Guild Wars 2

stjf.7180:

Thank you for your reply ensoriki, its interesting that you also enjoy Elementalist and Engineer. What build do you use out of interest?

Would it make much sense to have stealth utilities with a S/P & SB build then?

I like to run with S/D sets for my pve/WvW experience. 10/30/30 typically, but if I want a slower more easy-going play, I hit 30 in both SA and Acrobatics just to loligag around.

As far as throwing up stealth utils on S/P
Mmmm when I do it’s generally only Shadow Refuge for the easy group support, and grabbing chests. You’ll certainly find use if you take more than that. I just wouldn’t presume it optimal outside of party supporting with Blinding Powder on the side.

I know several who are looking forward to it.
No need for deserter anything unless it’s paid/frees.
The whole idea of hot-join is come and go as you please, casual.
This isn’t RA, if someone leaves other people are capable of coming. You aren’t pre-destined to be screwed for the rest of the match.

Mrbig.8019:

Shay.7534:

Mrbig.8019:

Not only P/P.

S/P is bad
Condition thieves are bad ( no matters the build, weapon or anything)
S/D is bad

We have only the shortbow and D/D- D/P ( as long as you have a dagger in your MH, you’re fine).

We have only ONE viable build in high end PvP.

This is so wrong.
37. tomal.8413 – 396 – S/P – hasn’t played in over a month
Our team of casuals ( started playing again after 1 month) has won games versus good-top teams using a Pistol/Dagger Condition thief.
We also used a sword/dagger thief ( that didn’t speak almost any english at all ) to win some games vs good-top teams.
I’ve seen Lowell play S/P on a few occasions.
There are a couple of good specs for thief. But why would you bother learning and testing a new spec when Backstab is the cheese to rule them all ? Nomnomnom so much cheese. Glitch that culling all day long!
Keep popping that haste in stealth and have fun kids.

Wanna know a profession stuck in one build? Try mesmer, warrior and necro.

-.-’’

You have to think at it.

Condi thieves require stealth, and cannot contest points.

D/D caltrops thieves apply bleeds ( and only bleeds), something that can be removed AoE by an ele BY SIMPLY dodging.

S/P is countered so bad by armor, protection and retliation tht is not even funny: try to pistol whip a guard with full reta uptime and kill yourself, it will be fun.

S/D has literally NO DAMAGE, and if you want to go for damage with it, then you’d better go D/D or D/P: you’re trading a 2secs daze ( at best) plus inf strike for backstab and heartseeker: good deal, indeed.

And who are those “tops teams” you’ve defeated ?

Please, it’s really hard to take you seriously.

How do you not mention stability when talking about S/P having issues, 3 skills on that weapon go loopy once it’s a factor.
Outside of that it’s a pretty strong set.

Im sorry to of triggered your mental condition that forces you to arbitrarily type in caps.
Like I said you can compare, but they’re inferior.

1. Who cares about the exit portal, why even bring it up? Can Shadow Return on either of the two skills or Shadow trap create exit portals? No they create 1 Anchor point, and give you sub 17s to use on Shadow Return (less on Shadowstep) and wait till an opponent steps on them in Shadow trap.

2.
A person can literally never step on the Shadow trap by sheer luck, and if it so happens it’s pointless for that role. Have you seen the shape of thief traps? Best suited for in combat use.

3. You’re comparing Shadow return that less sub 17s vs a 60s Portal with a 10s Exit point, for a total of 70s at total? In what world does that make sense as an argument of thieves being strong in that department? They aren’t. Thieves are relatively selfish, and you can bet if they got an upgrade to similar capabilities it would likely remain, very selfish.
How the hell are you going to put any of these 3 against Portal without it being a joke? They just don’t stack up. It’s like comparing 3, 4" muscle men, vs an anorexic 6 foot’er, each has their advantages, but none of them are within the same league of each other at what they’re good at.
Who said Mass group transit, they aren’t going to add a new skill. If thieves got it, it’s probably as an addition to Shadowstep or Shadow Trap, which are 1-person only.
That is primarily the reason, why even if we did or did not get it, it would not mean much. A thief warping himself into a keep…that he had to of been in to of planted already? Not doing much, but again it would be bound to the rules of shadowstepping so it would flop.
Going for a point? Not bad, other than that you’re a thief.

