Guild Wars 2

Xae.7204:

The problem is they they are thinking:

E-Sports Success -> Popular Game

They need to realize it goes the other way around

Popular Game -> E-Sports Success.

Yup but they don’t need to make it f2p to make it popular. Many games don’t.
They just need to generate more interest. Hell if there were custom arena’s people would probably of run their own tournaments by now. Not like Fighting game fans wait till Tekken is F2p, they’ll start interest themselves.

Copy planetside 2.

GW2 isn’t an esport.

Talk with your teammates.
100% srs.

Volrath.1473:

I play a thief as main and I have been all over the place, as in I have played A variety of builds and weapon sets, although ppl still think that BS is op they have seen nothing yet! xD

Although Arena Net’s devs say they do not want a game dominated by bunkers nor glass canons, so far bunkers DO dominate. No decent tournament team queues without at least 3 bunker build players.

Although the thieves do not have a bunker spec and due to stealth are bad point holders I decided to go as tanky as I could sacrificing a lot of dmg in the process.
I was the best thing I ever did! I can take the thieves BS+HS dmg and survive to stomp his face a few seconds later! I have managed to win multiple 2v1 and even 3v1 with the help of thieves guild (no thenks to they’re dmg but disruption that saved me from a lot of dmg) some professions like guardian bunkers and necro bunkers some times takes 2-3 minutes of combat but I still win. As for ele bunkers it’s a draw since we can fight each other for ever… This normally ends with the arrival of other players or with one of us giving us and just move away.

I love fighting other thieves, I very rarely lose and when I do is because I got outplayed and a /w complimanting them is in order or because I was cought with low HP cool downs and low on initiative. Btw the only thiefe spec that has any chance is the condition dmg thief (with d/d or p/d) thoughts are damgerouse! The others are free kills.

My advice is try various aspects of your profession and do s/t PvP up to rank 20, then you will see that the mith that BS thieves are op and warriors with HB are op and so on is false, with training and time you (like myself) will leard to predict what your opine t is going to do next and act accordingly.

Edit: this was the biggest post I have ever made on an iPhone keyboard o.O’

Tanky thieves can eat other thieves without issue, but they still can’t hold a point at the end of the day and are getting forced off it by your friendly neighborhood Guardian.

After playing Planetside 2, I got a better picture of my thief. Dude’s a sniper, gets blown apart by farts in a firefight, and stealth is overrated to hell and back as a defensive tool. Shadow return like Shadow walk or Shadow of Haste+ dash in gw1 lets you completely ignore the idea of “I messed up” you just press 1 or 7 depending on set and leave.
Backstab is one of the harder things to survive in.

The only thing that isn’t reliable is the second hit. The first is easy as all hell to hit with.

Are you talking about quickness?
Lot of us running Critical haste, + Sigil of rage

Obviously you are expected to Keg brawl.

All these stealth complaints still.
Because thief’s escape?

Lol I use Infiltrator’s Strike’s shadow return to escape and I’ll see my opponents swinging at air, thinking I stealthed lol wtf.

Login.5102:

I want to know every thing about sword dagger. As a thief I have been playing d/d for a long time, but have been very interested in s/d. wvw mainly With a sb .

1. What combos are you aiming for with s/d? is it something like #2-#5-#1-#1-#1-#1??
That works. Also 2-3-5-1, if you can get the stability removed. Sometimes you just go 2-1-1-2-2-1-1-2 Warping in and out with the immobilize which can be useful when Stability is deeply covered, but it can mess up your escape route.
2. Is there any time a s/d thief should use #3? Or is it better to leave this skill alone save in. for a different skill?
Removing Stability and protection, sometimes regeneration or super high stacks of Might. If you have quickness, the 2nd hit is almost guaranteed to hit as well, giving you a bit of spike + the boon utility and evade. Sometimes you just swapped from bow, and haven’t shadow returned when you get hit with some BS, immobilize and don’t have time for 2-2-dodge, so you just Flanking strike the hit for an evade, but it’s rare.
3. Is there a common cookie cutter build for s/d like there is for d/d? If so what is it?
10/30/30/0/0. Mug, Critical haste, Executioner, condt removal on Stealth, Shadow Rejuvenation, slot 1 of SA is pretty flexible. Slot 1 of Critical Strikes as well, Precise vitality/ Fury <50% work fine. Shadowstep as a standard, everything else is actually up in the air. Typically Refuge + SoS though for WvW

