Guild Wars 2

I agree with everything Rome said, and I’ll add a few things from a DP perspective:
-after my opening (which can be an opening with or without Steal – I never like to open with Steal on DP unless I know that the added damage guarantee a downed) they usually go into Stealth with Decoy. At this moment, I’ll just swap to Shortbow, dodge the (100% guaranteed) Mirror Blade and Cluster Bomb the area. This will 90% of the times force a Distortion, followed usually by a Healing Skill.
Now, if I opened with Steal, I will use the Stolen ability now and proceed to faceroll them. If I did not open with Steal, I will either try to interrupt the Heal (assuming Distortion is not used or is over before the cast time finishes) or use it right after the heal (99% of the people feel “safe” enough after using their Heal ability so that’s the best moment to use Steal if you are not sure to land it).

I usually dont use any of the utilities to kill a Mesmer (Shatter or Phantasm) in PvP, UNLESS they get the engage on me (it will force a Shadowstep). If the mesmer is REALLY, and I mean REALLY good (99% of the mesmers aren’t), I could also use Refuge on top of them to immobilize them or get a quick Backstab.

Remember, I’m talking from a sPvP perspective. In a true duel (without the need to hold points or without the “clean” engage that usually a Thief can do on a Mesmer) the use of Shadowstep and Shadow Refuge can become more important. However, in a PvP match I almost never have all my utilities ready (since I use them mostly for mobility), so there are more things to consider when engaging a 1v1 with a Mesmer, even if they are an easy prey.

Use Stability.
Use a Teleport.
If you dont have these, you can only be an Engi yourslef → slot them in and do the same to your opponent.

If you use your cooldowns wrong it’s entirely your problem. If you didn’t have an escape ready when approaching a fight against a Slick Shoes Engi, that’s your fault.

The difference is close to insignificant for basically every “meta” thief spec, since none uses Sigil of Battle.
If it takes longer to kill people it’s because you’re playing worse (or they are playing better, or they just swapped Sigil of Battle for Sigil of Leeching for more sustain….)

You will start beating teams with Turret Engis when you activate your brain and stop feeding them in a 1v1.

style.6173:

Teutos.8620:

hihey.1075:

…which is why it’s not a carry class

Carry class means for me, you have a HUGE influence on the outcome of the game. You push your own team over the edge.

And with thief, if you’re good you can keep the enemy team permanently outnumbered at the teamfight OR gank their damage dealers (mesmer, ranger, necro) OR being better than the enemy thief and still outnumber the enemy OR, worst case scenario, let the enemy sacrifice a cap for winning a teamfight.

I agree, that a thief can have the biggest influence on the outcome of a match, and might therefore be the profession with the best option to carry the match.

Still, mesmer has also the option to carry game. Celestrial are just good for zerging around on a node, but as a berserker profession, you have the power to turn the fights into your favor.

Wow. just wow. You think that a thief can carry a game. Usually the thief is the liability of the team. Give me a strong engi any day.

…that’s because an average Engi is usually more useful to the team than an average Thief.
However, a VERY good thief carries games like no tomorrow.

Teutos.8620:

hihey.1075:

…which is why it’s not a carry class

Carry class means for me, you have a HUGE influence on the outcome of the game. You push your own team over the edge.

And with thief, if you’re good you can keep the enemy team permanently outnumbered at the teamfight OR gank their damage dealers (mesmer, ranger, necro) OR being better than the enemy thief and still outnumber the enemy OR, worst case scenario, let the enemy sacrifice a cap for winning a teamfight.

I agree, that a thief can have the biggest influence on the outcome of a match, and might therefore be the profession with the best option to carry the match.

Still, mesmer has also the option to carry game. Celestrial are just good for zerging around on a node, but as a berserker profession, you have the power to turn the fights into your favor.

Mesmer can carry if the enemy team does not have a good thief and if the mesmer hugely outsmarts the enemy thief throughout the whole game.
In a match against a full bunker comp, a mesmer is probably more valuable than a thief, though. But those are really rare. Especially in unranked, I usually find at least one dps class (necro, thief, mesmer, ranger) in both teams.

