Guild Wars 2

NevirSayDie.6235:

evilapprentice.6379:

There would be a change because Rabid doesn’t offer Crit Damage, so you’d be critting alot, with weak crits – they should be roughly as effective as Direct damage with high power and precision but no bonus crit damage.

As for Shamans, why shouldn’t they be? Why should any spec be allowed to do solid damage while stacking toughness and healing power? There’s supposed to be a balance, you shouldn’t be doing solid damage while 2/3 of your stats are focused on survivability, and your primary damage stat is on the lower tier of your amulet. You’re focusing on attrition style stats (high toughness/healing power), you should do attrition strength damage.

Then why not just nerf shaman’s and buff rampager’s? That would be much simpler and would have the same result you’re going for. My point was that there’s only one condition amulet seeing much use (rabid) and that would be essentially unchanged by allowing conditions to crit while some creative builds would be crushed. For example, BM bunker rangers are still viable, but I see no need to nerf them. Same goes for condi bunker engineer (I don’t play either of those specs, I’m just giving examples of builds that would be hit hard).

Overhauling the entire game (this would change every build, not just “condition” builds) seems a bit much when it’s really just one condition amulet on one profession that’s a bit over the top, and that only because of one poorly-thought-out balance patch that buffed too much at one time.

I understand what you’re saying, but I’m of a differing opinion.

It’s my opinion that condition builds will have a hard time being properly balanced (they’ll either be UP or OP) while they have one (and only one) stat linked to their damage. I could be wrong, but that’s my opinion. My suggestion isn’t something I’m expecting to see in the next few months, but I think as the game progresses, if we want condition specs to have similar power levels and options to direct damage specs, they too should have to invest in more than 1 stat for the basis of all of their damage.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

conditions being able to crit is a horrible idea. hybrid conditionmancers would effectively shut down the meta.

picture 15 stacks of bleeding with 50% crit chance.. that’s over 20 crits in the first 3 seconds… with Barbed Precision that would create an extra 10 stacks of bleeding
on it’s own.

Sigh. I’m talking about an overhaul of the system… with playtesting and these sorts of things in mind. Not just “Make condition able to crit WITH NO OTHER CHANGES AT ALL”

NevirSayDie.6235:

evilapprentice.6379:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Massive changes that buff/nerf every single build in the game are not wise. Every single imaginable build would be dramatically affected by this. Imagine waking up tomorrow and every currently viable build was trash, and there were 5 new OP builds created.

I’m not suggesting ANet throw some numbers at a wall and see what sticks – my suggestion takes time and playtesting, but I think overall, it fixes the issues we see with conditions, both before and after the current meta.

It would force condition users to make the same choices as direct damage users (How much do I invest in survivability vs how much do I invest in high burst potential), and I believe would also help balance the current “Conditions are too spammable” vs “Of course they are, condition cleanses are too accessible” situation we’re seeing.

Let’s think this through. The condi/prec/crit damage amulet would have to hit harder than conditions currently do. All right, but maybe that would be balanced because that build now has zero toughness. But what about carrion amulet? That’s a massive nerf. Same for shaman’s. Rabid amulet dps would have to end up essentially the same: base condi damage is lowered but you’ve got a high crit rate.

So I think the end result of this change is that necros could go full glass and just nuke, or keep using rabid for essentially no change. All builds for other professions using shaman’s or carrion would be nerfed to the ground.

Dev’s are already talking about putting new amulets into the game, you give Condi the same options that Direct Damage currently has.

There would be a change because Rabid doesn’t offer Crit Damage, so you’d be critting alot, with weak crits – they should be roughly as effective as Direct damage with high power and precision but no bonus crit damage.

As for Shamans, why shouldn’t they be? Why should any spec be allowed to do solid damage while stacking toughness and healing power? There’s supposed to be a balance, you shouldn’t be doing solid damage while 2/3 of your stats are focused on survivability, and your primary damage stat is on the lower tier of your amulet. You’re focusing on attrition style stats (high toughness/healing power), you should do attrition strength damage.

I’m suggesting an overhaul of how condition do damage with respects to crit and crit damage – assuming everything else is just going to stay the same is silly. Obviously, other things will require varying level of adjustments. It’s alot of effort, but it certainly isn’t as static and impossible as you’re making it seem.

Destiny.6738:

Rank has never meant anything. We have a lot of HJ heroes out there on the same skill level as a rank 20.

For sure, this exploit needs a fix, but the community and dev’s should focus on other things right now.

As someone else already pointed out, this has the possibility to hinder any plans Anet has to make glory a more worthwhile currency.

Surely, ANet has some plan that will allow players to spend the massive amount of glory they’ve been accumulating. Let’s pretend a moment that this plan eventually turns into a Glory to Gold or Glory to Gems conversion – now we’ve got a bunch of players who are going to have a detrimental effect on the games economy (and ANets real money cash flow) thanks to this cheating.

Glory to gold likely isn’t going to happen, but that was just an example – people farming glory by cheating are just going to weaken any attempts Anet makes at making glory actually useful for something.

Kline.9561:

I dont think you would have to lower condi damage across the board it prolly be easier if condi was taxed by things like toughness and other mitigating effects. Some changes or things to discuss about condi could be duration or rate of dmg (how much it ticks for dmg and how fast)

Now you’re talking about slow direct damage – if toughness affected conditions, they’d just be backloaded direct damage attacks. I’m not looking to homogenize the whole system (IE, condi burst would still be less bursty then DD burst, but condi sustain/attrition would be stronger than DD sustain/attrition), just something that would force condition users to make the same build choices direct damage players are forced to make.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Massive changes that buff/nerf every single build in the game are not wise. Every single imaginable build would be dramatically affected by this. Imagine waking up tomorrow and every currently viable build was trash, and there were 5 new OP builds created.

I’m not suggesting ANet throw some numbers at a wall and see what sticks – my suggestion takes time and playtesting, but I think overall, it fixes the issues we see with conditions, both before and after the current meta.

It would force condition users to make the same choices as direct damage users (How much do I invest in survivability vs how much do I invest in high burst potential), and I believe would also help balance the current “Conditions are too spammable” vs “Of course they are, condition cleanses are too accessible” situation we’re seeing.

