that or this game will never grow past the tournaments arenanet will host on their own.

I don’t get how you can be correctly rated in a solo que even if pre-mades didn’t exist as you’re team composition is random regardless. In gw1 it made sense for Hero battles since that really was all on your own but how does an individual rating for solo que even make sense in a team based game where your effectivity depends on teams, and those teams are random, and likely even more affected by “build wars” than anything else. A solo que leaderboard just doesn’t make sense to me to begin with given those factors. MMR should’ve been team-based from the get-go…

if a player solo queue and become the leader of roster,kicks the other 4 person and invite his 4 buddies into roster individually,not using party. Will he be rated as solo joiner or premade now? can easily be abused to get high solo ratings/rankings

Lulz even more complication. but that’s just more reason why solo-join should be exempt from any sense of ranking.
If you want adequete competition, but you’re casual to the point of not finding a team. You should be in Custom Arena’s. At least that is what always made sense to me.

Oni.5429:

^Which is what I fear the most, it’s an absolutely kitten idea and it’s why Guild wars 1 failed as an esport despite being such an amazing game. The majority of players in any game will always be soloplayers. And a huge part of those soloplayers will want to be able to play competitively and be aknowledged as a skilled player without having to pick up the chore of playing with a full team.

Hopefully arenanet understands that or this game will never grow past the tournaments arenanet will host on their own.

I don’t get how you can be correctly rated in a solo que even if pre-mades didn’t exist as your team composition is random regardless. In gw1 it made sense for Hero battles since that really was all on your own but how does an individual rating for solo que even make sense in a team based game where your effectivity depends on teams, and those teams are random, and likely even more affected by “build wars” than anything else. A solo que leaderboard just doesn’t make sense to me to begin with given those factors. MMR should’ve been team-based from the get-go.
If it’s not a 1v1 format is won’t adequetly track 1v1 skill as I see it. It’s like Micheal Jordan in his prime joining a random basketball team full of a couple 7 year olds , 2 high-school ballers and a college-baller trying to carry vs a team randomly composed that just so happens to be NBA ballers throughout. It’s luck based how do you properly rank that and why would you want to be ranked in that system knowing that?

If solo joiners want a place to be ranked to show off their skill individually than they’d need a format for 1v1 individual skill like Hero-battles.

I think in reality that individual skill is shown by action and not statistics if you’re a solo-joiner because in terms of team success it’s not just about you in a team game.
So solo-joiners ideally should not be giving a dam about appearing on a leaderboard to begin with and if they did they’d be on a team.

Rafahil.2857:

Well the dagger auto attack is faster than the sword’s auto attack…..

It doesn’t change anything.
The significance between the 2 auto’s is actually the poison.
This does 2 things
1) Scales on condition dmg and duration meaningfully.
2) Weakens heals.
The poison means auto attack speaking, Dagger will beat out sword in the case of one enemy. It’s not really attack speed, its the poison ticks.
2) The poison will naturally help you with your issue against regen by reducing it.
Mind you if all you’re trying to use is dagger skills outside of the mainhand you won’t have any poison to help you vs the regen.

Anyways.
Of course if you want you can take Needle trap, Kleptomaniac (Deadly arts trait), Spider poison venom or poison them with the shortbow first if you find the regen is bothering you and you wish to use your sword. Caltrops will also work against it. Or at least presumably the poison works on their heal I can’t recall. If you’re just attacking things 1 on 1 you might want a dagger instead since it excels at 1 on 1 encounters where the sword gives you potent offense for multiple monsters.

jportell.2197:

That’s fine for d/p, but p/d #3 puts you away from your target… But to stealth to get burst you need to be melee… Which is why in this case specifically i feel like 3 should close the gap… But just my opinion… no need to be a condescending elitist kitten… plus your the sword/x thief… Why do you care?

If you want to take offense you’re only hurting yourself.
Sneak attack being basically all the damage P/D has is the problem, and to be honest it’s false. Sneak attack is the only damage P/D has in a condition spec more or less, outside of that in a power set basically everything does damage, just the damage is meager. Shadow strike isn’t really the issue for P/D. It’s 1) the lack of varied condi’s in a condition spec, 2) Relatively meager damage in a power spec, and 3) Defenses flopping about due to pathing 4) sometimes you must wonder what is even the purpose. Ideally it’s a kiting set which means a) defensive and or b) attrition, but it’s attrition is mediocre, and it’s defensives aren’t proportional as I see it and have overlap between each other. D/P has basically no need for Shadow strike. It’s a melee set and Shadow strike is essentially contradictory to how it operates, at best it lets it take a step back after doing a one-shot, but that only promotes it as a gimmick, and essentially makes it as silly as P/D. You don’t see something wrong with P/d’s focus being primary on hitting, 5 than 1, as much as it possibly can with little care relatively for Body shot and Shadow strike or Crippling dagger? 3 of the skills on the bar are ignored quite a bit, that is a problem I think that is worth paying attention to it’s position as a ranged set that doesn’t care about it’s ranged attacks…

