Guild Wars 2

Versatility comes akittens cost.
Elementalist is the most versatile class in this game but it is at the same time the best at nothing.

Versatility has never been the sign of the thief profession and it will never be, otherwise thief’s single target damage and mobility wouldn’t be the best in the game. That’s all.

In my opinion, conditions should work exactly how degen worked in GW1.

In GW1 you weren’t able to build completely around degen and, if you would do that, you can’t kill anyone without raw damage. That said, degen in GW1 had a relevant role in any form of PvP and were most likely AoE. Their main feature was to apply pressure on the enemy team, dealing damage over time and make the life easier to raw damage professions.

Pretty much the longer the fight will go, the worse conditions get, if enemy team did not had good positioning, and the higher the chances to win were. That was the real definition of attrition and how conditions, I think, are supposed to be.

Degen was overall capped at -10 degen, that means that overspeccing into it in a team leaded to nothing at all.

In GW2, you either have to spec completely into conditions or you will be completely useless. The issue is that conditions and raw damage aren’t complementary as they were in GW1, but mutually exclusive.

Buffing condition removals or nerfing condition damage will lead to nothing. Conditions as they are designed right now will be always either too strong or too weak.

The stat “condition damage” is a bad design choice, or, at least, how it is spreaded among trinkets.

It forces you to build completely around conditions to have something useful from them, otherwise the conditions are completely overwhelmed by condition removals, which means hybrid builds aren’t possible at all.

They should do a complete revamp of condition removals, condition weapon sets, condition damage trinkets and how conditions scale with condition damage, imho.

Right now, considering how conditions are balanced, they will always be either too strong or too weak.

Pyriall.5027:

CC still provides an advantage on EVERY map. Locking somoene out of a heal or cc’ing to coordinate burst is still strategic gameplay. If we’re going to promote 1 shotting people as skillful, let’s bring back all the burst classes that we’ve nullified. Bring back frenzy/hb, 100nades, 25 might stack shatters with double shatter, and back stab thieves. We can tell everyone to be skillful and l2dodge and position.

Instagib builds of the past were imbalanced for many reasons this map has not.
The main issues were that those builds were extremely hard to counter (positioning didn’t save you as it does in this map) and they were avaliable only to a restricted amount of professions.

You can easily create a balanced instagib meta as far as everyone is capable to instagib and the instagib can be prevented easily (which means harder to land on skilled players). There are a lots of example of well-made competitive games with instagib mechanics, FPS games on top of all.

Rengaru.4730:

You can easily jump into Death Shround to recieve the stability, pop Doom and leave it in under 1 second, if you do that Life Force will never run out unless you use Death Shroud to tank.

Death Shroud is a core part of Necromancer’s survivability. Using Death Shroud just to pop in and out has proved to not be a so good tactic.

Rengaru.4730:

You don’t pop Plague against a single enemy (especially when he’s at the cannon and a sitting duck to your fears). You use it when assaulting the cannon with your team where it makes enemy CC unreliable while your team is free to knock the enemies off.

Plague has been capable to hold off multiple people in any map, not only in this one.
The advantage of skyhammer platform is that you can disengage at will using the portal and waiting Plague to end.
It is pretty much like Moa Morph, there isn’t nothing you can really do against.

Rengaru.4730:

Thats excactly why they should leave Skyhammer from tPvP rotation and concentrate their balancing efforts on one meta, not two (in case this got lost during the argument: this thred is still about Skyhammer being a tPvP map).

I’m of another opinion.
Skyhammer is much more fun to play and to watch, even people who want it out from tPvP rotation agree with that. If they would concentrating resources at balancing around a map, they should focus on Skyhammer for said reason.

Rengaru.4730:

sorrow.2364:

Yes, necro have stability on 2/3 of his elites, but those are transformation. Either the stability is ripped in a second, as you correctly said, or they will just sit in a trasformation with no utility or healing skills, which means they can’t know you off.

Also you are pretty much perma blinded (Plague) and can’t knock off any other players (or even remove the stability from the Necro) reliably.

Plague in the small confines of the Skyhammer room is pretty much a game-changer in teamfights.

Also I like how you completely ignored the “free” Stability on Death Shroud every 10 seconds.

sorrow.2364:

But, as I said, it all goes down to the fact that Necros haven’t good tools to change their positioning fast to not get knocked off.
They can’t even block/evade the CCs, excluding the normal dodge.