There are 2 big gripes currently about conditions –
A) They’re far too accessible/spammable by certain classes.
B) They’re entirely reliant on a single stat for damage (as opposed to Direct damage which relies on 3 stats), allowing players to still deal excellent condition damage while having high toughness/vitality.

Let’s ignore point A for now – if a class is built on conditions, it’s going to be very hard to balance condition application and condition removal, and that’s not an easy fix.

For point B, why not just modify base condition damage (IE reduce) and allow conditions to crit? This would put condition users in the same boat as direct damage users – they could go Condi Damage/Vit/Toughness if they wanted to run a sustain/attrtition build, or they could go Condi damage/Crit chance/Crit damage if they wanted a burstier option.

kirito.4138:

Because there are too many people playing, side effect of being super popular or you can try a gaming VPN to route over a bad network node.

I’ve tried a gaming VPN.
And monitoring my ping
and contacting my ISP about dropped packets.
and monitoring my internet in general.

This is very, very clearly an Anet server issue (at least in my experience), and it’s remained unaddressed for multiple months at this point.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Letting you guys know I’m still reading this thread. This topic comes up a lot and there is usually very little feedback simply because its so hard to explain without going over all of game development.

As for the sibling analogy, clothes are clothes. It doesn’t translate well to the different kinds of updates we release. I think relating to computer updates could be better:
Two siblings. One enjoys buildings and tweaking computers, and using it to its full extent to play the latest and greatest games. The other only uses the computer as a means to do homework, play casual games, social network, etc. The first always wants the latest parts, but they’re very expensive and the parents can only afford them on special occasions. However, lots of software for the other sibling may be easy to acquire because its cheap or free, and readily available. Even though the first sibling still wants software too, it’s relatively useless without those shiny expensive parts. In the end, one sibling gets more presents than the other without knowing how different they really are. I hope that makes sense :P

I do want to say again that while I’ve been very harsh with my opinion here, I do still appreciate you taking the time to read and respond to the thread as a whole. I might not be happy with the current state of PvP, but I’m not just here to bash the game – I’d like to see it reach a better place, and hopefully soon.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

I cannot believe people are this ignorant about this after a year of release. The twice a month content they get (PvE) is living story. Anet just builds onto existing technology, as Evan said, so it can come out quicker. A lot of the PvP community wants Spectator Mode, Solo queues, and a refined matchmaking system. The only programming intensive feature (I would think) PvE is getting, and is just coming out is their LFG tool.

Everyone in this thread needs to figure it out, seriously.

Seeing as you’ve figured this out, perhaps you can work on your reading comprehension next – the point isn’t “Why isn’t something coming out for PvP every 2 weeks”, it is “Why is the disparity so glaringly huge”.

If we want to ask the really hard questions, we can ask why the game was launched with so many basic features missing. Why is any patch day where PvP is affected guaranteed to come with issues that affect players ability to play? How is it Anet has left the current hated meta in place for 2 and a half months and counting? Why is matchamking, the very heart of competitive PvP, still performing poorly? Why did it take them nearly an entire year to figure out how to make 1 class out of 8 (Warrior) playable? I could keep going, but why bother.

We can turn this into a “Why did Anet launch GW2 with all the tools needed to expedite PvE updates but absolutely no infrastructure to do so with PvP” if you like, but that’s not very productive.

Vena.8436:

butch.8136:

Sry, if you took that so seriously. It’s more the thought behind it. And no, I’m not gonna explain myself. I’ve wasted enough effort.

Its not really about seriousness, its just a non-starter solution. Ten coders won’t necessarily finish something in less time than one coder. In fact, since most people have personal coding nuances, the more people you cram on a project the more confusing it gets to have them try and mesh their work.

I forgot that Microsoft has never hired or fired an employee in the entirety of their existence – you’ve pointed out to me that it would surely be impossible to bring in new people, familiarize them with your code base, and have them work on separate issues collaboratively in an effort to speed up production.

I certainly hope my company never goes under, because apparently my Degree in CS will become worthless, because who would ever hire me? It’s not like I can be introduced to a working product, given a specific task, and work collaboratively on it. There exists no method to do so, and certainly no tools to aid in the process.

That 1 guy they have making all the coding changes in the game must be exhausted.

On a more serious note, of course there’s the option to bring in some people on a temporary basis to make some much needed fixes to the basic infrastructure of the game, the question is, can ANet justify the expense?

Darnis.4056:

evilapprentice.6379:

Darnis.4056:

evilapprentice.6379:

Krayiss.4926:

Spend money for helping test something on PTR?

If necessary, yes. Remember, Anet doesn’t charge a monthly fee like most other games. a PTR might be an expenditure that their budget doesn’t support. I’ve got no problem giving Anet 5 dollars a month for PTR access if it leads to faster, better tested, more balanced changes to PvP.

This is like why CoD releases a new game every year.. people are willing to pay for silly things.

There’s a ton of testers already… according to Jon but what does that mean, 20 ?

If you’re pleased with the Job that the testers are currently doing, good for you. Most of the community isn’t.

It isn’t silly to offer help. I’m asking that ANet do a better job in PvP developement, which is a direct boon for me (as I enjoy PvP). I don’t mind offering something small (5 dollars a month) to make that easier for them, because it could potentially result in a better situation for us all – Anet making money from PvP, faster, better, more balanced, more stable PvP updates for the community. The comparison to CoD is asinine, and a poor attempt to discredit the idea.

Paying for the chance to debug/bugtest is asinine, it discredits itself no need for comparisons.

If we were paying a monthly subscription, that would be true. We don’t, so it isn’t.

When a game that requires a monthly subscription releases a PTR, that is exactly what you’re doing – paying to debug/bugtest. It’s worked well in the past for other games. This isn’t just something for the developers, it results in a better game for you and me, the players – If Anet has to pay for hosting/housing/support on a PTR, it isn’t asinine to ask us to help shoulder the cost, it’s simple economics, since they don’t charge us to play on a month to month basis.

Darnis.4056:

evilapprentice.6379:

Krayiss.4926:

Spend money for helping test something on PTR?

If necessary, yes. Remember, Anet doesn’t charge a monthly fee like most other games. a PTR might be an expenditure that their budget doesn’t support. I’ve got no problem giving Anet 5 dollars a month for PTR access if it leads to faster, better tested, more balanced changes to PvP.

