Guild Wars 2

Shifty.3412:

hihey.1075:

LotuS.4378:

Memphisjz.1405:

dani.1956:

FSP fights only when all sleep , like girls ! No kitten sry Q.q l2p troll lalala blablabla! Grow some balls on that FSP !

dani.1956:

yea in prime we wipe you like you vabbi

You are an obvious troll,but let me still make some things clear:

How come you couldn’t take our border then in primetime? Yesterday, all i saw was INC guild and some other guild flee everytime we want to fight em. You all tried so hard to take our bay, yet you couldn’t. All GH did was kite us around until their full server was grouped up at 1 location, and then tried to fight us. Still not succeeding to kill us.
I’m not saying running is a bad decision, i just use it as an example to go easy on the remarks your server (or UW, whatever you are) makes. After all, AoA is a War Machine that you should fear.

AoA and RiOT defended our Home Border last night during primetime from any assault!

We don’t have THAT many night forces, The Shiverpeaks are just starting to work as a solid team, with cross-border communication improving every day! We just call in the other guilds when you decide to launch a combined assault on our keeps (like Saturday night).

Special thanks to Punk and Kale & RiOT for the fast response when we call for their aid!
(I love the other FSP Guilds too, i simply haven’t personally asked you for assistance yet)
FSP FTW!

War machine? Hmpf.

You was runing in a guild blob, im pretty sure you was like 50+, and you calling victory over anyone who was with 20 people? Near the garri your guild blob was wiped by 18-20 ppl from INC (got fraps, at the end of the week will post it). Next one in bay, your WAR MACHINE has been destroyed, next one again near BAY, next one in camp, in first bomb 20+ of your WAR MACHINE died, you got next backup from pugzords, and we failed.

So calling yourself “War Machine” is not a good idea mate. You are not War Machine, you are Blob Machine.

Maybe lets check hows your WAR MACHINE working on GvG 20v20? Hows about that?

Haha, u mad bro?

He…he’s on your server..

I’m well aware of that :-D
Who said we cannot tease our own servermates? :-P

LotuS.4378:

Memphisjz.1405:

dani.1956:

FSP fights only when all sleep , like girls ! No kitten sry Q.q l2p troll lalala blablabla! Grow some balls on that FSP !

dani.1956:

yea in prime we wipe you like you vabbi

You are an obvious troll,but let me still make some things clear:

How come you couldn’t take our border then in primetime? Yesterday, all i saw was INC guild and some other guild flee everytime we want to fight em. You all tried so hard to take our bay, yet you couldn’t. All GH did was kite us around until their full server was grouped up at 1 location, and then tried to fight us. Still not succeeding to kill us.
I’m not saying running is a bad decision, i just use it as an example to go easy on the remarks your server (or UW, whatever you are) makes. After all, AoA is a War Machine that you should fear.

AoA and RiOT defended our Home Border last night during primetime from any assault!

We don’t have THAT many night forces, The Shiverpeaks are just starting to work as a solid team, with cross-border communication improving every day! We just call in the other guilds when you decide to launch a combined assault on our keeps (like Saturday night).

Special thanks to Punk and Kale & RiOT for the fast response when we call for their aid!
(I love the other FSP Guilds too, i simply haven’t personally asked you for assistance yet)
FSP FTW!

War machine? Hmpf.

You was runing in a guild blob, im pretty sure you was like 50+, and you calling victory over anyone who was with 20 people? Near the garri your guild blob was wiped by 18-20 ppl from INC (got fraps, at the end of the week will post it). Next one in bay, your WAR MACHINE has been destroyed, next one again near BAY, next one in camp, in first bomb 20+ of your WAR MACHINE died, you got next backup from pugzords, and we failed.

So calling yourself “War Machine” is not a good idea mate. You are not War Machine, you are Blob Machine.

Maybe lets check hows your WAR MACHINE working on GvG 20v20? Hows about that?

Haha, u mad bro?

Haha, necro complaining about ele.
Just stay on your point.

Are you using a staff ele?
I agree warriors are in need of a slight nerf, but in spvp they go down just fine, especially those fotm noskill warriors who just rerolled. This is not 3500armor wvw

I think you are just unlucky with your server.
I’m always ready to give people a hand, should they ask for them in the chat. Actually, the only thing that kitten es me off is when people make “mistakes” because they don’t do what I say. I always answer a question. Sometimes I even make a LFG stating “only noobs who wants to learn”, and I spend the following 30 minutes explaining what to do and what not to do.

I really, really like socializing with people. I love when you can talk to other people in map chat during off peak hours, teasing other guys for their characters and stuff.