You can’t compare 17s, Shadow Return’s to Portal.
Well you can, but they obviously cannot compete with Portal for it’s goal.
Shadow Trap is the most like it, and it wonky for a couple reasons, including the profession it being on, being arguably the most fragile. They’re also 1-person only, and Shadow Trap is useless unless someone so happens to trigger it.

If S/P + SB is your chosen combo, you won’t be utilizing stealth much.
Get Critical Strikes as your primary line, then choose a secondary/tertiary, generally Acrobatics.

If you use a lot of stealth Utilities along with Hide and Shadows then sure consider the Shadow Arts tree, (Shadow Trap, Blinding Powder, Shadow Refuge).

You could just farm gold on your other professions and buy another char slot after converting to gems.

Eh…Ranger’s cool, but I too enjoy Elementalist and Engineer so if we are like-minded than you will Enjoy the thief more. If you dislike the Ranger, that likely won’t change soon.

I don’t watch LoL so I assume that means it sucks since I don’t watch it.

I think it makes complete sense for the Charr.
Magic enslaved them so they needed an option outside of it.
Technology is the only other option, so for 250 years they focused on technology and as such are the most technologically advanced race.
Magic impairing the growth of technology makes sense if you rely on it, but Charr don’t so obviously it wasn’t going to stop their technological growth like it did everyone elses.
The world of Guild wars has existed for thousands of years and the amount of technology was pitiful, showing how much they relied on it.
It’s not that Charr stuff breaks immersion, it fits right in, as an answer to “What if magic didn’t exist”

The steam punk monsters though? I found that weird, no-one made them, they apparently come from the future or some alternate dimension… They feel kind of tacked on without more…development?

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Duration is too long. It would be better to do things like add anti-crit to a condition (like Blind or Weakness) and make *Chilled increase initiative costs *(seeing as how we lack weapon cooldowns).

When Weapon Swapping gives thieves back full ini, let’s talk.

Arheundel.6451:

Jasher.6580:

Liewec.2896:

i think its crazy that gw1 let you have crazy customization freedom mixing 2 professions and was still the most balanced PVPs i’ve ever played,
yet gw2 only has single classes to balance and is one of the most unbalanced PVPs i’ve played.

did they replace the entire dev team?

GW1 was far from balanced. It was a terrible game in my honest opinion.

GW1 was far less cryfest than here,

Nope.

None is needed.

You’re all incorrect.
Gunk does conditions and normal Power damage, this mean it can also Critical.
The conditions aren’t triggering reveal, it’s the regular damage for standing in it.
Look at the large numbers that pop up when something is in Throw Gunk, those are what causes it. It is not like chocking gas.

Don’t see why not, in all seriousness.
Thing is by the nature of what we are, it would not be that great on us, save running away. We’re not point defenders, and outside of that it would probably use the shadowstep nature instead of Portals nature and have those shadowstep limitations, and being likely 1-person use only. So taking a keep isn’t likely happening, especially when more of those warp exploits get removed.

I mean look at Shadow Trap in an ideal situation and compare it to portal, still not that great.

I’m not aware of any game where being killed is fun…

Shadow trap confirmed for buff.
Infiltrator strike confirmed for 60s of Infiltration.

Shadow Trap/Shadowstep/Infiltrator’s Strike/Signet buff confirmed.
Brb 60s of Infiltration.

They did PvE stuff…
Event based stuff coming in this month’s patch.

Give the flag bearer, flag specific skillset, health, and armor. Nullify traits, summons, sigils & mechanics.
Boom no problem.

Remember that Asura robot mini-game beta event?
Ever seeing that again?

You are aware Zkeys came really late into the game? What 2-3 years
Before that it was the chest in HA.
Anyways would like to see some goodies, making keys would be nice.

Eternal Grove.
Remember having to go and get a party instead of henching the first time I went through and to get the full bonus? Way back before the hero panel, and you couldn’t do divide and conquer tactics with henchmen? Good lawd.

Raisu Palace + Imperial Sanctum combined into one would be the best though.
Would actually play a fractal.

As far as I know the only place where vertical progression really runs is Fractals, and WvW.
I can do everything in my exotics and I’ve never touched a Fractal so Agony is not a qualm. Obviously disadvantaged slightly in WvW, and the VP there does annoy me but outside of that and fractals doesn’t even matter.