You can fool around with 10/30/0/30/0’s, 10/30/0/0/30’s, Mix’s of SA + acrobatics, or remove the 10 in Deadly arts for 10 in trickery at whim. Only thing concrete is that you need Critical Strikes.
4. Does increasing your stun duration through sigil of paralize increase your daze? If so is this something I should be aiming for?
Yup but just in WvW & PvE You can take it or Lyssa. A Sigil of rage on the Off-hand is also useful but you can slap in Bloodlust.

5. Is there any neat tricks you guys have learned about this weapon set?
Shadow Return is ridiculous in it’s reach. Places you figure you’d have to walk back to get to, even with normal shadow steps? Shadow return doesn’t care and will bring you back safe and sound. Infiltrator’s one area, run away, Shadow step, and run. If they pursue, hit Shadow return on either 2 or Shadowstep. Then you can use the other Shadow return, Chasers can basically never get to you because you warp 3-4 times in a row, swap to bow and keep running. This is true for S/P too, so essentially you don’t need Stealth to live. However CnD + Shadow return is useful for a pure clean escape.
There’s enough time to Inf strike, Cnd, Tactical someone Finishing a friend if you notice in time, Faster if you f1-cnd-1. Replacing f1 with Inf Signet when needed.

Answers in bold, but lets be cereal 4 and 5 are known from D/D, you know their tricks.
After the first hit you can move during Flanking while revving up the 2nd hit, don’t forget that and it’ll hit more often, never stay idle. If you have no Target selected, the 2nd hit is completely aimable, and Flanking strike will move you to the sides horizontally that you are holding. Someone trying to escape can be hit with the 2nd hit like that, once you know to just Line it up with their movement unselected and aim the 2nd hit into their face, but lol outside of the evade might as well just press 1.

Set is most fun fighting other Sword/sets including Mesmer, Warrior and Ranger.

Oh and Sigil of Nullification is crap regardless.

Let me get this right.
Nerf mug 33%, but bring back the 30% dmg CnD used to have?
So how much is really changing Mrbig…nothing much. So what’s the point? You want to reduce the burst, but you revert Cnd…wot?

typingofthedead.5614:

possante.8310:

typingofthedead.5614:

Jon, on a related note, can u or anyone say if the chilled effect slows thief initiative regen?

pretty sure not , 60% slow regen on thief initiative will make them useless.

i mean, i think thats more fair then them being largely immune to a condition just because of the nature of their class mechanic

Their utility, heals and elites are affected by chill.
The classes gimmick is mobility and Chill strips the majority of that power as well.
They’re not largely immune.

Anyways all skills are supposed to be usable at least twice in a row for thieves. That’s the point of initiative. You can use anything twice, but it’ll impair your ability to do anything else.

Regeneration stacks duration so you get 9.

Ha worse is Shadow strike not moving because the game wont shadowstep you over a 1 inch ledge.

Do remember stealth does not last forever, and each block and miss waste that time allowing them to counter attack, hence the relevancy. Defenses were meant to be utilized, if they’re using them, just means they’re fighting back, using them doesn’t equate to us winning anymore than using Stealth suddenly equates to use losing.

At the behest of these “pro” thieves, would like to see some quality of life improvements to the S/D set.

possibly a temporary fix until they can eliminate the source bug, but that might take awhile.

Go P/D berserker put Shadow strike on auto attack, and roll/face eliminating Sneak attack, while face smashing them, everytime.