Jayne.9251:

Were you one of the ones I had a duel with last week when we were matched hihey?

Maybe! But if you were to tell me your server and the class you were using (along with the race and sex) I might recall more I “duel” with a lot of people, so it’s hard for me to keep track of them.

I agree with oZii: I like WvW roaming because you never know what’s going to happen. All this incertainty, along with the risk of getting killed if you are too focused on your fight to notice a zerg incoming, is what makes WvW roaming more entertaining than sPvP duels.
Not only that: I personally don’t like WvW “scheduled” duels: I am using an all-purpose build, which enables me to kill the majority of classes while surviving even the hardest encounter. And that’s why I use that in WvW.
In scheduled duels, most people change their traits and skills in order to fit their opponent. And that is not the WvW spirit, not for me at least. That’s why I don’t usually accept duels unless I’m really, really bored: I prefer to pick my opponents and duel with them along the way. And if you are a Staff Guardian, shame on you for roaming with a support build.

I’m not a white knight. I simply enjoy being respectful to my opponents, especially those who willingly engage in an open field fight rather than going back and forth from their tower/camp.

Emixam.6834:

Thank you guys for the nice words, we enjoyed the fights too ! We are still working on our teambuild… Wasn’t our best run last night (our numbers were a bit low we had like 14 for a good one hour and half) and we lacked Eles, but it was certainly good training

You lacked Eles, but when we fought you outnumbered outside our garri in GH border I was hit by only TWO meteors from a Meteor Shower which dealt 10k damage to my 2500 toughness Ele! Was impressed, half my HP was depleted just from that :O

EDIT: I’ll also add that I agree with Monkeymonger. Our pugs are really setting us down if we factor in points. Our pugs commanders are really proud of their work and I like them, but in our pug trains only 20% of the people are in TS: the majority of people simply stay in the backlines spamming 1 and almost no one does what the commander asks for. That’s why, despite having some really good WvW guilds (Fury, Rage, WBC, Inc, TEO, and HT to an extent) which roam with 20 people at best, we lack the “oomph”, provided by our pugs, to capture bigger objectives when well defended.
But I like it that way. The moment our pugs (and we really have many, many pugs) start becoming “serious” about their overall WvW effectiveness, we would become Blobbadon v2 and our rank would skyrocket. And since I like matchups like this one A LOT (we hardly find zergs of more than 35 people, I’m fine with these numbers), it would be really boring if our rank increased

GrandmaFunk.3052:

roaming is, in essence, the art of avoiding fights you will lose and pursuing fights you will win.

seeking fairness is pointless since a 1vs1 where both parties have stat equilibrium will happen just about never.

Untrue. I always engage a 1v2 or 1v3, even if the odds are against me. If things become too bad, I’ll just disengage (being a thief I know how to disengage really well).

And I agree with most of you guys: I don’t attack Staff Eles or Upleveleds if they don’t attack me, but I will kill anyone attacking a dolly, a sentry or a camp.

I often let people live. Especially solo roamers, or people who willingly get away from a group to fight me. In most 1v2 encounters I usually let the last standing guy live so that he could rez his teammate.

And of course, to roamers, objectives are just for the sake of doing something between each fight: I don’t “like” capturing a camp or killing a sentry.

It looks like there are a lot of nice roamers here

What I saw in FSP BL this night was really unique.
Before, I had been victim of a stealth trap for 2, maybe 3 times at all.
This number skyrocketed tonight: a FSP Champion from AoA (was a Norn Necromancer) placed no less than 10 (yes, I mean 10, not joking) Stealth Traps in 1 hour trying to kill me.
I’m sorry, but such tricks don’t work on me more than once lol.

Best night I had in a looong time for raiding! Goodd fights SOUL, Punk, Kale!

wth was that FSP megablob in our garri just 5 minutes ago? Looked bigger than blobbadon’s!

sendmark.4731:

Decent roaming in this matchup now we’re clear of reset. Such a nice change from Piken/Abaddon and on par with Kodash/AG for fun.

Except that Kodash roamers were far better than FSP and UWs (overall), and that AG thieves were all D/P copycats

Of course, no offense against FSP and UWs roamers: you are really fun to fight against

I met two Shatter Mesmers yesterday!
Was fun to see that there are still people using this build, as it’s really effective against some classes (especially D/D or D/P thieves!).