I’m all for more Minion Masters and less Turret Engis, to be honest. Both are braindead to the bone though.

With Ele nerfed, I think the new “top of the charts” build is Cele Rifle Engi. And don’t underestimate the new Rangers’ Torch buff: it can now cover the whole point, and with Bark Skin+Survival Of the Fittest it would prove a spec very difficult to kill, with a lot of Control due to lots of AoE Immobilizes and condi pressure.

Teutos.8620:

Laserbolt.6731:

I think it’s most likely a combination of the class he is playing (a non-carry class), what time of day, and a low population doing PvP, meaning there is no real matchmaking going on, especially at off hours.

But I will agree that to carry you have to have a tanky class played really well to make an impact. It’s harder than it looks.

I disagree. Mesmers are most of the time fine to carry a match.
‘most of the time’: You need some bulky professions in your team, to hold the point, while you do your job (dps, kill, help with stomp, help with rez, interrupt rez, etc).

…which is why it’s not a carry class
A carry class is a class that can win games by itself. So far, I’ve had this feeling only on Thief and on Cele Engi, because both can roam very well, kill things fast, and have lots upon lots of tools at their disposal to disrupt the enemy plays.
Not even Ele is good at carrying, because unless you have decent players on your team you won’t be able to shine in teamfights. Same for Guardian. Same for Warrior.
In a teamfight, you need a lot of tools that are downed-state oriented. The only one available to Eles is Updraft (or Mist Form, if you slot it, but it requires a big sacrifice in either Condi Cleanse or Bunkering potential). Plus, it’s really kitten Ele to kill things fast OR decap OR keep 2 (decent) players busy for a long time. On engi, you can kite a lot (lots of immunities, blocks, and even stealth), have very good mobility. Can decap ANYONE and keep it decapped for a decent amount of time (you can even full cap if you have Crate ready).
And with thief, if you’re good you can keep the enemy team permanently outnumbered at the teamfight OR gank their damage dealers (mesmer, ranger, necro) OR being better than the enemy thief and still outnumber the enemy OR, worst case scenario, let the enemy sacrifice a cap for winning a teamfight.
Of course, when facing against really good players/teams, this is only true to a certain extent. You can’t really hope to carry a game when you’re against top-tier players if your mates are not good enough. But, for the most part, this applies in most games with average players.

I found the profession you can carry your team the most is a Thief. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like to me, since I usually reroll thief mid game when we’re losing 250-100 and we end up winning.
You have to make smart plays in order to carry your team. Know when you can and you can’t fight. Know when your allies are going to wipe. Always assume that your teammates are going to lose the team fight, and act accordingly. Solo plays (which does NOT mean 1v1s) are extremely important in this game. Know when to decap and when to full cap. You play mesmer, so you can deny stomps (mass Invis) and also have ways of safestomping (f4), use them to turn the odds of a fight.
Though it’s very hard to carry on mesmer if the enemy team has a decent thief.
Still, do you use Portal at all? Usually most mesmers forget to use it even when they slot it in their utilities. Portal is not meant just for going from A to B quickly, you should always set it up somewhere as a personal defense as well.

Anyway, losing 20 games in a row means that it’s your fault. I rarely lose more than 2 games in a row regardless of the class I play (and that almost never happens when I’m on thief). Of course, I’m not counting those games that start as or become a 4v5.

I found the profession you can carry your team the most is a Thief. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like to me, since I usually reroll thief mid game when we’re losing 250-100 and we end up winning.
You have to make smart plays in order to carry your team. Know when you can and you can’t fight. Know when your allies are going to wipe. Always assume that your teammates are going to lose the team fight, and act accordingly. Solo plays (which does NOT mean 1v1s) are extremely important in this game. Know when to decap and when to full cap. You play mesmer, so you can deny stomps (mass Invis) and also have ways of safestomping (f4), use them to turn the odds of a fight.
Though it’s very hard to carry on mesmer if the enemy team has a decent thief.
Still, do you use Portal at all? Usually most mesmers forget to use it even when they slot it in their utilities. Portal is not meant just for going from A to B quickly, you should always set it up somewhere as a personal defense as well.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I have 18 characters and have been in and out of actively playing the past several months, however I’m constantly finding that I’m switching classes more than actually playing the game, especially in PvP. I started the game as a warrior, but as of now the class has become incredibly mundane and I’m unable to conjure up a remotely interesting build that’s effective in the least. Perhaps someone could enlighten me, and maybe help find a love for a single class again?