What I enjoy running has no bearing on my concern for the profession, that’s fairly silly to assume. I’ll play anything, I prefer to play my swords.

jportell.2197:

ensoriki.5789:

jportell.2197:

D/P #3 ad P/D #3 should be swapped… Why? Because to access stealth from d/p its better the further you are (seems like) to access it from p/d you need to be melee and p/d burst comes from the stealth skill (d/p has a couple other options inits A/A). So by using #3 on a p/d set up you are able to close gap and set up for stealth.

Anyways Just a thought something I was mulling over.

Mull over it some more and then realize there is no reason for this whatsoever.

No need to troll there genius… Just felt like the burst being preceeded by a melee attack makes the need to open the gap with #3 less so

D/P is a chaser set, where P/D is a kiter. Thematically speaking.
Shadow shot is there to chase people who get away better than Heart seeker. Which can need 6 ini at times to cover the same range and is affected by snares. Shadowshot helps D/P reach it’s ideal focus which is catching runners and people/monsters in the back better than any of the other melee sets which at most need to be 450/600 range before they’re on the target vs D/P’s 900. Where the S/ cannot continually progress the 600, and D/D’s HS can be snared to weaken its efforts.
You’re asking to make it do less of it’s purpose.

Should be in proportion.
Maw, Wurm, Behemoth should be starting and remain easy
Tequila and shatterer need better defensive tools and a couple more attacks or at least monsters supporting them well to make up for their lack of attacks.

Tequila is currently easier than the Fire elemental becuase as soon as you get near him there is basically no threat save a random giant.

jportell.2197:

D/P #3 ad P/D #3 should be swapped… Why? Because to access stealth from d/p its better the further you are (seems like) to access it from p/d you need to be melee and p/d burst comes from the stealth skill (d/p has a couple other options inits A/A). So by using #3 on a p/d set up you are able to close gap and set up for stealth.

Anyways Just a thought something I was mulling over.

Mull over it some more and then realize there is no reason for this whatsoever.

What a sad state we are in when we ask to be charged for custom arenas lol. They can do it IDGAF but I’ve never known a game to charge for it. Will prob backfire Luke paid in that respect.

fishybill.6908:

Archer Henchman.2534:

I’m probably the only thief who shortbows as much as I do, but thieves put out the highest consistent ranged damage in the game. Poison is the most important condition for pressuring an opposing team, and cluster/trickshot hit multiple targets.

This I agree with 100% and it’s wrong, so wrong….

I don’t think Thieves are exactly in the right place at the moment, why should they put out so much ranged damage and still have the ability to step in finish and stealth out.

They are not a ranged class so why should they be able to out damage a ranged class?

What are the ranged classes now.

Everyone ignores Tequila’s Risen friends and his bone wall.
You get more pressure from the Fire elementals in the Nova fight then at Tequila…

You aren’t a boon heavy prof. In the case of working together with people you gain double the profit.

You can ask a Mesmer to portal you.

Srs. (6) effect hasn’t worked since…ever. I’m talking in combat.
Come on now man…

Every profession has trait issues, however I felt we’d talk Acrobatics specifically.

It’s a trait line focused ideologically on mobility and evasion. It is “global” in that it is quite stealth independent relative to the Shadow arts line which focuses more on stealth than acrobatics does.
Acrobatics has 2 traits relating to stealth where Shadow arts has 5 that do not relative to everything else that does.
We obviously cannot ignore what our weapon skills and utilities do for us but looking at these two statements.
“Experts at stealth and surprise, thieves can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons. Thieves practice an agile, acrobatic fighting style, which can make them very hard to hit.”

“Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”.

I have no idea wtf they’re talking about.
In the first we are hard to hit because of our agileness. In the other our survivalbility is instead emphasized by stealth.
In reality, it can be both and there are certain builds that are able to utilize Acrobatics well for prolonged attacks with conditions. Or utilize both defenses to be significantly sturdy. I’d argue acrobatics lacks a bit of, effectiveness in the mobility department as a result of what looks like unsatisfactory numbers and poor traits.

