Second Child
(edited by mango.9267)
Bunker builds are fine. You trade significant dps for increased survivability.
Condi builds are more problematic because you don’t really trade survivability for dps. With dire gear, you pretty much get a low-risk high-reward build. And given the nature of condi application and duration, the playstyle is often very passive.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Anet balances around small-man WvW play. In zergs, condi builds are underpowered. In a legitimate 5v5 death match, power builds are better.
Second Child
People complain when they get the same matchup over and over again against servers as close to their strength as possible. Now they complain when the variety they asked for gives them blowout matches.
Never ending cycle.
The thing is, variety and balance aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s not surprising that people want both.
NA Silver in T3/T4 was getting pretty close to having both, with 5 servers (would have been 6) of equal-ish population. Different matchups each week, but not none of them huge blowouts.
Then Anet had to go and announce another season, for whatever terrible reason, upsetting the equilibrium once more. Now we get these terrible lopsided matchups.
Second Child
Need this back too:
LOL’d pretty hard at that.
+1 to implementing this.
Second Child
Let’s be perfectly honest, no one spawn camped for the loot or xp. If they really wanted that, they’d PvE. Spawn camping is done for a number of other reasons: strategically cutting off reinforcements, preventing a breakout on your map, flexing your e-muscles, trolling an enemy server you dislike, among others. Removing loot or xp will do absolutely nothing to reduce spawn camping.
And, really? Kill trading? Just about no one does that. Again, the reward is too poor for anyone to consider this a viable way of leveling or making money.
Second Child
stealth shoud have some minimal visible effect like this
http://allthisrunningaround.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/predator_camouflage.jpg
and remove revail from game
That’d be interesting, kind of like how it looks like if you look at a stealthed party member? (you should try fighting an enemy thief whilst they’re in your party, it’s exactly like what you’re suggesting)
That would probably be alright, no red name and still “cloaked” enough to remain hidden if you wanted to yet still allow eagle eyed opponents to track you.
What? No, that’s a terrible idea. Then they could still target you, attack you, and see exactly when you’re behind them. Might as well not stealth if that were the case.
Second Child
What’s your build?
I would highly advise playing P/D dire. Not only will you be contributing to the cancerous condition meta, but you also won’t be learning some of the most important thief fundamentals: positioning, bursting, and disengaging. P/D dire is just too forgiving and too easy to play.
This is the build I use, just with a couple of changes since I last posted it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/WvW-Roaming-Havoc-Build/first#post4254302
I changed some of the sigils, and went back to 20606. But it’s mostly the same.
So it looks like your problem is that you won’t be putting enough pressure on your enemies. For thieves, defense often comes from strong offense. If you put enough pressure on your enemies, they’ll be blowing defensive cd’s instead of dpsing you down.
I recommend swapping out Long Reach for Thrill of the Crime, and swapping out your runes for Pack or Strength. If you spend more time on S/D, 20606 should be fine, but if you find yourself mostly using D/P, consider 26600. I’d swap out Blinding Powder for Infiltrator’s Signet. You already have a ton of stealth from D/P, and IS can actually help you escape by targeting a far away mob and porting 900 units, on top of being a stunbreak.
You’re currently missing quite a bit of power, and your crit chance is on the low side, especially since you have no fury. Note that Pack runes will give you near permafury and basically permaswiftness in combat, so that could also help with your survivability.
Again, I highly advise AGAINST playing P/D dire. It’s too forgiving, and you never learn the thief fundamentals.
Second Child
(edited by mango.9267)
Yes. Boon copying is too unreliable when you can’t copy your own team mates. And the reliable reflect on the old Mimic would be more than welcome now.
Second Child
40+? wait till u see SBI this season. 24/7 queue blobs
What time is that happening? Outside of reset night, I only see EB with a queue for a couple hours during NA primetime. Did we get an influx of SEA players or something?
SBI has always had SEA players, but they’re usually PvE’ing. They didn’t WvW consistently in the past, but now that the season is upon us, they’ve been going hard. Not sure if they’ll continue raiding, but they sure as hell queued during SEA this weekend.
