Guild Wars 2

Rahar.9872:

In my opinion, the skill damage and dodging is fine, you just have to learn the timing. It doesn’t make Thieves completely immune to everything, there’s plenty of time to strike back.

The problem with the skill, to me, is the unblockable skill fact and the amount of boon removal. Maybe get rid of one boon removed so if you want to counter boon professions, you have to spec for it, not just equip this set. Also, Larcenous strike, the second part of the chain, should be the one that is blockable. It’s the hardest hitting skill on the entire set, and shouldn’t have a guarantee to land most of the time. Flanking strike (the first part of the chain) should be the one that is unblockable. Of course, that’s just what I think. You’re free to think otherwise.

LS was designed to give thieves a way counter to boon bunkers that wasn’t just based on “MOAR DAMAGE!”. This way Thieves could still be “Powerful” without 2 shotting anyone who wasn’t a bunker.

If LS didn’t penetrate block, S/D would be less effective at countering bunkers than GC D/P. While LS does hit hard, it’s literally one of two abilities in S/D that hits hard – the other being the end of the AA chain. Most S/D thieves won’t see Crippling Strike being used for a couple of reasons
- To do any damage at all in S/D, you end up with GC armor (note, you won’t have GC power, just GC Armor).
- You need to dodge/SR out of almost all the tacks aimed at you, thanks to point 1.
- You don’t have any long lasting CC.

So, you’re relying on Slice, FS, and LS to do 75%+ of your damage.

Also, it steals 2 boons because prior to the patch, FS used to purge 1 boon – bunkers typically ate the FS Swing (with was unblockable, and purged the boon), and dodged/Interrupted the LS swing (when the skill was 1 activation for both attacks), because FS did crap damage, and losing 1 boon didn’t matter as much as not taking the damage from LS.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m not bothering with SoloQ until the meta is fixed.

What’s the point?

Some people (like myself) get bored playing a build focused on stealth and backstab. S/D is a functional alternative, and the only effective spec I can think of that never needs stealth to survive.

In the current mindless AoE/condition spam, it’s nice to be able to SR out of the multiple AoE fields that get dropped whenever a FOTM rolls up to the fight.

People hate playing against it because it requires timing, patience, and most of all understanding to properly counter. Nobody wants to roll a thief, copy/paste the spec from the boards, and screw around with it for an hour to figure out the rhythm – it’s easier to just cry on the boards until it gets nerfed.

@Aberrant and Kman –
CnD is split between PvP and WvW/PvE.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQJAoIAA

Just click the icon that switches between PvP and WvW and see the difference.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-November-15-2012/first#post744278

Those are the patch notes, check under Thief, and you’ll see this
“Cloak and Dagger: This skill’s damage has been reduced by 33% in PvP only.”

Aberrant, you should probably be more sure of your information before you insist others know what they’re talking about in such a dismissive manner.

In addition, regardless whether or not there is a Split between PvP and WvW for CnD (there is, but we can ignore that for a moment), OP’s post was about PvP – you can obtain much, much higher power, crit, and crit% numbers in WvW than in PvP, hence why your point is still incorrect.

Seeing as neither of you have any idea how a thief works, you should probably get a bit more experience with the class if you want others to take your opinions of what works and what doesn’t work seriously.

Kman.7358:

Making it insta cast would not work. At all. It doesn’t need anything and it can be landed very reliably with a steal mid cast. With the amount of damage CnD can do being so ridiculous, changing anything else would push it far over the top.

Note that the picture below is NOT on an upleveled player.

The title says PvP – what bearing does WvW have on PvP?

Aberrant.6749:

I just wanted to add in that D/P (what I presume the “more viable” alternative ) also needs more traiting to be worth while Ini wise Vs. X/D and thus limits your build options. In addition to that you give up the large damage from C&D. I still run and prefer D/D personally. I enjoy the higher risk/reward.

You’re joking, right?

“Large damage” – CnD hits as hard as an over 50% HS – universally considered the absolute worst time to use HS for damage. It hits for crap, how did you miss that?

Nobody is running a stealth heavy spec without Infusion of shadow, so your “traiting” argument is entirely pointless.

D/P brings to the table a 900 range gap closer that does respectable damage regardless of a targets health AND blinds (meaning it has utility beyond damage and gap closing), a ranged daze, and an AoE blind field. In comparison, D/D offers a condition damage based AoE with a .25s evade (read: kittening worthless), a ranged snare that misses the target if they move for .25 seconds during the travel time, and CnD.

You are enjoying higher risk and vastly lower reward.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

evilapprentice.6379:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

…nomnom…

2 of those regen traits compete with (and are completely trumped by) better traits in the SA tree. The only one that might be worth slotting is Pain response – it’s a decent defensive trait, but doesn’t lead to the kind of regen you need for a “sustain” build.

Stun breaker =/= Stability, in any way shape or form. Stability allows you to ignore CC, not escape it, the two aren’t directly comparable.

Dagger Storm’s stability is only there to keep any player with a stun/kb/kd/launch/daze (IE, literally any player) from absolutely ruining your 90s CD elite – it does not “give the thief stability” it allows Dagger storm to actually be used. Reflecting projectiles is not quite the same as psuedo immunity – endure pain lets you ignore everything but conditions. Melee still hurts while reflecting projectiles.

Don’t get me wrong, my list wasn’t a list of complaints – it was just a (long) list of things the thief gives up for their play style, which seems fine to me (for the most part)

What are your thoughts on possible fixes or adjustments for stealth?

@Zepidel – Yes, I feel the stealth in this game is rather terrible and they built a class around the idea that making stealth more available would outweigh the use of boons and effective weapon combinations.

Leap finishers out of a smoke field get a 4s ICD. Stealth granted by Leap finishers through a smoke field are extended 1s Base (so 4s instead of 3s), and properly work with Meld With Shadows (15 point SA minor trait which extends stealth by 1s, doesn’t work with stealth granted by BP->HS as far as I recall, would extend total stealth to 5s).

