Guild Wars 2

S/F Fresh Air is still beast against anything that isn’t running a sustained build. It’s not meta, but it’s definitely a lot better than people say it is. Also: a lot more sustain compared to pre patch.

I really don’t like being able to chose 3/5 traitlines, but for S/F FA it did wonders.

Wow, people go crazy once they hear nerf whilst obviously not having read my suggestion at all, thats why it’s completly pointless to discuss this stuff with you guys.

CiS moved to master and changed to Might on stealth + offhand dagger initative reduced by 1 whilst moving Hidden thief to grandmaster and giving it stealth + blind on steal would hardly hurt the D/P meta spec by compensating it with might access from CiS. On the other hand the SA traitline would finally offer things that are attractive for offhand dagger, because right now the only weaponset that can make use of SA is D/P.

You don’t seem to see the grand scheme of balance, cause you’re not thinking outside the box. Simply giving CiS blind on stealth + moved to master tier won’t change anything. Offhand dagger will never be able to rival offhand Pistol this way, thats why the blind needs to be moved to CnD baseline. Thief desperately needs build variety.

Other classes are completly irrelevant in this discussion as they’ll be brought down to a normal level sooner or later. If you’re really thinking this will overbuff P/D or D/D – specs that will never be played in PvP, or S/D, which certainly won’t make use of SA, you’re simply delusional. Also nice to see the hypocrisy in some peoples argumentations: “hurr durr can’t buff dagger offhand for SA cause it might be on par with my beloved D/P SA spec.”

Daendur.2357:

They just have to set Cloaked in Shadow (without the falling dmg part) as Minor Grandmaster. Suddenly x/D will be viable with a blind on stealth, like it was.
There is no need to nerf. Thief needs buff.

I didn’t realize I was talking to a WvW player, not gonna waste my time any longer. Your suggestion would only work on SA, offhand dagger needs a baseline buff though, not just SA.

I’m not intending to nerf pistol offhand, I just want the SA D/P Spec to be nerfed, thats why SA has to be nerfed in one way or another. Trickery and Deadly Arts are completly fine as they are, they’re obligatory for any Thief PvP build anyways. What definitely isn’t fine is the easymode that D/P SA has become. If you don’t want the weaponset to be nerfed you will have to nerf Shadow Arts.

They could buff the kitten out of Critical Strikes and Acro and people would still rather play SA, because of its current design (passive kitten ftw) and its (exclusive) synergy with D/P. A simple buff to CS or Acro won’t change the D/P SA Meta.

I don’t get how you can possibly be against my suggestion, its certainly not the best, but it makes offhand dagger more viable for any spec and only slightly nerfs D/P by not being able to get Hiddenkiller and Shadow Rejuvenation.

Daendur.2357:

laquito.5269:

cut… and a slight nerf to SA D/P… cut

yeah because a nerf to thief is needed …

It is. In order to get any build variety, SA will have to be nerfed one way or another. And this would definitely buff /D whilst nerfing SA D/P, a build that is 100x better than any other thief build atm.

Like it or not, SA is the main culprit of thief balancing ever since the new trait system.

Check my last post for reference.

I get that some people enjoy playing SA builds as it makes thief a lot more forgiveable to play and probably makes more sense from a WvW perspective, but you need to realize that this traitline is completly shutting down Critical Strikes and Acrobatics. Shadow Arts has just too much good passive stuff. You get free condi cleanses in stealth, you’re healed in stealth enabling to reset the fight at will, especially in combination with shadowrefuge and improvisation and your stealths last longer than a normal thief, making it hard to counterstealth. On top of that steal gets you another stealth, which doesnt even need to hit anything and you even take less damage in stealth.

There is NOTHING, literally nothing that could make me choose another 3rd traitline (besides DA and Trickery) than Shadow Arts. Even if they buffed CS or Acro, people will still use D/P SA, because its easy mode and dumbs down thief. The only thing that kept SA out of PVP was the fact that the old trait system forbid it as your damage would’ve been lacking. Now that stats aren’t tied to traitlines anymore and you’re able to max out another traitline, there is no reason to ever move away from Shadow Arts.