This is like why CoD releases a new game every year.. people are willing to pay for silly things.

There’s a ton of testers already… according to Jon but what does that mean, 20 ?

If you’re pleased with the Job that the testers are currently doing, good for you. Most of the community isn’t.

It isn’t silly to offer help. I’m asking that ANet do a better job in PvP developement, which is a direct boon for me (as I enjoy PvP). I don’t mind offering something small (5 dollars a month) to make that easier for them, because it could potentially result in a better situation for us all – Anet making money from PvP, faster, better, more balanced, more stable PvP updates for the community. The comparison to CoD is asinine, and a poor attempt to discredit the idea.

Krayiss.4926:

Spend money for helping test something on PTR?

If necessary, yes. Remember, Anet doesn’t charge a monthly fee like most other games. a PTR might be an expenditure that their budget doesn’t support. I’ve got no problem giving Anet 5 dollars a month for PTR access if it leads to faster, better tested, more balanced changes to PvP.

Kline.9561:

I don’t think the question here is what the devs have accomplished or how difficult it is for them to get new content out.

but a question of resources
and why the PvP team is not getting them.

we need to talk to that guy, not the developers

I understand that SPVP doesn’t make as much $ because of population.
thus giving less incentive to develop it, but isn’t spvp population also anets fault who’s going to play a part of the game that didn’t even have the most basic features during the first year.

all anet it did was make a safe bet with pve, because it made more sense from an investment vs income point of veiw

it’s time to make the mists free to play because it’s starting to feel like that’s the only way to bring players back, and for anet to turn a profit on it

I agree. I’ve personally suggested a number of ways to generate Money from the PvP community, so that Anet can be justified in spending more money in improving PvP.

- Make a PTR, and charge money for access if necessary to justify the cost.
- Allow players to spend glory to acquire gems when they are already spending real money – Just an example, let players exchange 10k glory for 800 gems for every 10 dollars in real money they spend in the store – this gives players something to do with their glory when they are already giving Anet some cash.
- Just be up front and honest with us – if PvP is a monetary sinkhole, come out and say it. Talk with us, lets figure out a way to turn that around.

I didn’t start this post just to put GW2 down, I want it to work. Let us help you ANet, its obvious you need it.

Vena.8436:

evilapprentice.6379:

I just want to use what butch said to clarify – The point of my post wasn’t “Wah, why aren’t WE getting bi-weekly updates!” I don’t think PvP needs new toys every 2 weeks. The point is why are our updates so sporadic, ill-functioning and poorly tested while PvE is guaranteed new fun every 2 weeks. The extreme disparity between the 2 should be reduced.

Is it really that hard for you to comprehend?

PvE updates are created using dev kits and map tools that exist and are simply a question of map designers and content creators putting the tools to work.

PvP updates (balancing is the balancing team) require actually creating tools from scratch; hence why they are sporadic and sometimes ill.

If this were true, every single MMO in the world would be in the same position.

It seems to me ANet puts priority on PvE and not PvP, because this isn’t the case for every single MMO in the world. Direct comparisons aren’t allowed, but not so long ago I played a game where PvP content/balancing patches were heavily discussed/tested with the communities help, and they were fairly successful, and it didn’t even take an entire year.

Your statement also doesn’t touch on how PvP has seen 3 new maps in 12 months – by your own argument, that’s an easy addition.

Furthermore, as it’s been brought up a hundred times on these forums, and PTR would do wonders for both the Dev’s AND the community.
A) A place to test balance/content changes that don’t screw up the game for everyone
B) A chance to allow players to playtest your changes FOR FREE.
C) It frees the team from the responsibility of guaranteeing everything works from the getgo – the team could be more adventurous with balance changes and content changes because if it doesn’t work out, there’s still time to tweak without kitten ing off the entire community.

butch.8136:

Evan Lesh.3295:

The updates exclusive to PvE and PvP are hard to compare. Almost all PvP features require very intensive programmer and server support like solo queue, matchmaking, custom arenas, spectator mode, etc. Living story updates leverage existing technology to advance the story and expand content with new mobs, crafting recipes, dungeons, etc. PvP has few areas expandable by content; the main feature being maps which we release regularly. Balance updates affect all parts of the game and don’t come out for one any faster for one than the other.

Invest one time in a bunch of programmers and get the infrastructure solid. After that we don’t require bi-weekly updates.

I just want to use what butch said to clarify – The point of my post wasn’t “Wah, why aren’t WE getting bi-weekly updates!” I don’t think PvP needs new toys every 2 weeks. The point is why are our updates so sporadic, ill-functioning and poorly tested while PvE is guaranteed new fun every 2 weeks. The extreme disparity between the 2 should be reduced.

Puru.4217:

naphack.9346:

SoS:
It’s a speed boost, alright. Compared to other speed boost signet’s active, it’s on the good side. Signet of Air is strictly worse, Signet of the Hunt is a huge boost to a single hit on a class with hardly any heavy hitters and Signet of the Locust is on a hellish long cd, while serving as a worse “oh-crap”-button than SoS.

Signet of air is better in every aspect.

And shadow step is a double stunbreaker that drops 3 conditions on the return, compared to lightning flash which doesn’t break stuns and is only a single teleport with no condition cleanse- for 10s longer CD. Shadow Step is infinitely better. You can’t make comparisons on single abilities without considering all the options as a whole.

Julius.1094:

evilapprentice.6379:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

da kitten …

they rather remove water than balance ranger under water.

what madness is this?

Anet has made it painfully clear water combat was never going to be balanced for TPvP – Capricorn was either Never in the tourney map rotation, or removed very early (i can’t remember which specifically), but the message is clear – a map with water ijn it does not make for a fair TPvP experience. I’m glad to hear they’re changing it.

It’s also painfully clear ground combat isn’t balanced for TPvP either so there is that.

If that’s your position then perhaps you might agree that it would take some load off the PvP balance teams shoulders to only have to balance ground combat, rather than both ground and water combat.

