Guild Wars 2

Viking Jorun.5413:

You can get 50% more condition duration from food/runes/sigil, where zerk can only get 20% by maxing out runes and taking food, so taking P/P/T gear and then crit damage food and traits isn’t exactly an option like taking C/P/T gear and then condition duration is, making you both tanky and hit hard.

I don’t think there is C/P/T gear, unfortunately. I might be wrong, please tell me there is gear with Condition Damage as main and Power and Toughness as minors. There is Condition Damage/Precision/Toughness but precision doesn’t do jack for condition damage.

thaooo.5320:

How to get condition damage?
- Condition Damage stat

How to get power damage? You need to combine:
- Power stat
- Precision stat
- Critical Damage % stat

You got that mixed up somehow, it should read:

How to get power damage?
Increase Power stat

How to get condition damage?
Increase the Condition Damage

How to get more power damage?
Increase Critical Damage and Precision

How to get more condition damage?
You can’t

Stx.4857:

frans.8092:

Soldiers is not a defensive set, it has Power, the primary offensive stat, as main. Cleric is defensive.

Uh, Soldier’s is like THE defensive set, and Dire as well.

I’d think Sentinel’s and Giver’s are a lot more defensive. When you label Soldier’s as “The defensive set” I imagine you do so because it is offering a good mix of offence and defence. Just like Dire.

Oren.1736:

Condi is supposed to be supplemented damage,

Really? Then why does it have a stat on gear?

Soldiers is not a defensive set, it has Power, the primary offensive stat, as main. Cleric is defensive.

Who knows, maybe they’ll tweak some damage here and there.

I don’t think intermediate proxies will be able to reduce latency issues.
From the looks of it it is for private gamesessions for small groups, not massive server-client applications like MMO’s.

Doggie.3184:

frans.8092:

I wouldn’t touch Zealot, Power is ok but we have poor scaling with healing power. What heal on crit? You mean Sigil of Blood?

We actually have great scaling on Healing Power (our heals practually fully depend on it). Why do you think our heals do absolute sh** without Shadow Arts’s Healing Power?

The difference between a zerker and a healing (clerics?) amulet was going from about 300 to 400 heals on Rejuv. I call that poor scaling. If you want to improve the effectiveness of your heals, toughness will contribute more to your ‘hits-per-heal’ then healing power.

Bombsaway.7198:

But I think there is a greater logic to the idea that warriors needed a way to get into a fight verus needed a way to get out of a fight

I don’t think so. Basically I see a lot of multifunctional skills and you basically are saying that I shouldn’t look at leap skills like that and subsequently narrow down the things that one should be able to do with a skill to fit or argumens as needed.

There is another reason why you are so wrong about leap skills requiring a target and that is that in general you don’t need a target to ‘swing your sword’ (or do something else), you can just, ‘swing your sword’ and if anybody’s in front of you, it will hit. There is even a options-toggle that lets the client promote a target you hit like that as the current target – effectively the reversed order of what you suggest. And don’t see your logic in that.

Clearly, something should be done about skills that are designed to be closers becoming escape tools. That is for most all classes

There is that design again, it’s about time you gave us the link to those design documents where you read that these skills were designed to only be gap-closers?

That is almost as silly as I have seen things that are supposed to knock you back get used to close on an enemy. About face. Hit knockback and close on the enemy.

You know, actually … I use a healing skill to do just that. It’s not silly, it’s using the tools you get in a creative way. It increases the amount of skill you can bring into the game as player – as opposed to clicking specific buttons for specific situations. I think they might have said something about that in the trailers and interviews, and even in more recent livestreams.

Bombsaway.7198:

Clearly, something should be done about skills that are designed to be closers becoming escape tools. That is for most all classes.

You got the design docs where you read that they were intended solely as gap-closers? I don’t think so.

The game is full of multi-function skills, almost as if they wanted to give them as much potential for improvisation open as they could. Why should these skills be different?