Therefore SA needs a nerf, the most obvious traits would’ve to be Shadow Rejuvenation and Hidden Killer. As long as these two skills aren’t changed or moved to the same tier, no one right in there mind will ever play something else than SA in tPvP. Not to mention the whine that SA causes by resetting fights at ease.

CnD gets blind baseline as its terrible in comparison to offhand pistol.

Cloaked in Shadows new function: Gain might on Stealth (old function), dagger offhand initative cost decreased by 1. —> Moved to Master

Hidden Thief: Stealing grants Stealth and blinds the target. —> Moved to grandmaster.

Easy fix to buff any /D spec and a slight nerf to SA D/P by having to choose between Hidden Thief and Shadow Rejuvenation + not making full use of Cloaked in shadows if they possibly take it.

Quadox.7834:

Then DP needs nerfs/changes

Wait, what? Yeah lets make CS D/P even less viable. The only thing that needs to be changed is going back to the old Trait System with 7 possible choices instead of 9.

Other than that you’ll need to nerf SA, because – as of now- it completly overshines any other build.

So the main consensus of non thief players seems to be that we shouldn’t be buffed, because there is one fairly decent build, namely SA D/P, whilst everything else (be it traitlines or weaponsets) just straight out suck.

I’ll gladly trade a hefty SA nerf for any substential buff to CS or Acro and thus remove the passive proc creep that infested this game since the June patch. The main issue is that any viable defense is bound to Shadow Arts, whilst the other traitlines offer absolutely nothing to increase sustain.

It’s an absolulte Nobrainer to pick SA, because it offers so much passive kitten and is just overall so much better than the other traitlines:
- Passive stealth on rez + increased rez speed
- Passive condi cleanse in stealth
- Passive Stealth increasement (1s)
- Stealth on steal
- Reduced damage in stealth
- HEALING in stealth

Like, what the kitten where they thinking when they balanced this class? They nerfed a already Subpar Traitline/ Gamestyle (Acro S/D) and buffed the strongest thief build (D/P SA).

ANet shattered any build diversity by buffing thieves passive defense and completly wrecking active defense. I don’t get how anyone can truly enjoy this game anymore, the June Patch turned every class into Passive Wars 2, theres no active defense whatsoever, the better/more passive your traits are, the more likely your build is gonna be viable.

GW2 has become so casual, you just need to take a look at the meta builds. Neither D/D Ele, nor SA thief, nor Shoutbow, nor cele Necro etc. takes any deeper class knowledge to be efficient, because they’re carried by passive kitten & Vamp Rune. Such a poor attempt to bait new players into PvP ANet, seriously. Promoting cheap eazymode passive builds for any class to dumb down the game even more.

Dave.6819:

i feel ya mate.. i feel exactly the same. tho i totally gave up and re-rolled mesmer. but i dont enjoy it. and i keep thinkin to play Thief again. but whenever i create one and hop into hot join i notice its still the same crap. i’d understand if i’d be a terrible rookie player then i couldnt complain. but now? sorry. i played Thief for so long and i barely used to loose any 1v1s. be it medi guard ir dd ele. even 1v2’s i used to pull out. and now? with same build i can barely survive a 1v1. GW devs should really start thinking something cuz now its really obvious that Thief population is dying. and some people might just quit entire game cuz they cant really enjoy other classes. same as me.. i noticed i play alot less now, cuz i cant truly enjoy Mesmer.

Yeah same here, I also play a lot less than I used to. I really tried to like the changes and make things work, but I simply can’t, it’s impossible. I’ve played S/D thief for almost 3 years straight, but it’s garbage now. Also tried the old Crit strikes D/P, it’s soooo lackluster and weak compared to the old, so that I usually end up rerolling to my Ele. S/F really isn’t meta, but it still feels so much stronger than my thief.

This game is practically dead, the June patch was just the last straw that made a lot of people leave and with ANets inability or unwillingness to adress the obvious problems (see PvP forum), we may aswell quit alltogether and move on. It’s a shame, this game had huge potential but rather turned into Casual Wars 2.