You forgot, Dodging, putting up stability, blocking, aegis, Invulnerability/evade skills like Quickshot or Blurred Frenzy, activating pet skills such as the Wolf Fear and blinding through skills such as Plague or Black Powder. As well as moving to delay the attack and to possibly stop the daze through normal movement or even Leaps and teleports.

Nothing about from the ground up. It’s just pointing out what it is. You put the emphasis on Tactical strike, Sneak attack and Backstab you’re going to bore yourself with “5,1” play. Except D/D in that regard since LDB is good for bleeds.

evilapprentice.6379:

ensoriki.5789:

Delete tactical strike.
Copy + paste Backstab.

That’s not the point of my post at all – Tactical strike is just as hard to pull off as backstab, why not make them different-but-equal?

If ANet feels the initial daze time was too long, there’s a ton of ways to buff the skill that makes it different than backstab but just as effective.
1.) Add some additional conditions – Have tactical strike also weaken, poison or cripple the target.
2.) Grant boons on successful use – If ANet wants to keep S/D damage as low as it is, we’ll need the actual tools to play an attrition style build. Have Tac strike give Protection/Regen to the thief when used from the back arc.
3) Strip boons – Have the ability remove 1 boon when used from the front arc, and 3 when used from the back.

Any of these abilities (in addition to the daze) would make Tac strike a more effective skill (probably – of course playtesting would be required)

Im not saying that is your point.
I’m pointing how ridiculous the current state of affairs is.
Backstab isn’t some complimentary skill, you slap it on any of the melee sets and they fit the same roll perfectly, single target burst. Especially granted the similar damage of our auto attacks. Only difference is you’d port out with Shadow return instead of HS.

I rather we have less emphasis on stealth skills. So far outside of SB they were all silly as I saw it. Press 5, press 1. Everything else on your bar is just to i) keep you alive, or ii) assist you in doing that. Except for the shortbow, S/P and P/P just because they don’t have that much access.

Hotjoin menu sucks. A proper lobby and game creation setup would’ve made it all more intuitive. Don’t know why they went with this, just makes PvP weird, and means there probably going to do some disjointed crap like GW1 again. Brb travel to separate island to do Team Arena’s…just have it in the same spot.

Delete tactical strike.
Copy + paste Backstab.

Or you could just directly reduce the initial damage of the burst, and achieve the same effect. Increasing health caps causes the same effect on a global scale, it doesn’t increase reaction speed, it increases the ability to endure damage, and reduces the power of damage conditions further. Making defensive builds in general stronger, conditions weaker, and putting greater emphasis on burst to do meaningful damage and shorten battles when people are more endurant, as I see it.

I disagree (except for the stealth cap) in that I don’t think it accomplishes
this : “These 3 things will balance my class and increase the skill cap to playing thieves correctly.”.
Outside of a D/D change and lesser extent D/P change it doesn’t do much overall. The Heartseeker change just makes it clunkier with initiative as I see it. Burning speed has the benefit in that, The elementalists attacks, are not 130 range, and even if you miss burning speed you get a field of fire.

Reducing Dagger burst also doesn’t stop it from being burst, which your health section implies occurs.

Stealth attacks being significant offensive options while acceptable is boring to begin with, and while it may not be the focus of your post, they themself don’t make thieves enjoyable to watch or play against.

D/D
D/P
S/P
P/D
SB. Are all usable Mr.Big.
S/D as well but it’s not as obviously effective as the above, since it’s got basically 0 burst relative to the others and I can spam headshot for cheaper and faster results than CnD+Tactical.

Thieves are crap at killing each other if they notice each other.
Thieves are vultures, fine a straggler or someone looking weak, and dive into them.
Other sets can have more staying power or deal less damage in a burst with some kind of utility(S/D, P/D, SB).

Foss.4830:

Iove.3902:

He wasn’t hacking he is playing a stealth spec. There are traits, that sacrifice damage and mobility, to allow the Thief to regerante HP while in stealth. He could also be using Steal Life food/sigils/runes.

If you know nothing of your enemies you are not going to defeat them.