I bought my Exotics with gems. Think it cost me 3g but yeah right if I’m grinding for anything. Will get pretty clothes at my own pace. Went through gw1 what 7 years with no Superior Rune of Health? Beat all the content I wanted. Stress, not even once.
I play other games can’t even do that. The grind is overestimated. Yeah the more ascended pieces that come the worse it gets. I can deal, if I recall the level cap will eventually raise, and I’ll do that at my own pace or craft up there assuming crafting gains more levels. Here’s hoping I can drop 10 bucks to ignore the whole process.

Shadow trap is now an awkward portal.

Raijinn.9065:

Turbo Whale.1738:

Raijinn.9065:

I amazed this hasn’t been stated yet in this manner.

Steath is overpowered AND cheap

Reason being?

There is no counter for stealth

You heard it, the thief can land all the damage and get hit all they want but they won’t appear. There are no anti stealth fields, you can’t get lucky and hit them with some kind of attack and reveal them. Stealth to me was bearable back when the target didn’t drop when they went invis. That to me was a good period….it was kind of like a stealth counter. You knew you still had them targeted so you could react accordingly..

Stealth will not be overpowered AND cheap when there is a legitimate counter mechanic introduced to this game. Until then every profession that can abuse stealth has a hug leg up on the rest of us

There is no counter for stealth? Really? So when your opponent stealths, you just sit there with your thumb up your kitten and give up? Do you know how many classes and how many weapons have cleave attacks? How common AoE is? That you can apply conditions on someone before they stealth, causing them to bleed out. Or have you noticed that when a person stealths, they don’t magically teleport 5000 yards away? Just literally attack in the direction the enemy stealths. Did you know that many stealth skills have a cast time anyways (Mesmer Elite: 1 3/4 seconds cast time. There’s cast time on a theif’s heal.).

Did you know that stealth lasts on average for about 3-5 seconds and that if you can’t do anything else because your mind has literally blown up from amazement, you can easily pop protection, put up invulnerability, dodge, make distance from where the enemy stealthed, put up retaliation, put up aegis, or do literally anything that ups your defense? Because this game is dynamic and the combat in this game is dynamic so if you expect to just sit in offensive mode and not have to actually THINK, then you’re going to have a bad time and make yourself look stupid. So excuse me and all of the rest of us that don’t want GW2 to be about mindless guardians and warriors spinning around with greatswords (no offense intended.) and would actually enjoy interesting mechanics.

All those words and you didn’t post 1 COUNTER to stealth. Naming a bunch of attacks that not even every class has is not a counter. I never said anything about being able to do absolutely nothing and twitting thumbs while they are invis. The fact is anything you attempt while the thief is stealthed is shooting in the dark…..but of course you have X-ray vision right?

Nothing you stated changes the fact that there is no LEGITIMATE STEALTH COUNTERING MECHANIC IMPLEMENTED IN THIS GAME. Just because the players came up with a bunch of makeshift tactics in no way means there’s a counter to stealth.

I know you love your stealth on your thief, but realize other players are at a disadvantage because there’s no counter like I said. My engineer doesn’t have cleave attacks, channeled abilities, and you can walk right out of an aoe from grenades as they soar through the air. Fail defense failed

Seems all my respones end up over that 5001 limit so let me tl;dr in multiple ways.
What is the counter to invulnerability? My thief does not have an elixir or Mist form to make me invulnerable while I heal. And as a S/P thief I’d like one. No stealth skills break stun. No stealth skills let you walk through a bunch of wards unharmed doing your “can’t touch this dance”.
The difference is Stealth is frequent and invulnerability is not.
What a shame, if only there wasn’t protection to further mitigate damage, and the thief removing that boon only via Flanking strike or a thief trait. Shame it’s all melee and counteracted by anti-melee options such as knockbacks which last I recall, Engineer’s are pretty kitten good at doing.