There is no point in playing thief outside of a coordinated team anymore. The class has pretty much become garbage/obsolete ever since the introduction of a third traitline. If it wasn’t for the mobility, teams would probably rather pick any other class, because thieves offer absolutely nothing else. Pretty much any other class has better standing power, damage, team utility, survivability and 1v1 abilities.

The players claiming that thief is in a good spot either don’t play the class or are forum whiners that are responsible for the whole situation. I dare anyone to play non SA thief in PvP and come back claiming that thief is fine. Moreso I dare anyone to play the meta d/p spec outside of coordinated PvP.

We are pidgeonholed into +1 and freecapping for months. I can’t describe how kittening cancer and underwhelming playing thief feels like. You’re basically forced into staying away from fights, especially 1v1’s and just occasionally jump into fights to finish off low targets. Things are even worse outside teamq, if your team loses teamfights or rotates badly you’re basically floating the whole match, as your only strengths are denied by your own team.

Looking at where the game is heading, I personally wouldn’t expect it to change anytime soon. The 3 Traitlines bullkitten practically killed any classes’ weakness for burst damage and thus any incentive to play thief outside of coordinated PvP.

This game has gone full casual, so I wouldn’t expect any major buffs to a class that requires a certain player mindset and balancing environment to shine. From my experience thief players are on average the most competitive oriented players, which just conflicts with the overall casualness that GW2 has become.

Shelved my thief ever since this garbage patch and went for s/f fresh air, a build that feels closest to what thief once was like. Can’t be kitten d playing SA bullkitten, a spec that solely gets carried by tons of passive procs, just like any other meta spec. Jesus christ this game has gone full cancer, thanks ANet.

OneKlicKill.4285:

Marauder D/D isnt even close to viable. War/theif/mes/ranger are tiers above it
Marauder D/f is also kitten poor
Marauder s/f (fresh air) is only slightly better but cannot fill any the rolls of war/theif/mes/ranger. have less survivability, less consistent damge, less mobility.

They are not on the same level as other Marauder classes, there is a lot wrong with Marauder ele.

I love it how all these forum warriors still claim S/F Fresh Air to be bad. If they buff it even more, it will be over the top just like D/D. I’m not scared to fight any pvp build except for D/D ele as fresh air, especially other marauder/berserker builds get rekt vs. fresh air in a 1v1.

The myth of S/F being bad comes from scrub D/D eles that can’t deal with the fact that they actually need to think about their own actions for once while playing fresh air.

It may not be meta as it lacks team support and there are builds that fit better into teamcompositions, but S/F is definitely one of the strongest 1v1 builds if it wasn’t for D/D Eles. ROM would’ve been better off if he played fresh air in ToL instead of bersi warrior, thats for sure.

So ANet, whats broken now? I not only seem to get kitten matchups most of the time (especially in ranked), but my q-times also seem to have skyrocketed, whilst my MMR should be kitten by now because of all the soloqing.

It’s kittening EU Primetime (20:15) and I get 5-7 min ques whilst SOLOQUING in UNRANKED?!?!

SnowCow.5914:

Anet seems to only consider how fun a class is to play, and not how fun it is to play against it seems…

Oh yeah? Let’s see:

A D/D Ele – thats the kitten I don’t like
A Cele Necro – thats the kitten I don’t like
A Burn Guard – thats the kitten I don’t like
A Rampage Warrior – thats the kitten I don’t like
A SA Thief – thats the kitten I don’t like
A PU Mesmer – thats the kitten I don’t like
A Soldier Eng – thats the kitten I don’t like
A LB Ranger – thats the kitten I don’t like

yet I have to play against these comps constantly. Some people’s argumentation is just /facepalm

S/D thief is a spec that – unlike most of the aforementioned builds – actually takes skill to play on a competitive level.

Cynz.9437:

Archaon.9524:

Terrorsquad.4802:

inb4 Anet takes this post seriously and nerfs stealth next week.

buff burning asap.

they may do that for real lmao

yeah….. knowing devs i wouldn’t be surprised…. let’s ignore main issue and nerf something unrelated <<<<their common actions :s

They’re not listening to the players anyway. Might aswell remove anything but D/D Ele from PvP at this point.