…and I know that classes are getting a bit of a refresher in the upcoming expansion, however this fact won’t help for the foreseeable future while we’re waiting.

Thanks in advance!

This is my tier of the current meta builds, sorted by how fun they are to play for me(lowest to highest):

Cele Shoutbow Warrior
Bunker Guardian
Spirit/Condi/Bunker Ranger
Cele D/D Elementalist
Condi Necro
Power Necro
Rabid Engi
Cele Staff Elementalist
Cele Rifle Engi
Soldier Hambow
Shatter Mesmer
DP Thief

I have never played Mediguard, and all the other zerker classes are food for thieves/mesmers so I don’t consider them viable.
What I find more fun is the ability of a certain class to make “plays”, as in “things that may change the outcome of a battle”. Thus, the lack of CC or control skills usually make a class incredibly boring to play for me (shout warrior). I believe it’s useless to speak about how many plays you can make with a thief or mesmer. Engi is rated high as well, because safe stomping/rezzing (with Elixir S) stomp denying (with Throw Elixir S)CC is very fun to play. Bunker guardian is very boring. D/D Ele is boring as well because it’s an incredibly mindless profession to play that completely plays by itself.
Necro borderline, because when you start being focused it’s just annoying as hell. Power is funnier though, because of big numbers on Wells, but the CD is very high.
Hambow is kittened and easy to play BUT when you land your full Hammer chain you almost get a kitten (especially when you worked so hard in counting and baiting enemy dodges).

Very happy of these changes to be honest.

foste.3098:

The only down side is the detonation costs 1 initiative

This is wrong.

Haven’t seen this mentioned in the patch notes.
Has this been fixed or not?

Maybe you were fighting on point on Temple and the other team got the bottom buff?

ArrDee.2573:

PS Also blame Anet for having just THE WORST matchmaking in the history of games with matchmaking!

Believe me, there are FAR worse matchmaking system than this one. The most recent example is Halo:MCC in which there were games which were supposed to be 4v4 that became 7v1 :/

On point, I think the Engi would win. Worst case scenario he will decap the point.

Air+Fire all the way.

ArrDee.2573:

hihey.1075:

ArrDee.2573:

Plus a DD Ele that stays in air attunment just to spam Lightning Whip deals poopy damage even with 25 might and will die! Guaranteed!

Are you joking? At 25 Might stacks, Lighting Whip deals more damage than a lv1 Eviscerate, more damage than a Larcenous Strike, more damage than a Cluster Bomb, only 20% less damage than a Backstab on the back, and close to the same damage as Maul.
And we’re talking about an autoattack.
Of course, all this while healing for 1k HP per second (Soothing Mist+Regeneration+double Signet of Restoration proc).

???? lol
Lightning Whip hits for 700 on the light target golem at 25 might stacks!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

It hits for 800, twice. That’s 1.6k dmg (not crit) per auto.
20066 SD Thief build hits the same golem for 1.6k with Larcenous Strike (not crit), 1.5k with Clusterbomb (not crit).

I do admit I was wrong with the Eviscerate calculation though XD

But let’s not digress from the matter at hand – Lighting Whip does A LOT of damage, you can’t let an Ele autoattack you for long, else you’ll melt.

Chaith.8256:

hihey.1075:

kokiman.2364:

You can basically admit that you exploit a certain mechanic and won’t even get banned?

It was pretty clear from basically every GW2 stream that any “high-level” DD Ele uses the stow weapon trick.