Cry my a river. I’ve got 1 stealth skill on my bar, 3s of stealth every 30s or spend 12 (aka, All) initiative to get it every 10s. I’ve seen Engineer’s Stealth flippin more than me, pets, Mesmers, Ranger’s with pigs, other thieves. Zero kittens were given.
Lol Stealth, You know what I do when a thief Stealths? I create distance I drop pbaoe blind, I go behind cover if he’s a P/D. If he’s escaping? I stay on the point. If I want to chase, I see how far he’s traveled in the past while. If I’m quick I just hit Inf strike for the semi aoe Immobilize before he can get away. There’s no direct counter to Blurred frenzy, there’s no more direct counter to Endure Pain than there is stealth. More skills do damage to a stealthed foe than someone under Endure Pain or Protect me.
You’ve got better control than I do, wtf are you doing?

Thereon.3495:

Why is it assumed that leveling is grinding? If they havent already, the creative brains of the gaming world should easily be able to figure out a way to create leveling that is enjoyable, varied and different while not having to create an infinitely large game world. I dont know if any have come close to this so far but its surely not an impossible task?

Grinding is not a way of life for single-player games that are story focused.
KH, Tales of, Final Fantasy’s these are popular main stream RPG’s normally a person will not meet the level cap when they beat the game, and they don’t care.

Anet’s right to improve it’s current world (including Lost Shores, soooo barren), it’ll help make it nostalgic. They should come up with some kind of rebirth system to replay the story or a “hard” mode for the story and players will want to do that again (like replaying their single-player games) and that will keep them longer as well.

Sense not even once. HS gets spammed because its conditional requirement is a joke for what it does, shadow shot roots and dancing daggers is an expensive feather weight
Options of another rotation are impractical and highly situational. Thief’s supposed to be able to use any skill at least twice any recharge is nonsensical.

Lol what game needs 290 servers?

Turbo Whale.1738:

I never mentioned anything about spamming HS, so I have no idea where you are able to quote the word spam.

Why are you backfooting with him? Be straight.

HS isn’t high risk, nor does it have to be, but it is a very rewarding skill. These are the realities. The risk of using Heartseeker is the same as using your auto-attack, you are in melee range. Hell it’s less risky in one aspect, because your auto attack won’t propel you to your opponent if you decide to fight with your eyes closed.
The risk in Heartseeker is the opportunity cost of initiative, and the standard fare of being a melee attack. Straight.
The risk of being a glass cannon thief in melee is low health, this is not Heartseeker specific, this is true for any thief melee combination and skill that you use. You can use Infiltrator’s strike as an attack and get smashed by Volley, these are the realities, how you gonna put low health as a risk of the skill itself as if that wasn’t ones own choice. Not like you couldn’t just put more vitality on yourself and still hit hard due to the nature of executioner.
It’s not a HS exclusive thing, most Leaps are on auto-pilot, some with greater range than HS, but HS hits harder than most, and is reusable. The risk in using it is bloody low. If it wasn’t for many of the games other skills being on auto-pilot it would be even lower by comparison.

That being said Burning Speed? It’s not on auto-pilot but lets not pretend it is not fairly forgiving. Burning Slime trail that projects you through enemies if you so choose to escape every 15s? At least you can body block Heartseeker. If you land it, it hits hard, if you don’t, it still leaves it’s relevancy on the capture point and Heartseeker isn’t aoe.
It’s a good skill mind you, but if HS worked like Burning Speed, it’s not leaving blinding smokefields in it’s wake to make up for missing. If Burning speed was to be amazing skill of positioning for all to aspire to, all it’s power would be in the explosion and not partially in the field.

I’ve been playing the secret world as a side game . Gear grind, need gear for pvp.
Result?
I have not touched Pvp.

GW2 got it right.

Actually I remember back in GW2 Beta.
I believe it was Sharp but it could’ve been Peters (2 much Johns for 1 poster to handle).
Anyways, there was this Hunger game event, and I was feeling it, though it obviously needed some work..
They said it got whipped up last minute (and it showed), but the idea might live on as a future activity or something…possibly.

What I took from that, is they have no qualm adding other types of pvp interactions they may not be official (keg brawl) but they will eventually come.
That game…I think it was Asura Hunger Royal or Royal something, needed a lot of kinks worked out but…eh stay tune.

Stuff will be coming :o. I foresee it with my crystal ball.

Mouse 4 (clicking scroll weel) – Skill 9.
Bottom side mouse button – Skill 7.
Upper side mouse button – Skill 8.

Top, top-corner mouse button – Skill 6
Bottom top-corner mouse button – Skill 5.
Everything else is default.