Archaon.9524:

Hambow was stupid, spirit ranger was stupid and celestial eles are stupid

Problem is that hambow and spirit ranger didn’t last anywhere as long as celestial eles still facerolling around untouched (Well they actually got buffed on trait patch) after more than 1 year while they nerfed the other 2 main celestial specs (Shoutbow and celestial engi)

But trying to find any logic in this is like looking for water in the middle of the desert…you just gonna get mad for nothing

Yeah I get your point and I agree that all these specs are cancer, but my point is that despite all the hambow and spirit ranger cheese, these builds still had unfavorable 1v1 matchups. Spirit Ranger got wrecked by Hambow and Hambow could be killed by a good thief. Right now you not only have 0 variety in terms of classes and builds, you also got a D/D Ele that doesnt have any unfavorable 1v1 situations and can easily yolo inc 1v2 situations. kitten’s more broken now than it was back then.

Archaon.9524:

meh i remeber CM running triple hambow….dat wasn’t what i would call a good time XD

Dunno, I remember the teamsetups mostly to be: Thief, Mes, Bunker Guard, 1-2 Hambow of which 1 can be switched with a Spirit Ranger or a condi Eng. Might be wrong though. As of now, anything is more fun than min. 2 godlike D/D Eles on any team.

Archaon.9524:

lyssa hambow and spirit ranger were top tier too (Decap engi was meta but not as widely used as those 2)…but they didn’t last anywhere as long as freakin celestial eles

god they had been around for 1 year already…one…kittening…year

Sadly enough Lyssa Meta were one of the better times for GW2 PvP. Despite all the imbalances this used to be the meta I personally enjoyed the most. Also: almost any class had a viable build and no boring D/D Eles – god how I miss this. S/D Primetime.

SoloQ needs to come back. I’m kittening tired of having to play against premades all day every day. It doesnt matter if it’s a 3+2 / 2+2+1/ 4+1 or a full premade, these matches are blowouts and a waste of time.

Anti Class stacking seems to be gone aswell recently. 4 Eles vs 3 Thieves 2 Mesmers – whats up with that bullkitten? This matchmaking is beyond garbage, I’m forced to fight an uphill battle when I que solo. Whoever thought that this would be a good idea is a dog.

Stop evening out the team MMR by putting veterans in the same team with scrubs.

If ANet would finally fix the terrible matchmaking by not stacking odds against you (espeically in SoloQ) and actually made you play with people that are about the same skill/mmr, there would be a lot less toxicity and flame.

Higher MMR players are still expected to carry whole teams of scrubs just to even out the average MMR rating. Not to mention these useless Premade vs. Casual matches. These are just a few problems aside from obvious balancing issues that make people rage. PvP is competition afterall, so if you can’t deal with some banter you better go to WvW or unranked/Hotjoin. Nobody likes losing after all.

The argumentation in favor of ring of fire is quite amusing in here. Sure one could play tankier builds or take some more condi cleanses, but thats still no justification for ring of fire being bugged and applying more burning stacks than it should.

I very well know where the burn application of the skill is, but it seems to bug out on uneven ground as pointed above. This is just as gamebreaking as skills being obstructed or ports that dont work.

The way the Ele & Guard Rings work might’ve been fine pre patch, but now that burning stacks in intensity no one can really argue that e.g. using shadowstep to avoid getting trapped in the ring should net you 3-6stacks of burning that are reasonably long. Burning is broken, no matter how you look at it.

Maybe they should make the skill work just like blinding powder with a 3s pulse intervall, if not thieves might aswell get their original 1s pulse back.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Rom had enough pressure with that build to make it hard for those eles to put out as much pressure as they can, but still. The only way you get more than 5-6 stacks on you is if you played like kitten .

Well, if you’re talking about D/D Ele some of their fire attacks indeed seem to bug sometimes. I’d guess it has to do with ring of fire as I got insta 12 stacks of burning several times already. Using a shadowstep in ring of fire is bugged as hell aswell, often resulting in ridiculous stacks of burning. They can either fix this bug or nerf the skill, but the way it is right now isn’t acceptable.

Tao.1234:

This thread points out clearly one issue:
- People are unable to distinguish Best Class players on Teams and without Teams.