That said, alvinjason isn’t quite correct. SBI blobs pretty hard for most time zones, but they’re actually still quite weak during OCX, where they have a skeleton force in EB and their BL.
Second Child
Who.. does that? Really? Since when did thieves use HS+Steal, that’s.. no, you just didn’t. I don’t believe you. I’m trying so hard to not insult people who did this, but it’s really difficult.
I can’t tell if you’re joking…
Covering your heartseeker with a steal is one of the staples of thief gameplay — nearly everyone does it. A very standard combo is black powder, heartseeker, steal, backstab. Prevents a number of counter-maneuvers like opponents CC’ing you or bursting you at the end of your heartseeker. Also makes it so you gap close from a much greater distance.
I’m at work at the moment so I can’t check this but I also believe that Withdraw doesn’t cancel Daggerstorm. Pretty sure it used to.. I’ve had to blow a dodge just to use Withdraw, and then sometimes I get stuck in a spinning animation.
Dodges no longer cancel dagger storm, and you can’t use withdraw while dagger storming. The best way to do it now is to hit your stow weapon key.
Second Child
What’s your build?
I would highly advise playing P/D dire. Not only will you be contributing to the cancerous condition meta, but you also won’t be learning some of the most important thief fundamentals: positioning, bursting, and disengaging. P/D dire is just too forgiving and too easy to play.
Second Child
2. dancing dagger should stun (1/4s) the first opponent when hit from the side/behind, increase the damage by 5% and initiative cost to 4.
Disagree. Dancing Dagger is used to break aegis and blinds. If anything, I’d prefer it to do less damage, cost 1 less initiative, and travel faster (or at least hit more reliably). Make it a projectile like Trickshot that won’t get “obstructed” by a slight incline in terrain.
I actually think the bigger problem with D/D is that Poison is somewhat underpowered as a condition. It doesn’t scale enough with Condition damage.
Poison is extremely powerful as a condition. It’s the only way you’ll kill a lot of bunker builds.
Second Child
The debate here is pretty obviously split by tiers.
T1/T2/some T3 servers have enough players without the AP hunters, so the new achievement system is good for reducing queue time and preventing PvE players from taking spots from WvW players.
For just about everyone else, we needed the PvE players to re-invigorate the (very stale) WvW scene and bolster our numbers to give us a fighting chance against larger servers, so the new achievement system really hurts.
Second Child
I use this with strength runes on shatter. You definitely maintain some decent might with it, and the endurance regen is only a plus.
Second Child
D/D thieves have been suggesting changes to Death Blossom for as long as I can remember. I think we’re all under the consensus that it needs a buff to make D/D a bit more viable.
Second Child
I think RF needs a bigger tell, like a killshot, eviscerate, heartseeker, etc. I don’t mind dodging it, but it’s too difficult to distinguish between RF and the other arrows LB rangers are firing at you. Fighting a group of LB rangers makes it even harder.
Maybe have them glow red or change the way they hold the bow or something. Right now, with so many LB rangers running around, it’s pretty hard to dodge the LF before realizing you’re getting hit and eating most of the damage.
I’m actually legitimately surprised you have a hard time differentiating Rapid Fire from the auto attack. It makes a fairly distinct sound due to the arrows being fired off at such an incredible speed, and even in crowded team fights with AoE blasts going off I can usually tell when there’s a flurry of arrows coming at me as oppose to a single arrow.
I don’t play with sound on, so that might be part of the problem. And when fighting so many LB rangers, there are arrows flying every which way, so it gets pretty hard to differentiate. The way I dodge attacks is by looking at the enemy player, and the RF animation isn’t very distinctive.
Second Child
I think RF needs a bigger tell, like a killshot, eviscerate, heartseeker, etc. I don’t mind dodging it, but it’s too difficult to distinguish between RF and the other arrows LB rangers are firing at you. Fighting a group of LB rangers makes it even harder.
Maybe have them glow red or change the way they hold the bow or something. Right now, with so many LB rangers running around, it’s pretty hard to dodge the LF before realizing you’re getting hit and eating most of the damage.
Second Child
Two unrelated bugs.
