Guild Wars 2

3 DH and you lost?
Just how?
2 DH and a heavy bunker comp can be obnoxious to play against, but 3 DH is the margin where no amount of bunkers can save them from being torn to shreds left, right and center.

Nah, there is no problem in pvp, at all, only 70% of the matches go like this:

The team that’s unfortunate to get handed a thief by the matchmaking will end up losing?
Yes, that’s consistent with my experience.

This whole thread can be summed up with “If you want a pvp exclusive item, be prepared to put in the necessary sweat and tears.”
There is a reason, one of the new pvp league exclusive items is named the vial of salt.

Yes, it gets your blood boiling when some guy decides to solo lord on foefire when you sit at 480 points with a narrow lead and can barely hold on to your capture points as it is.
But the beauty about pvp is that kitten never sticks. You just go on to the next game and start from a blank slate. It’s not wvw where you have to sit through a whole week of playing catch up after you horribly botched your reset raid.

Skorpis.4372:

what anoys me the most that I don’t have HoT upgrade yet and get owned by these op builds…
thats it, time to chill and back to pve

Celestial staff ele is fairly decent in the current meta.

To be more specific, it’s the ONLY non-HoT build that works well in the current meta while not being a strictly worse version of a build that has access to elite specializations.

And to be even more specific, the only reason, the build works is because rune of durability is op as hell.

actually, the last meta was really good.

The celestial meta just before that was horrible, though. There was a brief time where turret engis provided some reasonable counterplay to the overbearing celestial builds but that issue got fixed quickly, lest someone has to actually bring dedicated condi or dps builds…

I see you never played against a chrono well bunker… Else your list would consist of nothing but that one build.

Sube Dai.8496:

I’m OK with it. Even if the gameplay isn’t the best pretty much all classes have a place.

Would like to see 90% of aoe spam removed tho.

So warrior is not a class and players without HoT are lesser beings not worth of notice.

DeWolfe.2174:

How about extending the conversation on how heavy the gold sink is to get HoT builds? You can spend around 150 gold to unlock everything.

This is no whine thread.
I seriously hoped, there’s some build, I overlooked…
But as it stands, celestial staff ele is pretty much the only really good non-HoT build, which is a shame.
Bunker guard may have a slightly bigger impact when it works but it’s really inconsistent and folds instantly the second it gets touched by a condi reaper.

And about condi engi, I don’t see a condi engi outperforming a condi revenant in anything.

With the old rank system, people complained that only the ones who can sink thousands of hours into the game have any chance to ever reach the top.
Now that winning games is more important than just playing a lot of games, people complain that they lose points when they lose a game.
Seriously?

I fare quite well with my bunker guard tho.
The only thing that really melts you (and I mean REALLY melts you) is condi reapers.
But they beat you so handily, if you have just one or two shouts on cooldown from an ongoing fight, you are dead the second, they touch you.

So I thought about compiling a list of non-HoT builds, that are viable in the current meta.
Here’s the outlining conditions:
-All three chosen trait lines need to be powerful. If any of the lines could be replaced by an elite specialization and the build would be better for it, the build is out.
-The build needs to be able to fulfill a vital role. It needs to be about as effective as comparable builds from other classes.
-The build needs to have a reasonable amount of sustain and the ability to survive in a diverse meta.

So here are my thoughts:

Thief: Any thief build can be improved by dropping a trait line and replacing it with daredevil.

Mesmer: There may be some condi builds but at large anything gets overshadowed by Chronomancer.

Ranger: Virtually any Ranger build can be improved by choosing the Druid spec.

Guardian: Bunker guard is solid and doesn’t benefit from DH in any way.
Condi guard is too squishy for the meta.
DH is an improvement to meditation builds.

Elementalist: Celestial staff bunker is probably the best non-HoT build out there. D/D seems also viable, though slightly overshadowed by the ongoing power creep.