LughLongArm.5460:

Pure zerkers:
From my calculations, 1% critical damage can’t be more then 12-13 ferocity.

With 1:14 you get a decent match between current crit damage and ferocity as minor stat. The pain is in celestial gear and the jewels – and consequently ascended trinkets.

But yeah, if 1:14 yields too much DPS loss they might try to limit DPS loss and give a better stat ratio. They might change the formula’s to increase or decrease the default 50% crit damage, or make it similar to other stats, with a base 916 ferocity added, but the 50% default removed.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Please, make it a boon so I can switch to Sword/Dagger and steal stealth from a thief who’s just popped Shadow Refuge.

I’ll steal it right back, you rascal you!

I wouldn’t touch Zealot, Power is ok but we have poor scaling with healing power. What heal on crit? You mean Sigil of Blood?

A warrior is supposed to feel sturdy.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

this is working as intended because warriors are meant to be the easiest profession to play. do you remember that guild wars 2 is a very casual game and has a lot of casual players? casual players like to play easy professions.

Well, no easy is not the word they used, Warrior is supposed to have a ‘sturdy’ feel.

The lighting for you is in fixed position with respect to the camera. I suppose this was a compromise that, while not ideal, always gave a reasonable lighting effect.

hihey.1075:

frans.8092:

Condition Damage gear outside Dire is just plain bad, Rabid is useless as it stacks Precision with Condition Damage and Toughness. While the latter two are fine, precision adds nothing noteworthy to a condition build, critical are poor damage without power and crit procs simply don’t add enough to make up for the loss of a stat – which is why most crit sigils are dirt cheap. Carrion is reasonable, but vitality is not the best defensive stat, especially in Wvw and Power may be hard to make a contribution in a condition build. And those are your option for condition damage, Dire, Rabid and Carrion and only one of those has no lost stats.

You are completely wrong actually.
Precision is absolutely mandatory to Engineers and Necromancers, as they need it for the “Burn on Crit” procs, which are the only way of putting condi pressure on your opponent. Rangers too need it in order to have a reliable way of applying conditions, because of the 66% chance of applying Bleed on crit (which is a must for SB rangers).
Mesmers are the same as Rangers, since they need their clones to proc Bleeds on crits.

So they wouldn’t be running Dire then and removing it wouldn’t affect the threat they might pose.

A condition spec needs 2 things:…As I previously stated, the only classes which really does not need Precision are Thieves and Warriors.

So, every other class but Thief and Warrior is not running Dire on their condition builds? And removing Dire would only remove their, already not so impressive, condition options?

Any Engineer, Necro, Mesmer or Ranger in full Dire gear will either lose access to their condi spike (Engineers mostly) or to their “shaving” bleeds (Rangers/Mesmers).

I have fought full Dire Engineers, full dire Mesmers and full Dire Necros, and believe me, they were absolutely easy to take down because they simply did not put enough damaging conditions on me to take me down.

So what is the problem with Dire then???

Mind me: I am not saying that Dire gear is good for this game – the fact that it is a no-no in the PvP area is enough to say that it is not.

There’s also a cap on crit damage in PvP – and the game modes are quite different, much smaller groups.

Maugetarr.6823:

But the BPS channel would be at least as dodgeable, blindable, blockable, and reflectable on top of that.

And C&D is dodgeable, blindable and kiteable. There is no spec for the duration of the BPS channel so I assume it’s in the order of .5 seconds, like C&D. It is also not what people will see.

The other difference with sneak attack versus backstab is that backstab delivers it’s damage in one hit whereas you can partially dodge sneak attack’s channel, often taking only 2 to 3 hits of the 5.

And loosing the endurance to dodge the following unload

Also, if not specced into condi damage, the bleed damage from sneak attack is only about 1200 damage including the 25% duration boost from the DA line while the physical damage is literally half that of backstab.