For example, same was with Sizer.

Sure, Sizer was a great Thief in PvP mode.
But he was stomped by loads of people in WvW when he went there.

I hope you’re kidding, because PvP is the only skill indicator that GW2 has. The players mentioned (Lypion, Rom, Amsterdam etc.) are clearly the best warriors in the game, be it with or without a team.

What has WvW to do with this? Whilst Sizer isn’t the best 1v1 player, he’s certainly one of the best thieves mechanically and rotation wise. WvW is some gimmick kitten where you can easily oneshot people. The damage is so much higher and things like Buffs, Stacks and Food contribute to even more imbalances. Give him full asc, buffs and food and he’ll probably win just as much as in pvp.

Why do wvw players still don’t get that PvP is the only place where dueling is on even grounds?

There is no place for this jib jab in a competitive setting. I for once am glad to not see any in an PvP environment, would make me rage even more than I already do. Makes me cringe everytime I get to see one of these people.

Nerfing the signet would hurt any Ele build. I’d start with nerfing the nobrain Dagger MH and from there on we can nerf traits that synergize too well with D/D. A build that braindead simply shouldn’t perform that well, its the same with warriors. Easy going classes/builds should always perform worse than builds with skill depth.

ANet won’t do kitten though, Casual Wars 2.

S:
Shatter Mesmer
D/D + D/F Cele Ele
Burn Guard
Rampage

A:
Medi Guard / Bunker Guard
Necro (DS Tank / Cele)

B:
D/P Thief
Warriors outside rampage
Fresh Air Ele
Engi (anything)

Trash tier:
Any Ranger build
S/D Thief

Cynz.9437:

- rampage needs either duration reduced, CD increased, stab effect reduced or not useable while in zerker stance…. otherwise i think dmg is actually ok, it is elite after all…

Meanwhile most other elites just kittening suck kitten in comparison to rampage:

Thief:
- Basi venom sucks against anything that isnt zerker (also countered by most anti thief traits)
- Daggerstorm LOOK AT ME PLS KILL ME IM JUST SPINNING AROUND
- Thieves Guild dies within 1s, gets oneshotted by Rampage

Ele:
- Fiery GS. It’s okay and has its uses
- Tornado: LAWL LOOK AT ME BEING USELESS FOR 10s
- Elemental: slightly better than thieves guild

Ranger:
-RaO: is ridiculously bad in comparison what rampage does
- Entangle: nothing more than an annoyance most of the time
- Spirit: see Thieves Guild/Elemental

Conclusion:
Rampage is ridiculously OP now, its a kittening nobrainer. Pulsing stability is the worst kittening joke ever, they should’ve left it as it was.

CETheLucid.3964:

snippet

Well If it wasn’t for the terrible long time it takes Dragon Tooth to do damage, I’d say the skill is perfectly fine, but currently its almost impossible to land without a knockdown. I agree its useful for area denial, but making it an AOE spell would also be tempting (no preferance though).

Dragon Tooth AOE:
- Better usabilty infight
- Better Might stacking ability
- Player Can choose Area Denial

This requires an CD increase to at least 8s otherwise it would be too strong (imo).

Personally I would much rather remove the vuln. stacks from Shatterstone and replace it with a 3s cripple. A 2-3s chill is too strong as it is already one of the strongest conditions and cripple would still allow for CC and whats more important imo: It gives scepter more kiteability which it is severly lacking atm.

Flame Strike should be 0.75 with 2s burning
Shatterstone should be 0.5s cast + damge 4s cd
Dragon Tooth should be either AOE or 1s casttime + damage

everything else is fine.

ArthurDent.9538:

Silly post, condi’s are by and large just like power, they aren’t magically applied, they come from enemies hitting you with their skills just like power.

lulz good joke there. Burn Guard does absolutely nothing but blocking through passive play and they’ll still apply 5+ stacks of burning that tick for 2k/s There is absolutely zero active play involved in some condi builds & runes. Condi builds are supposed to be damage over time whilst power builds are frontloaded burst damage. Currently theres barely any difference between condi burst and power burst and if burn ticks for more than 1k/s you know something is wrong with the game.