1. Assassin’s Retreat.
- There are 3 game modes…well you can count Keg brawl as a 4th :P. Assassin’s retreat loses out a bit in WvW and Spvp as of it’s low duration relative to the time in between kills. It’s not consistent enough. In addition you’ll want to swap it out for many boss fights since even if it comes to moving out of attacks, it’s not proccing without anything to kill. It’s about as niche as a fall damage trait. It is flavourful but in terms of being “hard to hit through mobility”, it doesn’t do anything until after someones dropped dead or monsters have been dropped. Which means fighting without it primarily. It’s a retreat trait. If you want to specialize in retreating, this won’t help much.

2. Fleet of foot. It’s condi removal but it doesn’t remove any DoT’s which will kill you. Fine, it’s for mobility…but it doesn’t remove chill. With a 10 second ICD, I don’t understand why for the purpose of mobility this straight out doesn’t remove chill. It cheapens the skill from the get-go. Rangers have a similar “why?” trait in Evasive Purity. Okay it doesn’t remove chill, but it has 10s ICD. They’ve got to look at what they want for this. Either it’s a good snare cleanse meant to cover that weakness your build may have, or it’s a good cripple cleanse. Or it’s an already DoT mitigator or something. As it is? Lacking.

3. Pain response unwieldy. Seemingly they want DoT to be your solution to mobile thieves. Fine, but this has to have some use outside of the sturdiest “I will last 45s” builds.

4. Assassin’s Reward the healing is quite insignificant. The reason is not just what it heals, it is the time it takes to do it. AR heals you at the end of an animation, and 1 thing to note, is how long the animation of certain skills are, as a result of variable animation times the healing on AR really drops off knowing this, and especially because it applies after the fact instead of when the ini is consumed. Acrobatics seemingly encourages helping you in a pro-longed encounter, but AR’s healing really isn’t enough for this goal. Overtime it heals more than Pain response overtime fortunately, which was basically just a burst condi removal that falls short afterwards.

5. Hard to Catch. This trait can get you killed and worse yet as a result of certain terrain bugs, stuck in the floor. It’s actually not bad, thematically. I think it’s the same deal as the Engineers Automated Smoke bomb trait. These sort of traits are interesting, but lacking because of an ICD that should be about 10s lower granted they don’t actually remove stun, stunback or increase your fortitude every time (turtle’s defense). As a result of ICD, it doesn’t really live up to it’s name sake and as extra defense against stun or your only defense against stun, it’s lacking given the investment as a defensive tool relative to Quick pockets which is multi-purpose.

6. Expeditious dodger. Man the only problem with this is that it’s not 3s instead of 2.

I don’t claim to know it all, but you can almost feel a hole in Acrobatics. Some traits could honestly just get merged without issue for cohesiveness. Maybe you find it perfect :P.

lilz shorty.1879:

ensoriki.5789:

jportell.2197:

nerva.7940:

Point capping is the lamest crap. This is why I left tpvp. Lots more interesting things to do in wvw.

Way more interesting things to do in WvW and the intensity is there! Will we get rolled by 20 people while trying to cap this camp with just the 3 of us? IDK but lets try! And you don’t know if they person that is strolling up on you is a Mesmer/necro/ele if they are a guard or a war… if you are about to get one shotted… Or if that person is really 30 people and culling wins. :P In tPvP you can see the professions on the other time and have an Idea of what is coming. In wvw you don’t know if the reason this tower/camp is contested is because of NPC’s or a real threat and you are about to lose your supply to that keep that you are trying to fortify! TPvP is fun but honestly it is catered to way to much compared to the population of people there.

How anyone enjoys WvW with the current culling I do not know.
It’s like Planetside2, if Planetside 2 got the flu.
.

True the culling is annoying and why anet would ever include it in PVE or PvP without the option to turn it off or some way of indicating there are more people there is beyond me. But WvW is actually a lot of fun lol. Even the zerg fests can be when they become big battles of assaulting a keep/defending from the enemies. Plus the pve stats are so nice lol compared to sPvP.

I enjoyed it for a bit before I just started seeing it as silly, and having god-mode felt stupid. I’ll play it more fruitfully after the patch makes it more ideal.

says “Current”.
gets long speech.

jportell.2197:

nerva.7940:

Point capping is the lamest crap. This is why I left tpvp. Lots more interesting things to do in wvw.