I find Shatter Mesmers to be the perfect counter to perma-stun Warriors too. It’s too bad the condi meta, along with perplexity runes and Dire Gear, has completely removed them from the game

^
/bow
I envy you. I always try to put myself on the same level of my opponents so that, if I win, they can’t say “you won because of this”; and if I lose, I won’t say “I lost because of that”. I simply want to say “I’m better/worse than you”. That’s the main reason I roam anyway, either to feel better for every (hopeful balanced) fight I win, or to learn something for every fight I lose.

Zephyrus.9680:

Rigel.3092:

WvW is war….there is no “fairness” in war.

What’s that supposed to mean? Go back to PvE if you don’t want balance. Last time I checked, WvW is PvP (player vs player). I don’t know about PvE but PvPers don’t care about just winning. They want to win with a challenge. That means the possibility of losing which makes it fun and challenging. I have never seen a PvP game promoting unbalance as a core philosophy that was successful.

Agreed. I wouldn’t feel good if I kill an upleveled

ZSpark.8493:

Hi, I purchased GW2 a while ago, didn’t play too much. I did get a ranger to level 24ish I think and then took a break to play EQ with some old friends.

Wanting a fresh start, I created an Asura Elementalist named Brakeus Tinkertin, after my Gnome wizard in EverQuest. Well I just figured i’d ask for advice on the class so I got off on the right foot.

1. Any advice (other than don’t play an elementalist) that I should know early on that would make my life easier? any tip, trick, or settings i should look at, ect.

2. Advice on a good PvE leveling build. What traits, weapon sets are good on the 1-80 grind. I noticed so far i’m usually alone, so I guess going more towards dps would be better?

3. Basic PvE tips. I notice you die really fast, so any strategies on how to be effective would be helpful, So far my biggest issue is that my hands get off the right keys and I end up hitting my F keys instead of 1-4 and vise versa lol.

4. Any links to guides or youtube videos that you think would help be out would be cool too!

Thanks again for any advice you give!!

Use Scepter/Dagger, I find it to be the best PvE weaponset we have.
You must learn to kite melee enemies.
Consider using a Conjure weapon (Lightning Hammer is really good).
Learn to spam skills.

Elementalist is one of the hardest class to learn and to master. I started as an Elementalist too and was really impressed by how many things we have to do to in order to get the same results as, say, a Warrior.
However, once you learn how to manage Attunements, you’ll learn that our class could be one of the most fun there are

Good luck!

kitten s.7421:

I refuse to duel those types of thieves. The attack once then stealth and regen and remove condis while being completely invisible. Those duels are long and boring and not fun at all.

lol

Good duels though, really entertaining and fun to watch.
Healing Signet on that kind of warrior didn’t look that great, but still it requires a tone down: most dueling servers ban that skill because it’s simply broken.
I enjoy SPvP duels more than WvW duels because you don’t have that ridiculous Perplexity Rune, Dire Stat Gear and +40% condi duration food buffs
Keep it up!

DISCLAIMER: I’m not against any kind of roamers. I think that roaming with a small group instead than blobbing up with pugs to be a real challenge, regardless of the buffs you have.

Just wondering: how do you roamers prepare yourself before you start your roaming session?

I’ve seen all kind of roamers, from those who don’t start roaming before they have their Bloodlust, Guard Leech and Applied Fortitude maxed (and Food buffs) along with Legendary weapons, to those who go around without anything (and are still darn good).

I know WvW is not meant to be balanced, but I always try not to give myself too many buffs, as they could screw up some 1v1 encounters.

Given the new Orb Buffs, since I am still in full Exotics aside from one Ascended Amulet and having no access to either Guard Leech or Applied Fortitude, I usually plan my roaming sessions like this:

1: if my server has 100 or +150 buff, I go around without anything (no food buffs, no bloodlust). I MIGHT consider applying food buffs if I’m fighting a 1v3 or 1v2 against some REALLY good opponents.
2: if my server has 50 buff, I might consider applying food buffs in some encounters, especially if going up against people with +100buffs or if starting an outnumbered fight.
3: if my server has no buffs, I usually max out my Bloodlust first (250power), and then start roaming. Again, if I’m facing people with +150 or +100 buffs, or if hugely outnumbered, I might apply my food buffs.
4: if roaming during prime time (very rare), I usually max out my Bloodlust regardless of the buffs and then move on, applying foods if the situation calls for them.

I think having somewhat “fair” fights to be really satisfying, despite the overall lack of balance in WvW (Perplexity runes, Dire gear, getting zerged). I personally can’t stand winning a fight if I have any kind of advantage over my opponent, so that’s why I would usually spare their lives (by not finishing them after downing them) and move on.

What about you? Come on, don’t be shy

Crnicelad.5924:

I know that I need to get used to the s/d. But is s/d realy that weaker in survivability than d/d?