Warrior: As always when there is a very diverse meta, Warrior is unplayable. Between high power and high condi builds and a lot of cc, it’s impossible to cover all the angles.

Necromancer: The innate lack of stability makes necromancer a poor choice in the current meta. Reaper supplements a lot of the possible builds (and provides stability). Any builds that benefit from having death shroud don’t stack up to the meta all that well.

Engineer: I’m no great engineer player at all, but there should be viable builds out there.

So what about Arena.net’s promise that the elite specializations would merely open up new possibilities but in no shape or form obsolete old builds?
The way, I see it, any non-HoT player is relegated to a bunker role, if he wants to be competitive.

Vague Memory.2817:

In a lot of matches I’m been playing the one thing that stands out are DH pretty much the deciding factor in winning whether they are on my team or not. In mid fights I’m seeing their traps and true shot downing 2 and sometimes 3 players on the opposing team. They are tanky as hell and dish out obscene damage. Some of their utility traps do more damage than the chrono elite gravity well which they are able to rotate at a good frequency. Why is this acceptable?

Pretty much every single game where there were 3 DH on the opponent’s team, I have won easily.
Any DH is a lacking support class that can keep that very DH alive.

…To play with your weaker classes when you are at the beginning of a tier/div and then swap to a better class once you catch on?
I just feel like taking my warrior for a spin with a greathammer marauder build.

Cam Ron.4170:

I actually think the balance is pretty good except for theives/warriors/non-elites pecs.

If the other 6 elite specs were what the game was it would be pretty blaanced imo, with revs slightly stronger than the rest. It’s still early though

buff warrior thief and non-elites. Go from there.

It’s not supposed to be “these 9 new classes are the new meta.”
The elite specializations need to offer exactly as much as any other specialization line from a power perspective. The goal should be to diversify the field, not to just make anything that came before obsolete.
Sadly, there is a lot of mandatory elite lines. For example, there is not a single thief build that a daredevil can’t do better. You will be hard pressed to find a Mesmer build that’s better than anything, a Chronomancer could offer.
The same with Druid. Why would anyone pick nature magic as a defensive trait line, when they could just as well pick the druid line, if they want a defensive line anyway.
At the very least bunker guards don’t really benefit from the dragonhunter specialization… But they have a rough time against condi reapers.

You forgot the worst part about the new meta.
The devs freely distributed daze like it was cotton candy.
Pretty much every single meta build right now got an obscene amount of AoE daze or area denial effects that knock you down, if you happen to evade into them.
It’s come to the point, where you don’t get to use your heal skill for more than 5 seconds, because the opponents just keep dishing out their cc effects without even focusing you in particular.
A lot of the obnoxious builds of the past at least weren’t all that strong in big team fights. Most of them were feared for their ability to crush anyone who tries to beat them in a 1v1.
Dragonhunters, Druids and Chronomancers can shut down an entire fight with an oversaturation of control effects that just happen as a byproduct of them doing their thing. At least a hambow had to hold up stability, make sure, he didn’t get interrupted or blinded, before he could lay down the pain with his earthshaker… And stunning the opposing team was an entirely deliberate act.

I was already kittened at the celestial meta because it basically revolved around running in circles while spamming omnidirectional skills that didn’t require any aim.
Boy, and I thought that was as obnoxious as it can get. We now have builds with omnidirectional daze effects tacked to their weapon swap.
Just how much more messed up can it get?