Way more interesting things to do in WvW and the intensity is there! Will we get rolled by 20 people while trying to cap this camp with just the 3 of us? IDK but lets try! And you don’t know if they person that is strolling up on you is a Mesmer/necro/ele if they are a guard or a war… if you are about to get one shotted… Or if that person is really 30 people and culling wins. :P In tPvP you can see the professions on the other time and have an Idea of what is coming. In wvw you don’t know if the reason this tower/camp is contested is because of NPC’s or a real threat and you are about to lose your supply to that keep that you are trying to fortify! TPvP is fun but honestly it is catered to way to much compared to the population of people there.

How anyone enjoys WvW with the current culling I do not know.
It’s like Planetside2, if Planetside 2 got the flu.
.

Its for all teleports.
Im shocked I don’t hear guardians experiencing this but probably just not using it as frequently.
Brb stuck in floor at henge.
Brb stuck in floor at temple
brb stuck in cliff at foefire.
warps not even working properly on top-left, top-right and bottom-right bridges in Spirit Watch.
Got stuck in Khylo’s clocktower wall and roof…

Fortunately you can pretty much always get out. Thing is you’d have to try various different angles with Blink/IA/Shadowstep/Phase retreat…as a thief eventually Steal comes off RC and I can hope to warp to an enemy passing by :P.

Pretty sure it’s the same strength. The difference is in PvE monsters hit harder which messes up the pet and in WvW players aren’t forced to go in trap range, while spirits are easy as all hell to kill.

That works for Custom Arenas.
Tpvp is about testin your mettle.

SAtaarcoeny.8476:

Amaterasu.6280:

I don’t agree with thieves not being able to stomp…I get 90% of my stomps with no interuption…even if I get targeted. Blackpowder usually does it already, and if I know I need the stomp for sure I just shadowstep stomp and get my stomp.

Getting on topic from a thief perspective -

We are strong, yes, even outside of hotjoins. But there are definitely limitations…and I feel that thieves (esp glass cannons) have the highest ceiling in terms of skill level.

It’s ironic because everyone keeps saying how OP thieves are, but there are like 4 thieves in mid to higher tier tpvp. Ask the top players what class/es would be in the perfect comp and a thief/war would come last for sure. It’s not easy to play a good thief because we are not just the class with the lowest health pool, but we are also the only class with no true invulns…every other class has a skill that gives them 3-4s of invuln. We get stealth…which is literally a gimmick because you take damage as you would unstealthed…thus if a skilled player knows where you are, then you’re going to be in a bad position.

Playing a good thief requires so much awareness, skill and reaction time that it’s crazy…especially if you know there is another good thief on the other team. You have to play in such a paranoid state because as a thief, life and death is determined within a blink of an eye. People could sneeze on you and you’d die. Every other class has a oh kitten button which invulns them for 3-4secs…necros have a whole life bar + fear. We get shadowstep…which is a 1200r teleport, not even a invuln.

You may wonder, well then why don’t you play a less squishy thief? Answer is simple…it’s NOT viable. If you want to talk about build diversity, a thief has none. Even if you use different weapon sets, your stats are most likely 25/30/0/0/15. Any other build just doesn’t work as well in a team environment. A balanced thief does no good…there are much better classes that are more viable played with balanced builds. I’m not even going to talk about caltrops thieves because are gimmicky and any good dps thief will know how to counter them easy.

Side note: the upcoming Mug nerf is ridiculous imo…so now they want to nerf our burst damage even more…which is really the only reason to have a thief in the team. Meanwhile, it’s all good that Eles would have their burst healing which could renew their HP completely after our burst.

Overall I would say a thief is a 6.5 – however this number will go up drastically should there ever be that AOE nerf.

nice well thought out reply but you didnt say anything really positive about the thief how did you come up with a 6.5? what was that number compared to?

remember you need to take in account can it back cap can it hold nodes and can it neatralize against someone then for what time duration if any then factor in what classes can do what it does and or cant do and what score that class has. if you compare it to every class above it using my scores you will see it falls well short of the bar and IMO 6.5 is to good of a score in comparrison.

You act like the refuge we’re all carrying has no use, when it’s straight stomp denial.
Current thief can’t afford a mug nerf.

SAtaarcoeny.8476:

guza.6170:

I dont know what the situation on NA was but almost all the best teams on EU had a thief in their composition and it is definitly a strong member of a team, also thiefs werent that rare on EU in general (i speak in past tense because none of those teams play anymore as the competitive scene is dead).

i think the post got deleted but a main player from EU said he has played with and talked to all the “top” thiefs on EU and they said to be a top thief you need to macro.

now i even took that into consideration with my score and gave thiefs the benifet of the doubt but that doesnt change the fact that they cant hold points or stay on points. they can back cap but if a person knows they are there the top classes beat thiefs more then lose to them so then you have to take into account points per second ikittenround fight on the node between each class vs a thief. the other classes hold it longer and win more fights on it giving the other classes more points overall and that lowers the thiefs score.

im not saying u cant play with a thief im just saying there is way etter out there. we play with a warrior and it get so discouraging when we go against anoter great skilled team with a better comp because then it turns into they have the upper hand just because of comp.