Yes and no. You are weaker because you don’t have Air #3 and you can’t rely too much on Auras. But what you lose from that, you’ll gain in being able to hit mobs from a longer range (up to 900) and you’ll gain more burst DPS damage.
Try using Fire #2 on a group of enemies, then go in the middle of them and cast Fire #4, then Fire #3, switch to earth, Earth #4 and Earth #5. You’ll gain a lot of might stacks and will be dealing a lot of AoE damage, usually more than enough to kill any non-veteran type of mob.
I used S/D all the way up to lv80 and rarely had problems with that, even in full zerker gear.
For reference, this was my build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhEmcblR1gjEAkCmMUESGiCWUeMDO2A-e

It is an odd build: I used my utilities for direct damage (Arcane Blast is another Blast to put in your rotation, while Signet of Air provided me with the needed mobility and Elemental helped a lot during fights), while I used my traits for defense (yeah, no renewing stamina: didn’t need that, since I needed my might-stacking rotation to complete and Final Shielding was the best way to ensure that).

1. I want to get my 1st exotic set but currently I am not sure if zerker is the best idea for soloing and dungeons that is?

Yeah, zerker is the best there is for all kinds of PvE.

Crnicelad.5924:

2. I am running 20/30/0/10/10 as Wooden Potatoes is (I know he is more or less BiS geared so I shouldnt compare him to myself). Should I change the traits?

That is up to you. Do you LIKE using Conjure Weapons? If yes, consider following his build. Otherwise, don’t bother going in 20 fire.

Crnicelad.5924:

3. (Off-topic – I realy like the Winged crafted set, is there any way of obtaining a lvl 80 version off it so I don’t need to wait 1st for the whole exotic set than use Transmutation Crystals, I figure thats the only way to do it? With buying gems?)

Already answered: Transmutation Crystals. You’ll need about 10Gold to buy 5 of them: should be enough to get 5/6 pieces.

4. I am starting to do some sPvP, I realy enjoy it but I only know what to expect from the 2 classes I own at lvl 80, ranger and elementalist. I was hoping for some tips on what to be weary off against other classes (what to dodge).

Starting sPvP now is NOT advisable as Ele is in a really weak position right now against the current meta.
Concerning what to dodge, it depends. If you build as a tanky, D/D Ele you should watch out for S/D Thieves (completely avoid them, they will steal all your boons) and Necromancers (will turn your boons into conditions).
If you go as a S/D burst Ele, you should dodge most forms of CCs, especially Hammer Warriors.

[/quote]

Emixam.6834:

Get off your high horse and watch yourself in a mirror before bragging at how you “wipe” everyone
Not going to make up theories about how/what, all is on tape.

Here’s our little gift to you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ74_x-FB0U

Haha, nice video! They looked too shy though, didn’t see any kind of ranged pressure there. I would pay lots of coppers if I could cast up to 3 Meteor Showers without the fear of taking a lot of damage or being interrupted
Were you really sure they outnumbered you?

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups

I think Interrupts should be used in order to prevent your foe to use a precise skill – be it a Heal, a powerful damaging skill or an Elite skill – so that you turn the fight in your favor.
If you use an Interrupt against an Auto Attack, that would be a “wasted” interrupt.
However, with these runes, you are HEAVILY rewarded even if you interrupt meaningless skills – that’s why they make no sense whatsoever, as they encourage bad play.
Everyone who believes these runes are not OP should really reconsider his mind status.

Maff.5180:

hello new matchup! and hi hengis!

There! That’s the guild tag I was talking of! I’ve never seen you guys before on FSP during night-time, and was really impressed to see a guild raiding at 3AM in the morning

Did FSP get new “night” guilds lately?
Pretty sure I’ve never seen an ORGANISED guild raiding at 3 AM in the morning. It was something like “VioT”, can’t remember actually.
Heck, FSP blobs outnumbered our night karma train last night!

On the other hand, extremely good fights tonight on GH border! It’s always a pleasure to fight against GRTS, LS and AoA, I really missed these fights when fightning against Blobbadon.
Props to the 3 UW Asura Mesmers who enjoyed to gank me whenever they could It’s always good to see some good, old Shatter Mesmers, instead than those OP fotm Perplexity Mesmers.

And, of course, congratulations to Mean guild from FSP who managed to interrupt my 1v3 and /laughed at my corpse the only time I died tonight. You were the only one to accomplish such a feat: it’s only natural to celebrate ^^

Delloro.9873:

I am trying to settle for a main in this game but the grass always looks greener with another profession. I only have insight into Elementalist, Mesmer and Thief.