This is from a perspective of some1 who plays S/F Fresh air exclusively (Ele is not my main tho):

Prepatch S/F – whilst already being strong at 1v1 – lacked defensive utilities to stay alive in prolonged fights or against any form of sustained builds. With the introduction of Stone Heart (which is by far my favorite trait) and Tempest Defense (which is sorta cheap, but pretty much any class has a trait that prevents 1-shotting, except for thief lol) it’s sustain finally feels onpar with other berserker/marauder builds. (excluding mesmers, as they’re OP for now)

Ultimately, stone heart finally prevents getting outcamped in stealth and moreso getting 1 shot once ur obsiflesh/arcane shield is on CD. Personally I think this trait is good as it is, because earth is already your defensive attunement in which you can’t deal high amounts of damage anyway. It fits in well and allows to stay/fight on point a little longer.

Tempest Defense honestly is just another cheap trait that ANet seems to introduce for every class to “prevent” 1 shotting people. As a thief this trait is ridiculously strong if you don’t proc it before attempting a backstab (especally in conjunction with stone heart). I agree its rather bad game design, but you wouldn’t wanna nerf/remove it when pretty much every other class gets to keep theirs. At this point it probably doesn’t even matter if these traits were made to be baseline…

Diamond Skin / Blinding Ashes: Diamond Skin is pretty much the Ele’s version of the old Automatic Response, which completely shut down condi builds once engi’s reached 25% HP. It’s terrible game design when you can shut down any condi damage just by picking a single trait. Blinding Ashes is yet again hilariously strong against classes that are melee centred of don’t have channeled/multiple hits attacks. I think some people underestimate how strong blind actually is and how frequently ele’s access to burning is. ICD should be somewhere at 8s. min.

All in all, S/F ele finally doesn’t feel like the weaker version of Medi guards anymore, though I’d argue that Medi guard is still the better pick for tPvP.

I also experienced a skill delay, this was very noticable when playing thief. Sword porting seems to take ages or not work at all at times, also shadowshot felt A LOT more clunky. Thought I’m nuts or just lagging, but my ping was fine either.

Weirdly enough I didn’t really experience anything like that while playing fresh air.

PowerBottom.5796:

laquito.5269:

Bersi has been the only ever viable amulet for thieves since release, so that can barely be a valid argument.

flawless logic….

1) Just because another class has no build diversity, doesn’t mean ANet shouldn’t try to create more build diversity, of course for all classes!
2) Ele has one very clear and fairly easily fixable problem that is diminishing the build diversity – it’s not that easy for thieves, because it doesn’t only hinge on one attribute being too low.
3) I’d be absolutely happy to see more build diversity in thieves, although it’s my least played class, I don’t see why ppl would argue against build diversity…. This has absolutely nothing to do with balance. Balance can come into play once those basic and extremely obvious things have been worked out. Or is it hard to understand that an ele with not even 11k HP AND a very low armor-pool won’t be viable with any amulet that doesn’t give vita?

My point still stands. Neither thief nor Guard bersi builds will become meta as they share the same low HP pool. No offense, but the word meta already implies that certain team compositions or builds will always be (depending on the current meta) more viable than others. This still doesn’t mean that all of the non meta builds are underpowered, they’re just less desireable/optimal

Your reasoning pretty much sounds like you’re kittened that glass ele won’t be viable/meta (for various reasons). But so will guard and thief, so you either just play bersi ele regardless of viability, or you accept the fact and use another amulet. Pretty selfish to demand a buff exclusively to Ele’s so that they can go glass instead of promoting a base health pool change that benefits any of these classes.

Don’t get me wrong, I love playing my S/F fresh air in tpvp and I’ll definitely try it with zerker amulet, which is a substantial buff to the already insane damage, but 2k more HP in top of that? Come on be realistic.

Edit: Ele already have build variety with semi viable to viable builds, most of them just don’t play them because there are (slightly) better choices. Can’t say the same about Thief builds.

Now we’re talking. Whilst I agree that the HP Pool differences are too far apart from each other, I can only see Mesmers really benefitting from the zerker amulet change. They might have the right utilities to survive on full GC paired with their HP Pool, any other class will still stick to Marauders or a more tanky amulet as they’d be rekt within seconds.