Evan Lesh.3295:

The updates exclusive to PvE and PvP are hard to compare. Almost all PvP features require very intensive programmer and server support like solo queue, matchmaking, custom arenas, spectator mode, etc. Living story updates leverage existing technology to advance the story and expand content with new mobs, crafting recipes, dungeons, etc. PvP has few areas expandable by content; the main feature being maps which we release regularly. Balance updates affect all parts of the game and don’t come out for one any faster for one than the other.

The company was hoping for this game to become an E-sport, didn’t they take these factors into account? I understand that the work is harder, which is why I would expect the PvP team to be larger than the PvE team…though I don’t know for sure, I suspect that is not the case.

Spectator mode for hot join only is basically pointless. Where is spectator mode for TPvP?

Perhaps you should change your philosophy regarding balance updates – Seeing as PvP isn’t seeing 2 fun, interesting content updates per month, perhaps they could instead see faster and better tested balance updates, split from PvE (Because we don’t want PvP balance ruining PvE experience, and vice versa).

Concerning maps, we’ve gotten I believe 3 new maps since launch (That’s off the top of my head and could be wrong) – that’s 1 map every 4 months…roughly 1/8th the speed of PvE updates.

Both Solo Q and Mathmaking have had issues since launch that have so far been unaddressed – you can’t really tout giving players functions and modes that don’t work correctly as a positive.

The bottom line is PvE players are catered to, and happy. PvP players are mostly ignored, and unhappy. I know the tone of this has seemed harsh, but honestly, I think that’s what you need. Don’t tell me how hard everything is – just put the requisite amount of effort into it to make it work. I want you to understand that I really do enjoy this game, I just wish PvP players weren’t clearly second class citizens, and I really wish Dev’s would stop using difficulty as an excuse and just start giving us the time and attention PvE gets.

Regardless of how I feel about the state of the game, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to respond – it is appreciated.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

da kitten …

they rather remove water than balance ranger under water.

what madness is this?

Anet has made it painfully clear water combat was never going to be balanced for TPvP – Capricorn was either Never in the tourney map rotation, or removed very early (i can’t remember which specifically), but the message is clear – a map with water ijn it does not make for a fair TPvP experience. I’m glad to hear they’re changing it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1m39o7/mmos_in_a_nutshell/cc5hfvo

So, I’ve never really paid any attention to PvE – Not at all. I don’t know whats coming out, I don’t pay attention to the release schedule, what they get, etc etc etc. I understood that PvE got alot more than PvP in terms of content – that much was painfully obvious.

But is what this person saying true? Twice a month PvE players can expect new and interesting content? This is an exaggeration, right?

I mean how could it be true, when we’ve been waiting nigh on 3 months for this awful meta to change, still have 1 game mode, solo Q is still busted, a lot of the population is still experiencing lag issues in games… and so on and so on.

sorrow.2364:

evilapprentice.6379:

Assassins Sig is kitten CD, and could use an update (not necessarily a buff). As people pointed out when Signets went from 90 stat points to 180, Assassins active is now a very, very minor boost compared to the passive, followed by 45s(36s traited) seconds of lost power. Assassins sig doesn’t need to be made more powerful persay, but the active needs to be reconfigured a bit to be worth using more generally.

Well, to be honest, Assassin Signet active isn’t a minor boost over the passive.
The percentage damage increase means that the damage boost is significantly higher on high damaging skills, which thief has quite a few.

Also, when traited with critical strikes, the power loss is completely cancelled by the might stacks gained.

It is a burst-friendly signet, it is quite obvious. Nobody wants to get back to the 15k backstab age.

Traits don’t come into play – if the active doesn’t give me a good reason to use it, on its own, it’s poorly designed. Like I said, it doesn’t need a buff, it just needs to be reconfigured a little bit.

Any ability that does a high amount of damage probably has a favorable multiplier based on your power, which you lost 180 of on signet activation. Obviously the amount of additional power you’re running compared to base comes into play, but he fact remains that activating the signet provides a relatively minor boost to most specs.

sorrow.2364:

Are you kidding?
The Thief signets are actually the best in the game for several reasons.

1. Every signet is on a 30s cooldown.
2. Signet boosting traits are on the Critical Strike traitline, which is the must go traitline for most thieves.
3. Their effects are amazing, both passive and active.
4. Signet-related traits on thief are the best in class.

Thief is the only profession with viable signets, tbh.
I dare you to find any other signet you’ve listed used in any gamemode.

Your suggestions, also, are borderline OP.

Assassins Sig is kitten CD, and could use an update (not necessarily a buff). As people pointed out when Signets went from 90 stat points to 180, Assassins active is now a very, very minor boost compared to the passive, followed by 45s(36s traited) seconds of lost power. Assassins sig doesn’t need to be made more powerful persay, but the active needs to be reconfigured a bit to be worth using more generally.

Dagins.5163:

I think the only way to win any 1v1 combat now is to use death blossom spam build (double D/D with 30 acrobatics for Quick Pockets, withdraw, caltrops, Hastened Replenishment, energy sigils, runes of Lyssa with basilisk venom for condition cleanse).
But once they realize you just can’t be facerolled like before (mainly warriors), after a few duels they will learn and you will be dead anyway. Also, necros and engineers are hard counter to it and you won’t be able to do anything.
You can also try something with S/D+D/P, but it will require very big focus from you to win, and a single mistake will kill you (as completely opposed to them).

So, if you like 1v1, reroll or wait for next patch.

You don’t need DB Spam to win, that’s silly.

10/0/0/30/30 Soldiers S/D Shbow wins the majority of my 1v1’s for me, usually with ease. Some necro and engi builds can be a pain, but then it comes down to skill and some luck. The only build I really have consistent trouble with is Stealth Spam Condi mesmer, and even then I fare fairly well unless I’m seriously outplayed.

Most of these fights I’m taking in the context of having to hold a point as well – if I don’t have to worry about giving up a point, those harder fights get much easier.

Yes.

There’s really no valid argument against this – even if just the border of the buff is a specific color, it would go a long way into reading a buff bar in the middle of hectic combat.

Signet of Malice – Instant cast won’t happen – they have passive effects, and in compliment, have long casting times. The active on all of the signets is unattractive, they’re taken for the passives. That being said, Signet of Malice could use a buff into relevancy, as it’s currently Meh (which is partly the fault of P/P being garbage, and S/P being slightly UP and boring).