The question here is, if CnD is bad, why is P/D, which relies on CnD even more than D/D still such a popular build? Heck, even S/D uses CnD from time to time.
The real problem at hand is that D/D is locked into the oneshot playstyle, where you keep on range, then jump in with a simple combo to burst your opponent down.
With P/D, you usually can deal with it, when you fumble a CnD, but D/D is often times all in on the CnD/Backstab plan.
Here’s the thing: even though, P/D uses CnD far more frequently than D/D, D/D is the only build, that relies on CnD to such an extent because it just lacks alternatives. P/D usually is built as more of a brawler, with a more sturdy frame, while D/D is often times pure glass, so when it needs to hit a CnD, it NEEDS to hit that CnD.
Now, if DB was a different skill, maybe a dash type AoE damaging evade similar to burning speed of elementalist, you’d have another option as D/D player and not be 100% reliant on landing that one skill. But the current death blossom pretty much locks you in place for a couple of evade frames, then locks you into an awkward aftercast animation without any evade frames. The distance you move while using the skill is insignificant at best and you really aren’t doing yourself any favor using the skill in a pinch, you just delay the inevitable.

I would like it to be turned into more of a dash skill, with a range similar to elementalist’s burning speed, maybe slightly lower, but at least more than it currently has.
Currently, the movement is kind okittenward. You barely move forward and might as well be spinning in place. If you time the dodge badly, you are still right within striking distance of where you used to be. Giving the skill more distance will make it a bit more forgivable with regards to evade timing, as even if you slightly miss the timing, you at least aren’t stuck in virtually the same place. You can evade out of AoE fields and you are harder to chase down.
This might give D/D slightly more application in confined spaces. This change will also make D/D fighting look more fluid. Currently, the death blossom animation is kind of choppy and breaks the flow of combat.

As the offhand dagger is fine and the mainhand dagger is fine, I think, the only way to conceivably buff D/D is to rework the dual skill.
Death Blossom has always been a bit lackluster.

Real ballers will obviously run around swapping between the bifrost and the dreamer.
(note to self: Craft the bifrost!)

Any player that wants to create a new character will have to make a decision:
Play as an Asura?
Or play as one of the lesser races?
Of course, not everyone can be as gifted as the Asura, that’s why there are all those other races. There needs to be a balance in the Eternal Alchemy, after all.
There will always be a superior choice: The Asura, but from time to time, people find enjoyment in playing as an intellectually challenged race.
My thief is a Norn. Granted, I wouldn’t make this mistake again, but I still grew too attached to her to ever consider upgrading to a superior race.
I might, however, create a second thief and this one will definitely be an Asura.

One question: Why?
Why should Pistol/Pistol suddenly become this “anti-group-tool”?
For AoE, you can always swap to a second weapon set to do the job… Especially with the thief, where weapon swaps aren’t part of core gameplay, but rather a situational decision, that’s done when needed. As we thieves aren’t forced to swap weapons every 10 seconds because of cooldowns, we can afford to have more specialized roles for our weapon sets. P/P as a single target based dueling/kiting weapon kind of fits the term “specilalized role”.

Orpheal.8263:

Auesis.7301:

Maybe because the entire Elite Specialisation has been BALANCED around having dodges that can do frontstab damage or put down lots of conditions or remove chill/cripple and gain loads of Swiftness? “OR” being the key word.

Being able to swap what kind of dodge we have on the fly would be broken. It’s just right the way it is.

No, that would not be broken, its just a matter of COOLDOWNS.
Each of the, under my concept called “Styles” (just an other word for practically Stances) could have an cooldown time after activation, similar to attunements, in which you can’t switch.
under my concept would get all other styles that aren#t used at the moment get in cooldown, whenver you switch you sttyle, so that you ca’t always have the style you need/want on demand – ypou would have to wait first, until the cooldowns have run out, before you could switch from Style A to either Style B or C.
By changign from A to B would get A and C then into Cooldown.

give the mechanic like 30 second cooldowns and everythign is fine … and our Elite Specialization would have actually like all other specializations an unique Gameplay Mechanic, that works on its own, while having also unique GM Traits

Heres a thread with my final own balance concept where I decribe, how it could look like:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Daredevil-GM-Traits-should-be-the-Prof-Mechs/first#post5432013

Yeah, bring in more actives with cooldowns. Exactly what thief needed to remain unique… Oh wait.
Bringing the daredevil more in line with other classes is not necessarily a good thing. The more similar classes are, the more likely it is that one of them will end up being the superior class and nothing else being played.