TLDR; Mesmers might take Bersi over Marauders, real slight chance that Medi Guard will prefer Bersi over Marauders (due to Mediheals)

PowerBottom.5796:

But cele and zerker are literally the only amus the ele can use competetively, because of the low HP-pool and no good access to vitality other than through runes.

Bersi has been the only ever viable amulet for thieves since release, so that can barely be a valid argument.

Jekkt.6045:

berserk ele will run around with 11k hp, this is a bad joke and yet again this forces ele to drop damage and go for the less offensive marauder amulet just because the design fail of the low base hp… ele needs 13k base instead of the old number.

How is this unique to Ele’s? Thief and Guard are in the very same boat. Bezerker gets replaced with Marauder and each of them should be fine. I don’t get the problem here, if you wanna play full glass, you’re full glass now with crit damage sitting at about 240%.

The patch hasn’t even dropped yet and people are already crying. The whine is real. Ele’s will still run celes and be fine, they’re the class that most certainly doesn’t need a buff.

Necro design is just terrible which makes them absolutely redundant as a class. Necro is neither fun to play as they suck in tpvp and fullfull no role nor is it fun to play against. Power necros are some gimmick kitten that much like power ranger revolve around spamming 2 skills whilst condi necros will just spam conditions on you without the need to combo certain skills. If it wasn’t for the synergy with some sigils, I’m pretty sure necro would not even have a single semi viable build. (I’m saying semi viable because no matter how you put it – necro isn’t viable in tpvp).

If there was a class to be deleted from the game, I would – without a single doubt – vote for necro, as it feels so out of place in comparison to any other class. It’s a cheap ripoff off gw1 necros that has abysmal class design/abilities and is absolutely annoying/frustrating to play against.

Now I admit, I’m an avid necro hater, but even after almost three years of fighting necros, the fight/outcome still feels completly random. There are barely (if any) key skills to dodge and I’m usually more concerned about some passive procs or random procs than what the nec is actually doing. This is probably also due to the fact that necro still has the worst kittening animations in the game. Every skill of a weaponset seems to have more or less the same animation with only slight differences that aren’t as easy to spot in a fight. Also fear – their trademark condi – seems to be applied so randomly its not even funny anymore. I sometimes get the feeling that necros themselves barely have any control over the utilization of fear.

/rant – take it with a pinch of salt.

Although I agree that rifle is more likely, I’d be much more pleased with sword offhand. Hell, even Torch or Warhorn offhand sound more exciting than a rifle. Theyy also said something along the lines that some professions may rather get an additional offhand / the ability to duel wield an excisting weaponset instead of a whole new weapon, but let’s wait and see what they’ll come up with. I just hope it won’t be a generic sniper-esk weapondesign.

The matchmaking has become so kittening bad, I cannot even put it into words anymore. At this point it doesnt matter whether you que for unranked or ranked, if you’re solo or duo queing you’ll have a bad time because of this ridiculous kittenty matchmaking.

If you’re a decent player or have a decent MMR (apparantly) you’ll get matched up with total scrubs and newbies to even out the average mmr vs a team of 5 mediocre players. I can’t even fathom how ANet could possibly think it would be a good idea to even out matches by matching up experienced players with total newbies. On top of that there are still class dailies that make things even worse as these players are not even playing their main chars and consequently are even more of a burden.

Whilst the old solo/team que system and leaderboards were lackluster and had its flaws, it at least offered incentives to play and had a far better matchmaking system. But what’s the point of playing pvp outside of cups and 5man ques (which has ridiculous waiting times)? There is no kittening reason to que. MM sucks unless you’re queing with 4/5 people, LB are a complete joke, unranked has cancer maps and ranked is filled with LB farmers.

ANet tried to revive PvP and draw more players into PvP with the new matchmaking/post rank change update, but in reality they’ve pretty much killed PvP by putting off dedicated pvp players and promoting casualness

Gabriell.4856:

FG is one of the most broken trait I’ve ever seen. There’s really no point defending it.