Still, I can easily point out who macros it and who doesn’t. Very few people DO NOT macro it actually. And I think this is an even better reason to look into it.
I don’t think increasing the cast time of Lighting Whip would be a bad thing to do honestly. This way, even if you stow weapons you won’t be able to get the double proc of Signet of Restoration. Watching D/D Eles going back to FULL HP in 4seconds after tanking a crit, Steal+Backstab combo is just ridiculous.

#balance #esports

Very few people do not macro it? This is false in my experience. I don’t know of any Ele who used a macro, especially when all it involves is tapping the stow button at regular intervals – easily done with muscle memory.

I know you like to think you have seen a lot of pixels, and can tell a macro user when you see it, but it’s clear you’re basing your claims on hot air, just to further damage Ele players reputation & create unrest. Not cool man. Nobody needs to macro tapping a single button at average intervals.

I haven’t pointed the finger at anyone (and I won’t do it). You can easily tell who is macroing it and who isn’t by the amount of time between each Lighting Whip activation. Since it’s an autoattack (and, as such, spammable) you can see the frequency of its activation pretty often during a fight.
Now, we’re all humans. Even Helseth does not do the GS#1 stow weapon trick perfectly EVERY TIME. But, for some reason, most of the DD Eles I found had exactly the same interval between each activation. See it in a “how fast can you stow weapon?” way: if the interval is the same everytime they do the autoattack, then it’s macroed.

Of course, I’m talking about people that know/use this trick. Luckily, only a limited amount of players do it regularly (at least in EU).
What I’m saying is, of the people that use this trick, most of them (or, at least, most of the people I fought in the last 5 days) macro it.

ArrDee.2573:

Plus a DD Ele that stays in air attunment just to spam Lightning Whip deals poopy damage even with 25 might and will die! Guaranteed!

Are you joking? At 25 Might stacks, Lighting Whip deals more damage than a lv1 Eviscerate, more damage than a Larcenous Strike, more damage than a Cluster Bomb, only 20% less damage than a Backstab on the back, and close to the same damage as Maul.
And we’re talking about an autoattack.
Of course, all this while healing for 1k HP per second (Soothing Mist+Regeneration+double Signet of Restoration proc).

kokiman.2364:

You can basically admit that you exploit a certain mechanic and won’t even get banned?

It was pretty clear from basically every GW2 stream that any “high-level” DD Ele uses the stow weapon trick.

Still, I can easily point out who macros it and who doesn’t. Very few people DO NOT macro it actually. And I think this is an even better reason to look into it.
I don’t think increasing the cast time of Lighting Whip would be a bad thing to do honestly. This way, even if you stow weapons you won’t be able to get the double proc of Signet of Restoration. Watching D/D Eles going back to FULL HP in 4seconds after tanking a crit, Steal+Backstab combo is just ridiculous.

#balance #esports

I’m totally enforcing doing it on mesmer. At least it adds a much needed source of damage to this game.
But doubling Ele’s sustain is just…

glock.6590:

Mesmer and thief are not that hard to be honest. I played engi ( usually thief) for the recent days and its not as faceroll as people think even if you’re celestial. The only faceroll thing about cele engi is the supply crate, without crate it really has a high skillcap.

I cant talk for cele ele but cele engi is definitly not faceroll if you dont crate your 1v1’s.

I play thief and it took me one day to learn how to play cele engi at a “decent” level – that is, just try to survive and let automatic procs kill your opponent.
The playerbase is definitely terrible at this game though.

Getting immob in midair is probably one of the most common reasons for my deaths in pretty much any gamemode that is not PvE.

It’s so common that it almost doesn’t make me mad anymore.

The best is when you get Entangled while jump dodging. I can literally just go AFK for 30s when that happens (5s for dying+5-10s for getting stomped+15s respawn timer).

Totally agree with Caed’s above post.