I know about the trait but literally. Full health every time he came out. 50% up to full in what? how long does CND last? 3? 4 seconds? That seems like an outrageous amount of healing.

That isn’t from Shadow Rejuvenation.
At base 30 it heals 323. With Shaman’s 410. So 1200-1600 if you don’t attack in stealth.
With Shadow Protector regen gives 269. So 679 if that’s how they set it up. Which is 2716 in 4 seconds. Out of 10805 health that’s still not 50%. Mind you if his health was 10805. That’s really…low to begin with. Unless he was getting ticks from SoM or using Withdrawl while hidden it has to be an exaggeration.

Why does a 25% dmg nerf…to one trait, and 2 skills equate to a health upgrade for the entire profession?
Secondly how does “people complain about heartseeker” equate to Cooldowns?
What?
Third the definition of Thief means very little here, it’s pointless to bring up.

Also “I think mobility is fine but I heard others say Shadowstep should be longer”
Basically you are just going with what you hear, and are appeasing. Hard to take you seriously on that note.

To be blunt. I disagree with your title. It sounds more like “Things I heard desired”.

Kajin.5301:

Granted it’s more pve-centric, but can do it for pistolwhip too :P

I do it in PvP too :O. Darn Phase Retreat Mesmers..

Sounds nice….but

when will there be…
Exp gain in pvp (even if booster based)
PvE chests with exclusive “can’t get anywhere else” loot.
Ascended loot in pvp (that will get ppl playing)

Might as well attract people to the format to begin with.
Those who play just because they enjoy PvP, are either already playing or in WvW.

Building to counter?
Anyways thief is still useful lol, you just have to pick your targets wisely. If theres a bunch of bunkers you go “lol kitten it” and move on.
However that being said, going against Thief burst, is just protecting yourself from damage in general, from all professions. It’s not some Thief specific thing.

Which other skills of mine are interrupting the foe, protecting me, and proventing them from moving? It is neither head shot or black powder. Nor do any of them do significant damage.
It doesn’t need the same DPS as the sword-auto attack because it has different features then the sword auto attack. Is this rocket science?

Let me rewrite this…

It’s been tested, in absolutely best-case scenarios (IE: Traiting for +10% damage on pistol shots, 30% chance on crit to cripple, and having a proc sigil) Black powder does not have the same DPS as sword-auto attack….and no one god kitten cares.
It’s a stun and evade that does damage, the auto attack gives cripple and weakness with a higher damage output. Stun even at a second is a powerful effect, as is Evade.
Dealwitit.jpg.

ITT: Exaggerations. and D/P does not exist.

Pistol whip is fine. Removing the stun and evade doesn’t open up anything.
It’s purpose is already clear. Smash people in the face. Removing those two features, just makes it so the skill is easier to ignore without quickness, and easier to escape with quickness. In addition leaving you significantly more vulnerable to all pet/minion types in this game from Rockdog’s to turrets, illusions, pets, minions, thieves and spirit weapons, as well as enemy team mates. All for a damage increase on something that already hits quite well? No thanks.

Is this new? awesome.

Only see the 7% effect in combat if I recall.

Cut all my winded crap and tl;dr’d it.
- Autoattacks and damage are important
- P/P is the most immobile thief set, because of Bodyshot/Unload
- P/P will continue to be a sitting duck relative to other sets if 2 or 3 do not change.
- Can change body shot, but the above remains true
- Change body shot and P/P and P/D will be better off.
- 10% dmg trait for a weapon like the pistol is stupid.

Forget Vital shot.
Lettuce be real tea. It’s all on body shot.

Edit: Daecollo ninja’d me.
Einlanzer forget the autoattacks. Srsly.

Rezz.8019:

Heartseeker is the only thing that keeps thieves from being completely useless. I don’t see any need for changing it, as there are so many ways to counter thieves. How come no one here suggested buffing their health or armor or anything? They’re just paper, and they’re similar to assassins in gw1, meaning they deal the highest amount of damage in short time, but they’re very fragile.
I can’t remember anyone complaining about assassins in GW1, even tho they would push 3 buttons and enemies would die.