Tonikor.5637:

naphack.9346:

…I kind of like having the choices locked into grandmaster traits…
…If they were baseline…

First: if you take the specialization you will be taking the grandmasters anyway, that’s how traits work now, and the grandmaster will still define your build since there’s always 3 choices kek.
Second: Steal is baseline, taking a spec to get something is not being baseline (you don’t know what baseline is)

Baseline for the daredevil elite specialization. I thought we were talking about the daredevil here. If we weren’t, well, then disregard my comment and let me sign off from this thread because if we weren’t discussing the daredevil elite spec here, I have no clue what the hell else we were discussing.

Dagger training:
Dagger skills have a 25% chance to cause 2 seconds of poison.
Lotus strike causes Torment. (Just throwing this out there. Duration and stacks up to debate. Maybe even replace it with vulnerability. I just feel like tacking an additional effect to lotus strike would be perfect.)

potent poison:
Foes poisoned by the thief take 10% more damage from conditions. (This includes the poison itself.)
(This effect is strong. I don’t even know how I feel about retaining the 25% increased duration on poison. That’s how scared I’m of this trait.)

Tonikor.5637:

YOUNGaz.5690:

…I think it’s good you want to have all 3 available on the fly…

You really don’t get it do you? The idea is to have them in “f” keys instead of occupying GM trait spots, like EVERY OTHER CLASS is getting.
“F” keys by definition DEFINE a class, its something others dont have, its the flavor.
And it would be as much “on the fly” as it would be opening your trait menu and manually changing it LEL

Yes. F skills define a class.
But traits define a build. I kind of like having the choices locked into grandmaster traits.
Just look at how kittening strong those dodge effects are, man. If they were baseline, you could be 120% sure, they’d be nerfed to the ground.
Also, thief has always been the class with a more mundane approach to things. I kind of like the fact, thief doesn’t get shoehorned into the “extra button” train or into “tack a complicated effect on top of an already existing profession mechanic button.”
Really, thief is all about clear-cut, efficient skills without a lot of fluff to them. I kind of like the mundane utility that comes with loading the specialization mechanic into the dodge bar. You don’t want to spoil this simplistic approach by needlessly adding an abundance of buttons that do nothing on their own. That’s not, how thief works.

Andrew.6487:

Hi all , after watching the POI video, I think the " Evasive Enpowerment " is not good enough, because it only works in one hit, but most attack skills of Daredevil are not only one hit, so I think it should change to “after dodging, your attacks deal bonus damage in next 8 seconds”.

Personally, I like the concept as it is now.
Else, there would be not a single trait that synergizes with mh dagger. Imagine Evasive Empowerment with backstab… I can already see the ele tears.

Honestly, you may want to invest in some condition gear. I dunno, the condition dodger seems strong from what I’ve seen.

For me, the main reason to run trickery is not the fury, but rather the boonstripping interrupt (interrupting boonstrip?) on steal.
Really, the most important factor for me is that steal can interrupt a stomp or rez even through stability or aegis. Your allies will love you, when you pop out of nowhere, start rezzing and then interrupt the guy trying to stomp while you continue to rezz (less important application nowadays with shadow arts stealthing whatever you try to rezz).
You can also instantly interrupt skills even when you are stunned or knocked down. If you are really desperate, you can even use it to secure a stomp by interrupting the opponent’s downed skill.
Seriously, people always name the damage boost, the fury, the larger initiative pool as their reason to go trickery.
For me, the whole reason to go trickery is the bountiful theft+sleight of hand package. It’s just so kitten versatile.

So, I just wonder besides the balls-deep action packed full frontal assault melee massacre, the devs are trying to sell us, what possibilities are there to break the spec in ways, the devs never imagined?