This way, D/P gets a decent amount of stealth time (They lose 1s during the end of the HS animation, which Is why I suggested extending the base 1s), and can’t camera angle exploit for 4 stacks of stealth out of 1 BP.

That’s about the only thing I’d change – Stealth is absolutely fine as it is otherwise, but players who stack 12s of stealth by angling their camera’s to shorten the HS leap and therefore get 3-4 leaps through 1 BP are exploiting IMO. The game wasn’t designed for thieves to have 9-12s of uninterrupted stealth on demand via weaponset skills.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

- No protection – True
- No stability – Great access to stun breakers that include mobility. Bladestorm, but true for easy access to the boon.
- No Aegis – True but high access to blinds.
- Poor regen access – A decent amount of traits available. I can think of 4 off the top of my head.
- Lowest base HP pool – True
- No immunity skills – True
- No psuedo immunity skills (ex. Endure Pain) – Bladestorm for projectiles.
- No Blocks – See Aegis…
- Narrowest weapon selection in the game – True until Anet does something about that.
- Shortest range in the game – After CB’s nerf, true.
- Among the worst at removing Conditions (unless you spec SA and live in stealth) – True
- Longest CD on class skill (I might be a little off on this one after the steal CD reduction, but I think this still holds true) – In comparison to classes that only have 1 class ability, true. Lowest you can get steal is like 20 seconds.
- Cant cap/decap/hold a point while in stealth – Yeah but this was needed. It was absurd for a thief to run around and CnD targets while avoiding damage to keep caps contested in WvW at least.
- Sacrifices the most and gains the least from attempting to spec defensively – All classes can experience this issue as well. It’s about playstyle, gear makeup, and your choice of traits.

2 of those regen traits compete with (and are completely trumped by) better traits in the SA tree. The only one that might be worth slotting is Pain response – it’s a decent defensive trait, but doesn’t lead to the kind of regen you need for a “sustain” build.

Stun breaker <> Stability, in any way shape or form. Stability allows you to ignore CC, not escape it, the two aren’t directly comparable.

Dagger Storm’s stability is only there to keep any player with a stun/kb/kd/launch/daze (IE, literally any player) from absolutely ruining your 90s CD elite – it does not “give the thief stability” it allows Dagger storm to actually be used. Reflecting projectiles is not quite the same as psuedo immunity – endure pain lets you ignore everything but conditions. Melee still hurts while reflecting projectiles.

Don’t get me wrong, my list wasn’t a list of complaints – it was just a (long) list of things the thief gives up for their playstyle, which seems fine to me (for the most part)

Iavra.8510:

Well, okay, but it should break when:
- the stealth attack gets blocked.
- it misses due to blind.

When a dagger hits my shield this should be a very clear sign that there is a thief nearby. So it should reveal.

When the shield strapped to your left arm can stop the dagger aimed at your spine, we’ll talk.

Iavra.8510:

Stealth in general is fine. Only change the following:
- Nerf combo stealth (BP + HS/Clusterbomb).
- Reveal on block/miss.

Not sure if this is widely known, but the Pistol sneak attack gives you 5 100% projectile finishers. Using a water field and deselecting your target, it’s possible to stack quite a good amount of regeneration.

If you think reveal on miss is a viable option, you don’t understand the class well enough to be commenting on it. There’s literally no simpler way to put that.

Reveal on block also isn’t a good idea, but at least that one is open to debate.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

evilapprentice.6379:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Zepidel.5349:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Reduce movement speed while in stealth or any action will cancel stealth. I.e. use of an attack, utility, or dodge.

This would be an astronomical nerf to backstab as strafing behind someone would become impossible.

Who uses abilities in stealth anyways? it lasts 2 seconds, and is pretty much used exclusively to open up #1 alt skills, besides SR retreat/save.

Adding revealed after an attack, utility, or dodge roll is used would raise the skill cap.

Wow, I can totally tell you play thief a whole lot. I bet you’re one of those players who’s got 1000+ hours on thief, which is probably your basis for why we should take the above drivel seriously.

Only an experienced thief would suggest stealth breaking on any sort of combo setup (like using a Sig or BV in stealth to set up some burst), or suggest that stealth players not be allowed to dodge, so anyone fighting a thief can know, for a fact, any skills pointed in their general direction will hit because they cant DODGE ROLL.

There’s absolutely no chance that you’re one of those players who is entirely clueless on how a thief plays because despite crying about how stealth works, you’ve never bothered to play one for an hour to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses.

Like, 0 chance.

My first 80 was a thief which I deleted due to the sheer lack of skill required to either steam roll players or escape. Since they have finally begun to tone thieves down I decided to re-roll and see if I can spark life back in to my desire to have a stealth class.

Probably not 1000+ hours on the thief. Heck, I wouldn’t even suspect 500+. But enough to understand that thieves should not have the ability to spam backstab while in stealth with no consequences. If I use an attack on my warrior or guardian it goes on cooldown, whether I connected or not. I see this as more of a balancing approach then stealth breaking.

- No protection
- No stability
- No Aegis
- Poor regen access
- Lowest base HP pool
- No immunity skills
- No psuedo immunity skills (ex. Endure Pain)
- No Blocks
- Narrowest weapon selection in the game
- Shortest range in the game
- Among the worst at removing Conditions (unless you spec SA and live in stealth)
- Longest CD on class skill (I might be a little off on this one after the steal CD reduction, but I think this still holds true)
- Cant cap/decap/hold a point while in stealth
- Sacrifices the most and gains the least from attempting to spec defensively

But yeah, thieves don’t sacrifice anything for those missed backstabs not revealing them.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Zepidel.5349:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

Reduce movement speed while in stealth or any action will cancel stealth. I.e. use of an attack, utility, or dodge.

This would be an astronomical nerf to backstab as strafing behind someone would become impossible.

Who uses abilities in stealth anyways? it lasts 2 seconds, and is pretty much used exclusively to open up #1 alt skills, besides SR retreat/save.

Adding revealed after an attack, utility, or dodge roll is used would raise the skill cap.

Wow, I can totally tell you play thief a whole lot. I bet you’re one of those players who’s got 1000+ hours on thief, which is probably your basis for why we should take the above drivel seriously.