Lies on multiple parts wtf is wrong with this forum.
1. S/P thief’s are completely viable and note to every ignorant individual on this forum…they don’t hav heartseeker. The idea that thief usefullness is based on heartseeker is a gross exaggeration. That being said, heartseeker is not Lucifer.

2. Lol did you play GW1 assassin? We got blasted several times from the start of our existance. The very idea that no one complained about Assassin’s is a joke, an Assassin could barely go a weak without hearing some bullkitten about us either in-game or on forums. Impale, Shadow prison, Aura of Displacement, Palm strike, Shadow of haste being GW2’s Shadow Return on steroids, BoA, Crit Scythes, not even touching all of the hate. PvE Shadow form, PvE us supposedly blowing up whenever an Afflicted sneezed. “Shadowsteps ruin the importance of positioning”, “Critical strikes makes energy a joke”, “Shadow steps need aftercast”. No one complained about Assassins, did we play the same game? Every profession in GW1 got complained about, unquestionably.

The only problem of heartseeker, is it attacks people behind you, when it should just launch you forward if you’re not in the proper range of sight. Cripple and Chill.

Kirei.1792:

Heartseeker is fine. just reduce the range it leaps.. atm its 450 make it less, around 250 or so.

Lol who’s it going to hit then?
HS isn’t a problem but I don’t like that it auto-corrects itself if an opponent is behind you.

I don’t know about bulls rush but if you’re smart with blocks warriors force predicted DD thieves into defense almost immediately. Mind you there are other thief builds.

Daecollo.9578:

I love the fact that there are only 2-3 viable options for our class.

Wild Bill – I see these guys all the time now, its funny.
D/D Death Blossom Caltraps – Funny guys.
D/D Backstab. – ALMOST Insta KEEL YOU! (…every 45 seconds…)

We are thieves… where is the “Pirate (P/P)”, “Swashbuckler (S/P)”, “Brigand (S/D)” builds?!

Oh, that is right, there are not many, because the weapon sets are terrible now.

P/P don’t know.

S/P? Shadowstep, infiltrator’s signet, Haste.
Signet of rage, and the quickness on crit trate.
Proceed to smash people in the face.

S/D is good as well but D/D is overshadowing it. 10/30/30 or 10/30/0/30.

kenshinakh.3672:

Maybe when you hit a thief in stealth, have damage numbers pop up on the screen and have the regular flashes/sounds play when you normally hit things?

If you have a skill 1 that is a chain skill (3 steps) whenever you hit a thief, the skill changes pointing out that you hit him. To put it bluntly many weapons already detect thief’s. If you’re not running them it’s your loss.
Basically all of these weapons
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chain
Can show if you’re hitting a thief, I think except for necro scepter (but not sure) and mesmer scepter is unreliable as well for that.
Basically the only one who can’t “find” a melee thief is an elementalist.

Clark Skinner.4902:

It’s not like a thief is more vulnerable than others when out of stealth. They still have medium armor and mobility. Elementalists have light armor and can’t stealth through most of the battle.

They are. Lowest hp profession without protection, stability, aegis,blocks or invulnerability. There are shadowsteps, blind, and enhanced evasion.

Causic.3798:

Tulisin.6945:

Causic.3798:

Not sure if its been mentioned,
But Stealth finishing also has to be done away with.
Shouldnt even try and revive someone downed by a thief because the thief will finish him before you can even bring him up.
So please look into this, it is quite tedious.

Stealth finishing is the weakest of the “special” finishers and easiest to counter. Just kill/interrupt the thief, both of those options aren’t even available with most special finishing moves.

Problem lies here, how do I or many around me kill or interrupt the thief if we cant see him?
I don’t feel we should have to Aoe everywhere randomly just to see thieves, then only after that try to kill him. (Which is more a problem with stealth in general)
By “Special” finishers you mean Stability, and that is not so much a problem because you can shoot at the person (doing the finishing) while he tries to finish someone and kill him. With a thief you can’t even do that (because you can’t even see him).