Mmm, within the thief Meta itself I’d call that pretty accurate
There is a huge difference between D/P with Haste and everything else. It’s not that other things don’t work but that’s very strong.

swinsk.6410:

ensoriki.5789, I am not concerned about what you can and cannot do to avoid a freaking bulls charge. Stop talking to me about it. It’s a moot point.

We all know how to avoid them.

My point is that thieves are now missing their #1 tool to avoid getting bursted by any class. That is chain stealth.

You cannot argue me on this because it is a fact.

It isn’t its situational. So long as you continue it it works otherwise you are subject to a back stab like everyone else. Chaining can also get you killed under certain utils by exposing your crutch play and end up get aoe cc’d and then smashed.

The point means little Chain CND is nerfed but you aren’t defenceless regardless so it is not something to lose sleep over unless you can justify how it is ‘required’ to successfully play a thief and you have not.

In addition it basically does not even touch certain weapon sets.

And I told you exactly what you can do for D/D + S/D and even missed some strata. In the case another person is there you can inf strike to them too. How about you manage your INI?
No duh they’ll situationally be more vulnerable if they butt cling on stealth. You aren’t defenceless that’s the point. You are the most mobile profession in the game bar ele and are tripping out about the threat of hundred blades….are you SRS right now? Brah?

That is false. Like I said run S/P. I break los I avoid damage. Battle on keep? You can inf strike from corner of staircase on grass onto keep and when ready shadow return back onto grass n pullout. Henge? Warp from either ledge down while your return point is behind a pillar. Mine you can do it behind the metal piece by the point.
Khylo you can be under the clocktower or on outside ledges. The building by pts also works in addition to underneath the wooden high raise.
Silent storm on temple ledge’ alter on the ledge above behind lamp posts or under bridge.
Gate behind pillars or be at staircase to warp up bridge later.
Capricorn, rocks at beach barrels at dock or on the wooden landing or behind the building. Silent storm trees at raven, rocks at Bear and wolf.
Foe fire ledges at graveyard. Fences at quarry and waterfall.

You can mitigate damage by shadowsteping you run S/D get aware and you will compensate.

Death blossom grants evade.
It may be harder but hardly enough to lose sleep over.

swinsk.6410:

ensoriki.5789:

It’s called distracting shot and shadow return.
If you have Sleight of Hand then Steal.
What you’re saying makes no sense…Previously you could stealth quickly to prevent being eaten up. Stealth when? After being hit by Bulls? Wot?
You don’t need stun breaks. Just cripple them and at worst just play the field with Inf strike.
Generally warriors run Leg specialist if they’re serious about that HB burst so they don’t have to rely on Bulls charge to kill you. Otherwise you don’t have much to worry about.

You can also evade the rush with Flanking strike… screw it over with Black Powder, dodge over him with Death Blossom…
Since you do S/D + D/D. Just play Inf strike.

If you have no stun break up and you just blew shadowstep to avoid death and a warrior comes up to you and you know you are going to BS/HB you can chain a cnd or two to get away and either run or distract.

After change, warrior will have 3s to flatten you and he really only needs 1-2.

Makes zero sense. If you get hit with bulls CND won’t save you. If you CND chain him he could whirling axe your face. What your saying is literally just making up for bad play. If your out of stun breaks instead of chaining CND kittening run. Switch to sword and inf strike. You now have a stun break. Is this not sensible? If you cannot weapon swap deselect the warrior and HS away creating distance allowing you to pull yourself together. Simple. Otherwise use a util or elite. Blind bulls with signet of shadows. Or dodge it by regaining endurance with Signet of agility. Or run and tripwire or needle trap. Or hit him with ice drake venom or Dancing daggers to slow down bulls charge. Pop shadow refuge or stun break with haste and death blossom.

Use shortbow. Care not for immobilizes.
Use D/D + S/D just hold Shadow return, use Shadowstep for what? You didn’t even get in range.

swinsk.6410:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

err…if a warrior bull charge, steal from his teammate to get out of range…yes you can activate steal while KD’d. Besides, what’s your teammate doing allowing a thief engage first? sigh

Please, use examples from smart thieves, not from bad ones, because it only further reinforcae the fact that this change will weed out the baddies.