Only an experienced thief would suggest stealth breaking on any sort of combo setup (like using a Sig or BV in stealth to set up some burst), or suggest that stealth players not be allowed to dodge, so anyone fighting a thief can know, for a fact, any skills pointed in their general direction will hit because they cant DODGE ROLL.

There’s absolutely no chance that you’re one of those players who is entirely clueless on how a thief plays because despite crying about how stealth works, you’ve never bothered to play one for an hour to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses.

Like, 0 chance.

Anelyn.4593:

I don’t think CnD buffs would be the answer for D/D viability (it will also be potentially an unneeded buff for S/D which is already strong as it is). Same with nerfing D/P hitting on S/P which is one of the most balanced sets currently for a thief (nothing amazing – I WIN – can’t see me while I kill you or can’t hit me while I kill you, but still having good staying power and damage potential).

You could simply tune D/P by making HS cost double initiative when used without hitting a target – that if the 9s stealth field+leap combo is the real problem here (which I don’t find it to be a problem personally, and I don’t play D/P).

For D/D you could make DB steal buffs. And it would work much better than current FS>LS, because you can’t spam DB then still have initiative to land CnD. This would give an option to D/D to get rid of stability / aegis (blocks remain as they are and this is good for planning your CnD instead of just using it without any awareness) but at cost of Dps, unlike FS>LS, as well as making the 3 skill more desirable for power builds.

Thoughts?

This is an extremely poor suggestion, IMO.

You’re talking about taking D/D’s only gap closer, and making it cost DOUBLE the initiative – every time your target is immune, out of range, evading, or blocking. Even if your suggestion would count immune/evade/block as “hitting a target”, you’re still killing a Power/crit builds only gap closer. This would make D/P slightly worse, and D/D even worse than it is now. Off topic, If you’re looking to limit D/P’s HS->BS interaction, there’s a ton of better ways to do that – as an example, have HS->BS last 1 more second base, have it interact with meld with shadows properly finally, and then give it a 4s ICD – no more multiple leaps through BP, and now the stealth for 1 leap lasts a respectable amount of time.

Your DB suggestion isn’t an awful one, but it still doesn’t address the inequities between D/P and D/D. D/P still has the infinitely better gap closer (SS), which can be used for well timed tactical blinds. It still has a ranged interrupt for canceling heals/important skills. It still has superior survivability thanks to BP. DB stealing boons wouldn’t work “Much better” than FS/LS because it doesn’t contribute to D/D’s playstyle. FS/LS work with S/D because they steal boons, and they help define the playstyle – Dodgy, sustained direct damage. DB stealing boons would “tack it on” to D/D’s playstyle since the only reason you’d ever use it is to steal boons – the actual damage would be awful, and the evade is pointless at .25s.
Even if DB stole boons, in the current evade/CC heavy meta, D/D would be a joke compared to D/P

Zepidel.5349:

Like i said earlier, messing with CnD isn’t necessary, If you are not already precasting it then your not using it to its full potential. If you goes through block, guess what your backstab gets blocked since its next, i know this is about the def aspect but the short time on it makes its pretty useless compared to a SR retreat.

Thieves need better utilities (venoms are the worst things in the entire game period) or a p/p rework.

Oh good, an ability that is only usable with our class skill and 1 utility for precasting – how wonderful for a weaponset already plagued by Underpowered weaponset skills.

CnD and Dancing Dagger both need buffs (probably minor) if D/D is ever going to be good for anything that isn’t DB spam (which is already a kittenty spec). It’s inferior in every single way to D/P
- DB is useless for a power/crit spec
- Dancing dagger’s travel time is so slow I’ve seen it miss near stationary targets
- CnD does crap damage for its initiative cost, and is the worst way to enter stealth.

That’s just looking at D/D btw. Compare it D/P and you quickly notice how much better Shadow shot is at closing gaps when your target is over 50% (lets also note that tactically using SS to blind a big swing for a target can be more beneficial than HS, even when the DPI is lower), how useful a ranged interrupt is, and how indespensable an AoE blind cloud is.

Your assertion that CnD doesn’t need work is incorrect for the above reasons.

I do agree that venoms and P/P need some love as well (They’re “more” worthless than D/D, but D/D is still useless enough to be completely overshadowed by D/P in every way), but that doesn’t change the fact that Dagger offhand (mainly with D/D) needs some love as well.

Zepidel.5349:

evilapprentice.6379:

Zepidel.5349:

evilapprentice.6379:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

What about CnD giving an evade effect and positioning the thief behind the start and then enters stealth? Quicker stealth and set up your BS. DD would become slightly more defensive also.

If you want CnD to be more defensive, it should ignore block.

Random thief hater – “You already have LS, now you want CnD to ignore block? Rabble rabble rabble!”

Well, imaginary person, CnD is the perfect skill to have ignore block for defensive reasons. All of SA’s best defensive skills are based around going into stealth. CnD already does extremely poor DPI (Damage per Initiative), and it doesn’t set up any further block busting skills – Tactical strike, BS, Sneak attack, and trick shot are all stopped by block. By allowing CnD to ignore block, you’re allowing SA focused thieves to access their defensive mechanic when their opponent use their defensive mechanics, without giving them any additional offensive advantage.

no, it’s already annoying enough to fight thieves/mesmers who can just run away whenever they start losing.

A) What you find annoying is a poor metric for balance. In fact, it’s entirely worthless as a metric for balance. I find things annoying to fight as well, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be in the game.

B) Even if we ignore point A, D/P does this better already – hell, you can aim the HS directly away to open a huge gap at the start of the fight! Inf arrow is also a much better expenditure of Init for running away. The thief would have to close to melee just to get the CnD to hit (and you’ve always still got the option to dodge).

I find people who think 2+2 is 5 are annoying, I find people who deny the holocaust annoying. Just because I described it as an annoyance doesn’t make it any less true.