1) The asura summon 7-series racial elite is hitting upwards of 40k damage on players and 20k damage on paper gates.
2) For those who have full mortar mastery, if you get off the mortar or get interrupted while using the ground targeting 5 skill to turn it, all the mortar skills become locked on that mortar indefinitely. So far, the only way I know to “fix” the mortar is to have the person originally on it go back and finish the turn. Otherwise, no one else can use that mortar again.
Second Child
I haven’t encountered many engi’s running it. To slot it, they have to give up a kit or another good utility like Rocket Boots. It’s a similar situation with rangers.
Pretty much the only time you’d take Sic Em or Utility Goggles is if your intent is to go around ganking thieves. If they’re spec’d specifically to deal with you, you’re better off not engaging anyway.
This may change after people settle into new builds, but I don’t really see it being a problem right now.
Second Child
Man, all of you crying about LB rangers haven’t seen DB yet. Two of their guilds run 90% LB rangers, no exaggeration. We’ve run into zergs of exclusively LB rangers.
YB had a Ranger night last night. It was fun but get on top of a LB ranger… that is a dead ranger.
Works well in theory, but when there are that many rangers, you’re bound to eat some Point Blank shots from the other rangers and get Rapid Fire’d to death. Wouldn’t work well against a proper zergbusting comp, but it sure annoys the hell out of roaming groups like my own.
Second Child
Man, all of you crying about LB rangers haven’t seen DB yet. Two of their guilds run 90% LB rangers, no exaggeration. We’ve run into zergs of exclusively LB rangers.
Second Child
Lol the Asura golem racial is hitting 40k+ on enemies and 20k on paper gates. Absolutely ridiculous. A zerg of asuras running the golem elite will destroy a gate faster than 3 superior rams, probably faster than an omega zerg as well.
Second Child
If you trait, you can get 3 with mantra, there’s GS 5 knockback, chance on Chaos Storm, offhand sword 4 (double tap), pistol 5, focus 4 pull, and Diversion (3rd shatter). There are a lot of options for interrupt. What “more” do you want?
Something to save us from 1500 range. None of those interrupts will do anything for you if two rangers catch you offguard. I’d really like the old Mimic back; see arrow flying at me —> mash Mimic.
Second Child
I disagree with the change. With the golem buffs, it just becomes too easy to steamroll smaller servers.
The solution suggested previously was to allow bannering the lord, but prevent the cap progress from resetting. I think that’d be a much better compromise than simply removing lord bannering altogether.
Second Child
EK is looking to adopt Jessica Boettiger to make up for ram finishing her off a cliff
Oh God, that was you guys? Lmao, I approve of this idea.
Second Child
I agree. Would prefer the old Mimic to the new one. The LB rangers are cheesing hard.
Second Child
:(
So much for those skirmishes near SM. Loved using the walls for free CnD’s.
Second Child
Update: this is almost game breaking for me. It’s almost impossible for outnumbered groups to win without stomping quickly. My party remembers all report having the same problem.
Second Child
Previously, if your traps did any damage (i.e. Needle Trap), they’d reveal you on activation. Unless Anet fixed that, the stealth on trap wouldn’t be very reliable.
Second Child
There are multiple posts about this issue in the Game Bugs section.
It’s nothing to do with terrain or lag, to my knowledge. A number of players, myself included, simply can’t start the stomp animation or have to wait a few seconds to start it.
Second Child
Title is self-explanatory. After downing someone, I can’t start the stomp animation. I also don’t get the red “Finish Them” icon next to the body. Takes me a few seconds of walking around the body before I can finally start the animation.
Is anyone else having the same problem? Most of my friends seem to be stomping fine.
Second Child
“Viable” could mean any number of things. Will you be able to kill mediocre players with it? Yes. Will it be as strong as a pure dire set? No.
The benefit of running a condi build is that you get to be fairly tanky without sacrificing much dps, due to the way condi’s work in this game. With a rampager set, your dps won’t be much higher, but you’re far, far squishier. Condi thieves don’t really gain much from crits (as opposed to engi’s or mesmers), so precision isn’t that important.