Haven’t watched the video yet so won’t comment on it

If you do it fast enough, there is no DPS loss in Lighting Whip stow

You can easily power rez a guy with and deny any sort of stomp (unless they slot quickness).
Gawd, players nowadays really like to turn off their brain

I can’t live without Trickery when I play thief anymore.
WvW, PvE, PvP… doesn’t matter: wherever I go, my build always has 6 points in Trickery and 2 points in Deadly Arts (for Mug).

Feirlista Xv.1425:

System freezes are most likely a hardware issue, over heating, under rateded or failing power supply, or bad memory,

As I stated in my opening post, no other game has EVER given me such problems.

Temperatures are way below the standards, since the cold weather outside helps reducing the heat.

I’m firmly put on the problems being game related. The only freeze occurs on the screen – audio and all other processes keep going in the background, and the game resumes by itself after a while.
In the past (and I mean veeery long ago) I had hardware-related issues that gave me freezes, but they were completely different than the ones I’m experiencing now. Plus the added fact that a friend of mine is having the same issues kinds of “reassures” me.

After the December 12th patch, I keep experiencing random freezes of the game. They appear in every game mode (PvE, PvP, WvW) and can last from 1s to 5s.

Apparently, I’m not the only one with this issue as other friends of mine have started experiencing the same problems after the last patch.

I play on a
i5 4670
GTX 760
8GB RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate

I’ll also add that all my drivers are updated to the latest version and I have not changed anything on my PC after last patch – so it definitely is something related to the game.

Keyboardwarrior.8021:

hihey.1075:

“Im looking specifically for something that can effectively guarantee a kill on a specific target as long as I take the time to keep hitting him over and over” – any thief builds can do that, but the thing is, you won’t be able to kill any decent bunker in a reasonable amount of time with any build.

D/P 60206 can usually oneshot enemy zerker classes and poses a huge treat on any class if you get the jump on them while they’re busy fighting your allies.
S/D is more of a “get in, burst, get out, peel->start over”.
D/P is something like “get in->get out->shortbow”.

You said one shot, I guess it’s a group of skills combo, what’s your rotation from one skill to next in this “one shot”?

(Assuming you are in Stealth, which you can easily gain access to with Black Powder→Heartseeker)
Just cast Basilisk Venom, choose a target, get on their back and press Backstab+Steal (the latter 0.3s after the Backstab animation started).
If the backstab crits, that’s an easy 5-6k on a zerker. Add Steal (2k). Then proceed to auto for the duration of the Venom. With luck, you’ll be able to land 1-2 autos and proc Air+Fire/Blood sigil (2-2.5k dmg from sigils, 2-3k dmg from autos).
Usually, any zerker thief/mesmer/ele/ranger will either die or be at very low HP if they get a crit backstab from the back while unaware of your presence, so that’s a very quick kill.

However, you’ll find out by yourself that getting the chance to oneshot an enemy is VERY rare. With DP, unless you get the jump on your enemy (again, it’s rare), you’re better off just landing that final burst that drops your target from 50% to 0% and then proceed to stomp/shortbow/go away. Mechanically it’s quite easy though, but the Thief profession is all about “improvisation”, positioning and timing.
Anyone can go around and oneshot (bad) people in hotjoin/unranked. Very few actually live to tell the tale afterwards

“Im looking specifically for something that can effectively guarantee a kill on a specific target as long as I take the time to keep hitting him over and over” – any thief builds can do that, but the thing is, you won’t be able to kill any decent bunker in a reasonable amount of time with any build.

D/P 60206 can usually oneshot enemy zerker classes and poses a huge treat on any class if you get the jump on them while they’re busy fighting your allies.
S/D is more of a “get in, burst, get out, peel->start over”.
D/P is something like “get in→get out→shortbow”.

I press both keys at the same time to be honest, but I have both Dodge and Jump mapped on my Mouse.
Do you, by any chance, still use Double Tap to Dodge? Because it’s a tad harder if you dodge that way (still doable – I started Jump-Dodging when I was still using double tap to dodge)….

That “Top Men” sounded really creepy

I use S/P all the time while roaming in WvW or when I occasionally PvP. It’s definitely worse than both DP and SD, but I find it extremely fun to play, and that’s the most important thing.