Signet of shadows – 10s of RNG blind PBAOE sounds silly, and a little op, especially on a 30s(24s traited) CD. A single blind on activation is a bit weak, but it has niche uses – for example, it wont interrupt a stomp, which is a guaranteed stomp on a necro/warrior/engineer, and with good timing can guarantee a stomp on a guardian/ranger

Signet of Agility – the endurance refill on active can be a lifesaver, since as a thief dodging is on of our primary damage mitigation tactics – it’s made more powerful by points in acrobatics, OR points in Crit strikes. I think you’re undervaluing it. The condition cleanse is Meh, but only considering the current meta – back when conditions had to be applied with thought, Sig of agility cleansing a Poison before you heal, or a big stack of bleeds could be a lifesaver.

Inf Sig – 25% speed boost passive with a gap closing stunbreaker active feels like a bit much, but that’s just more of a personal feeling than an argument I can back up coherently. It just feels like with Steal, Shadowshot, and Inf Strike already on the table, this would make thieves unparalleled at chasing.

epandrsn.5126:

I have been running D/D and S/D in sPvP as a conditions thief, and it can be awesome. I usually blow a lot of my initiative and endurance spamming DB and Dodgetrops, then stealth, switch to pistol main-hand and stack five more bleeds real quick. I initially was focusing on evades/dodges, but started moving more towards stealth with a newer build. Pistol 1 is a great way to stack bleeds, and people can’t target what they can’t see.

You get a ton of evades obviously, plus you are constantly healing yourself quite a bit as you hit sooo often. It’s amazingly survivable, plus you can stack up a ton of bleeds very quickly with DB and Caltrops. Even classes that cleanse condi’s a lot will eventually start to slowly break down while your health stays pretty full. Just run 0/0/30/20/20 and signet of malice, and mix carrion/apoth. gear.

I am pretty much basing the build on Selfrij’s build (search it on youtube), but using DB quite a bit more. I just use pistols when the init. gets low, as pistol 1 can stack bleeds without using any. So far it’s put me number 1 for kills in quite a few PUG sPvP matches, and a lot of times I won’t even go down.

The second you switch to P/D, you’ve lost the point – you’re not surviving without heavy stealth, and that’ll force you to lose the point.

Like I’ve been saying, it might be fun, it might be good at getting kills, but that doesn’t make it a good SPvP spec.

This trait is currently pretty worthless, and its a GM level trait. Here is my suggestion

Hard to Catch – When the thief uses a stunbreaker, he gains Stability (6s*) and Swiftness (10s*) – removes crippled, chilled, and Immobilize. (Boon durations subject to balancing)

I think this improves upon the trait (hard not to, as its broken) in a fair and unique way.

- its 30 points into acro, meaning you won’t see any full GC thieves taking it
- Its active, rather than passive.
- It fits the spirit of the traitline, the intended purpose of the trait, and thief in general.
- It’s limited by the amount of stunbreakers you take – even if a 10/30/X/X/X thief takes it, they’re limited to access by how many stunbreakers they take.

Azraelle.1683:

No. Enough condition meta.

That’s a silly opinion to have – classes should have a condition option (ANet obviously designed condition options for all the classes). Conditions need to be toned down, yes, but even pre-condition meta, thief condition options were laughable.

Conditions should (and hopefully will) be reigned in, but thief should have the option to run an effective condi spec in PvP.

Azraelle.1683:

Because it kittening sucks. Both XI and XII acrobatics traits sucks. But “Hard to catch” double sucks. It’s random and can teleport you to even worse position, it triggers on daze, it doesn’t break stun, it doesn’t give boons. And it triggers even if you are under kittenING STABILITY EFFECT. For kittens sake do something about it. You can rework it into automatic stunbreaker with 30 seconds of ICD. Just that would make it useful.

“Grants Stability (6s), Regen (10s) and Swiftness(10s) whenever a stunbreaker is used” would be better IMO – active rather than passive. Also gives thief access to stability, but buried 30 points into Acro, so we’re not empowering GC specs.

*Durations above are just suggestions, might need adjustment.

Are you talking PvP, WvW or PvE?

ensoriki.5789:

All classes need not be the same.

That being said, thieves could use some better access to conditions. It doesn’t have to be burn specifically, but without good access to at least 2 damaging conditions (we already have bleed , its got to be torment, confusion, or burn – also note, poison is primarily a utility condition) and some cover conditions, condi thief will always be a kittenty support spec at best.

People seem infatuated with P/D and D/D DB builds (forWvW I guess? I have no idea) but they’re rather weak in PvP – they’ve probably seen more effectiveness in the current meta, because people are overwhelmed by all the conditions other classes are spamming on them far more effectively, but that doesn’t mean thief has any real, effective condition based builds.

The long awaited venom rework would probably help solidify a good rotation for a Condi thief to be effective enough to run on its own merit, rather than a “helper” in the current meta.

Always on, there’s no other way IMO (PvP wise)

I prefer Arg’s build
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/merged-Warrior-s-New-Meta-Unkillable-Rematch/2684008

Dagins.5163:

You can read these moves from the context of combat as Viking Jorun wrote.

You can’t “read” infiltrator’s strike – that’s just a silly joke. You can try to predicatively dodge when you think the thief is within 600 range of you…but that’s not reading the skill. You can do whatever you want to Inf strike, it’s an instant cast teleport – it’s almost impossible to time a dodge after the skill has been hit.

CS and LS look exactly the same – Part of the fun of S/D is sneaking in LS after a Slice and a Slash because it looks exactly like Crippling Strike. While you generally want to avoid CS as well, it can be blocked whereas LS can’t, and you might eat a CS if you’ve got important boons up and you’re saving your dodge/interrupt for that LS. There’s no logical reason they both have to look exactly the same.

ensoriki.5789:

Leave SoM as it is.
The concept would however be interesting as a Venom heal when they include additional skills.

SoM as it is is kind of Meh – it could use an update into relevancy.

Daecollo.9578:

(This effect can only occur three times every one second.)

Do you guys read?

Oh, only 3 times a second.

Only 750 DPS/HPS on AoE fields with 3 targets in them, or with Shbow and 3 targets, or PW with 3 targets (Petting zoo, anyone?)

While I’m not opposed to the idea of Signet of malice “leeching” (I actually like it), your proposed numbers are ludicrous.