And the same thing can be said about thieves who use Cnd->CnD, learn to adapt to it like you have suggested for bull charge/frenzy/hb.

There is nothing a thief can do about bull charge/frenzy/hb when all of his utilities are on CD. He dies. Previously, he could try to stealth quickly before getting eaten up, but now warriors and other classes will have 3s to apply CC and kitten the thief.

Warriors who frenzy/bull charge/hb on inc vs. thief obviously don’t know what they are doing or don’t play a thief.

In sPVP, thieves will be much easier to kill without the extra stealth. I think the biggest hit to thief will be in sPVP arenas.

EDIT: When I first started playing I died to HB/Bull charge a ton of times before I figured out what stun breaks were and that I could use steal while knocked down. Yes, I died over and over and instead of coming to these boards asking for nerf to warriors I learned how to play.

It’s called distracting shot and shadow return.
If you have Sleight of Hand then Steal.
What you’re saying makes no sense…Previously you could stealth quickly to prevent being eaten up. Stealth when? After being hit by Bulls? Wot?
You don’t need stun breaks. Just cripple them and at worst just play the field with Inf strike.
Generally warriors run Leg specialist if they’re serious about that HB burst so they don’t have to rely on Bulls charge to kill you. Otherwise you don’t have much to worry about.

You can also evade the rush with Flanking strike… screw it over with Black Powder, dodge over him with Death Blossom…
Since you do S/D + D/D. Just play Inf strike.

Adaneshade.2409:

ensoriki.5789:

Got no problem with it.
Lol at dodging Eviscerate with Flanking strike. Oh I bet dat war was mad as hell. Feels good man. I would like if it removed a 2nd boon on the final hit but that’s just me.
Only thing with S/D is the off-hand ain’t that great right now. Dancing daggers doesn’t pull as much weight, but other then that it’s quite fine. Flanking strike is hardly what is holding it back.

I dunno, having that ranged snare has prevented a couple of escapees in the past. Quite frequently after a warrior will do his “wilson charge” GS bit I’ll follow with infiltrators strike to close the gap then nail them with dancing dagger’s snare to get back on them.

It also provides kills. The reality however that doesn’t change the statement. Dancing dagger does not pull as much weight on the other skills on your bar “But other then that it’s quite fine”.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

err, CnD -> Tactical Strike “ain’t that great”? With Flanking Strike, you can be a really annoying Thief compliment with Sleight of Hands.

“Dancing daggers doesn’t pull as much weight, but other then that it’s quite fine.”
Reading the sentence that followed, explaining the train of thought would’ve saved you this post.

Tpvp. Yup, far more S/D in WvW however, depends if I feel to retrait. ikittenmain? wot? I get a group of 5-10 people which is enough to a) do smaller objectives in the case of a 5 man group and b) take on towers successfully in the 10.

…I mostly agree.
Though I dunno why the hell you put mesmer as a 5.5 lol wot? Cannot be serious.
Lulz don’t you run staff + sword tho. Mesmer isn’t no 5.5.
You’re neglecting the strength of some utils, Illusion of life, null field, boon removal on shatter. Nor would I consider wars or thieves that low.
You’ve put a significant gap between those 3 and the other’s that doesn’t really portray the reality. In a team fight the necro is a relatively easy person to drop, negating most CC.

swinsk.6410:

Just saying, this change is a huge playstyle nerf for the balanced thief. Possibly killing the build all together…

I think the “balanced” thief will be a thing of the past and from now on you are either playing condition or glass.

This change hurts build diversity and lessens the value of all “stealth” traits. I didn’t see any buffs from ANet to our class in compensation for the huge nerf.

I honestly think that the “balanced” thief will be a thing of the past now because of this change.

What about sPvP thieves? For real, with the nerf in spvp thieves will be free points. The second they come out of stealth and I know their stun break is down they are eating HB+frenzy+bull charge. As it is now, thieves are pretty easy to beat in spvp. After change I think thieves won’t have a place in spvp.

EDIT: I’m not trying discuss the change itself but rather what people are thinking about changing to adapt to it. I think the change is kitten and shouldn’t an issues. I would have told all the QQers “L2P”, but ANet listened to you. You have already won. I am trying to learn to live with it.

….
Playing in Soldier runes is balanced….many thieves drop into Soldiers to get some staying power.

I really wonder about this balanced thief because it doesn’t sound anything of the sort if you care about this nerf. In wvw S/D dazes for 3s, reveal last 3s. Doing the math…hmmm.. It’s not an issue there.