Berserker spec sneak attack hit for almost as hard as backstab. That is purely on gear and traits, generally you would boost backstab further if you play that spec. But a P/P could divert some of that extra attention into boosting the condition damage from Sneak Attack.

Don’t get me wrong, it will buff P/P, but only to a point (imo) where it has utility and damage which put it in contention with the utility of SB.

Seriously, I’d welcome this change

Just to reiterate the main point though: the part of BPS that would stealth you would be at least as easy to counter as CnD.

You can not kite it like you can C&D, which is a quite big one.

Substance E.4852:

frans.8092:

Discordia.7293:

Nerf or Remove dire gear.

It’s the condtion version of Soldiers. If you belive Dire is too tanky, then so is Soldiers. It won’t help though, because you can mix and match gear anyway.

Physical damage requires power, precision and crit damage to do maximum damage. PVT requires sacrificing crit chance and damage for tank. What exactly do you need to sacrifice with dire?

You are not giving the complete picture here. Physical damage gives you the option to increase the damage beyond which is given by Power alone. You have the choice to gear up in Soldiers, or Berserker.

Physical damage scales with power, condition damage with, condition damage. Physical damage has further attributes that enhance it, multiplying it, in precision and critical damage. Condition Damage has no such stat. It can only be enhanced through duration increases which has it’s own direct counter.

Condition Damage gear outside Dire is just plain bad, Rabid is useless as it stacks Precision with Condition Damage and Toughness. While the latter two are fine, precision adds nothing noteworthy to a condition build, critical are poor damage without power and crit procs simply don’t add enough to make up for the loss of a stat – which is why most crit sigils are dirt cheap. Carrion is reasonable, but vitality is not the best defensive stat, especially in Wvw and Power may be hard to make a contribution in a condition build. And those are your option for condition damage, Dire, Rabid and Carrion and only one of those has no lost stats.

Discordia.7293:

Nerf or Remove dire gear.

It’s the condtion version of Soldiers. If you belive Dire is too tanky, then so is Soldiers. It won’t help though, because you can mix and match gear anyway.

With the critical dmg nerf, these builds will be invincible when fighting versus dps users.

If condition damage becomes a problem, you should spec more removal. You can cut the effect of conditions after they have been applied, giving you a much better chance to use them effectively then with general DPS mitigation. Imagine there were blocking skills that you could use after you’d been hit hard to reduce the damage to a quarter.

Maugetarr.6823:

frans.8092:

It’s interesting to see all the attention go to the nerf it represents for D/P, yet little thought is going to the rather overpowering effect this has on P/P. While this set needs some love, the ranged stealth brings Sneak Attack into play for P/P. With the proper setup Sneak Attack and Unload combined can hit similar numbers as a CnD/Backstabs combo, but ranged. Get two of these off ….

While this would be enjoyable, it would not last and I fear the ensuing cries could possible lead to a ’Smiter’s Boon’ treatment of the class.

That’s the point though. There is still counterplay with dodging the BPS, and if you fail to dodge that you can mitigate about 80% of the following sneak attack both revealing the thief and cutting the damage. The point is though that there is more play and synergy for P/P rather than the 3 spam that currently exists. Sneak attack only has a multiplier of 1.2 which is equivalent to a frontstab or necrotic bite (necro dagger auto attack chain 3). It really wouldn’t be any more powerful than CnD considering the telegraph and flight time.

C&D is very well telegraphed and Backstab and C&D can be dodged and kited and blinded and blocked and …
Adding in the condition damage Sneak Attack comes pretty close to Backstab (as back stab), even on Berserker gear and Unload matches it. Though you can still boost Backstab more then Unload and Sneak Attack.

A ranged stealth on P/P is going to make it very strong, if not OP.

skyz.7321:

They can also teleport under the map to leave combat and heal.

Thieves do this the most.

It’s how I found out Tyria is really a giant floating continent? I’ve seen it

It happens with shadow stepping, especially with sword #2, it’s an annoying bug/glitch that occasionally puts you below the ground.