Can someone give me a tip on a good jack of all trades profession?
I value safe stomping and diversity (ranged/melee and many builds) very highly so I won’t get bored. And complexity is most welcome but not required.

For further discussion, what profession would you argue is the best at:

1. Stomping

2. Escaping

3. AOE damage

4. Burst damage

5. Healing burst/sustained

6. 1v1

7. 1vX

8. Solo world/vets/champs

It looks like you are asking for a WvW perspective of the classes. So I’ll give you my ideas on the matter at hand:

1. Stomping: Thief. You can safely stomp all classes with the exception of Elementalists and Mesmers, but no class can stomp them during your first attempt, since their #2 downed skill will prevent any stomp.
Warriors/Guardians are good too due to easy access to Stability but will have a hard time stomping a Thief.
But, if we factor in stomping in an outnumbered fight, the safest class is Elementalist: their MistForm finisher cannot be countered, while Thieves can be interrupted by AoE CCs from other enemies.

2. Escaping: Thief, followed by Warrior. Stealth is the best escape in the game. Warrior has a lot of gap closers but can be outrun by other warriors who are not in combat.

3. AOE damage: in close quarter, small group combat: Engineer, followed by Necro and D/D ele. In open field combat Staff Ele, followed by Necro and Engineer.

4. Burst damage: Thief, then S/D Ele and Warrior. Shatter Mesmer has good burst too, but has a lot of weaknesses.

5. Healing burst/sustained: Warrior, both burst and sustained. Followed by Guardian and D/D Ele.

6. 1v1: I think that the SAFEST class with the less counters to 1v1 with is Warrior. Thief is safe too, but has many counters who will force you to get away.

7. 1vX: Engineer is pretty good in 1vX if you force your opponent to fight in close quarters. Then I’d say Condi Warrior and then Thief.

8. Solo world/vets/champs: the best class at soloing camps is the Guardian or the Engineer. Thief is good too, but lacks the AoE damage to kill the opponents quickly.
Ranger is easy, but could take some time, same for Elementalist and Mesmer. Never tried Necro though.
For Champs, I’d say the Thief is the only class which is capable to kill Tower Champs reliably.

True thieves are Norn.
Got a lot of WvW kills on my Norn thief
I’ll post a pic tomorrow.

After one week of Abbablob and Blobben Square, it feels unreal to having actually found some roamers!
Good job UWs and FSP, keep it up!

Sceinna.3561:

I’m not going to name any names but that D/P thief spamming me with “Headshot” 24/7.. you do realise theres other skills in your already OP and unbalanced build, right?

Cmon how can it be intended some guy can keep you perma locked without doing anything other than pressing 4, extremely frustrating…

There entire fight daze 1s undazed daze and this non stop for like 5 minutes until I’m eventually dead, gg. Such a troll.

Hahahaha!
I usually spam Headshot when I want to troll people who are trying to 1v3, it’s so funny XD

Healing Signet is banned on most 1v1 servers. Fightning a Warrior without HS is super easy as a thief, especially a x/P one.
But every Warrior with Healing Signet is a really hard encounter for any thief: they are our natural counters.

CollegeDowntime.4187:

Napalm.5693:

Specific utilties…. Yeah you should use specific utilties just like the thief does. There is no one super build that wins all… He fits for a specific purpose for taking down single targets. If you did the same he wouldnt have such an easy time… Roll a thief yourself and see how “easy” it is…

I have a champion shadow myself, along with 3 other champion titles and it’s not about experience, it’s about being able to survive a 6 man focused attack by using 1 ability (stealth) in multiple ways.

You simply will not catch a thief who wants to get away. Period. No other class can say that. That is an issue that should be addressed.

I’ve lost count of the amount of “Champion X” people I killed when I was 1v2-1v3ing as a Thief. Really, I always approach them hoping to learn something new but they all end up being really easy to kill.
Especially “Champion Shadows”, they are so proud of their title that still think going around as a Zerker D/D thief in WvW is a nice idea.

The last exotic I salvaged only gave me 1 Orichalcum Ore.
Just 1 Ori Ore.

From then, I have always sold them on the TP without even thinking twice about that.

UnknownRH.4592:

hihey.1075:

Is there anyone here who was in the MEGA Piken Blob which tried to capture our Garri at 11 PM GMT?

You have to mention which day? Though people tend to cover their faces after a miserable loss of a battle. You might hardly get a response.