In your “B)” you seem to assume people don’t have ranged capabilities, and that thieves have unlimited ini. The main draw to stealth is juking (running to were the persons camera is most likely not panned to, and dropping target) Somthing you can do with inf Arrow or hopping around with HS (which will auto target 1/2 the time and do way more harm then good)

Whats the point of your first paragraph? Re-iterating that it’s annoying? What annoys you is ineligible as a basis for balance, pure and simple.

Your second paragraph doesn’t make any sense – Inf arrow and BP→HS are still better for escaping than a point blank CnD. HS only auto-targets when you have the option set, so the player is in control of whether or not they HS toward or away from a target at all times. Inf arrow builds up a huge distance – any class that close that gap is going to have an even easier time catching up to a thief who’s escape option is “CnD through block then run away”.

All that is pointless anyway – you’re only argument is “CnD shouldn’t hit through block because it would annoy me”, and as we’ve discussed, that’s not an applicable argument.

You Don’t.

The second I hit rank 40, I spent about half my glory and got literally every piece I wanted for 40-50 a ton of crap for my bank, and a ton of mats. I will occasionally spend some glory “Just to do it”, and rarely get a dye I don’t already have, which is literally the only useful thing I could get out of that chest. It was almost entirely from screwing around in hot join (I wasn’t winning tons of tourneys for crazy fast glory accumulation). On top of that, I think i’m sitting on 300+ glory boosters – I’ve used maybe 10 in the year I’ve been playing this game, so it’s not like I’m farming as much glory as I can out of games.

I made a suggestion on the boards a few days ago that no one seemed to respond to, so I’ll lay it out here again. For every 10 dollars a player spends purchasing gems, allow them to spend X glory (lets say 10,000, but that number is up for debate) to obtain another 800 gems (10 dollars worth). This will give players a chance to use their glory to pick up things they wouldn’t usually spend money on (Dye packs, armor sets, finishers, etc), while making sure they have to spend real money as well.

There should be a PTR/S (Public test realm/server) where they load proposed PvP changes into for testing before rolling them out. The playerbase is much better suited to generate consistent data, and honest players giving their feedback would expose OP FOTM builds quickly. We could give our feedback and interact with the Dev’s based on our experience there. It works extremely well in other situations, and those games aren’t even trying to be an esport.

Zepidel.5349:

evilapprentice.6379:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

What about CnD giving an evade effect and positioning the thief behind the start and then enters stealth? Quicker stealth and set up your BS. DD would become slightly more defensive also.

If you want CnD to be more defensive, it should ignore block.

Random thief hater – “You already have LS, now you want CnD to ignore block? Rabble rabble rabble!”

Well, imaginary person, CnD is the perfect skill to have ignore block for defensive reasons. All of SA’s best defensive skills are based around going into stealth. CnD already does extremely poor DPI (Damage per Initiative), and it doesn’t set up any further block busting skills – Tactical strike, BS, Sneak attack, and trick shot are all stopped by block. By allowing CnD to ignore block, you’re allowing SA focused thieves to access their defensive mechanic when their opponent use their defensive mechanics, without giving them any additional offensive advantage.

no, it’s already annoying enough to fight thieves/mesmers who can just run away whenever they start losing.

A) What you find annoying is a poor metric for balance. In fact, it’s entirely worthless as a metric for balance. I find things annoying to fight as well, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be in the game.

B) Even if we ignore point A, D/P does this better already – hell, you can aim the HS directly away to open a huge gap at the start of the fight! Inf arrow is also a much better expenditure of Init for running away. The thief would have to close to melee just to get the CnD to hit (and you’ve always still got the option to dodge).

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

What about CnD giving an evade effect and positioning the thief behind the start and then enters stealth? Quicker stealth and set up your BS. DD would become slightly more defensive also.

If you want CnD to be more defensive, it should ignore block.

Random thief hater – “You already have LS, now you want CnD to ignore block? Rabble rabble rabble!”

Well, imaginary person, CnD is the perfect skill to have ignore block for defensive reasons. All of SA’s best defensive skills are based around going into stealth. CnD already does extremely poor DPI (Damage per Initiative), and it doesn’t set up any further block busting skills – Tactical strike, BS, Sneak attack, and trick shot are all stopped by block. By allowing CnD to ignore block, you’re allowing SA focused thieves to access their defensive mechanic when their opponent use their defensive mechanics, without giving them any additional offensive advantage.

The Boz.2038:

You take the pistol instead of the rocket launcher because you can use it in cramped areas, don’t have to worry about back-blast, have more than one shot, and don’t feel like lugging around a twenty pound metal beam.
But, as it can be seen, not everyone knows about the downsides.

Too bad in GW2 back blast doesn’t exist, you have infinite ammo, and weight isn’t a concern. And don’t get me started on how beneficial “cramped areas” are for this much AoE.

Good on you for trying to attack the anaology rather than the facts, I guess?

I mean, do any of those things apply to the classes listed? There’s no friendly fire problem with any of those classes (“Back Blast”), One of the bigger complaints about those classes is how rapidly and frequently they can spam their abilities (“have more than one shot”), cramped areas are actually a huge bonus for any of those classes due the AoE nature of all their attacks (“Cant use it in cramped areas”). I guess your “lugging around a 20 pound metal beam” almost has some relevance, as neither class is very mobile; the only problem there is it’s not a fault of the spec, persay, they’re both just classes with less mobility in general.

vincecontix.1264:

Sorry op cnd is just fine it allows for counter play, if anything dp should be brought to dd level.

That was a well thought out response, filled with well constructed and reasonable logic to back up your opinion. It’s so unlike the blanket assertions without any sort of thought put into it that most people post on these boards that It’ll be hard to argue against this.

Master of Timespace.2548:

If you can’t land cloack and dagger, just install the training wheels like everyone else, that is, roll d/p.

That’s a silly thing to say. Whether or not D/P is easier has no bearing on the fact that Pistol OH and D/P’s dual skill blow D/D out of the water.

Even if we ignore BP→HS for stealth (which is easier, but also stronger since it doesn’t rely on getting a hit to gain stealth), D/P still has a vastly superior dual skill (Gap closer with solid damage AND a blind over a condition based ability with a .25s evade), a ranged interrupt, and a blind AoE – nothing D/D has compares even remotely to that in a power/crit spec.