Gotta change those Top-corners to something useful.
X to turn backwardz…

I played GW1, I prefer GW2.
Im starting to see a charm in GW1 that I had long lost, but GW2 is still preferred.

I play multiple games, Secret World has a skill even more up in the air than GW1, with a dodge key (that I don’t know how to fully use) Planetside 2 has that big massive pvp world. S4 league got a whacky vibe, GW2 has this controlled loose environment, fluid combat, no pvp barrier and I look good. GW1 feels very stiff.

If anything I’d be more interested if GW1 became open to mods or something to make it less stiff but in general GW2 has more of what I want.

GW1 felt Black and white at times, that annoyed the hell out of me. We called it Build Wars for a reason.

Brb getting revealed because I fired a cluster bomb and then had to dodge.

You take Body shot and turn it into a ground targeted Dark Field that inflicts aoe dmg and vulnerability every pulse. Change the vulnerability to reflect the change. Field 3s duration size of Black Powder or slightly larger.
-Dark Field support (blind/healing)
-Aoe dmg
-Aoe vulnerability team support.
-Area denial.

You give Vital shot about a 5% dmg increase on what it has now, it’s about 50(?) or so dmg short at the upper end of the spectrum per shot. hitting 2 much ~950’s when it should be 1k. Trick shot is 1k to every target it hits 2k to 1 target if it bounces. VS should at the least hit 1k crit flat before including the bleed.

What builds are you running with this, curious to know.
Thief main, so it’s not exactly desired, considering how much damage I’m losing for 1 boon every 10s. Been thinking of more ways to incorporate it however lately and would like to hear your experience or lack thereof when it comes to running it.
As it is, Would be useful theoretically to my S/P and S/D, but it’s obviously got a list of issues and often the lost in dps from loosing rage or flame drives me up the wall.
I know there is plenty of CC based weapons that definitely would want to remove a boon, but who can run this successfully without deciding they rather pick something else?

Triggers once every 10s, has an ICD so other things get blocked off for it and prevent it. Isn’t guaranteed on crit, so it’s rng on top of rng, you can’t plan for it’s activation to remove boons you care about, it may or may not increase your damage output, and I still can’t tell if it ignores aegis.

Custom Arena’s are on the way. GG.

Me: Thief
Most feared: Engineer and Rangers.
Least feared: Necro.

They would stay longer, yes. However that doesn’t mean they’d stay much longer.
30% dmg nerf is going to inflate defense.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hey all, hope you guys had a great break!

• Custom Arenas. This is still our top priority for the time being, as it allows the playerbase to do so many things. You guys can set maps up in the ways that you want, and it you can set up your own servers to allow you to practice with your friends. It also allows custom tournaments, etc. It just gives you guys a lot of control over the game, so we’re pushing hard on it.

Custom Arena’s should be the default instead of the current browser system if that is not already the plan. Otherwise it causes weird fragmentation. There isn’t any need for the current Hotjoin browser implementation if your doing the Custom Arena’s well, and allowing anyone to join in a room so long as it isn’t password protected. “Create room” set your specifications, people join in, choose their team and then you start the game. Can put an option to allow spectators as well.

Also to clarify. Weren’t you adding a monster to temple’s underground shrine? That and are you planning to push Capricorn once you iron out your underwater gameplay?

Tbh I don’t think you need a solo queue. The mist themselves are just really unintuitive compared to GW1’s Team Arena’s. Hard to form a group within the actual mist (where your tournament browser is located) unless maybe you server swap. Forming groups in hotjoin to go back to the mist to register for Tournament play is just unwieldy and painful. Can you guys do something to consolidate more players into the mist themselves instead of server spreading? Used to chat up in Random Arena’s for days as a type of social hub, maybe utilize those overflow mechanics?

My S/P and S/D thief can smash into guardians. Stability really lengthens it tho.

Not really about 1v1 counter though, it’s too time consuming.
There were all kinds of “Im not going to die” builds in GW1, but they were considered Bad and “selfish” builds because they didn’t contribute anything of meaning to a team.

The conquest format gives them a home, and I think that’s fine but you have to take into consideration that they are a Stalling tactic and by sending 1 person, you’re playing that game.

No.
No.
Pass.
No?
Maybe.