4000 hours, no precursor

Shadow Embrace swapped to Last refuge? That would be an extremely imbalanced buff. Despite how much I hate Last Refuge, there’s no way I’d accept a change like this.

No way a DD Ele loses to any meta DP builds in a 1v1.
The only way a DP can possibly beat a DD Ele is if he manages to get a clean engage (which means, a Crit Backstab+steal from the back). If this is met, then the DP might have a chance. Otherwise, the DD should always win. If he doesn’t, it means the other player is way better.
Of course, assuming a 1v1 fight, there’s no way the DP will get a clean engage; but in a PvP match it is quite possible.
Either way, a DP thief should never attempt to 1v1 a DD Ele in a PvP match.

To be honest, all I see here is more and more people jumping in the qq band wagon as soon as they lost a game. What surprises me is that even people that played in a premade cone here to complain.

Really, start getting better instead of complaining.

The problems we have now are infinitely smaller than the ones we had before. I had matches with leavers, but you can’t do anything about that. At least no match started with uneven numbers, which is great.
Courtyard has its problems but the fact that everytime it comes out more than 50% of the votes are for it, it means that people want another game mode badly.
Lol to those saying that courtyard is a zergball. At least crap like turret engis, Hambows and mm necros are terrible there.

I agree with the fact that some people want to soloq without worrying of finding any party in the match, but I was actually surprised of the existence of that in the first place. Games like Dota do not have a mode like that.

Maybe they should increase the research time, so that you get matched with other lone wolves for the first 30s, and if this fails it then proceeds to search for premade groups.

Working better for me now: we (5) played 6 matches and each one had at least a group of 3 in it, with 2 against premades and one against 4+1

You mean piles of bloodstone dust, right.

KICKER.3874:

If you run far enough to get out of combat to get full HP and come back you’re just as pathetic as using gem store buffs.

If the enemy FP let’s any player run far enough from the clash to get ooc, then they are as pathetic as skyhammer farmers.

Darnis.4056:

hihey.1075:

It’s unranked

No. It’s Not.

I thought it appeared only on unranked…
My Bad if it doesn’t. Then it absolutely needs a fix :/

I don’t get the Courtyard hate. It’s unranked, who cares?

Dunno, played it tonight with 5 thieves and despite finding a lot of AoE spam we always roflstomped them because we could oneshot them by coordinating our burst and then range with sb.

I do agree though that it’s really hard for a team to change the outcome of the match once the match is in progress. It’s either complete steamroll or utter defeat.

Chain HS 4x into a BP from afar so that you can safely close in to them.
Then it’s only a matter of not wasting your skills. Don’t open with Steal. If you get knocked back by Point Blank Shot, use Steal to interrupt the Rapid Fire. If you get knocked back again, use Infiltrator Signet to go back I’m their face. If they pop their invuln, go in stealth (you can also use refuge for this).

If they start with 100% life force it’s gonna be a tough battle and really difficult to win unless you are Shadow Arts or unless you greatly out skill your enemy.
That said, these are the steps you need to follow:
-don’t miss your Basilisk Venom and your Stolen Ability.
-use Steal wisely, which means as an interrupt.
-keep them pressured by spamming Shadowshot or Black Powders on them and going in/out of their bodies.
-dodge Dark Path and the final blow of Tainted Shackles.
-interrupt the heal
-if you need to use Shadow Refuge, use it when they don’t have Life Transfer ready. The best moment to use it is when they have any spectral skills activated (like the automatic Spectral Armor at 50% hp).
Do not waste dodges.

You can get stealth with DP by using Heartseeker (#2 skill) after having dropped a Black Powder (#5 skill). You can chain up to 4 Heartseekers in the Black Powder field so that’s a good 10s of stealth.
DP is superior because it has more utility in PvP: blinds, interrupts, gap closers, stealth on demand. The only good thing of DD is the burst, but in PvP the damage of Cloak and Dagger is way lower than in WvW, so the damage difference is not so high.

Now! Wearing them for new year’s eve would be absolutely fabulous!