Geiir.7603:

Reducing the cast time would make it nearly impossible to counter. CnD is a high risk / reward skill, as it should be. It set up backstab, which is an extremely powerful attack, therefore it should have a decent cast time so that people that have learnt the animation can be rewarded by evading the attack.

It creates some level of skill from both sides. The thief that need to learn how to land it and the enemy that need to learn the animation in order to evade it.

But the problem is CnD is no longer a high reward skill in pvp. It’s got low DPI, the vulnerability is token, and its the single worst way for a thief to enter stealth (BP->HS doesn’t need to land a hit to gain stealth and will likely hit a ranged blind on your target, and most other stealth entries are obtained automatically via utility/skill and trait usage).

There’s a couple reasons D/D has vanished in PvP compared to D/P, CnD’s comparative worthlessness being one of them. CnD (and dancing dagger) could use a small buff to bring dagger OH back into competitive play (The list below is obviously an “OR” scenario)

- Make CnD unblockable – None of the stealth attacks are unblockable, so making CnD unblockable just gives SA thieves a way to access their defensive abilities even when a target is blocking/evading/invuln
- Lower CnD cast time to .25s – less telegraphing for a 6 init move that’s already outshined by many of a thiefs other abilities.
- Revert the damage nerf – the Day of the 50% assassins sig+BV+CnD precast+steal+mug (which can no longer crit)->BS HS HS HS HS are over as far as PvP is concerned (The playerbase is more experienced, and many of the parts have been nerfed such as Assassins sig and mug) – bring CnD’s damage back to where it belongs.

hihey.1075:

ich.7086:

In fact, the blind is unblockable but the damage are not.
Other bug, you can “override” Shadow shot with any skill with a cast time, allowing you in exemple to Backstab someone at distance. If you are stealthed and press quickly 3 -> 1, you will ported to target (or anyone standing between) and immediately backstabbing it. I think this skill has two part, one being the shot and the other the “shadow strike” (as listed in combat log), and only the first is unblockable, the damage.

BUT if it is Unblockable, why there is not a single guardian who gets petrified when I use it paired with Basilisk Venom when said guardians use Aegis?
I’ll try the Shadowshot-Backstab combo as soon as possible, looks really interesting.

This is just a guess, but maybe venoms are only triggered on abilities that do damage.

For example, a steal with Sleight of Hand wont trigger BV, but a steal with Mug will.

Could be I’m misunderstanding all this, so take this with a grain of salt, but here’s what I believe people are trying to explain to you.

When symbolic beat those players, they were all “Higher ranked” – they weren’t better, they didn’t earn that rank, they were just at the “base rank” soloq assigns to players before they’ve played enough games to have a rank actually reflective of their W/L Ratio.

The players you beat had already lowered themselves in the ranking system by playing enough games for the system to rank them based on their W/L Ratio. The players you beat were worth less “points” (or whatever) than the players Symbolic beat, even though Symbolics players had ranks that were not necessarily reflective of their skill level.

Here’s an example -

Solo Q is released. Since Soloq has no metric to rank players, it assumes every single player is the #1 player in the system. Symbolic won 11 games, beating teams of the “#1 players in the system”. By the time you started beating those players, the system realized they were really much lower ranked on the leaderboards, and rewarded you accordingly.

Ever since the patch, I’ve had recurring issues with SPvP matches and latency.

Occasionally, I lag for 5-10s (people jogging in place/running in the last direction they were moving) – eventually everything catches up, I’m stomped, and go about my game.

Far more often, I’m looking at a random .2-.4s delay on my skills, which renders the game entirely unplayable for me – the game places a very high value on positioning and timing, and since I can’t properly do either of those things, I might as well not play.

As far as I can tell, the issue isn’t coming from me.

I’m already forwarding the proper ports to the proper static IP. I’ve monitored my ping in game – it usually floats around 50-85ms, with the occasional 100ms spike. I’ve also tested my connection – multiple speed tests to a server based in Austin TX returns 30+mbps download, and 3+mbps upload. Windows Resource monitor tells me I have 0% packet loss on my connection to GW2’s servers.

I’m not sure what else it could be on my end. Is anyone else having similar issues, or have any further suggestions?

Lets lay it all out

GW2 has no monthly subscription. They rely on in game purchases to remain afloat.

Players have complained (rightfully so) that glory quickly loses its value – you hit a high enough rank, and you’re swimming in glory that you have almost no use for – as an example, when I hit rank 40, I spent about 40k glory, got every single item you could ever get from a rank 40 gold chest, and still had 40k glory to spare. The very second I hit rank 40, I was done with rank 40 chests.

PvP players also complain that they have little reason to buy gems – there’s a finite amount of items you can acquire before you’re spending cash on the chance that you get some cool dyes.

I’d like to suggest a solution – make it so that players can spend glory to acquire gems when they spend money for gems. A system that allowed a fixed expenditure of glory for gems when you are already spending money for gems is a good solution for both Anet and the player.

As a baseline, lets say for every 10 dollars you spend, you can exchange X glory (lets say X = 10,000 for this example, but that number is not set in stone) to acquire an additional 800 gems. In essence, every 10 dollars you spend allows you to also spend 10,000 glory as the equivalent of “Another 10 dollars”. If you want to spend 20,000 glory for 1600 gems, you have to spend 20 dollars, and so on.

I think this would lead to a big infusion of cash for Anet – For example, I like 1 or 2 of the finishers they introduced in the latest patch. I’d be much more eager to spend 20 bucks and acquire them if I could also spend some of the 60k glory i’m sitting on to also buy some dye packs.

Anyone else agree?

Lets lay it all out

GW2 has no monthly subscription. They rely on in game purchases to remain afloat.

Players have complained (rightfully so) that glory quickly loses its value – you hit a high enough rank, and you’re swimming in glory that you have almost no use for – as an example, when I hit rank 40, I spent about 40k glory, got every single item you could ever get from a rank 40 gold chest, and still had 40k glory to spare. The very second I hit rank 40, I was done with rank 40 chests.