The main idea here is to use the dodge abilities for something other than full contact fighting.
As for the traits, lotus training lends itself to P/D condi builds, but that’s already pretty much a full contact fighting style due to the need for landing CnD.

But I digress. The real killers are obviously unhindered combatant and bounding dodger.
An offhand pistol with bounding dodger will allow the thief to enter stealth at will for a measly 6 initiative. Talk about a bargain. Especially sets like P/P will have a whole new play style to explore. Instead of having to spam unload, the P/P user will be able to use sneak attack instead, which significantly boosts damage and utility. That 100% projectile finisher sure seems juicy, when there’s a smoke field on the ground.
The offhand pistol thing might also come into play with S/P builds, but that’s more of a brawling/bursting centered approach, which is in line with the intended design.

Unhindered combatant. Well, for starters, it sounds nice for P/P, but somehow bounding dodger seems to offer a bit more. Maybe there will be a definitive winner, maybe it will come down to preference, who knows?

Now here’s the real kicker. Imagine a ninja nurse with one of those two traits. Removing conditions, gaining swiftness and displacing yourself, while you are almost permanently invisible and have all the sustain of a maxed out shadow arts line to start with? Who is supposed to kill you under these circumstances?
The same goes for bounding dodger. It’s an easy way to enter stealth. Between the two, I think, I prefer unhindered combatant as you can troll endlessly while stealthed, whereas bounding dodger kind of allows you to get into stealth, but then you can’t dodge anymore or you get revealed.

Anyone can think of any other unintended builds, that turn the daredevil into a total wuss?

Tarkan.5609:

babazhook.6805:

Hard to catch also restores FULL endurance if stunned. Thats 150. Thats the equal of three steals endurance return and you will get stunned. This makes that skill on the Acro line much more powerful.

Just as Signet of agility becomes much more powerful. (assuming of course regain all endurance means just that)

DD/Acro trickery can be very powerful with loads of damage coming from all those dodges.

This is simply wrong.
If you ever looked at Hard To Catch or SoA, they both clearly state:

• Endurance Gain: 100

So nope, nothing new there.
The 2nd minor restoring 50 endurance on successful steal will make trickery even better and therefore even more mandatory, and DA just got so many good traits.
DA/Trickery/DD is gonna be the PvP Meta, in WvW you could see a lot of other play styles though…

Even then, Daredevil still has an improvement with these skills.
You will hardly ever be at 0 endurance, when you use SoA/proc hard to catch.
Hardly. Ever.
Having an endurance pool of 150 means that you are likely to get the full 100 endurance out of the deal rather than something between 100 and 0, that will most likely end up being something between 80 and 60 in the case of SoA and some totally random amount in the case of hard to catch.
You don’t time SoA around maximizing initiative gain, you usually time it when you desperately need a dodge or desperately need to pop off a fear effect. With the larger pool, you can actually get the full 100 out of the deal even when you use it in an emergency.

The best way to level used to be grabbing a lightning hammer and rocking the auto attack.
I don’t see where this has changed. Go fire, pick conjurer, grab a hammer and go nuts.

I will try a dual longbow troll build:
The living arrowcart.

MauricioCezar.2673:

Don’t think so, since we veteran’s have received it for free.

Either way, I am quite fine, since I have all of that content already. I just think that it is a bit strange to offer the whole core game, instead of offer the precursor set-up for the expansion.

Not everyone received it for free. I had to purchase like three episodes, scattered randomly across the story line because I was just too busy with my studies and, frankly, just didn’t care about the story at that point.
And I bought it and still didn’t play any of it… What a waste.
Many others have already bought the entire package.
How do you explain to someone, who bought the full season 2 like 2 months ago, that they threw that money away?

…More refunds?

cyberjanet.3258:

I pre-purchased GW2 Deluxe edition hoping for the best. It’s not GW and never will be, alas. I would like to see Guild Halls, but I’m not paying 44.99 for a guild hall. I don’t want another character slot. My husband has three unused character slots. Gems could swing it, maybe. It’s still 34.99 for a Guild Hall. Is it enough to bring me back playing regularly, if at all?