It was yesterday
Best fight I had in the whole matchup. Got 200 kills in 1 hour. Should have recorded it, shame on me
Solo roaming is so pointless these days since those boodthirsty 30men blobs DO bother to chase me even as a Thief and I spend most of the times running away than actually killing something, so I’ll be using my Ele for guild raiding for the time being.

“OMG plz nerf Ele, too much OP for me to handle”.

@Nikkinella: as an Ele, I can tell you I always go Mistform when in Air/Fire Attunement so that I can cleanse 2 conditions when I go back to water, so that even if I get Immobilized I will still be able to get away.

Is there anyone here who was in the MEGA Piken Blob which tried to capture our Garri at 11 PM GMT?

I am so proud that we only built 1 AC to counter that 70men blob and still managed to wipe you twice. I’m positive any other server would have built dozens of siege.

Hahahah, still more Piken Square ppl complaining!

Jayne.9251:

P.PS. I’m a girl. ….. Wait, girls don’t play mmos! :o

That’s a lie.
I leave to you to understand which statement I am referring to.

By this evening everything will be T3 in Piken Border. I highly doubt we Gunnars will be able to tick as much as yesterday.
Although the fun is still provided by people saying that we are somewaht “unfair”.

Toxikthrash.2704:

Looks like this week might be a bit boring for group and solo roaming if people/groups run away. but I am sure many good fights are too come as well.
-Dis Noise Terror, [DIRE]

I’ve already put aside my willingness to solo roam for this week

I don’t mind PS, actually I really wanted to fight that server.
But AM is like a plague, mokitten boring server I’ve ever fought againkitten. I’ve jukitten watched as a 50men AM blob built 5 ACs in Dawn’s before even taking it jukitten to kittenop our 20men groups from defending it.
They surely want to bore me to death.

EDIT: it looks like the word filter does not accept any form of “s+t”

Well played guys! One of the most balanced matchups I’ve seen so far, both in terms of overall coverage and individual skills!
Really loved fightning with Kodash roamers, hopefully we will get more of those tight fights in the future!

maeggle.6021:

The match is pretty enjoyable so far, I think. The general small scale fights are of so so level, but overall better than the fights and duels against PS and SFR. Yesterday however, most of my encounters while solo roaming were FotM sPvP S/P thieves (hurr, durr, I can spam evades!) and tPvP bunker condition builds (in groups of 3+, hurray – 3.5k HP per second by conditions alone, after dodging the first condition spam wave and cleansing the second… so much fun in that…).
Also with 50+% Crit Chance not a single Fire Grab or Churning Earth hit for a crit (and i used both skills many times), got flamed for disengaging when 2 adds jumped into a fight, and later got stuck in the ground south of Overlook ruins while kiting a group of 4 [lion], which then accused me of hacking – Not my day, I guess…

Haha! And you still haven’t met the new Dire Stat LB Warriors! Met one yesterday, my backstabs critted him for 3.5k, couldn’t believe it. I just had to leave, nothing for me to do there despite being quite durable against condition myself he still hit like a truck.

chuuuuucky.8532:

instead of forming formation spray sausage and run around like headless chicken.

Could you draw a picture of that? I have a hard time trying to figure it out in my head

Ghostwolf.9863:

This is a bigger nerf than what it looks like, until.. I see all other classes in the game
getting their cooldowns to full duration when getting interrupted.

And you also have to consider that switching to 2nd weapon set for a thief, doesn’t
give access to 5 new spells or abilities.

Getting 2 CnD’s blinded/dodged/blocked basically leaves the thief with auto attack and utilities til the initiative has replenished. Having interrupts kitten it as well would just make D/D even more squishy and punish all thieves when fighting other good players on CC-heavy classes, unless they play D/P instead which already is punished when DP>HS gets interrupted and is one of the most hated weapon sets currently. CC-heavy classes are already a hardcounter to thieves.

I mainly thought of this as a counter for D/P thieves – it’s easy to read a “bad” D/P thief, and I thought the best way to punish him (as a mainly D/P thief myself!) would be to interrupt them with P#4 while he is casting is BP.
There are, of course, many ways to counter D/P, but it’s really hard to COMPLETELY shut them down, especially in a 1v1 situation – and this is widely agreed.
Interrupting the BP would be the ideal choice for countering D/P (which really does not fear stunlock heavy builds, since the Blind field would prevent most attempts of stunning).

What about adding this change only to the BP field?

I like the other suggestion. But would prefer if it only drained initiative when blocked or dodged instead (and if pressing BS and initiative reaches 0, reveal). Since we don’t have access to auto attack while in stealth and blind is much more easier to access in the game than block I don’t think blind should apply to this.