I read Moa as “For 10 seconds your opponent is out of the game and is welcome to press 5 or alt+f4 then uninstall”.

Is it not beneficial to take 1 player, turn them into a chicken and effectively remove them from whatever they were doing, no questions asked?
No fuss, no fight, just “you are no longer in this battle”

Good rangers are annoying.
If your playing D/D backstab you’ll have your work cut out for you.
As an Sword thief, I keep them pin downed and warp around like my life depended on it. Cripple them. It’s hard since dancing dagger is expensive, but since they have a pet if you get in range it can cripple them twice and stack.
If it’s a dual melee Ranger, go /P and never look back.

Warthogs? You got lucky they aren’t using the Pig. Pigs OHKO thieves, always.

You’ll all soon see just how pointless matchmaking will be.

GW1 ranger could use any melee weapon via Expertise to different effect, but they were best with their bow.
If you weren’t using a bow, you took a dagger, scythe or hammer.

Rangers used to be able to cast spells too, but then they changed Expertise.

Expertise is probably where that “jack of all trades” philosophy came from.
Rangers controlled people with their bow, pet’s were very niche and gimmicky.

Tbh I like the pet of GW2, other than being able to flag it naturally it’s better than it’s gw1 counterpart by miles. Distracting shot,savage shot, bronze head arrow, concussion shot were all amazing and their loss is felt.
If they didn’t change how they dealt with traits they probably could’ve brought back that style.

Anyone remember Power P/D…
guess not.

While I understand the need for guilds is lacking, a gear grind is not GW2.
You can come and go as you want in GW2 no sub, no stress.

I’ll agree that there isn’t much for guild oriented content at the moment.

Gear grinds really are pointless as I see it, but maybe I was just not typical MMO.
There is no gear grind in Poker, or chess; football, basketball, rugby, swimming, dominoes or tekken, you generally do these things because of a love of the activity or the camaraderie they may or may not involve. I think GW2 wanted to be a wholesome activity such as the above, at least in theory, and a gear grind does not create that it’s the opposite.

Your basically trading single target burst for more CC, natural aoe and condt removal.

Daggers – Hit one target flipping hard, and heart seeker helps you finish them off. DB lets you evade for when CnD is too expensive or not safe to use. Dancing Dagger is an expensive waste of initiative save when there is 2 enemies.

S/P – Stun things in place, interrupt them, blind them, all while smashing them in the face with your sword. Use 2 to remove crappy conditions and hold enemies in place. In a pvp setting use it to get you out of combat safe-and-sound and/or break from immobilizes and stuns.

On a single target, you can kill them faster with D/D.
Multi targets on a power build are handled better by S/P.

In a pvp sense, S/P is going to give you multiple ways of cancelling out the opponents movement-utilities and attacks in exchange for that D/D burst. With the addition that if you get burnt or something nasty you can take at least 1 of them off for 5 initiative every now and again.

I don’t use either in my PvE but I like S/P for pvp. Very flexible, and can play almost like a sniper in how you can warp to an enemy, down them and then go right back to +1200 range. Let your ally finish them, and go about your way to the next scrap.

Wtb better sigil of nullification.

Worried they’re going to mess it up.
Should replace current PvP browser sounds like it will be unintuitive.

zone.1073:

NaturalPortman.9562:

zone.1073:

Depends on how far apart they are from each other when downed. If the Warrior must travel to the Ranger after Vengeance, then the Ranger wins due to 2 second daze, 2 second fear from wolf while downed (bug?), and the near-instant revive.

The Rangers pet continues to revive after getting “interrupted” and as mentioned, killing the pet does not stop the revive.

That is also assuming the ranger is in best condition for all those interrupts. Alot of the time the ranger is already in pet swap CD when he’s downed.

Should Rangers even be able to use their Wolf’s 2 sec fear while in downed state, in the first place? They cannot use any other pet skill while downed, but somehow the wolf pet is exempt from game mechanic balance, apparently.

What are you talking about? You can use other pet skills while downed :O
I do it all the flippin time. The Hound also works to lock them in place. The Raven will smash them in the face.
Your mechanic is invisible not unusable which is obvious since your pet doesn’t suddenly disintegrate on down.

Of course they should be able to. The pet is half of them, might as well ask for their pet to get up and vanish on down. If you took a wolf then you’re missing a bird.