And this thing about having to buy the whole game every time you want an expansion is just rubbish too. I have spent plenty of gems on things I want, not on what ArenaNet thinks I should be getting.

geez…
Fill the character slot with a character, level him to ~23 and park him in a jumping puzzle.
The character slot will generate gold in the form of silver doubloons, which can then be exchanged for gems.
There is no such thing as having “too many character slots”…

ChoChoBo.6503:

Pre-purchasing isn’t the same as buying after launch. There is much greater meaning to pre-purchasing a game, you are literally trusting Anet to deliver a great product, and for that trust Anet is thanking veteran players in the form of a character slot.

Anet has thanked players before in the form of gemstore items in the past; like black lion keys, revive orbs, and other consumables, so they aren’t thankless.

Remember, this isn’t a thank you for simply being a loyal player, this is a thank you for buying the pre-purchase.

I’m sure Anet has plenty of other rewards for loyal players in game. That’s what those time-gated event/festival rewards are all about: you’re a loyal player, you get to experience special content that new or unloyal players will never get to. That’s a pretty nice reward, at least it is for me.

qft

Actually, it makes more sense to offer the extra slot only on pre-purchases.
They benefit from us pre-purchasing. We have almost no benefit. So it’s only fair to reward people for pre-purchasing.

You know, I actually might have bought the following pre-purchase offer:

-People, who pre-purchase receive a free character slot, people who buy the regular expansion at release will receive just the expansion.

This is important, because Arena.net is basically asking us to give them more than we’d normally do. For them, receiving the money in advance is a big deal. For many of us, giving them money in advance is a big deal. So why don’t we get any benefit for pre-purchasing on a bunch of promises and hardly any revealed content?
The benefit of a pre-purchase commitment can be quantified. It’s simple economics. The impact of pre-purchasing on our wallets can also be quantified. It just makes no sense that you get nothing for forking out cash in return for promises… Except for the base game, which many already have anyway and thus will only receive, if we don’t use the expansion for upgrading our existing account.

It’s pretty simple. I will not purchase Heart of Thorns unless I know what exactly I am buying. A preorder with no information on what I am buying and when I am going to get it… No thanks.

Not pre-purchasing makes sense in and of itself anyway…
Would you like to spend 50 bucks now to have an expansion somewhere down the line?Or would you rather have 50 bucks now to spend on whatever can give you immediate benefit now and then spend another 50 bucks on the expansion when it’s released, again for immediate benefit?

Spend your money on value rather than on promises.

Gabriell.4856:

naphack.9346:

I just don’t see why people would choose shadow rejuvenation over venom share, which is way more busted even for D/P builds.
Quickly deciding a 2v1 is way more important and has way more impact on the game state than being able to escape from a fight, where all your allies died.

Is the trait too strong? Yes, probably.
Will the trait see play in PvP? Some, probably.
Does the trait help you push objectives and burst down people? Well… No.
Does the trait allow you to contest points? No.
Does the trait allow you to troll endlessly? Yes, certainly.

Pretty sure, the team mates of that thief will be more agitated by his actions than his opponents.

Certainly, the trait does powerful stuff, but it just isn’t all that relevant to the game. When was the last time, you’ve seen a prismatic understanding mesmer?

I don’t know what your level of spvp experience is and I also want to say I’m a novice at spvp but you realize that thieves are already doing that right? Stacking stealth to reset fights, reposition, etc. The d/p playstyle will not change comes June 23rd. They will play the same with the added benefit of SA.

“Is the trait too strong? Yes, probably.”
Agree

“Will the trait see play in PvP? Some, probably.”
Most definitely unless you want to get murder by condi

“Does the trait help you push objectives and burst down people? Well… No.”
Absolutely. Are you going to burst people down if you only have 25% health and no initiative? SR allows the thief to regen health and init thus decrease the amount of time the thief has to reset the fight before going back in. Also in a fight, the init regen and health regen (even if it is for a few secs) allows the thief to stay in the fight longer and use skills more often.