Better balance on the ICD, damage done, health healed and it’s workable.

Viking Jorun.5413:

CS: count to 3.

LS: watch for an evade to your backside.

IS: dodge when they swap to sword at range.

I don’t see why any of this should be necessary. There’s no reason each attack shouldn’t have a distinct animation, since the stated goal of this game is to watch the action, not cast bars.

This isn’t just a thief problem though – there are a lot of abilities across a lot of classes that could use more visual distinction.

Marduh.4603:

10-15% damage nerf fs/ls + tactical strike 2 sec stun.
Pointless nerf destroy s/d like 15% nerf damage pw.

FS→LS does similar damage to AA, and S/D is incapable of burst. A damage reduction isn’t necessary.

Lucentfir.7430:

Discussion continue because 5k character limit

The thing is certain trait setups and utilities that give more initiative/initiative regeneration that it is allowed to be spammed a couple times before easily disengaging and getting your initiative back up again. And it really isn’t about putting all your boons up at once, it’s the fact that anytime I have boons up I’ll either have to dodge or get 2 boons stolen, vs the time it takes to get the utilities that give boons off CD, i can understand it with Eles though since they can pump out boons constantly. There’s really no risk to doing it against a guard though unless he’s DPS specced, because A bunker Guardian does pretty meh damage. Burns and Retal is mostly what we have to counter aggression and it’s really not enough to bring down anyone unless they’re mindlessly spamming buttons and not watching their health. And Damage on LS is fairly good it does hurt when it lands(most of the time)

There are only a few ways to interrupt, wardings, Hammer 3(long wind up time but satisfying when it hits) and Shield 5 Bubble knockback. Most of these skills have a Mildly long CD. Though i’m talking about 1v1 perspective (WvW) in any case if a additional person shows up on either side, the favor of the fight obviously tips over to whoever got the additional person. In a Spvp environment though this is not so bad, since all i need to do is make sure points don’t get capped.

I honestly don’t care about what they do to S/D in WvW – they could remove the weaponset entirely for all I care. I’m not judging WvW, I just don’t care about it, and don’t want to see skills nerfed in PvP because of WvW (because they’re completely different formats, and that doesn’t make any sense).

Again, the only way to spam FS→LS enough for it to honestly overwhelm a bunkers defenses is by running 30 acro with Quick pockets, Quick Recovery, and Double S/D. This is a kittenty spec for reasons I mentioned earlier (also A lack of poison, which I’m adding now). Also note, taking at least one (usually multiple) init traits is basically mandatory, as base init regen is dreadful. This makes thief specs rather boring, because instead of being able to take cool traits that might define different specs, we’re forced to take “get to actually land your attacks if 1 or 2 of them get blocked/evaded etc” traits

If you’re getting hit with LS most of the time, I don’t know what to tell you – anyone I go after watches for LS, and makes it as hard as they possibly can for me to land it. I’m not wasting LS unless I’m reasonably sure it’s going to hit. As for easily disengaging – just drag the fight back to the little circle that drops when a thief Inf Strikes – no more easy disengage.

If you’re running a bunker spec, you can’t really complain about how hard it is to kill people – you’ve chosen to give up offense in favor of staying power. That would be like me complaining how much damage I take when I run a zerker ammy.

Murtygale.2635:

Thief needs a nerf in both s/d and d/d, it is so kitten obvious that it simply needs to happen, we just count on anet being slow with observations, as 80% of them roll main theifs anyways.

D/D….needs a nerf? I’m assuming you’re talking WvW (Which I have 0 Knowledge of), and not SPvP.

Lucentfir.7430:

evilapprentice.6379:

Reesha.7901:

At 9:32

Jonathan Sharp:
“I think the S/D in particular, it got damage, it has boon removal and it has evade all at the same time.
I think what we want to do is shave a bit of the damage… maybe, or maybe take out one of the boon strips… maybe or maybe the skill itself should cost a Little bit more.
So there is different ways we can deal with it in different game types.”

It was not clear which would be implemented in what game type. Or if they had decided for sure on which change would be implemented. In his list of the maybe changes he also mentioned a maybe regarding steal (I think?). But I couldn’t hear it clearly.

The original FS had 1 boon strip, and it wasn’t horribly effective. In fact, most boon bunkers would eat the FS swing because they knew you were stuck in kitten animation for the second part, and could punish you heavily for it. With the new pathing and ability split things are likely different, but something tells me stripping 1 boon at a time isn’t enough to counter the rate at which boon bunkers can generate boons (as the LS change was intended to do).

It’s been suggested before to force LS to only pop up if FS actually hits, but this isn’t good either – thieves will just get better at evade tanking, and that’s not the intended goal (or good for the game, imo).

What I would suggest is flipping the damage numbers – make FS the hard hitting attack, and LS the low damage utility attack. This way, the FS->LS combo isn’t so weighted toward LS. If this doesn’t work, you could normalize the damage numbers (so overall DPS is the same, but both swings do the same damage). Nerfing the overall damage of FS->LS seems silly – it does similar DPS to AA, and costs initiative to do so. It isn’t a burst still, it’s a sustain skill. You can’t reduce FS->LS damage and move it somewhere else (Like AA chain or Inf strike) without upsetting S/P’s balance, so that doesn’t work either.

From my understanding S/D was supposed to help counter boon based builds, not completely rip them apart by spamming 3. Most Guardians have to use boons in order to be efficient, and it’s part of their mechanics. It would be like if they gave guardian a weapon skill that could remove stealth/apply reveal on hit. Anyways boon bunkers aren’t really even a problem now, they have so much going against them with All the necros and Condition spammers running around, and not to mention S/D thieves are basically the only ones you see now.

Nothing says you have to put up all your boons in 2 seconds like bunkers did pre LS, because there was absolutely no cost associated with doing so. LS has a 1/2s casting time, and it’s arrival is further heralded by the extremely visible spin move thieves pull before hand. FS does pretty awful damage, so a bunker (likely under protection) can eat that swing and save their dodges/interrupts for LS, and guardians have plenty of interrupts.
Yes, a thief could Inf strike to pin you down beforehand (which only prevents evades, not interrupts), but now we’re talking about 8 init to steal 2 boons…and that’s just the first time. Its 10 init (because you have to clean up the SR before you can Inf strike again, or waiting 12 seconds for it to expire) for the next 1s Immob.
FS->LS spam is just as bad as HS spam – it owns inexperienced players and can be dangerous when multiple people are locking you down, but it’s an easily countered, poor playstyle except in extremely niche cases. Additionally, you can only really spam FS->LS if you’re running double S/D with quick pockets, which is nigh useless in team fights and has poor mobility due to the lack of a SHbow.

