New Weapon sets (and thus new skills)
New utilities
New zones opened
Maybe even a new class
That’s what I want.
The only things that bothered me were:
“Action Based Combat”
Umm, tab targeting. Long CD’s and cast times.
“Monsters Standing Around in a Field Twiddling Their Thumbs”
Their was supposed to be none of that. In fact, everywhere you go, that’s what you see in the open world.
“No quest givers”
Heart quests – ruin half of PvE for me.
The open world itself is arranged in these very immersion breaking rectangles, and on top of that it feels the entire world is too small. The end effect of this is that it scores low on the immersion and exploration scale.
Not enough monster types – everything is repeated endlessly everywhere I go.
Anet promised a massive, open world, but it’s obvious that all they really wanted was to grab a huge share of the MMO market for their Esport PvP game.
I think that decisions motivated by money often have the reverse effect.
If you just make a really compelling, awesome game, then people will come and they will spend money on it.
Everything else about GW2 is amazing.
Despite my criticisms, I feel it is currently the best MMO on the market – but there are some really interesting ones on the horizon, including Black Desert and Bless, as well as anything that pops up for the Oculus Rift (is GW2 going to make an Oculus version? That would kitten!)
I’m about to lvl my 6th character to 80, and I’ve tried dozen of builds on every class.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned in this game is that the current state of balance highly favors offense over defense.
This, in a nutshell, means Berserker’s, Rampager’s, Assassin’s, etc. or some mix of those.
There is the bunker-condition build, which is interesting, but I believe that in the end, the full DPS builds always win out in every situation.
This is a hard lesson to learn while you’re leveling – the game presents so many choices, and so many gear sets, that you always believe that it’s possible to make some non-standard build that incorporates a defensive element into it.
This is not so.
At best, what you do is get a little defense from your ‘off’ offensive stat – for example, my Ele is 30/20/20/0/0 – I get some toughness from the 20 in Earth Magic, but this is coincidental, since I am taking it for the condition damage, not the toughness.
Likewise, I found in any class, first trait for maximum dmg (Power+Cond+Precision, or in rare cases, Pow+Prec+Crit) and stack as much Might and Vulnerability as you can – toss in a Condition, doesn’t matter which one, Bleeding if you’re a Thief, Burning if you’re an Ele or Ranger, and so on, and just hit hard, hit often.
This, currently, is how Anet wants everyone to play.
After a ton of experimentation with Signet of Malice and various gear setups, I finally settled on this:
I went back and forth on mixing in some Apothecary’s to increase the heals from Signet of Malice, but finally decided that the base amount without any Healing Power was enough of a boost to Assassin’s Reward to make the minuscule amount of healing you get from Healing Power not worth it.
The goal was to match or exceed the amount of healing I can get from Withdraw through attacks alone. On a lvl 80 mob in Orr (single target), Death Blossom heals for about 900 (450 from Assassin’s Reward and about 450 from Signet of Malice). Roughly calculating the amount of initiative you’d need to spend to get about the same amount of health from Withdraw (roughly 5 DB’s) comes out to about 20 Init. I believe with the Init recharge traits I have traited, that I can gain more than this every 15 sec. (base 1 per sec, plus Opportunist, Quick Recovery, Kleptomaniac, Infiltrators Signet).
So, the healing out-heals Withdraw and damage is applied mostly through bleed stacks. My estimations on healing were done without considering auto-attack at all – just skills that spend Initiative. With auto-attack factored in, I think that the healing is obviously better than withdraw.
I would mix in more Apothecary gear, if Healing Power were improved – but for now, the life on hit base amount simply doesn’t get enough boost from it – but it’s enough as is to put the total healing over time above Withdraw, which was the concept.
An easier sequence with this build, which is not quite as powerful, but still really effective, and much easier to pull off is to dodge roll towards your target,Activate V of J (in mid-dodge)—>Chains of Light—>Smite—>Shield of Wrath—>Dodge Roll Backward…xxxxxx
(edited by ipan.4356)
Right, in this build, the immobilize is more about building up stacks of Vuln quickly – Smite can be tricky, but I found that if you’re good at leading your target, you can get someone to walk into it – also, everything about this is a running battle, so it’s not like you’re always going to hit with every tick of Smite…..it’s just something to aim for.
With such low CD’s I find I can whiff a few Smites or Orbs and it’s ok. With Two Hd. Mastery and increased Scepter dmg, I do pretty good.
Just thought I’d share this combo, because I’ve never done this much burst DPS on a single target before, with any character, on any build. It’s actually really tough to do outside a trash PvE mob where you can control the circumstances perfectly. The cast time on the Empower is the hardest part, I wish it came with some reflect or retaliation during the cast time to dissuade people from hitting you, but whatever.