P/D as a weapon set contributes almost nothing to team-play, so you can forget about it there.
Second Child
As of now, I don’t think any of the T3 servers (including CD) want to go to Gold. At least from CD’s posts on the forums, it seems they’ve also decided to take it easy this week.
If Anet manually intervenes, one of the T3 servers will field a lot of angry complaints.
Second Child
Not sure about SBI. But as far as only having pugs. YB lost most of its guilds right before Season 2. So it was mostly pugs for S2, and our standing actually improved.
If SBI still has its commanders and a lot of pve players turn out, they can still ppt well.The issue with SBI is just the focus on EBG. If they actually learn that there are other maps they can take Silver:D
To my knowledge, some of SBI’s better pugmanders have quit (including Bannok). And very recently (end of last week, beginning of this week), most of their WvW guilds are leaving or considering it. I’m not sure when or where or if it’s still happening, but that’s the hearsay going around on the forums.
Second Child
The last time we made this thread in S2, it got banned. Hopefully, it won’t happen this time.
First, you guys are putting SBI too high up there. They’re losing most of their WvW guilds (supposedly) and will devolve into an almost entirely pug server.
Second, IoJ would probably still beat any of the T5 servers on coverage alone. BP lost some SEA, and even with NSP’s new OCX guild, they’re still fairly weak in OCX/SEA. I realize NSP is going hard this week, so we’ll see if that assessment changes during seasons.
Lastly, no one is “overestimating” YB. YB has actually received a non-negligible number of players from other servers (no specific guilds that I’m aware of), and we’ve all seen YB go overtime — foregoing sleep, hygiene, and real life responsibilities to win. Although YB may have fewer individual players than other T3 servers (a questionable claim at this point), it certainly doesn’t lack player-hours logged during seasons.
Second Child
Anet won’t do anything because they’re afraid of setting a precedent of manual intervention.
It is too late for that. There was a match one week months ago where Anet manually intervened for T8.
They adjusted the glicko ratings manually for FC/ET so SF could climb out of T8. That is if I am remembering properly that was quite a while ago. The problem there was SF could not beat ET AND FC (simultaneously) enough to actually gain the rating to climb.
Ironically Maguuma is obviously in a similar position in that ticking +5-20 ppt for long periods of the day is not enough to drop….
Interesting, but I assume they did this during off-season? Cause they sure as hell didn’t do anything to adjust SoR’s Glicko before S2, forcing a Bronze-tier server to suffer 9 weeks of hell in Silver.
Second Child
Anet won’t do anything because they’re afraid of setting a precedent of manual intervention.
It is too late for that. There was a match one week months ago where Anet manually intervened for T8.
What happened? I’m completely in the dark about that.
Second Child
I think the problem with shatter build diversity is that, to get the most out of it, you’re almost forced to trait x/4/x/x/6. Traiting 6 into Chaos or Inspiration for the support shatter traits makes you a mediocre support that probably shouldn’t be slotted in over a guardian.
Shatter’s team utility seems shoehorned into two roles: high aoe burst and boon strip. If a shatter mesmer didn’t perform these two roles, I’d probably opt to take another class. To that end, you’re almost forced to take Deceptive Evasion, Illusionary Persona, and (probably) Shattered Concentration. Other shatter variants are probably viable for niche circumstances, but suboptimal for high-level group play.
Second Child
(edited by mango.9267)
This isn’t the first time. Servers have collapsed/got bandwagoned after getting tier-locked before. Happened to IoJ and FA in S1.
Anet won’t do anything because they’re afraid of setting a precedent of manual intervention. Probably afraid it’ll open the floodgates where thousands of players request that their server be moved to a different tier.
Really, the problem is tier-locking. It was a terrible idea in S1, an equally bad idea in S2, and, you guessed it, still a horrible idea for S3.
Second Child
Yes, it does work. As you may already know, the level cap for npc’s is actually 82. Veteran Guards and Scouts have an internal statistic called “Morale”. This can be boosted by ordering an upgrade in the camp or keep of the npc, or it can be manually boosted by /cheering at the npc in question. By boosting their morale, you can raise their level from 80 to 82.