PvP players also complain that they have little reason to buy gems – there’s a finite amount of items you can acquire before you’re spending cash on the chance that you get some cool dyes.

I’d like to suggest a solution – make it so that players can spend glory to acquire gems when they spend money for gems. A system that allowed a fixed expenditure of glory for gems when you are already spending money for gems is a good solution for both Anet and the player.

As a baseline, lets say for every 10 dollars you spend, you can exchange X glory (lets say X = 10,000 for this example, but that number is not set in stone) to acquire an additional 800 gems. In essence, every 10 dollars you spend allows you to also spend 10,000 glory as the equivalent of “Another 10 dollars”. If you want to spend 20,000 glory for 1600 gems, you have to spend 20 dollars, and so on.

I think this would lead to a big infusion of cash for Anet – For example, I like 1 or 2 of the finishers they introduced in the latest patch. I’d be much more eager to spend 20 bucks and acquire them if I could also spend some of the 60k glory i’m sitting on to also buy some dye packs.

Anyone else agree?

Adam.6047:

There is alpha testing already however I believe it is rather exclusive and isn’t spoken about very much. Chances are because they have to agree to an NDA before joining the “krewe”. Few players have the qualities required to be such a tester, however, many would like to be an alpha. I believe a large proportion of the pvp playerbase would like to be involved more within the balance of the game. The problem is that if you have too many alpha testers then you will have too many sources of information which would all have to be read by people at ArenaNet. (taking up resources slowing down productivity). I for one would love to be part of the exclusive circle but I doubt I’ll ever be part of the krewe.

How do other companies pull it off? Other companies that aren’t trying to create an esport game somehow find the resources to run a PTS, monitor player input, and improve the game using that input (successfully, and to the delight of the playerbase) ,but this aspiring Esport company can’t?

Anets current setup obviously isn’t working. Every single patch, there is an issue with PvP maps – disconnects, long load times, latency issues, etc etc etc. Every, Single, Patch.

Every single patch, there are at least a few builds players discover rather quickly that are clearly some severity of overpowered. They then have to devote additional resources to fixing the issues they spent money to introduce into the game in the first place. That’s lunacy!

Free playtesters (or as I suggested, charging a small fee for access) via PTS will most likely Save Anet money. It will also lead to more balanced patches, and a more engaged and happy player base.

Ashanor.5319:

I didn’t read but I assume I know what you are saying. I never understood why this game didn’t have a public test server, it really doesn’t make any sense. Every successful MMO I have ever played has a PTS or PTR or whatever.

There are games that do not have Esport aspirations that have a PTS for PvP. How does this game not have one? It would be more excusable if their system was working without one, but it clearly isn’t. Nearly every patch has introduced a FOTM build that was clearly OP, and the next patch was in part dedicated to fixing their lack of foresight.

It’s been a year. How long are they going to keep making the same mistakes over and over and over and over again? Especially when the solution is so simple, would likely save the company money, and best of all make the playerbase happy?

Alissah.9281:

Whats a PTS?
15char

Public Test Server (or Prelaunch Test System, Product Test System, etc)
It’s basically a Test server that ANet would load their changes onto first to test before they went live. Players could log in and create new characters (since it’d be for PvP testing only, there’s no need to copy current characters over) just to test Anets balance changes and give them feedback.

Most of the base game is the same.

New FOTM, new gimmick maps.

The only real basic change is the shift towards countering boons – 6 months ago, boons had no hard counter, so boon bunkers were a tough nut to crack, and everyone ran as many as they could. Some changes to thief and warrior (Mostly thief) shifted the meta a bit. Thieves can steal boons on one of their stronger weapon sets atm (S/D), so perma vigor/protection/regen boon bunkers aren’t as safe as they used to be.

Stun breaker was recently added to new utilities across most (all?) classes, giving players other options for stunbreaking with utilities that didn’t used to see much playtime.

Warriors finally got a buff – they’re undoubtedly in a better place, though I don’t know warrior well enough to know if they’re still “in trouble”.

Conditions currently rule the scene – the consensus is that they’re much too easy to place, keep up, and do excellent damage. People are further annoyed because condition damage is the only thing you need to do good damage with a condi spec (as opposed to Power/Precision/Crit damage in a power based spec) – this makes it easy to invest in defensive stats and still have excellent sustain.

I’m noticing a pattern with Anets balance patches.

They tend to take a class/spec/playstyle that is under performing, and attempt to “fix” it in a patch. Almost invariably, the spec ends up horribly OP, and then must be toned down over the next month or two, maybe longer.

This leads to all sorts of discontent in the playerbase. Those who don’t play the FOTM Class/Spec/Play style all feel cheated. Some of those who do realize they’re just jumping on the bandwagon until the ride stops. Still others beg and plead for “no new nerfs”, because they’re enjoying their facerolling roflstomping character, and they believe the game is fine with it staying the way it is.

This paints a pretty clear picture for me – Anet is not (or does not have the resources to) properly test their balance changes. This begs the question (one I’ve asked repeatedly in the past), how do we still not have a PTS?

Look, I get it, a PTS isn’t free. But what you’re doing now can’t possibly be cost effective – you work a month on balance changes, than another month or two toning those changes down when it becomes apparent how ill thought out they were! That costs your company time and money, and makes the playerbase unhappy. In addition, If you’re paying internal playtesters, you’re throwing your money away.

Most PvP players would be absolutely delighted to have a PTS where they can test your upcoming changes and give honest feedback. We won’t have to worry about how kittenty the servers will be after a patch while we wait for a hotfix (you’ll see this in PTS and fix it there!); We wont have to sit and fight broken OP FOTM builds for 1 or 2 months while you figure out how to tone them down. Heck, I’m willing to bet you could charge players 5 dollars for a “token” which gives access to the PTS for 1 month to cover the cost! (I’d pay it, tho I don’t know about others).