You should not jump to conclusions so easily. It’s these kinds of claims that make me very sceptical about hacking posts. Try making videos, it’s so much more convincing.

But I am probably just another Anet employee.

It’s interesting to see all the attention go to the nerf it represents for D/P, yet little thought is going to the rather overpowering effect this has on P/P. While this set needs some love, the ranged stealth brings Sneak Attack into play for P/P. With the proper setup Sneak Attack and Unload combined can hit similar numbers as a CnD/Backstabs combo, but ranged. Get two of these off ….

While this would be enjoyable, it would not last and I fear the ensuing cries could possible lead to a ’Smiter’s Boon’ treatment of the class.

Could tackle the ‘inexperienced’ part by providing introduction quests/events that lead towards the final encounter. Make them based on the PC’s Order (Whispers, Vigil and Priory) and you automagically create smaller groups, without exclusions, giving players a better chance to get a grasp on the mechanics. Would also bring a tiny bit of RP flavour.

If the current (disproportional) high amount of critical damage on celestial is the result of compensation for the loss of Magic Find it would seem reasonable to compensate that original loss with a general increase of the stats on celestial gear.

Mystogan.4157:

So i was going to do a venom build …

Where were you going to use it? In a group setting with venomshare you can/should leave some of your defence to the group – iow no stunbreaker – to maximize the venomshare while in solo roaming you may need some solo survival utilities.

Noliver.1475:

Now i’ll go and re think my build… was actually juggling between trickery or acrobatics for a S/P build also not knowing if I should put some vit or just glass cannon is fine..

Without weapon stealth SA is less usefull, trickery or acrobatics is more a matter of taste, but I’d find it hard to go without feline grace.

Now from what i can see, unless i can invest a ton to toughness.. it is maybe not worth it

Imo toughness is the #1 stat to increase for more survivabilty, healing is #2 and #3 is vitality. On numbers that is, Vitality does buy you more time to heal, cleanse or stealth and it helps using healing more efficiently.

Also Pulled between Signet of Malice or Withdrawl for #6…..

Switch according to situation, although SoM on S/P or shortbow is a reasonable standard choice, provided you have a couple of foes to cleave on. SoM is simply bad for single target or low hit rate applications. Use what works for you.

VOLKON.1290:

Body blocking worked well in GuildWars, but this is GuildWars 2 and it really wouldn’t work here.

IIRC you didn’t bodyblock friendly characters.

NinjaEd.3946:

You said im making bad choices in my build, when really its just choices.

That was about condition clearing, if conditions are a problem the build needs more cleansing, if you don’t add it in, while having trouble with conditions, you are making bad choices. I think that was the reasoning.

Maybe simpler, change the skill behind the trait to one that is queued for execution after your current action ends, rather then the instant skill it triggers now? That way C&D would finish before the LR stealth kicks in and you will not get revealed.

Dynnen.6405:

frans.8092:

Oozo.7856:

frans.8092:

Oozo.7856:

Some older games got it right …

Some people apparently would rather play other games.

And I will be along with up to twenty or so other people from my guild and allied guilds alone as soon as a viable option presents itself. I suspect I’m not alone.

Good, you do that, go back to Everquest or whatever (older) games got it right. Being able to use skills without having a target was a selling point of this one.

Fairly certain he was talking about games like: Elder Scrolls Online, Camelot Unchained, and maybe even Wildstar. Ofc if we took the entire gw2 population and moved them to DAoC we’d all be a lot happier, lol

I don’t know which games he was talking about but he did say “older games”.

Oozo.7856:

frans.8092:

Oozo.7856:

Some older games got it right …

Some people apparently would rather play other games.

And I will be along with up to twenty or so other people from my guild and allied guilds alone as soon as a viable option presents itself. I suspect I’m not alone.