Note that the Morale isn’t permanently boosted after /cheering, and requires refreshing every hour (much like siege). As a result, I know some T1 servers have created specific /cheering squads, usually led by an upper-middle class teenage Caucasian female, that go around and /cheer the npc’s every hour. It’s a thankless job, but crucial to your server’s WvW effort.
Second Child
(edited by mango.9267)
That spot is easily treb’d/cata’d/mortar’d from the keep. Tons of siege will hit that spot from both the tower and the keep. Should be a non-issue.
Second Child
Right now Mag rating is lower then the old CD rating. If CD stop losing rating, and mag keep bleeding rating like that, they might be able to still evade gold.
Not CD’s fault. The RNG kittened Mag by rolling DR up. Even if CD wins, they might still lose Glicko to DR.
Case in point: SBI in the T4 matchup is losing Glicko, but still moved up to the #7 slot. DR’s Glicko vortex may have doomed Mag to Gold.
Second Child
Only a small 10 point gap between Mag and CD atm. If CD comes out strong and if YB continues to tank, there’s a chance Mag and CD will swap places. Of course, Mag has to actively try not to cap anything.
What? We aren’t tanking. I have no idea what gave you that notion.
Should check the matchup threads involving YB. A certain poster from YB has been going around embracing the tank.
Just because one person who abandoned his server said we are tanking doesn’t mean we are.
To my knowledge, he’s still on YB. But fair enough. He’s an acknowledged “special case”.
Second Child
Only a small 10 point gap between Mag and CD atm. If CD comes out strong and if YB continues to tank, there’s a chance Mag and CD will swap places. Of course, Mag has to actively try not to cap anything.
What? We aren’t tanking. I have no idea what gave you that notion.
Should check the matchup threads involving YB. A certain poster from YB has been going around embracing the tank.
Second Child
Only a small 10 point gap between Mag and CD atm. If CD comes out strong and if YB continues to tank, there’s a chance Mag and CD will swap places. Of course, Mag has to actively try not to cap anything.
Second Child
Entertaining video, but some questionable gameplay decisions.
-Don’t use hide in shadows offensively at the start of the fight. You can use the black powder/heartseeker combo for on demand stealth.
-Don’t chase with heartseekers. Use d/p 3 to chase, and if you’re in stealth, you can cancel the d/p 3 animation with a backstab for even better damage.
-Don’t use shadow refuge to stomp when you have both black powder and cloak&dagger.
Second Child
I think this is less a problem with balance and more a problem with implementation. Phantasm targeting is already pretty buggy when opponents stealth. I imagine it’d be an even bigger headache to implement proper targeting when you summon them without a target. More likely than not, they’d probably go off chasing a moa or something instead of whatever you intend to hit.
Second Child
Your best bet would probably be some power phantasm build. Does decently well in roaming/1v1 scenarios and is viable for most dungeon play. Retraiting is a bit easier because most of the reflect traits are in the Inspiration line. You’d still be viable in dungeon play without retraiting for the situation, but you won’t be optimal.
For world bosses, it doesn’t really matter. You’re mostly mashing 1 to get tags in anyway.
Second Child
There are some tanking, for last 2 weeks. But definitely not 8 week. Also from what I understand, the goal is only not to get to that current #7 spot instead of tank as low as possible that some may think. I still remember a 3 way in smc a couple nights before.
I acknowledge that the tanking only started after Season 3 was announced, but a lot has changed in the past 8 weeks for the T3 servers: gaining/losing guilds and pugmanders, stale matchups, lack of effort, etc. The servers from 8 weeks ago are very different from the servers now. And the score now doesn’t really reflect their strength because of the tankfest going on.
It’s really difficult to tell who’d come out on top or how balanced the tier actually is once Seasons actually start.
Second Child
I agree with mantra of resolve. If you’re set on either null field or arcane thievery, I’d pick null field. Arcane thievery misses for the dumbest reasons — blinds, blocks, invulns, dodges, slight incline in terrain, not in field of view, etc.
If you don’t shatter that much and if your illusions don’t die that quickly, disenchanter is also a decent option.
Second Child