And neither can Ranger, if they use Longbow (their only knockback) for that matter.

Before this escallates, this is not a “Necro so OP, Nerf plz” post, I just want to show the inherrent flaws of a Map that rewards CC over anything else.
And even though all of those flaws, I still like this map, but it should not be used for tPvP which is supposed to have a fair balance.

The free stability in Death Shroud isn’t that much reliable. You need Life Force to have access to it.

Also, Plague isn’t an harm. The damage is low and its capabilities are only defensive. You can just keep using the skyhammer while the enemy Necro is in plague, completely ignoring him.

If we have to say it all, rangers are in a bad spot even in the standard tPvP, which isn’t balanced.
In this map they have their tools to succed in (the wolf fear is AoE and, in the skyhammer room it is incredibly strong). The imbalance isn’t bigger than the one we are used to see in any other tPvP map.

saVdoom.2067:

i’ll just quote someone else replying to you in your attempt to defend this map mechanic regarding positioning since i’m far to lazy to debate this myself:

Shar.3402:

Have you actually played this map against decent people? Considering your non-existant leaderboard ranking, I guess not.

Then you could tell me how a D/D Elementalist / Dps Guardian / Warrior are supposed to “position” themselves when they have to go into melee range of someone using the cannon…yeah, that puts them right in the middle of the cannon platform.
Or maybe you could tell me how a melee class is supposed to hold a side point with his back to the wall, all the time…hoping a stealthed thief doesn’t pull you down

Is there any melee only profession in this game I wasn’t aware of?

Anyway, someone in the middle of the cannon platform is fine as long as the line which pass on both players doesn’t end up in a cliff (enemy – you – cliff).
It isn’t hard to do at all.

Audiogasm.7643:

Empathetic Fighter : rank 156 on eu leaderboards
Sorrow : nowhere to be found either in NA or EU

I guess we all know who to trust when it comes to high lvl tpvp …
This sorrow has just been all other those skyhammer posts trying to def how skill this map is with more than questionnable argument, he refuses to aknowledge the flaws of his argumentation.
Don’t get me wrong i’m not trying to insult him or anything, i don’t even know him, i m just stating the facts here.

I have a brain as much as Empathetic Fighter do.
Something I probably don’t have is the time Empathetic Fighter have to play the game as much as he does.
Does that mean that my opinion is less important that the one of that guy?
Is that hard to respond to the actual argumentations instead of saying “you are not in leaderboards, your opinion counts nothing”.

I’ve explained with logical and coehent argumentations why this map encourage different playstyle and skillplay.
All I got answered back is just “this map is bad” or “you’re saying bs”. You guys are just acting like you have no brains to form a counter argument against what I’ve said and you have to grasp at straws (ie “I don’t know who you are”) to make to your eyes my reasoning less valid.

I’m pretty sure you are capable to post something really worth to read and answer back instead of the usual senseless and logic-free posts you are making here.

Rengaru.4730:

sorrow.2364:

You’re not seeing the whole picture.

It’s true, Necromancers have more pulls and fears, but they have no reliable access to stability. Ranger, on the other hand, have an Amazing 20s stability as elite.

Also, Thief and Rangers are the two profession with better repositioning and evading capabilities in this game.

When a Necro is in the wrong spot (for instance, next to a cliff), he has no tools to get away from that point so it will be probably pushed off, which doesn’t happens for a ranger or a thief.

You obviously havn’t seen/played a Necro on this map.

Necro has stability on 2/3 of his elites and can trait it on Death Shroud.
Also stability (especially with long duration), is getting ripped off on this Map like nowhere else.

Also necro has Spectral Walk, which is not only a stun breaker, but if used correctly can teleport you back up when you get knocked down.

I have.
Yes, necro have stability on 2/3 of his elites, but those are transformation. Either the stability is ripped in a second, as you correctly said, or they will just sit in a trasformation with no utility or healing skills, which means they can’t know you off.

Yes, Spectral Walk is good.
But, as I said, it all goes down to the fact that Necros haven’t good tools to change their positioning fast to not get knocked off.
They can’t even block/evade the CCs, excluding the normal dodge.

Shar.3402:

sorrow.2364:

Banish is pretty slow and obvious. You can avoid that skill. Updraft, on the other hand, isn’t, but the blowout is far lower.
Another way to completely negate updraft, banish or whatever is just not position yourself in a line in the following order: enemy – you – cliff.