Reesha.7901:

At 9:32

Jonathan Sharp:
“I think the S/D in particular, it got damage, it has boon removal and it has evade all at the same time.
I think what we want to do is shave a bit of the damage… maybe, or maybe take out one of the boon strips… maybe or maybe the skill itself should cost a Little bit more.
So there is different ways we can deal with it in different game types.”

It was not clear which would be implemented in what game type. Or if they had decided for sure on which change would be implemented. In his list of the maybe changes he also mentioned a maybe regarding steal (I think?). But I couldn’t hear it clearly.

The original FS had 1 boon strip, and it wasn’t horribly effective. In fact, most boon bunkers would eat the FS swing because they knew you were stuck in kitten animation for the second part, and could punish you heavily for it. With the new pathing and ability split things are likely different, but something tells me stripping 1 boon at a time isn’t enough to counter the rate at which boon bunkers can generate boons (as the LS change was intended to do).

It’s been suggested before to force LS to only pop up if FS actually hits, but this isn’t good either – thieves will just get better at evade tanking, and that’s not the intended goal (or good for the game, imo).

What I would suggest is flipping the damage numbers – make FS the hard hitting attack, and LS the low damage utility attack. This way, the FS->LS combo isn’t so weighted toward LS. If this doesn’t work, you could normalize the damage numbers (so overall DPS is the same, but both swings do the same damage). Nerfing the overall damage of FS->LS seems silly – it does similar DPS to AA, and costs initiative to do so. It isn’t a burst still, it’s a sustain skill. You can’t reduce FS→LS damage and move it somewhere else (Like AA chain or Inf strike) without upsetting S/P’s balance, so that doesn’t work either.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

evilapprentice.6379:

My initial post was poorly worded – AA and FS->LS have almost the same DPS.

No they don’t. AA is free. As soon as you ran out of Init, FS/LS’s DPS goes down. While you wait for Init regen, your DPS suffers.

Obviously.

We’re not taking into account all the differences between the 2, just comparing the DPS in a bubble to point out that FS→LS doesn’t need a damage nerf, because DPS is on par with auto attack.

Super Riceman.8702:

There is some use in almost every dual wield skill, everyone except for unload.

The problem lies w/ the skills design, if it does too much damage then thieves will just spam it. Too little dmg and it won’t be used. In my humble opinion, the skill must be reworked to be balanced and useful beyond just being spammed.

Dual Shot: The next ranged attack shoots 2 projectiles. Costs 2-3 initiative.

Essentially, this will double the effect of the next ranged attack by making 2 separate projectiles. The only exceptions would be Infiltrator’s Arrow (no change to this skill) Choking Gas (no change) and Black Powder (no change)
The initiative cost is high enough that it will burn through your ini if spammed but cheap enough to save more initative than using an ability 2x

Thoughts?

The designers need to decide what they want to do with P/P before we talk about Unload.

Let’s look at D/D for a second – the 1 and 2 skills are clearly intended for direct damage. 4 does direct damage, and a snare . 5 does direct damage, grants stealth (which enables Backstab, another direct damage skill), and applies vulnerability (a condition which boosts direct damage). While DB doesn’t really fit at all in this set, its clear from looking at the rest of the set that D/D is clearly a direct damage set.

Now lets look at P/P. The 1 skill is clearly intended for condition damage. The 2 skill is intended to support direct damage with a high stack of vulnerability (but does so poorly due to the length of the condition, and competing for resources with unload). The 3 skill is straight up direct damage. 4 and 5 are good utilities, but don’t have an intended “damage” type – they’re there for pure utility, and do almost no damage.

This leaves P/P in a very confused state – the only attack available without spending init is condition damage based, the 2 skill is intended to support the 3 skill, but does so poorly because it competes with the 3 skill for resource expenditure, and the 3 skill is pure direct damage. The Dev’s need to decide what their intention for P/P is, then we can talk about how good certain skills in the set are.

kittennit.7648:

evilapprentice.6379:

kittennit.7648:

evilapprentice.6379:

kittennit.7648:

evilapprentice.6379:

kittennit.7648:

evilapprentice.6379:

Grimwolf.7163:

Normally I’d just attribute it to more baseless stupid Thief hate, but the Devs are in on it too.
I’d really like then to give them the benefit of the doubt and not assume the Devs just have it out for us like so many players.
I doubt it’s the constant dodging. That already got nerfed pretty hard recently, and hardly even needed that with how weak the damage and versatility were, and how fast you’d drop the moment you made a single mistake.

It’s almost invariably going to be a nerf to Inf Strike / Shadow Return, and it will probably ruin S/D.

I can’t imagine why they’d nerf LS damage – LS and CS are the only attacks that hit for any decent damage. Without LS to fill in the gaps, S/D is going to get pasted trying to facetank long enough to get to the end of an AA chain.

I doubt they will nerf IS / SR, it’s either going to be LS or dodge spam in general.

Any nerf to dodges is likely going to have a minor effect on those ineffectively spamming dodges mindlessly, and a major effect on those of us who use the skill appropriately.

S/D is a fairly strong set, but I just don’t see how it’s “broken” – 40% of the weapnset skillbar is borderline useless.

I agree with you, even tho i could live with a damage nerf to LS IF they make DD useful to compensate

If they have to, move some of the damage from LS to FS – reducing the overall damage of the 2 skills by just straight reducing LS is silly, they hit on par with Auto attack in the same timeframe – yes, they have stronger attached effects than AA, but they also cost init…so it seems fairly balanced to me.

That is not true, AA chain takes over 2 seconds (you can easily check this by chainign 2 AA chains, the second CS will hit AFTER the 2 second Cripple / Weakness has run out -> over 2 seconds), i can nearly chain 2x FS / LS in that time frame, and that is definetly more damage than an AA chain, not to mention the utility is a lot better + it doesnt suffer as much from blinds / blocks as the AA chain does.