And about the cleansing of Chains, you apply Signet of Wrath immediately too, so if one gets cleansed, hopefully the other will stick (and together they both apply tons of Vuln).
Anyway, I’m having fun with it for now, downing most mobs in 1 sec (not counting all the prep time – just from when I hit them with Smite).
It would be so much better if it were an interrupt or a boon stealer.
Again,
The problem isn’t that you can’t make Steal powerful when traited – if you do, what you actually have is a decent shadowstep.
It’s that steal itself – the skills you get – are bad, and largely because of their randomness.
Even if a couple of the skills are good, occasionally, in certain situations, their randomness always makes them bad.
Yes you can trait the “steal”, so that when you use it it does something else good, but that will never make the steal itself good.
Initiative is not an advantage, it’s just an alternative resource cost to CD’s.
And dual skills mean nothing – everyone has 5 skills on their bar – Thieves, over all, have less weapon options than any other class, bringing the fewest number of skills to the table. Especially compared to Ele’s and Engi’s, for example.
Regardless, every player has exactly 5 skills on his left hand ‘weapon’ skill set, no matter how it got there – so dual skills do absolutely nothing, except affect how you build your character. It’s not as if you’re getting an “extra” skill slot, so please stop talking about dual skills as if it’s some kind of unique trick Thieves get.
Sry if the above was confusing, here I try to simplify my explanation:
Using this build:
Begin combat with Staff, and preferably with 25 stacks of Bloodlust.
Dodge roll once before beginning, this will give you 10% extra dmg. from Elusive Power the 25 pt. minor trait in Honor.
Start channeling Staff 4 (Empower)
Just before the channeling finishes, activate Virtue of Justice for 3 more stacks of Might
Next, cast Orb of Light at your target.
Then, swap to Scepter/Focus. This will give you 3 more stacks of Might. You should have 18 now (unless you got Might on crit or hit, could be a little more 18-20).
Immobilize your target with Scepter 3, applying 8 stacks of Vuln.
Immobilize him again with Signet of Wrath (Utility 1) applying 5 more stacks of Vuln.
Assuming none of the Might has run out (because your timing is impeccable, and you hit every skill one after another) you should be at about 18-20 stacks of Might and your target should have 13 stacks of Vuln.
At this point, you could waste a Heal for another 3 stacks of Might – but I usually just hit them with Smite (Scepter 2), and then use Focus 5 (Shield of Wrath) to protect myself (if they’re not dead at this point) – or back up and using Symbol of Swiftness and Line of Warding in a retreating fight.
The healing on detonating Orb of Light would have to be 4-5 times higher before I’d ever consider using it, so why is it so low?
I was just screwing around, and I stumbled onto this build (and in particular, an attack combo):
The combo is:
Swap Weapon to Staff for Might stacks from Sigil of Battle
Staff 4 + Virtue of Justice
This should give you about 18 stacks of Might
Staff 2
Swap Weapon to Scepter/Focus
Scepter 3 (applies 8 stacks of Vulnerability)
Utility 1 (Signet of Wrath – applies 5 more stacks of Vuln – should be about 13 stacks now)
Scepter 2
This really eats up your target. Kind of a pain to set up, especially with the long cast time of Empower – but it really does a ridiculous amount of dmg when you can pull the whole thing off.
Even if you don’t execute every step perfectly, it’s still a ton of DPS.
I usually finish the whole thing with Focus 5 and run away (if my target isn’t dead), or back up while shooting and waiting for another Chains to finish CD.
(Edit: I was a little unclear at the beginning of the combo – initiate combat and swap to Staff if you want to trigger the stacks of Might from Sigil of Battle before beginning the cast of Empower, or trigger it on the Scepter – whatever works for you).
(Edit: Also, one of those Sigils of Malice could be swapped for a Sigil of Bloodlust for even more Power).
(Edit: Virtue of Justice depends on whether you use this variant of the build or not: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUMQNArdWlYgSCXESIEgIFSuA7DEUlC8RfweQgwXGB-jkCBoiCi00RkEBIPtIasFhBp0ZasqlY6XER12bZ1gbIySBwuuK-w ) sorry for the confusion – only difference is I took 5 pts. out of Zeal and put them into Virtues for the Might on activating Justice)
(Edit: Also, forgot to mention, if you use up all your endurance first by dodge rolling before you start the sequence, you’ll do even more dmg)
(edited by ipan.4356)
Horn sounds like a good idea.
Shield 4 is useful – but it is one of the least exciting skills I’ve ever used – pop it for a couple seconds protection on every CD.
Both Torch skills are counter intuitive and hardly feel like attacks – Torch 5 is too similar to the ele’s dragons breath, only with the bonus that it cures conditions. Torch 4 I find awkward using.