You focused on a single point of my mistake-list completely ignoring the others. You won’t proving my argument is invalid in that way.

Shield of Absorbtion (instant skill, good luck dodging that, you have to rely on luck) -> Scepter immobilize -> swap to hammer -> Banish (if you didn’t already get immobilized on the breaking glass)
Congratulations, you’ve successfully managed to kill someone as a bunker guardian, rinse and repeat when more people come up there.

Have you read what I wrote about positioning?

saVdoom.2067:

If you never cared about positioning in a tournament match then it just means you haven’t played in the “meta” or against any other top team that will completely destroy you if you’re overextended or out of position.
I can’t count how many times i watched TP’s stream or the cast’d tournament streams where they will destroy somebody because he’s out of position or overextended in a tournament match, or because he pushed far node at the wrong time making the opposite team collapse at him while their bunker was holding mid and then collapsing at mid having 1 guy advantage.

This is a reductive way of seeing positioning.

I don’t know if you played GW1, but in that game positioning were crucial.
If your team did not paid enough attention to properly split up, the enemy pressure would have been 10x more effective.

In GW2, positioning has really no importance. You can ball up or split up and you can adjust your position in a blink.
In Skyhammer, on the other hand, if you have a wrong position in the wrong time, you’re dead, which is something that arguably none has experienced before in any PvP map.

Rengaru.4730:

As i said in my post, I do enjoy the occasional game on Skyhammer, but tPvP is supposed to be balanced and currently all the classes are balanced around the “old” maps.

Look at classes like Ranger/Thief that have a single knockback or pull (im not counting the wolf’s fear, since with the cast time and the reliance on the AI positioning itself correctly it’s pure luck to fear someone off).

And then take a look at classes like the Necromancer with multiple fears and a pull

You’re not seeing the whole picture.

It’s true, Necromancers have more pulls and fears, but they have no reliable access to stability. Ranger, on the other hand, have an Amazing 20s stability as elite.

Also, Thief and Rangers are the two profession with better repositioning and evading capabilities in this game.

When a Necro is in the wrong spot (for instance, next to a cliff), he has no tools to get away from that point so it will be probably pushed off, which doesn’t happens for a ranger or a thief.

tarcheg.4872:

Did you watch any streams recently? If you would do so you would know that I’m not making up anything and engis do decap the point against anything with no stab in a few seconds. That’s a fact not something I made up.

Yes and I haven’t seen any good player being outplayed by an engineer if they avoid to make any obvious mistake.

Oidmetala.8426:

oh, but much ppls know the guild BooN and the guardian Empathetic Fighter on eu servers. just dont have see them much last time Oo
but its a good guardian, so :P

It was just to point out thakittens way to think is completely stupid and wrong.
Calling BS everything someone says just because you don’t know him isn’t something a mature and intelligent person would do.

saVdoom.2067:

I keep hearing this left and right regarding Skyhammer but quite honestly what kind of adapting? Bringing a 5 bunker team with a lot of CC? Knockbacks and pull engineers? Rampage as One rangers with GS/LB? Fear specced necromansers (lol)? Sure sounds fun for the melees in this game that already have a hard time in any map out there. What kind of adapting really? Change your build to not have any damage at all and focus in survival and cc? Ok so a bunker? Lets not mention the insane buff to necromansers that we already have to deal in normal maps now we have to deal in this one which makes them able to kill people fearing them out?

The adapting is paying attention to positioning, which is something anyone has never done before in this game, mainly because having a bad positioning had from little to no effect at all.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

you overread things bro. First I’m asura, second I immobilize before I banish. Not a single player is able to get not hit once by this. So I’m sorry again to tell you, things in the higher level are a bit different than in hotjoin.
However as you deny every negative feedback on skyhammer and obviously try to claim on your “arguments” there is no point for me to discuss this even further. Luckily players are related to their ingame skill and not what BS they write. No wonder I never saw you in any competitive play. Have a nice life, my son!

Wow. In tPvP, the home of all wannabe pro players and Empathetic Fighter, can’t realize that once you get immobilized by an hammer guardian and he takes the “warning” said positioning, you probably want to avoid the next skill the guardian would use. Definitely something high level PvP-er can’t do.