However those professions more often then not have higher health to begin with as well typically access to protection or some other form of mitigation to make them sturdier than a thief would be in the same situation. Not that Black Powder stomps aren’t an option mind you.

1. Underwater combat is undeveloped, needs it’s own trait set, down & skill reworks.
2. Cannon is kitten
3. Sharks

They’re mutually nonsensical.

I don’t know why necro got it but outside of that, not every profession is supposed to be a speed demon plain and simple.
Mesmers share some of the speed of a thief, not quite all of it.
However I thought signet of inspiration was going to provide only swiftness outside of battle…or at least it seemed like that was what they were implying.

Have a feeling they’re going to do something to mug, change it to master or nerf it
With that and some random pistol change, I doubt much is happening with their “incremental” stance.

Would like to see:
Ankle shot changed to 100%.
Body shot change.
Flankings tracking improved but we’ll probably just get the damage re-arranged..
Deletion (followed by replacement) or revision of Dagger training, Combined training, Potent Poison, side strike, Combined critical chance, last Refuge, power shots, Assassin’s retreat, flanking strikes and ricochet.
Corrosive traps merged with Master trapper or removed, feel it’s wasting space, srs.

Iced Drake Venom changed to Assassin’s Remedy.

I can’t think of any veteran that’s difficult to solo that isn’t an undead giant or maybe a veteran karka egg layer and those are probably soloable, will have to try them later.

Black Powder > Veteran.
Cloak and Dagger + Dodge > Veteran.

PW, Heartseeker, CnD, Cluster bomb and Dancing Dagger have all taken hits but their negligible.
HS does the same, just at a lower health bracket.
Anything you could slay with Dancing D, you could kill with other options just fine.
Cluster bomb still deals enough damage.
PW, just use Black Powder and auto attack :P.

Some bosses just have too much aoe/pbaoe or too many mobs around them for it to safely work. Stealth won’t save you from insta kill pbaoes.

Other times bosses have attack patterns that you learn to dodge/block/blind what is immediately dangerous and deal with anything else as it comes.

For group mobs, melee again depends on the situation, 5 mobs simultaneously doing a big pbaoe, means gtfo/dodge. You’ll have to realize what is going on.

For general mobs, Black Powder removes them from being a threat.

I also play a S/D occasionally D/P with a shortbow swap.
Basically anything is up for grabs outside of a dungeon where I have to be far more observant (and that’s usually when I remove the /D and throw in /P).
Group events aren’t an issue as long as you are in a group and well…some of them can be solo’d.

I think every reason for 8v8 was terrible.
New players get carried more in 8v8 which ultimately means their own inadequacies are not highlighted to the same extent, slowing their growth.
Having 8v8 in itself means that 5v5 rooms get filled up less. That’s 6 people who could otherwise be filling up a 5v5 room, no wonder they end up being 5v4 or 3v4’s for such a long period of time.

Having 8v8 alienated the spvp experience from the free/paid level, which goes against what they were hoping for anyways, it’s not a gate-way. Now they’re stuck with it (unless they radically remove it, and that’s likely to cause more unrest).

Hell 8v8 in itself wouldn’t even be bad if it was another format, but you’re built around moving around points, why are you saturating the area?

MindlessRuff.1948:

The ONLY way to change hotjoins from the state they are currently in, is to remove the hotjoin part. The fact that people are able to jump in and out at will does not encourage playing for the win, rather it encourages trying to get as many points as possible so you can rank up and get more glory points.

If you want to play to win, the way hotjoins form needs to be restructured, or you could go join the free tPvP games available, you get plenty more points for winning those matches, as well as a reward chest if you pass at least 1 round.

Jumping in and out isn’t the issue. Win bonus isn’t high enough and the points are skewed to reward things less important to what they want to emphasize.
Enough games don’t have this issue to the same extent with their own lobbies.
Adding 8v8 from the start at least at launch was a mistake. They alienated their own standard.