“Does the trait allow you to contest points? No.”
How is this different than the current meta?

“Does the trait allow you to troll endlessly? Yes, certainly.”
Agree. This trait line is the reason why there are over a thousand QQ post in the thief and wvw forums.

A thief with SR will be very likely to end up as the little thief that could. The thief will try to go into a fight to help an ally, not get the job done quickly enough and get jumped by a rotation. Then going into stealth at low health and walking away in shame, cursing their own existence while their allies get slaughtered behind.
Having venom share alongside a physical dps/burst loadout is huge. Being able to get back to full health while idling in stealth is not, because while you sit in stealth, your allies get hammered down mercilessly and are effectively a player down. As a thief, you need to deliver quick and efficient results. If you drag out fights too long, you may be forced to remove yourself from the fight, abandoning less fortunate players without the escape tools, the thief class is blessed with to their fate.

The most probable loadout for D/P thieves in Conquest:
Mug, Panic Strike, Executioner.
Shadow’s Embrace, Shadow Protector, Venomous Aura.
Thrill of the Crime, Bountiful Theft, Sleight of Hand.

An interesting use for shadow rejuvenation in Stronghold mode:
Caltrops, Uncatchable, Shadow Rejuvenation, camp invis while keeping 25 stacks of bleeding on lord.

So to everyone stating that it’s only right to correct the FAQ:

Yes, it is right to correct the FAQ, but it needs to be done in a way that makes clear, the FAQ has been changed. You can’t just edit official statements and have them look like they’ve been that way all along.
Also, as with the changes the question will come up quite often and it’s a FAQ, with editing the FAQ, they also need to address those, who have been misled by the old FAQ.

briggah.7910:

naphack.9346:

briggah.7910:

Old players got years of free updates and open world content that new players will never get to play.

You see it as old players got nothing. I see it as old players got way more content out of this game then anyone new coming into this game.

That’s nice and all, but there’s a lot of people, who bought into the game recently in anticipation of the upcoming expansion.
What do those people get?

So you bought gw2 recently in anticipation to HoT meaning that you were already going to purchase HoT correct? Now that veterans seem to be upset since they got nothing new as some are saying, you are now upset as well and think you should also get something new for being a new player?

Are you not playing the game and experiencing what the game has to offer? Did you get every profession to lvl 80? Have you done WvW? Do you do PvP? Did you kill zhaitan? Have you slayed every world boss? Are you working on a legendary? Have you started to craft? Ever done guild missions? Have you got 100% map completion? The list goes on and on and there is still tons of stuff you can do before HoT even gets released. This is just a pre-order so no date is set yet on when it will actually drop.

Way I see it is most new players have bought the game recently in anticipation for HoT and if you didn’t well the game still has so much to offer you as a new player. Yes us older players have received more open world content and well that’s just because we are old players. That was my point in disagreeing with old players saying we got nothing. When in reality we got way more than new players will get yet new players still have tons of things to do already.

what the kittening hell are you talking about?
1) I’ve never stated, I am one of those players, who just bought the game.
2) Do you even realize, someone, who bought the game, say, 2-3 months back, got no living story or anything out of the deal, paid something like 40 bucks for the game, and now has to pay another 50 bucks to buy the game, he already owns?
For such a person, it might even seem tempting to wipe all the progress and buy the xpac as a new game, as its the same price and at least, he gets full value out of it.