I don’t think any of these skills are unbalance or anything, I just think they suck – they’re not fun, and they don’t really make sense.
I like Focus.
Shield and Torch do their job, but I find them boring.
I’m not really sure what kind of off-hand the Guardian needs, but I’d like something more interesting than Shield or Torch.
Confusion would be a cool condition for it too.
Thanks for the feedback guys. Although, for those of you who said that “Hunter’s Call” is not weak:
“Hunter’s Call”‘s damage = 2 x Sword auto chain damage.
Considering Hunter’s Call has a 1.5 sec cast time, and the sword auto chain is 1.5 sec long, you’re pretty much wasting one auto chain cycle to cast 2 cycles.
But – Hunter’s Call affects the target for 6 seconds meaning it has a much worse dps than the sword auto chain.
So… use it in range before you get in melee or don’t use it at all :\
Actually, the advantage is that while Hunter’s Call is dealing it’s damage, you’re also attacking with other attacks (auto-attacks perhaps) at the same time, so it all adds up to a lot of burst that is hard to heal through.
Hunter’s Call is kinda the backbone of my build for this reason.
The Steal itself is pure junk.
It doesn’t matter if you can trait it to make a worthless skill do something.
Every class mechanic can be traited.
It’s not the traits that are the problem, it’s the underlying mechanic that is completely worthless.
Most powerful PvP classes:
Warrior/Guardian/Necro
Updated build:
The primary change is in the Sigils – I’m now using Battle/Bloodlust
(Edit: and also switched Runes to 4 Fire/2 Altruism, for more Might stacks).
(Edit: Switched out LH for Flame Axe – hadn’t realized before that S1 on the Axe grants Might – I miss the Blind on the LG though – wish Flame Axe had at least one defensive ability – I’ll just have to rely on Chill).
(edited by ipan.4356)
I don’t think Hunter’s Call is weak, but I think blind is an excellent idea.
using LH means that you need high crit chance. bolt to the heart (air VI) must have for any dps build. mist form/A shield must have to avoid some melee damage.
glyph of harmony pretty useless, cuz it dosnt remove conditions.
no fury for party, makes 30 in fire useless.
condi food? you dont have condi dmg with cavalier eq. you dont have 30 earth to boost yo condi dmgbad build.
I use LH primarily for the blind at the end of the auto-attack chain (to a lesser extent lightning storm)
With Quick Glyphs and Runes of Altruism I get 6 stacks of might every 20 sec.
I get Fury both from Glyph of Harmony and 5 pts. in Arcane.
Cond dmg? What are you talking about. This build is tons of power/might, and crit dmg
I’ve been playing around with a build that uses Conjured Weapons and Glyph of Storms and a lot of Power.
The weapons sets aren’t that important (because you’ll be using Conjured Weapons 95% of the time), so just use whatever you like the most – I go back and forth between Scepter/Focus (for Dragon’s Tooth and Comet) and Dagger/Dagger. I’ve tried Staff a bit for Meteor Storm, but I didn’t like much else on it. In any case, you will hardly ever use them, so it doesn’t matter much.
I try to Storm people with the Glyph and the Ice Bow – if they close with me, I switch to Lightning Hammer.
Majority of the time I’m in Fire Attunement for the extra damage, but will switch to Water if I’m dying.
Defense primarily comes from Chill on the Ice Bow, and Blind on the Lightning Hammer, as well as the a faster CD Glyph of Elemental Harmony.
Runes are there to get 6 stacks of Might on heal (3 from the Runes, 3 from Fire Attunement), not so much for the Heal Power (if there’s a Power based Rune set that also gives 3 stacks of Might on heal, let me know) – as well as the extra boon duration which should keep Might going for awhile, along with Pyromancer’s Puissance.
Conjured weapons count for Pyromancer’s while you’re attuned to fire (isn’t that great), so you can stack more might, even while you’re CC’ing with the Ice Bow, or hammering people with Lightning Hammer.
Thief, being a mobility based class, should have a minor trait (5 Acro) for 25% move speed.
Steal is really good against Moa’s and Ice Elementals.
Updated build:
Slightly less crit chance (down to 69%), lots more crit damage, and signet of stone instead of vipers nest – and sigil of blood instead of generosity for health stealing.
Steal is the worst class mechanic in the game.
2nd worst is Ranger pets.
I swapped out Viper’s Nest for Signet of Stone.
So, it appears to me that those who “like” steal are saying two things:
They like the shadowstep, and they like the additional benefits they get from traits.
So, why call it Steal at all? Seems like a farce to me.
Just call it Shadowstep.
Sure – I’m just brainstorming.