A PTS is clearly the best option for both your customers, AND your business. You’ll have a happier playerbase who doesn’t have to deal with all your post patch BS, fighting fairly balanced classes who’s changes were both well thought out and well tested. You’ll save money on playtesting/time wasted scrambling to fix things you just “fixed” in the last patch.

I’ve noticed the increased Dev presence on the boards, and that’s a good thing. I sincerely hope someone with the company notices this and comments.

WTF? I’m still experiencing massive, random lag spikes in games. I’m talking 5-10s of people jogging in the last direction they were walking in, sometimes complete freezes. I know servers are usually garbage right after a patch, but it doesn’t seem like you’re working to fix any of the issues people are seeing at all. This is also of course in addition to 10-15s loading times between deaths where it used to be less than .5s.

I’ve run 10 speed tests to a server in Austin and gotten 30+Mbps down 3+Mbps up every time.
I’ve monitored my ping, and it doesn’t go over 100ms (usually bouncing around 50-80)

Can we get an acknowledgement of the problem, and maybe some comment about attempting to fix it?

tichorum.2415:

Krayiss.4926:

tichorum.2415:

Edge has it on the spot. None of us play together…really ever. Your pictures show nothing.

Pictures show that your all 5 on a team then 3 hours later again same team
Keep denying but your not playing anymore till they get online huh?

You make me laugh. We’re hardcore PvPers..meaning we play for more than 30 minutes a day.

Anyways…the only one of those guys I’d ever spoken to was Eurantein.

Let’s start off with the assumption that your being completely honest.

Even so, the solo q still has a big design flaw – people shouldn’t be put into teams in the order in which they q’d. It leads to people purposefully And accidentally absuing the system. It leads to silly psuedo-teams.

Anet, just take 10 ready players, and randomly assign them to their teams.

Lets also note that out of 466 players, you are the only one with 0 losses. While that doesn’t definitively prove anything, it’s certainly raises eyebrows.

Excalibur.9748:

Noone can be that stupid, so yea it’s really a nerf topic disguised as a suggestion topic.

Now I know apparently the S/D thief is quite high up in the tiers recently for tPvP (based on popular opinion), usually A or S tier (especially since we were B or C tier recently and haven’t gotten any relevant buffs since), but I can’t figure out why exactly. Larcenous strike can be easily dodged and it’s slow, FS/LS can’t be spammed like before, removing mass condis requires landing CND which can be dodged easily as well, the thief is squishy as hell and pretty much has to use a zerk amulet to do any damage. It’s just not very good in the current condi meta imo.

You can’t just hit skills against an S/D thief whenever you want…you have to play with timing and skill – this annoys people for some reason. Lets also note that any latency on the server can make an S/D thief even more infuriating to fight.

zone.1073:

When the “competitive” PvP population is only ~40-50 players in an MMO, and they all happen to use the same communal Teamspeak, there can be no such thing as a true solo queue.

This is no fault of the infrastructure. No, the solo queue is built correctly and it’s working properly. This is a population issue.

Population certainly is an issue, but its not the issue. Anet was aware of their population when they started designing soloq – here’s a solution I literally put 8 seconds of thought into – when you have 10 people ready, randomly assign them to a team, rather than doing so by q order. It’s not perfect, but it counters Sync queueing almost completely, should not be hard to implement, and isn’t unfair to anyone.

swinsk.6410:

Why does every thread that is some huge nerf disguised as “possible change” or “adjustment”?

No, please stop trying to get our class nerfed! S/d is a lot of spamming 3, does that mean it should be nerfed into oblivion and make it unusable? No!

Warriors just spam stuns in a row. Surely, according to your logic of brain dead play this should also be nerfed. How about d/d ele? That’s even more brain dead rotate through attunement a spamming whatever skills aren’t on cd, way more spammy than s/d. Lets nerf that too, right?

Your suggestion is as rediciulusly kitten as the above.

I Agree wholeheartedly. It’d almost to the point of hilarity with some of these “adjustment” suggestions – they’re usually so blatantly a nerf that you have to wonder which version of stupid the original poster is – do they honestly not understand how thief works to such a level that they made an obviously dumb suggestion, or do they have just enough low cunning to have convinced themselves that their nerf has been brilliantly disguised as a net-neutral “Change”.

“Hey guys, I’ve got a suggestion to change Shadow’s Embrace – how about instead of removing a condition every 3s in stealth, it instead makes stealth last 1 less second but gives you 20 extra power?”

Idiocy.

uberkingkong.8041:

Yes because if you know where the necro is you click on him, the point of minions is to camouflage him so you cant see him and if you cant see him you don’t deserve a free tab to automatically find him for you. Same with Mesmer if you know where the real Mesmer is than click on him.

You shouldn’t be given a free pass to find the correct target for you by tabbing.

And this is why we have a system where we call targets so somebody else can help you get back on the correct target because sometimes too much is going on and you cant see kitten, still doesn’t mean you deserve a free pass.

That’s a silly argument.

Minions have abilities, and are designed to use them. They are not designed to clutter the screen and make the necro harder to target.

Clones exist for the express purpose of masking the mesmer. Minions do not.

There’s way too much bullkitten cluttering the screen – Minions, spirits, rock dogs, phantasms, ranger pets, any elite summon – there should be an option to allow tab targeting to ignore them. The only NPC that should be exempt from this is Clones, because (Again), clones are specifically designed to mess with targeting the mesmer.

@Marduh
- I doubt many GC thieves run 2550 armor, which was part of the design philosophy of the spec – not running 1980 armor.
-Shbow is worthless as a weapon to me – lots of D/P and S/D thieves only teamfight option is to harass the classes who sit outside team battles and lob in shots (like Shbow thief), and I’m not interested in taking a weapon for 1 non-combat skill. I’ve seen double S/D successfully used in tournies, so its not impossible.
- Again, not a GC (you probably should have checked the spec if you wanted to comment), part of the point was to not go 25-30 in CS (And honestly, who goes 25 points into CS and doesn’t find the last 5 points for executioner or hidden killer?)