The highest skill cap build???? Are you serious? Acro S/D build is the easiest and most forgiving meta build the thief has….And sorry, random dodge because you have extra dodges does not promote skillful play.

It’s comments like these that make me cringe. Just by taking a look at all the passive procs that panic strike build gets carried with completly crushes your argumentation.

One might argue that S/D is easier to play than crit strikes d/p on high level pvp, but panic strike is definitely the easiest thief meta build we’ve had.

Wild Bill /15chars

Cynz.9437:

snippet

Actually, I wasn’t even attempting to flame anybody, didn’t know people are so thin skinned in here as I’m used to much worse.

See, you’re just as biased towards S/D as I am towards D/P. I could argue your opinion, but thats not my point and doesn’t lead anywhere. My point is that it would be a bad idea to take something away from a weaponset that is argueably already worse than D/P and obviously has less skill depth/tricks to it. It just dumbs down the weaponset even more and would need some tricks like the shadowshot into backstab to be fixed aswell.

While the use or abuse of these things may not be intentional, they add depth to the game and subsequently make each class harder to master. I dunno about you, but I’d say thats a good thing and therefore I wouldn’t want the Infil spam or shadowshot trick to be nerfed or fixed. They’re good for high level PvP after all.

Cynz.9437:

there is a lot of skill depth and situation awarness in evade spam xD

if they did fix it, it would be a bug fix and not nerf if anything :P

If you really think D/P Panic strike meta is harder to play than S/D you’re delusional. Some prefer D/P, some S/D, depending on their prefered playstyle, but let’s not forget that D/P already overshines S/D. Not gonna mention how much panic strike gets carried through passive procs.

They could fix it, sure, but then they’ll also have to fix the shadow shot into backstab spam from D/P and the BP into heartseeker port proccing stealth etc. as they’re prolly not intended either, or we just leave things as they are and not completly ruin two weaponsets.

I don’t get the whine here, these weaponsets have some skill depth and knowing these tricks and how to use them is a part of being a skilled player, why do you want to see this being taken away? It’s basically the same with Mesmer GS.

Yeah lets nerf any skill depth and situational awareness of Sword builds.

It’s funny how the hatred for S/D totally blinds some people’s perception. If anything you should be afraid of the new d/p panic strike build.

Kolly.9872:

laquito.5269:

I dunno about you guys, but D/P Panic Strike looks so ridiculously strong on paper now. All the current benefits plus Stealth + Blind on Steal + more ini + Health regen. Guess D/P vs S/D will be even more one sided. kitten’s comedy

You forgot to add + executioner

As of now I’d say that improvisation is the better choice, but they wanted to change every stolen item and take away the damage portion, so it will probably be a straight out nerf, but we’ll see.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The absence of Infusion leaves me skeptical.

Nobody picks infusion of shadows over Shadows Embrace in PvP. It’s already lackluster and only a wvw player would pick it over SE. No offense, but I’m talking about PvP Meta here. :p

The change (nerf) to Feline grace is what bugs me the most. The whole acro tree revolves around damage mitigation through evades, so why are they taking away the strongest trait in the traitline, which kept the traitline alive. I’d rather see it switched with something like Guarded Intention or Pain response.

I dunno about you guys, but D/P Panic Strike looks so ridiculously strong on paper now. All the current benefits plus Stealth + Blind on Steal + more ini + Health regen. Guess D/P vs S/D will be even more one sided. kitten’s comedy

Doggie.3184:

It is past Felice Grace unless you reeeally want the ini boost at 4pts for Dual Pistols, and despite what some people may think, Pain Response is horrible.

Despite what you may think, Pain Response isn’t horrible. It’s the second best choice in Acro right behind vigorous recovery. I’m also pretty sure acro will get the condi remove on evade, which might fit S/D even better. New standard S/D will probably be 6 0 0 6 6 anyway.

The old system, when PvP and PvE armors were still split, was much better than what we have now in terms of identity and showing dedication. As they won’t go back to that, it should be obvious that – if anything – there should be more PvP exclusive stuff. The changes totally smashed everything that PvP players had going for them. Whats left from that? A lousy title for about 50 players of which 2/3 aren’t even playing anymore and a mediocre armor set.