I hate steal as is, but I find it very difficult to think of anything better, that also remains “stealing”.
Honestly, I think it was a terrible idea to build the Thief around the idea of stealing.
Take away stealing, and what you have is an Assassin. Anet wanted to be “original” – and failed horribly.
I don’t know what the fix is – but boon stealing, or steal-interrupt would be better than what we have.
Could be turned into a boon stealer with a 10 sec cd
The ability needs to be scrapped and start over.
I wish Steal was an interrupt that gave us a version of whatever skill we interrupted.
I think birds (I currently use Owl and Hawk) are decent, but they could really use a little more oomph to make them more competitive.
Maybe a 3 sec. bleed on their ‘normal’ attack?
That’s actually a really decent idea.
On-dodge and on-crit should be the bread and butter for non-Stealth Thieves.
Conditions are a bit out of control in this game.
How about adding a decrease in Condition Duration to the Compassion/Healing Power secondary trait?
Sorry – simple oversight, I thought I had posted it.
d/d skill 3 is for survival for any builds, plus a very nice AoE bleed stacking skill for condition thiefs. It’s good as it is.
No it’s not.
I use this build to soften enemies up as much as possible at range – without using a bow – so that they are at 1/2 health or less by the time I close with a close range weapon (sword and dagger).
The off-hand training gives both Crippling Talon and Hunter’s Call 1,200 range – I’ve essentially got a two long range attacks, though I’m using melee weapons. The CD reduction is also amazing with Hunter’s Call for tons of burst DPS.
I wish Stalker’s Strike got some increased range from off-hand training as well, but it’s still great without it – because I traited for more damage while endurance is full (Steady Focus) I try to rely upon Stalker’s Strike, Serpent’s Strike, and Hornet Sting for dodges, though I grabbed a Sigil of Energy to quickly fill up endurance in the event that I do need to use a dodge roll.
I’m not completely set on the Pack runes, but I’ve been experimenting with different sets, from Mad Kings, to Pack, to Scholars – any suggestions would be helpful.
I don’t think it needs to be “converted” from a condition attack to a direct damage attack – I think it needs to be balanced a little more in favor of it’s white damage so that it is a true “hybrid” attack.
And the animation, evade, and cast time should be fixed so it’s also better defense.
I think that I’ll probably abandon GW2 for the first Oculus Rift supported MMO.
I’m just tired of old.
GW2 did some pretty amazing things – but they also backpedaled on a lot of promises too, and after 6 months it’s become stale, with little hope in sight that they’ll actually fix the core issues.
The problems with the Thief are just emblematic – the Rogue archetype has always been my favorite, but the Thief in GW2 has nearly destroyed the fun I have with it – I’ve never played a Rogue that actually made me dislike it as much as in this game. I used to run a Witch Elf in WAR, and an Assassin/Nightblade/Bladedancer in Rift, and of course, Rogue in WoW, and while each has it’s problems, none of them have actually turned me away from the class as much as the GW2 Thief has.
The entire class is so awkward, so unwieldy, it’s highly frustrating.
For a 30 second CD skill that does a decent amount for a single strike, and a decent bleed on top of that, it’s worth taking.
I do think it could use some improvement (maybe it should chill as well), but I find it rather useful.
It’s also a 1200 range skill – when I run Sword/Horn, I like to soften up my targets at range before closing with them, which is why I use Off Hand Training (increased range on Hunter’s Call, as well as more Call’s with the reduced CD), and Call Owl works great as a ranged attack while I am using Sword.
(edited by ipan.4356)
I’d also like more bird based utilities.
I use Call Owl on my Norn Ranger, because I actually wanted to make a ‘Hawker" style Ranger – I use a Warhorn for Hunter’s Call, and I use two birds. I’d like another utility and an elite based on birds.
@Interceptor
It all depends upon whether certain thresholds are reached.
For illustrative example, if you have two teams, one well rounded, and one completely glass, it’s possible the glass team will mop the floor with the well rounded team, if they can down the entire team in the first volley/exchange – basically, before the ‘roundedness’ has time to kick in.
This is why ranged glass has always been so hard to deal with in an MMO – by going ranged, you get to strike first, and by going glass you attempt to drop everyone with FF’ing before they can anything.
Every game attempts to do something about this, the question is, how well?
In a 5v5 game, where 5 are 100% ranged glass builds, against 5 who are mixed ranged/melee, DPS/survivability, focus firing might be able to take down the most dangerous members of that team (the one with the most DPS) before the accumulative bonuses of being well rounded have time to manifest.
When this happens, the whole game will gravitate towards those builds (as it appears sometimes to happen here – all I seem to hear about is ’zerker this and ’zerker that).
It all comes down to how those thresholds are reached.