@Ivis/Tolfast
I’m honestly sick of 30 CS – it’s in every single spec. I know why, but I like build diversity, and was hoping to come up with something with a little more survivability that could still do damage. I was hoping lead attacks and fury would help mitigate the loss of damage to a point where the mix of survivability and damage would win out in the end. TBH, when you’re floating around 10+ init, the spec does pretty solid damage; the problem is it doesn’t have as much init regeneration as say 0/30/0/30/10 (especially when trying out Pain response over quick recovery), and it loses its edge toward the end of a fight (when your opponent is scrambling to stay up). Thanks for the polite input guys.

Legacy.7360:

Noticed a slight delay with “Instant teleport” abilities as well. Something is up.

Yeah, it’s extremely noticeable with “instant teleport” skills, but I’ve also had the issue with other skills as well. Hopefully it’s just Anets standard post-patch silliness, and it’ll be fixed in a day or two.

Void.4239:

you can drop 1 of the ini regain traits in acrobatics for :

- vigor on heal , if steal(vigor) isnt enough.

- or cure bleed / burning and poison when below 75% and hit +regeneration ( will help a lot against conditions ) , makes it you dont need to blow your get out of jail stunbreaker if you got a few condi’s on ya in the beginning of a fight.

It looks really promising,

I tried pain response with mixed results. I like the regen and the condition cleanse, but this spec is even more of an initiative hog than others (like double S/D 0/30/0/30/10) for a couple reasons. No init on crit (which returns a surprising amount of init), no init on signets for emergencies, and the fact that you’re hitting a lot softer than that spec leads to a lot more init expenditure.

I’m liking the spec, but there are definitely some downsides. With many players running hybrid specs on the tanky side, TTK can be a nightmare. No access to poison can hurt as well.

TGSlasher.1458:

My load times have always been high. My friends were higher. He got a solid state and now he loads almost instantly. Might be time for me to upgrade

I’ve had an SSD for months, and this change is very obviously and very definitely the patch. I went from .5s loading screens to 5-10s loading screens.

There’s also random server latency. My ping runs between 50-90, with some 100ms spikes – it averages around 65ms. In multiple games today, I’ve watched a .2-.4 second lapse between the button I pressed, and my character performing said skill. It basically makes the game unplayable – I can’t interrupt heals, I can’t dodge big swings, etc etc etc. It’s annoying to screw up and get hit by an eviscerate or a shatter, but that’s ultimately my fault – it’s absolutely infuriating to eat that same ability because I’m using an ability I pressed nearly half a second ago instead of the dodge I’ve timed correctly.

This is what I’m planning on running for Solo Q – looking for any (polite) input, suggestions, etc. I’ve been testing it in hot join, but that’s hardly a reliable metric.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAsY8YlYmKOHcS6E/5ExWhe69gsj1sdPuqVrKA-TwAA0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNIYRw+j5HA

My thoughts are as such
- Base crit is acceptable thanks to Lyssa runes, crit sigil, zerkers jewel and Signet of Agi
- Base power is acceptable thanks to assassins sig and might on dodge
- Furious Retal and Thrill of the crime lead to high fury uptime

Excellent Init regen and evades, high power/crit for a hybrid spec, Not GC armor. Not so strong against condi’s (but as good as thief gets without stealth spam and points in SA).

Draedark.8193:

Whatever the build meta ends up being will be interesting for sure. I myself have a sustained damage ranger build that has proven to be a lot of fun in hotjoin that I plan on trying in SoloQ.

My biggest question is will the leader board rank still be contingent on winning the match or will it be based on personal score or some combination thereof?

I am of the school that it should be based on match wins, though I know that some may not agree with that.

If rank isn’t entirely or almost entirely based on match wins, we have a problem IMO. You want to encourage intelligent play based around the map objectives – scoring based on personal score defeats that – everyone would be running around the map maximizing their score instead of playing intelligently.

kito.1827:

evilapprentice.6379:

Just from what I’ve seen in hot join….

just stopped there… no need for digging deeper

we can talk about expectations though…
i believe it will be the same as it is now on “Join Solo” button. so mainly fotm-builds (like necro and spiritranger) and ‘balanced’ with some bunkers here and there.
i dont think it will change dramatically

Perhaps you should have kept reading – the entire point of my post was “Players with high rank who appear to be testing TPvP specs”, not just random hot join specs. But then how could you have known that? You stopped reading.

When I first read the initial post, I thought to myself “Well, that’s a little silly – why close enrollment to the majority of players based on sex? Don’t you want the guild to be filled with good players?”

But then, the rest of the thread happened. It’s as if 90% of you read the initial post and said to yourself “Man, I am going to validate the thought process behind her decision. Validate it SO HARD!”

Just from what I’ve seen in hot join (On higher ranked players who play like they know what they’re doing), we’re just going to see alot of condition builds with high toughness. These builds are “bunkerish” because for the most part, who would take a carrion amulet over rabid/shamans? Condition cleanses mitigate condition damage better than vitality does, and toughness mitigates burst better than vitality does – most of these specs don’t need the power, so what reason is there to run with a Carrion amulet?

I’m sure someone will chime in with how Carrion amulet is the cornerstone which their spec is built on, but from what I’ve observed, Anyone who’s not running straight up GC (thieves, some ele’s, the occasional mesmer) is running at minimum “hybrid” level toughness. These are just my observations however, so who knows? Maybe I’m wrong.

cymerdown.4103:

Agreed. “I just blocked his attack, but I have no idea where he is.” How does that make any sense whatsoever?

It makes exactly as much sense as a shield held in front of your body by your left arm blocking a dagger stabbing you right between the shoulder blades.

What’s up with hot join the last 2 days? I’ve been getting huge lag spikes and general latency. It’s not just me – I’ve asked in games, and while some people seem completely unaffected, there are at least a few in every game who are experiencing similar issues.

The severity ranges from .3-.5 seconds, to everyone jogging in place for multiple seconds (think 5-10 seconds of everyone jogging in place, then suddenly I’m stomped).

It’s not general latency – I’ve monitored my ping, and it’s running generally between 50-80, with some spikes around 90-110. Is this a server issue, or something local I could be addressing?