Anyway im not saying LS does need a nerf, i’m just saying if they nerf it (and they will) i could live most with a dmg nerf, but they should complete the set to compensate, because seriously DD has absolutely no use whatsoever

I don’t remember the math specifically off the top of my head, but I think your method is off because the aftercast of crippling strike is skewing your assessment (since you’re judging from using 2 AA chains in a row).

If I recall correctly, the time it takes to complete 1 AA chain is roughly equivalent with the time it takes to complete 1 FS->LS.

Yea the aftercast alters the result a bit agree, sadly i dont rly know how to figure it out exactly it would be quite interesting to know. If i had to guess i would say AA chain takes around 1,5 – 2 seconds, since the second CS hits after the Cripple has run out (delay being the AC delay of the first CS)

FS + LS -> 1 second cast time
Slash + CS -> 1 second cast time, that is without slice because it is instant, so you have to count that in too which means the whole AA chain takes definetly more time than 1 second

Yes, and AA does more damage than FS->LS. When you normalize them for time, they do similar DPS. My initial post was poorly worded – AA and FS→LS have almost the same DPS.

kittennit.7648:

evilapprentice.6379:

kittennit.7648:

evilapprentice.6379:

kittennit.7648:

evilapprentice.6379:

Grimwolf.7163:

Normally I’d just attribute it to more baseless stupid Thief hate, but the Devs are in on it too.
I’d really like then to give them the benefit of the doubt and not assume the Devs just have it out for us like so many players.
I doubt it’s the constant dodging. That already got nerfed pretty hard recently, and hardly even needed that with how weak the damage and versatility were, and how fast you’d drop the moment you made a single mistake.

It’s almost invariably going to be a nerf to Inf Strike / Shadow Return, and it will probably ruin S/D.

I can’t imagine why they’d nerf LS damage – LS and CS are the only attacks that hit for any decent damage. Without LS to fill in the gaps, S/D is going to get pasted trying to facetank long enough to get to the end of an AA chain.

I doubt they will nerf IS / SR, it’s either going to be LS or dodge spam in general.

Any nerf to dodges is likely going to have a minor effect on those ineffectively spamming dodges mindlessly, and a major effect on those of us who use the skill appropriately.

S/D is a fairly strong set, but I just don’t see how it’s “broken” – 40% of the weapnset skillbar is borderline useless.

I agree with you, even tho i could live with a damage nerf to LS IF they make DD useful to compensate

If they have to, move some of the damage from LS to FS – reducing the overall damage of the 2 skills by just straight reducing LS is silly, they hit on par with Auto attack in the same timeframe – yes, they have stronger attached effects than AA, but they also cost init…so it seems fairly balanced to me.

That is not true, AA chain takes over 2 seconds (you can easily check this by chainign 2 AA chains, the second CS will hit AFTER the 2 second Cripple / Weakness has run out -> over 2 seconds), i can nearly chain 2x FS / LS in that time frame, and that is definetly more damage than an AA chain, not to mention the utility is a lot better + it doesnt suffer as much from blinds / blocks as the AA chain does.

Anyway im not saying LS does need a nerf, i’m just saying if they nerf it (and they will) i could live most with a dmg nerf, but they should complete the set to compensate, because seriously DD has absolutely no use whatsoever

I don’t remember the math specifically off the top of my head, but I think your method is off because the aftercast of crippling strike is skewing your assessment (since you’re judging from using 2 AA chains in a row).

If I recall correctly, the time it takes to complete 1 AA chain is roughly equivalent with the time it takes to complete 1 FS→LS.

kittennit.7648:

evilapprentice.6379:

kittennit.7648:

evilapprentice.6379:

Grimwolf.7163:

Normally I’d just attribute it to more baseless stupid Thief hate, but the Devs are in on it too.
I’d really like then to give them the benefit of the doubt and not assume the Devs just have it out for us like so many players.
I doubt it’s the constant dodging. That already got nerfed pretty hard recently, and hardly even needed that with how weak the damage and versatility were, and how fast you’d drop the moment you made a single mistake.

It’s almost invariably going to be a nerf to Inf Strike / Shadow Return, and it will probably ruin S/D.

I can’t imagine why they’d nerf LS damage – LS and CS are the only attacks that hit for any decent damage. Without LS to fill in the gaps, S/D is going to get pasted trying to facetank long enough to get to the end of an AA chain.

I doubt they will nerf IS / SR, it’s either going to be LS or dodge spam in general.

Any nerf to dodges is likely going to have a minor effect on those ineffectively spamming dodges mindlessly, and a major effect on those of us who use the skill appropriately.

S/D is a fairly strong set, but I just don’t see how it’s “broken” – 40% of the weapnset skillbar is borderline useless.

I agree with you, even tho i could live with a damage nerf to LS IF they make DD useful to compensate

If they have to, move some of the damage from LS to FS – reducing the overall damage of the 2 skills by just straight reducing LS is silly, they hit on par with Auto attack in the same timeframe – yes, they have stronger attached effects than AA, but they also cost init…so it seems fairly balanced to me.

kittennit.7648:

evilapprentice.6379:

Grimwolf.7163:

Normally I’d just attribute it to more baseless stupid Thief hate, but the Devs are in on it too.
I’d really like then to give them the benefit of the doubt and not assume the Devs just have it out for us like so many players.
I doubt it’s the constant dodging. That already got nerfed pretty hard recently, and hardly even needed that with how weak the damage and versatility were, and how fast you’d drop the moment you made a single mistake.

It’s almost invariably going to be a nerf to Inf Strike / Shadow Return, and it will probably ruin S/D.

I can’t imagine why they’d nerf LS damage – LS and CS are the only attacks that hit for any decent damage. Without LS to fill in the gaps, S/D is going to get pasted trying to facetank long enough to get to the end of an AA chain.

I doubt they will nerf IS / SR, it’s either going to be LS or dodge spam in general.

Any nerf to dodges is likely going to have a minor effect on those ineffectively spamming dodges mindlessly, and a major effect on those of us who use the skill appropriately.

S/D is a fairly strong set, but I just don’t see how it’s “broken” – 40% of the weapnset skillbar is borderline useless.