Good, you do that, go back to Everquest or whatever (older) games got it right. Being able to use skills without having a target was a selling point of this one.

kyubi.3620:

…just how come a player had a legendary weapon and 6k AR yet managed to fail so much as if brain dead… makes me question how he even got to lvl 80)…

Anyone can have a bad day, or a cat crouching up between mouse and keyboard.

Burnfall.9573:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Assassin

Show me where the Assassin needed or depended on “Stealth” to “Survive”?

I can imagine the QQ if we got traits like
Critical Defenses For 4…9…10 seconds, you have a 75% chance to block. Critical Defenses refreshes every time you land a critical hit. or Flashing Blades For 5…25…30 seconds, you have a 75% chance to block incoming attacks while attacking. If you block an attack in this way, your attacker takes 5…17…20 damage.

Guildwars is very, very different from Guildwars 2

Burnfall.9573:

frans.8092:

Burnfall.9573:

To those who says that Thief can not survive without stealth; i invite you to look at this class; The Assassin from Guild Wars.

Thief =/= Assassin. There is a whole different archetype for the thief, it’s detailed in the books and I invite you to read them. I’ve pointed then out to you before but you ignore them.

As far as the thief archetype goes, it’s more familar to the Rogue/Shadowdancer in D&D. I do like that name, Shadowdancer.

Btw, Assassin in GW1 weren’t well represented in PvP.

Common Sense!

THIEF IS NOT ASSASSIN

No need to yell.

I point you, once more, to “Ghosts of Ascalon” and “Edge of Destiny” whith Dougal Keane and Caithe representing Arenanet’s idea’s on their Thief class. If you want to further discuss the Thief class within Guildwars 2 it should be in reference to the thief archetypes as they are presented in those books.

If you want to look outside the Guildwars lore, I suggest we focus on thieves and similar characters from commonly known fantasy literature, rather then some bendable ‘common sense’ yells. We could for instance, look at Bilbo Baggins, who could go invisible at will. Then there is Grey Mouser, companion of Fafhrd (a rather Norny fighter and rogue) and a nimble and adept duellist.

In games there is the Rogue, well known from Dungeons and Dragons, who could stealth – with the prestige class Shadowdancer they could into stealth while in plain sight of their foes – and deal extra damage against ‘prone’ characters, or from behind, or from stealth.

There are so many concepts surrounding the Thief/Rogue that yelling “Common Sense” and “Assassin =/= Thief” can never do justice to this subject.

How about mixing in a ‘venom’ that makes you immune to revealed for the next outgoing attack? Or a venom that makes you next outgoing attack do no damage (not even 0). Or make it blind yourself so that you next attack misses and doesn’t do any damage.

ens.9854:

The irony is that there have been countless threads in the spvp forum for many weeks about how awful and brainless “passive play” is, and some of the same people are here looking to create more

Good point, Add F2 then have Last Refuge fill it up with Throw Feathers.

Oozo.7856:

Some older games got it right …

Some people apparently would rather play other games.

Hule.8794:

@Cogbyrn but i dont want to blob, but i have to because enemy players moving in a groups of 20 even to kill a guy killing yaks.

Then killing yaks will occupy a good deal of their forces, there’s a limit to how many players they can have in Wvw.

Burnfall.9573:

To those who says that Thief can not survive without stealth; i invite you to look at this class; The Assassin from Guild Wars.

Thief =/= Assassin. There is a whole different archetype for the thief, it’s detailed in the books and I invite you to read them. I’ve pointed then out to you before but you ignore them.

As far as the thief archetype goes, it’s more familar to the Rogue/Shadowdancer in D&D. I do like that name, Shadowdancer.

Btw, Assassin in GW1 weren’t well represented in PvP.

Burnfall.9573:

First of all. Warriors should be the highest dps class, and playing the most risky game of all professions" because they are a Tank; alongside with Guardians.

In both books, to which we might turn in looking at the archetypes for our classes, the thief characters are instant killer, finding weaknesses and striking a fatal blow at the most opportune moment. In game mechanics this is expressed as ‘burst’ and ‘criticals’.