I’ve never saw you in any competitive game too. Does it mean that I should call everything you say as bs?

tarcheg.4872:

If it’s so easy to avoid getting CC’d then please tell me why EVERY top player loses his home point when engi comes pushing his far. And I’m not talking about losing the point after the engi won the 1on1 – no the point gets decapped in the first 10-20s just by CC. Do you srsly thing they want to get kicked out of their point? Stop posting your BS everywhere…

First off, chill out. Nobody insulted you and there is no need to do so.
Where did you get the information that every top player loses his home point when an engi come?
This is a completely false statement.
I don’t know if you’ve checked the latest TP stream, but it didn’t looked like they got outplayer each time an engi came in their point, neither Caed, who posted a video of him getting outplayed, isn’t getting outplayed anymore.

You are just making up facts to prove a wrong point.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

In your opinon, if a player plays proper he never gets hit by anything. Ergo in a team of experts nobody will die. Have you even played this game allrdy? I doubt you did.

I didn’t said that. I’ve said that if a player plays properly he won’t be pushed off.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

PS: Try to stunbreak out of banish or updraft. Try to evade a shield-push from engi/guard. Your argument gets instantly invalid. Now stop defending something that is broken.

Banish is pretty slow and obvious. You can avoid that skill. Updraft, on the other hand, isn’t, but the blowout is far lower.
Another way to completely negate updraft, banish or whatever is just not position yourself in a line in the following order: enemy – you – cliff.

You focused on a single point of my mistake-list completely ignoring the others. You won’t proving my argument is invalid in that way.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Sooner or later any player will get hit by my shield-push and gets an immobilize, or gets an immobilize and a banish afterwards. So no, this has just something to do if I chain my CC’s right or not. So there is no obvious mistake. Also good players get pushed off enough times, if they face good players as their opponents. So no, I guess your argument is invalid.

Here’s a list of mistakes you have to do to be pushed off a cliff:

- Didn’t brought a proper stunbreaker
- Had no good positioning
- Had no stability on when you was in a dangerous spot
- Didn’t pushed off the enemy first
- Didn’t prevented the CC to be applied with any sort of blocks/invulnerability/evade
- Didn’t teleported away from the ledge you fell from.

If you just avoid to make only one of those mistakes, you won’t get pushed off.
Only if you make ALL of these mistakes, you die.

Also, some professions can’t avoid to make some mistakes (for instance, thief can’t use stability), but it is compensated by the ease to avoid other mistakes (thief can teleport way more than other professions).

Good players won’t make any of these mistakes. Bad players will most likely make all of those and die.

My argument isn’t invalid.

Audiogasm.7643:

To sorrow, as you don’t seem to understand i ll point out the flaw in your arguments.
First you said that being pushed out of the map to your death was a long serie of mistakes which is competitive and i would agree if that was true.
But i disagree because you can get push on only ONE mistake in this map, it is far too punishing.
You then say that making one single mistake and being hard punished for that is competitive -> first self contradiction. I point it out.
You then resay that it’s a a series of mistake -> second self contradiction.

That’s you that don’t understand what I say or you don’t want to understand.
I did not say that you can get pushed off on only ONE mistake. I’ve said that this map gives no room for errors, which means that you can’t afford to make errors because you’d die. Those are two different things.

Here’s my list of things you’ve done wrong if you get pushed off a cliff:

- Didn’t brought a proper stunbreaker
- Had no good positioning
- Had no stability on when you was in a dangerous spot
- Didn’t pushed off the enemy first
- Didn’t prevented the CC to be applied with any sort of blocks/invulnerability
- Didn’t teleported away from the ledge you fell from.

If you make all of these mistakes, then you fall off the cliff and die.

Audiogasm.7643:

Then if you can read, i said you usually fight for a node when out of cd, because it seems conquest is all about nodes, well maybe i was wrong and when an ennemy comes to contest my node i shall run in fear of him killing me because i got no cd.
Anyway you seem like the the type of personn who cannot handle a debat and recognise his flaws, or just a troll guys.
That’s my last answer to you, srry to others ppl for multiple posts.

I thought that you was talking about cannon fights, in which you can decide when to engage and when not.
Still, if you have your CCs on cooldown, you still made 5 of the 6 mistakes I’ve listed above.