Keep in mind that Blind can be cleansed easily with Shadow Embrace trait. The problem may arise if there are multiple conditions on top of Blind, which will be the case of only a condi Mesmer (torch), who has limited access to blocks (but a good access to evasion, even though it’s hard to find a condi mesmer with a main hand sword) or an Engineer (limited access to block)

Asudementio.8526:

hihey.1075:

Zacchary.6183:

Number 2 already exists. :I

No, it doesn’t. The Initiative cost is paid at the end of the “channeling” (when the yellow bar is complete).
Whenever I get interrupted while trying to cast Black Powder, I never lose any initiative.
Just go look at any video of any thief on youtube, you’ll understand what I mean.

Initiative is paid at the end of the animation, but i am not certain making the cost upfront is a good idea- it will add A TON more pressure on skill management, which paired with high initiative costs on a lot of our bread and butter will significantly punish us and only further encourage perplex interrupt specs.

I really do hope Perplexity runes to be nerfed someday; still, your point is valid and I think most thieves will really hate this change.
However, I believe “good” thieves will overcome this. Take D/P for example, which is the set which will be mostly affected by this: aside from being able to use BP->HS AWAY from your opponent, you have a blind on Shadowshot and a Daze on Headshot. If you need to use BP, you could easily use one of these 2 skills to prevent being interrupted on your opponent’s next attack, and then safely cast your BP.
But you are still somewhat right: maybe the #2 would require the Initiative cost of BP/CnD to be reduced to 5 Initiative from 6.

EDIT: typos

Zacchary.6183:

Number 2 already exists. :I

No, it doesn’t. The Initiative cost is paid at the end of the “channeling” (when the yellow bar is complete).
Whenever I get interrupted while trying to cast Black Powder, I never lose any initiative.
Just go look at any video of any thief on youtube, you’ll understand what I mean.

Fix #2: change Initiative cost to be “paid” at the start of the skill animation rather than at the end of the activation of the skill.
Further Explanation: this is what I think should have been implemented from the start.
We all know that 2 key skills in the thief’s kitten nal are Blinding Powder (x/P #5) and Cloak and Dagger (x/D #5). These two skills have a 0.5s attack animation. Now, if you notice, the initiative cost of these skills (6 Initiative each) is drained when the attack animation is CORRECTLY completed rather than when you start making the attack animation. This mechanic actually affects every skill in the thief’s array of skills, but it is particularly important for these 2 skills .
Reason: let’s say you interrupt a thief using CnD: assuming he does not use a Stunbreaker, either you kill him in that small window or he will simply CnD again you the moment the stun ends.
With this “fix”, you are completely rewarded if you manage to interrupt their CnD, since no matter what they do after the stun ends, they will have lost 6 initiative, and are now left with only 7 initiative (assuming they started the animation at 12 initiative). And the same goes for Blinding Powder.
This fix will reward “good” players a lot, because if they manage to get a good interrupt on the thief, they will be in great danger, especially the so-hated permastealth thief, since they will NOT be able to do the BP->HS combo, since it requires 9 initiative to complete, and will be forced to go in stealth in another way.
Good thieves will know when it is safe to use CnD or BP (maybe after you blinded you opponent in some way? Or when you enemy is disabled? Or when they have their interrupts on CD?), while bad thieves will get easily killed if they make a mistake.
Keep in mind that interrupting a 0.5s attack animation is quite hard, so you actually have to predict the thief’s next action in order to get the most out of it.
Again, good thieves will have little problems with these changes, while bad thieves will either learn how to fight properly or go back to their previous classes and acknowledge that the thief is not a class for everyone.
Expected Results if implemented: dramatic decrease of zerker cookie-cutter D/P-D/D thieves. Lots of QQ about stunlock classes who “interrupt my CnD”. People would probably switch to S/x, but many could reroll given the higher skill required for that spec.

In addition, these changes will still enable “bad” thieves to feel accomplished, since they will still be able to oneshot easily unaware opponents.

Now I would like to hear your opinion on these thoughts. Keep the thread clean please, no more “thief is OP you are dumb l2p n00b”, I’ve read plenty of that already.

I don’t know if this had been already brought up, but after thinking about this for a few days I wanted to know your opinion too.

It is known that thieves have one of the most hated mechanics in the game: stealth.
Now, I think that Stealth itself is a really powerful tool, and it’s pretty much the bread and butter of most thieves builds. I am perfectly ok with that, even with D/P perma stealth, and I don’t think that we should nerf Stealth in any way: this is not what you will find in this thread.
However, I believe there are 2 (actually 3) things that could be “fixed” in the thieves kitten nal, so that the skill gap between good thieves and bad thieves will increase, while still giving “bad” 222222 thieves the opportunity to kill zerker opponents, thus not ruining their fun.