‘Tank’ and ‘Tanking’ in (MMO)RPG has nothing to do with DPS but being able to take/absorb hits, not DPS, a role typically filled by Warriors. In GW1 Warriors had high armor and damage. which they needed for their task in keep pressure on the opposing mid-and backlines, while not crumbling immediately without support from his own backline.

Auesis.7301:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWTkhG5B40g

gg

They’ve announced changes, until the exact change is clear people will buy and craft less, people will postpone changing builds and people will postpone buying upgrades (except for the powertraders). Not a situation you want to drag on for weeks.

selan.8354:

Conncept.7638:

Dual.8953:

All balance changes mentioned in the Ready Up livestream should be added tomorrow, although, they stated there’s a slight chance there will be some revisions. Also the devs have stated that there will be many more balance changes that weren’t announced during the live stream session.
I’d drop a link but I’m on my phone.

Nooooo… they were asked that during the stream, to which they stated it would be a while before they would see live, possibly even as far as after the end of the LS story arc in march.

no i think u missunderstood. i think they meant the new skills will not be out tomorrow

Yeah, we’d understand the whole package “once the patchlist is out”, or something like that. Implies the next patchlist I think.

Ensign.2189:

Take a full set of ascended gear with critical damage on every single piece (zerk, assassins, cavalier); ignore runes since all that is getting changed, and maximize your traits to get the full +30% critical damage. You should get 101% critical damage across all pieces.

If you do the same for the bonus to a secondary stat, you’ll get +1045 to that stat.

Set your critical chance to 100% since we’re talking about a maxed out PvE build. That means every swing is dealing 251% base damage: 100% base + 50% critical base damage + 101% critical bonus damage.

A 10% damage hit to that is going from ~250% damage to ~225% damage, which means dropping from 101% critical bonus damage to ~75% critical bonus damage.

1045 / 75 is really close to 14, which implies a 14:1 ratio.

Nice work.

They could also follow the existing pattern and add a 916 base to the ferocity from gear, and drop the default 50% from the equations since those would be covered in the base 916. Then the conversion becomes 916+1045 / 125 = 15,7 or very close to 16 (with a base 57% base crit chance you get a little boost to non-crit power builds). I don’t expect this, but it is a possibility.

Notice how this will not just hit trinkets but also the critical damage trait line, and at the same time increase build choice. Formerly this trait line was almost must-have due to the relative big boost to +crit damage, but now it becomes just a source of ferocity, and the effects of traits become more important.

fellyn.5083:

The problem is that Anet hasn’t stated anywhere that they understand what the real problem is and they’ve demonstrated the same thing in the past multiple times.

They have, they’ve stated that changing to Ferocity was a necessary first step.

That is what they said, IIRC, the active and the scaling would not be touched.

Doggie.3184:

frans.8092:

I 100% do not want the assassin back, I absolutely hated the stupid 1-2-3-2-3 chains.

Those already exist but they condensed them into #1 and let them chain themselves. If you think about it they scattered Assassin’s chain style to all classes.

Yeah, I noticed that the first day, but the important thing is that I don’t have to mash the buttons like you had to on the GW1 assassin.

Great, thank you

Don’t know why people keep pointing at GW1 for trinity as you could do all off it without characters in explicit tank or dps roles.

I’ve even been in games (including for a time when GW1 was first released) where Healers charge people to be a part of their group for certain missions.

When GW1 was first out people would just group up and do stuff together. If you couldn’t find a player with some heals you’d enlist Alesia, who would occasional double as front-liner.

I think things could have been done better. Bosses could have been designed more cleverly to encourage diversity of builds or certain dungeons could require characters to divide up into different roles temporarily by grabbing relics or asura armors of whatever.

Definitely, GW2 encounter developers should take a fresh look at things. I’d love it if there were some GW1 style missions.