Derps.7421:

You are a kitten the map is removed go play it on hot join. This map takes no skill thats the reality. I’ll let you stay in your little dreamland were you are preforming some masterful feat when you knock someone off the map. Enjoy

I like how your arguments your opinions. Seriously, come back to your cave.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

I respect your opinon. I like the map in terms of fun, but I think for a competitive environement this map is not designed, that’s my opinon. Competitive players played the map and realized that this map is different. It allows no structured teamfight, the cannon is not dodgeable and ppl have to specc on heavy CC builds. This provides mostly classes like the guardian, necro, engi and give them a huge advantage. Fights are based around CC’s and stability. The fact that I can kill ppl when I play a bunker-guard is in my eyes just silly. But as said, that’s my opinon.

People have to spec into position-controlling skill, which is something that never happened in any PvP map yet. It is a breath of fresh air in a stale PvP. Even a lot of never-used skills have found an use.

This map really have everything PvP needs but, still, people thinks it shouldn’t be in the PvP rotation just because they don’t like the push off mechanic.

I’ve already pointed out in another topic that every profession is fairly strong in this map, I can give you the link if you want. Meta have not yet established, so people are still experimenting around this map, that’s why we don’t see great game variety yet.

You can’t just kill someone if you play a bunker-guardian. You can kill someone if it makes obvious mistakes. A wise and good player doesn’t just get pushed off a cliff.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Calm down, no need to be so defensive about this game. I’m just wondering why they need 4 months for a map, that gets thrown out after 1 day in tourament rotation. Also I’m comparing GW2 with other games, not only GW1. So take that into consideration.

The map is well designed, despite what you may think
Any of the GW2 map has a lot of depth that any other game has not.

Skyhammer was taken out from the rotation simply because of the massive QQ of this map coming from players who don’t want to adapt, despite the fact that this map was obviously designed to encourage different playstyles.

“Competitive players” (notice the quotation marks) played the map, realized that the playstyle is different and that this implies they have to change their build and way to play in order to not get powned and rushed to the forum saying “OMG, tis map haz no skillz, remuve tis garbuge!”. This is the sad story of Skyhammer.

Audiogasm.7643:

sorrow.2364:

If that guy get pushed into the pit, he was outplayed.
He made a long list of mistakes that leaded to his death.

sorrow.2364:

The no-room for errors is competitive.
This map underlines the differences between skilled and unskilled players much much more compared to other maps simply because you can’t afford to make a mistake

I think that prove how good your arguments are …

I’ve made a list in another topic of mistakes made by someone who gets pulled to his death. It is approximately 8-points long.

Audiogasm.7643:

You’ve obvously never defended a node properly in tPvP, yet you’re speaking of how great this map is for competitive games. How you fight when out of cooldown is part of the game and show how well you know its mechanism.

Do you really want to engage someone holding the cannon with all of your stunbreakers on cooldown?
Is that what “competitive” means to you? Being able to engage a tough fight with your main defensive skills on cooldown and expecting to have any chance?

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

I look at other games and I can clearly see the difference in the pace of development. A-Net made maps on GW1 too (around 20), so I’m confused what’s going wrong here. That would be 20 × 4 = 80 months for all maps? So ye, I kinda ask myself why they need so long for 1 map.

Have you compared the average GW1 map compared to the average GW2 map?
Probably you didn’t.

Derps.7421:

Instant kill mechanics would be fine IF AND ONLY IF they were extremely kittening hard to do/hit. Knocking someone off this map is extremely easy. Like today on my engi i would go to a point break the glass and use tool kit 5 magnet to pull them into the pit they would dodge so i would cancel the animation maybe shoot them a bit then bam pull them to their deaths. This map takes no skill.

It is extremely easy only if you are extremely bad.
You don’t need to be any uber-skillz-pro player to understand that when an hole in the floor is between you and an engineer it is probably time to change position or get ready to being pulled.