I run S/P + Shortbow a good 70% of the time, going S/D + Shortbow the other 30%.
As an S/P my Stealth skills are His and SR. I spend, VERY little time in stealth.
If you’re build is so contingent on stealth, that this change destroys it, is not balanced or you do not know how to play it to significant potential.
There isn’t a pletheora of thieves playing sword in tpvp off the top of my head I can pull out Ackwin and Sinoctis wave? Everyone else is on the D/P time with a couple D/D’s generally low ranked. Stealth is not that big a deal. Whether they are playing in Soldier runes and being far sturdy than you are as “balanced” or Berserker. They don’t just drop dead. Learn to manipulate Inf strike, and a warrior isn’t bursting you with a great sword until you’re out of initiative to begin or pre-occupied. Survived warriors at 4k hp, in frenzy just by pressing 2 and warping out. If you’re running a tanker spec it’s not even debatable. Now Whirling strike is a threat. Hundred blades? Meh.

Greatsword warriors are easily kited by the shortbow. Hundred blades is with no doubt the least of your worries. In fact the whole frenzy +HB combo, get’s ignored by Two uses of Distracting shot even if you are immobilized.
You run S/D + D/D.
Interesting tip, Cast Inf strike without a target if you so please. You now have a stun break and to boot will move away from him if immobilized. If immobilized you can D/D Deathblossom or Flanking strike to mitigate damage.

I really won’t have to change anything other than ceasing to chain CnD’s on a Shadow arts S/D build. Don’t waste stealth, if the hit isn’t going to happen then just reposition yourself. It’s only 3 seconds. the 3/4s you were in stealth will of recovered 15-40% of your endurance depending on vigor. Running daggers, 1 auto will boost that up significantly. You get 3s of reveal which you can just dodge through. You can basically easily get 1 dodge whenever you so feel after Stealthing with a dodge wasting 1s. If 2s of vulnerability is too much for you to handle at all, brah.
Step your game up.

Lulz at CnD chaining being “balanced”

Got no problem with it.
Lol at dodging Eviscerate with Flanking strike. Oh I bet dat war was mad as hell. Feels good man. I would like if it removed a 2nd boon on the final hit but that’s just me.
Only thing with S/D is the off-hand ain’t that great right now. Dancing daggers doesn’t pull as much weight, but other then that it’s quite fine. Flanking strike is hardly what is holding it back.

Those choices already exist. The only difference is you have to consider there skills and acknowledge them atm. Doing % damage basically says “well you are at X health and my attacks pierce block, so GG” instead of “kitten he got the block off, I shouldn’t of let that happen, or shoot if I was packing tripwire I could stop him now before he gets the heal! He’s at X health if he had flanking strike I could’ve taken it out. Oh well this is the cost of My Choices”. If a warrior activates shield block at 10% I know Flanking strike will kill him. Where the Dagger thief can now go “dang, should’ve brought trip”.

Giving thieves boon removal is an answer to a global problem.
Giving them excessive block pierce is just denouncing limited defenses.
Won’t be surprised if I see “We should do a % of damage through invulnerability” next as if that is a frequent defense.
Everyone has boons and can be affected on a significant scale. Blocking is infrequent, invulnerability more so. More boon removal is required because so many boons go around. You see what happens not just with a guardian but when a Guardian + Necro are together or Ele + Engi and other such pairings? The guardian ele gives them boons, it’s not just about breaking down ele/guardian but the people they support with boons as well. This is why more boon removal is required. Boons are supportive and get passed around frequently, there has to be greater frequency on dealing with that, and in exchange we can take a damage hit for that capability. Blocking is primarily an individual aspect.

Acandis.3250:

Yes, the top of the players base should be the only ones that get any say in balance changes.

Everyone is allowed to share an opinion on how things run.
Which is all they’re doing, even if that opinion is seen as trash.
They ask laymen what they think of Superbowl match-ups before the game, despite not being the top of the players, because the opinion still has some value, if not for balance but then into the experience they are having and whether the game could be made more ergonomic to improve the experience of everyone else. It may possibly also spark an idea off something that may of been missed.

I mostly agree. If all you’ve done is watch football/basketball/tennis/hockey/gw2, but you haven’t played it, I’d be very wary to listen to your opinion on the finer things of the game. However it doesn’t mean you can’t make a valid point. Or if all you did was play some touch football (Hot-join) it’s unlikely you’ll say something of worth but you may and silencing you before you get the chance is unnecessary.