I’m just tired of people arguing with some kind of advantage making up for having to buy the game twice. What advantage exactly? I’ve sat through three halloween events, of which two were exactly the same, I did enjoy the first season of the living story and lost interest halfway through the second season. I got a lot out of the money, I spent on the game and I even bought some gems.
Now here’s the catch: I don’t want to pay for something, I already paid for. But this isn’t the point. If I feel like the expansion is overpriced, I will quietly sit down and not buy it until it’s cheaper. Nobody’s business but mine. However, there is a bigger problem at hand and that problem is the split of the community happening right now.
On one side, there’s people, who spent a lot of money on gem shop purchases, or people, who bought into the game recently in good faith, to get started for HoT. These people are angry and rightly so.
On the other side, we have people bringing out the pitchforks against “entitled veterans”.
I must consider myself a veteran even though my record hasn’t been that stellar because I don’t have the time to put hours upon hours into a single game. However, if someone tries to push every single person, who is angry at the current situation into the “entitled veteran” corner, when there are various sound reasons for those persons to actually be angry, that’s where I get angry at the situation, too.
Arena.net really dropped a bombshell here. A bombshell, that is currently tearing apart the very community, that made this game such a great success.

If they did this, gem prices would spike to 50 gold for a single gem over night…

briggah.7910:

Old players got years of free updates and open world content that new players will never get to play.

You see it as old players got nothing. I see it as old players got way more content out of this game then anyone new coming into this game.

That’s nice and all, but there’s a lot of people, who bought into the game recently in anticipation of the upcoming expansion.
What do those people get?

I just don’t see why people would choose shadow rejuvenation over venom share, which is way more busted even for D/P builds.
Quickly deciding a 2v1 is way more important and has way more impact on the game state than being able to escape from a fight, where all your allies died.

Is the trait too strong? Yes, probably.
Will the trait see play in PvP? Some, probably.
Does the trait help you push objectives and burst down people? Well… No.
Does the trait allow you to contest points? No.
Does the trait allow you to troll endlessly? Yes, certainly.

Pretty sure, the team mates of that thief will be more agitated by his actions than his opponents.

Certainly, the trait does powerful stuff, but it just isn’t all that relevant to the game. When was the last time, you’ve seen a prismatic understanding mesmer?

I will certainly try the living arrowcart troll build with dual longbows and Quickdraw.
Another contender for me is the remorseless melee ranger with valkyrie stats.
Then there is of course the condi bunker.

I think, the new meta will see way less builds dedicated to a single type of utility skills and far more mix and match, as traiting into a utility skill type takes far less of an investment now.

Just a question, is Lick Wound still bugged under water?
Pretty sure, it used to be that the pet would keep rezzing even while dead, when under water.

For pvp, I will definitely run venom share, no matter what build I am on.

Depending on how condition heavy the new meta will be, one could even consider slotting full support in the SA line.
Something like merciful ambush – leeching venoms – venomous aura.
It will certainly be the first thing, I try. I don’t really feel the need to trait for condi remove, because currently I can do just fine without.
The only question is whether it’d be worthwhile to drop signet or refuge for devourer venom.

Torch is not as unlikely as you may think.
Yes. More blinds.

However:
Confusion, burning, condi clear, …
There is a lot of things, torch can be used for.

For me, it has always been a tossup between torch and rifle. It could be either, but there is no way to know until it’s revealed.

1v1, the thief should always win against lich form.
For a thief, it’s not so much the auto attack but the sheer amount of beef, which makes lich problematic. 1v1, you can just chew through those hp without receiving a single hit, no problem.

What makes lich scary is crossfire. Either from other players, while you are trying to get his huge hp bar down to zero, or from the lich himself, while you are engaging another target. If you are dropping the hammer on someone and suddenly receive a lich hit from behind, you may just be dead that instant.
Between blinds and evades, there’s just not much, the lich himself can do, if a thief is after him.

As an elite skill, lich form certainly is a game changer. Normally, you’d want to focus the squishy target and leave targets with huge hp pools for after the fact, but these 5k splash crits on auto attacks just can’t be ignored. Fortunately, he doesn’t have much in terms of boons or healing, so anything you do to him is bound to stick.