Fix #1: give stealth #1 abilities a Initiative cost of 1 Initiative.
Reason: most people believe that thieves should get revealed if their backstab is blocked or evaded.
I don’t think this way, because this change would overnerf backstab thieves, since backstab is pretty much their main source of damage.
On the other hand, with my suggestion, stealthed thieves will have to think twice before spamming #1 needlessly: using the skill only once will not affect the “good” player gameplay too much, but for those players that keep pressing 1 non-stop the moment they go in stealth, it could mean a quick death if they are not too careful.
Not only that: this change would render Blind somewhat effective against thieves, as they will either wait for the Blind duration to expire, or they will lose 1 iniative trying to backstab an enemy (of course, provided they don’t cleanse the blind when going in stealth).
To me, the good thief has to know WHEN to strike: he must know when a Warrior’s block is about to end and when their opponent is vulnerable.
This change will not affect S/x or P/x users that much, since the stealthed ability of S/x is not as important as D/x or P/x – stealth itself is more a way to confuse your enemy rather than a way to mitigate damage or going into the offensive for a Sword user; whereas P/x users, being Sneak Attack a multi-hit attack with a long attack animation, will still be able to land it completely and the 1 initiative used will not weight that much in a prolonged fight.
Expected Results if implemented: a lot of complain from “bad” thieves. Warriors/engineers/guardians will be a bit harder to fight, even for good thieves, given their huge amount of blocks.
Maybe this small nerf will require a main hand Dagger autoattack damage increase of 5-10%, but I am not so sure about this.

Dranul.2094:

Nice to see we have some PPT trolls on matchup threads as always. AG guilds have been involved in GvGs, AG recently lost a guild and AG population is heavy PVE (dragons). So for a server that’s got how many new guilds? To sit there and comment on “performing badly?” in what sense do you mean. 100-150 ppt in primetime, dude a lot of people stopped playing PPT back in 2012.

Had an epic time tonight thanks to all the guilds and zergs we banged heads against.

Would love a clarification on what performing really really badly means <3

I meant both what Geno said (there is a HUGE skill gap between Kodash roamers and AG roamers, no offense), and that you are performing poorly in terms of points, yes.
I am not really fond of points – I am not the kind of guy who “fights” for them, as I mostly roam and the only help I provide to my server, aside from what roamers usually do (camps, sentries, dollys), is a good deal of scouting.
I can’t remember how many times I rushed to teamspeak tonight, or whispered to the main commander, just to say “we need help in defending Veloka!”. I am really proud to say that I have yet to see either AG or Kodash take an objective we are “really” trying to defend.

I don’t care about defending a paper objective, but I do try my best to defend a t3 tower/keep.
So, while I don’t play for points, I think that points are a good indicator of how a server is performing (overall).
If a server’s guilds only GvG, even if they win all their matches, if they not contribute to their server PPT, I would still say that said server is “performing poorly”.
Keep in mind that I am saying this only because we are currently ranked above you: if things were to change, I wouldn’t say this at all

Let’s just say that, at first, I thought we would have lost this matchup really badly, scoring something about 150k points if we were lucky. That’s why, IMHO, and to me alone, you are performing badly

Anyway, if it makes you feel better, let’s just say that you are performing “below my expectations”. I think that should be fair enough

P.S.: I am, by no means, a troll.

Good fights today in EB

Also, I am pleased to see that the Bloodlust buff is completely irrelevant: Aurora Glade is the Server who most benefits from it (they always have at least 2 stacks of it whenever I log in), still they are performing really, really badly.

It doesn’t look appealing at all :/
I mean, I can’t find a role to this build

Sceinna.3561:

@Above,

If you build D/P properly you’ll hit as much as D/D whilst maintaining survivability, on top of that you’re perma blinding that poor D/D thief and outstealthing him, it’s never a fair fight. Anything melee pretty much cannot kill D/P.

I mean, the fact you complained about bad D/P thieves probably means they WERE bad but you couldn’t kill them due to perma stealthing & blinding. (atleast that’s my issue with D/P thieves)

Well, it’s not like I can stay in the smoke field for too long, I can still be hit while inside the smoke field by someone who is staying outside the field without being blinded. That’s how I kill D/P thief.

And no, I was not complaining because I couldn’t kill them. I can’t kill 2 D/P thieves, but I sure as hell can kill 1

Do you get enraged if I tell you I don’t even know who you are? XD