They didn’t disagree, you’re misunderstanding the statement.
You cannot have an entire defense mostly to exist.
You’re having Block now significantly ignored inherently.
Let’s look at Flanking strike, boons are still a factor for an S/D even with Bountiful theft, they are not ignored. To remove a boon you use 4 ini, to remove a boon you use steal.
If a Mesmer wants to remove a boon, they use a skill (outside of sword auto). Meaning trading a resource for that specific capability.

If all thief abilities had a % damage to just go through block, it’s not about trading resource, just keep doin what you do.

In gw1 Warrior’s “boon-hate” and the “assassins” we originate from was inherently different.
Warriors did not remove boons, they had additional effects against them.
Assassin’s removed the defense which worked for their lower dps but quick burst attitude. In exchange that did not invalidate non-boon defenses which you’re essentially requesting, to do that you had to take another skill (say Expose Defenses) or hex removal.

There were trade off’s for everything, Shattering Assault could be stopped, Lift Enchantments could be stopped, Expunge enchantments could be stopped.
Dark Apostasy could be stripped. We made trade off’s to break through defense instead of just blowing things apart with the highest damage Blades of Steel/Death Blossom combo we could figure out at the time. Having skills like Exhausting assault.
Having more unblockable skills would certainly make more sense if there were more skills that applied block but as it currently is, there isn’t really enough for such changes not to be fairly polarizing.

I could remove Protective Spirit, to start my spike, but a Mo/W could activate Bonetti’s defense, and stop themself from being shotdown. What you’re requesting is basically for you to passively get results by having inherent block piercing. That goes against active play that makes decisions.
I’d argue it’s not healthy.

Boon-hate and removal aren’t the same thing so there isn’t really a point to differentiate them. One destroys a boon completely, the other is working around it.
Boon removal being the ideal choice.

Make thieves the “Undermines your efforts” bunker buster by giving them more boon removal and unblockable attacks while also reducing their damage

Read what you’re saying.
Thief removes boon. Thief has unblockable attacks.
Thief essentially has no defensive counter then outside of dodge, and blind. Can’t snare me because I teleport. Mobility prof ftw. There has to be trade off’s. It’s part of why Tripwire is what it is. If a Ranger uses Counter attack, I am free to just plant a tripwire on him. His block is long enough that I can justify it. Same with Shield stance and many guardian blocks as well. In exchange they now sit on their kitten for 2s while you pound on them. Which frankly enough, can be more time than you need as a thief.

Having Niche unblockable attacks is fine. Having a few select boon removal skills is fine (there should be more). Most of your attacks just piercing through block as if it was just another type of “protection” is silly.

Thieves are finishers and mobile. They can’t just walk up to a guardian and say “You know you gonna eat aaaalllll of this”. Both sides are supposed to have options and this, is just kittenting on the guardians excessively with limited conscious choice involved on your own part.

Sotg they said it just needs to be tuned in relation with Pve and WvW, the incoming aoe nerf will affect the entire game.

Could say that for any MMO game “Make it seperate”
Only advantage I’d see is we could then remove all the other races and just have humans fighting it out. The main reason the cash shop is currently neglected is probably because we have 5 races instead of 1 which also affected partially why pve can be quite Meh.

This game has a huge install base, if you get 3 million people, and two thousand play your pvp, then it’s not a f2 kitten ue going on here and all it’ll do is create a temporary surge, that will again decrease and be decried by the game “dying”.

Somehow it censored F2p…..Issue, censors are hilarious.

Defenses exist for a reason this is why Boon removal and Unblockable skills will continue to be relatively few in number, and generally outside of the box.

You have exceptions on traps and FS. FS doesn’t hit quite hard, and Tripwire can be difficult to land specifically when someone is blocking. Lack of getting past block is not an issue or a solution to a thieves role or damage.

Stealth does not break channels.
In addition skills fired before stealth actually activates will still hit.
Seemingly as a result of the target system, after someone stealths there is a brief moment where the game doesn’t actually forget targetting and certain attacks will still pursue, that or it’s a result of lag and the way the game handles ping discrepencies.

How many people actually work on spvp?
Numbers plz.
Word on the street is 4.

Nope

Im changing my vote to No. ( correct the tally).
Gotta be honest. I didn’t think conquest was the way to go from beta, but parts of it had grown on me. Still to this point I think it splits the focus too far and if it were possible I’d prefer something else. Not deathmatch or tdm, but something else. I think foefire, temple and to a significantly lesser degree Spirit watch better create a feeling that is interesting (come back from behind) but in general the Slow tick of pts itself suspenseful naturally. Like killing the Guild Lord, or capturing all of the points at once.