Audiogasm.7643:

I think ppl do not understand the no-skill aspect of an instakill, in gw2 you should actualy have room to adapt to the build of your foe.
In fact when you see an engineer for exemple and he has pistol/shield. You can guess he s playing condition, maybe teldo build or a tweak version of it, he might also have a crazy build you ve never seen before.
But the thing is you are out of cd cause you just pwned a thief. So the engineer can simply push you out of the ledge with his shield 4, you dead and still don’t know anything about his build. It could have been a good fight or you could have delayed but no cd which happens a lot in tpvp means your death. Where do you have room to adapt, where is the skill ?
Now ppl are often raging/QQing hard when they don’t have some room to adapt, you just have to look at posts whinig about thief being OP because too much dmg or back at launch 100b warrior being OP.
Personnaly i play thief and have no problem on this map cause i m nerver out of cd (got to love init) and i don’t mind having no easy access to stab or knock backs/pulls, but i agree that it cannot be competitive in its state because of this lack of window for reaction, you do 1 mistake you die even if you were dominating the whole fight and build with no dmg can easily kill anyone. That’s not really competitve is it ?

The no-room for errors is competitive.
This map underlines the differences between skilled and unskilled players much much more compared to other maps simply because you can’t afford to make a mistake which isn’t something harmful to the competitive scene, it is something needed.

Regarding your example, it isn’t significative because you engaged such a dangerous fight with your stunbreakers on cooldown, which is something any competent player would have never, never done.

Xom.9264:

This map is for gimmicks not fighting, pushing someone off a ledge is not skilled play its easy to do if they dont have stability its good game. However I dont really have issue with the maps layout. Killing people in 1 hit with a siege weapon is not skilled play.

WvW is already a game mode that already has siege covered, really really really really kittening covered. WvW players despise the power of siege like AC’s, zero reason to bring that kind of bullkitten into the PvP game mode.

If you want to feel good at the game by pressing one WvW is for you leave PvP alone.

The cannon does not kill players in one hit.
Also, the animation of the cannon hitting in seconds is HUGE. You don’t care to being hit if you are hit by the cannon.

Why pushing someone off a ledge is not a skilled play?
It is much more skilled play to push someone off a ledge and prevent to be pushed down than spam your AoE skills in one node like everyone in every other tPvP maps do.

Derps.7421:

LE SIGH play the map in hot join it wasnt balanced in tpvp thats why it was removed move on

It was probably removed because of the massive amount of QQ around that map.
ArenaNet doesn’t just put a map in the tPvP rotation when half of the community QQ about it.

There is no skill cap no room for growth and tactics if something is already insta gib.

The map is terrible, we have plenty of this siege garbage in WvW already. Anet really needs to just kittening stop it and let PvP be the one kitten place in the game where players actually fight each other with their class.

Really?
Do you think there is no skill-cap and growth for tactics?
You should explain me why the ability of push off someone from a cliff makes this map skill-less.

As far as I see, this map is just less forgiving against players who play bad.

Softspoken.2410:

Except I can regularly observe older conditions being removed and newer ones being ignored.

You should test it better.
Guild Wars 1 worked with LIFO mechanic in both hexes, enchantments and conditions; I see no reason for ArenaNet, both balance-wise and logic-wise, to introduce some sort of priorities in condition cleansing.

Derps.7421:

Its funny today on my engi i would go to a point step on the glass switch to tool kit and used my #5 skill magnet and pull people into the pit. This map requires no skill. If you think pressing 1 button and instantly killing someone requires skill you must be a hot join hero.

Those elitists make me sick.
You pretend to know what’s good for everyone and who doesn’t agree with you must be a “hotjoin hero”.

If that guy get pushed into the pit, he was outplayed.
He made a long list of mistakes that leaded to his death.
A map which is less forgiving to distractions and bad plays definitely belongs to tPvP.

Also, why in this world insta-kill mechanic doesn’t belong to this game?
I can make an huge list of well-known competitive games with insta-kill mechanics.

Harrywinky.8632:

Doesn´t really matter having 235023952 states of the game when this game´s pvp is horrible and poor in terms of quality and variability.

To me the issue is that they aren’t listening to non-PvP players, not that they are listening to them.
Top tier players just want to enjoy the PvP as it is, they don’t want really big changes to make either the PvP more fun or adding some sort of variety. If top players decided for the game, they would just play Kyhlo, Niftel and Foefire over and over.

Non-PvP players, on the other hand, should be listened to undestand why they don’t play PvP and why they aren’t enjoying it. ArenaNet, imho, should figure out why PvP isn’t as attractive as PvE and WvWvW in this game.

Sad thing is that non-PvP players don’t give any feedback and don’t care that much about PvP anyway.

Why? Why?!
Skyhammer is a great map and involves good tactics and skills to be successful in.
Why do you removed it from the rotation? Why ANet? QQ

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey, you should watch this! http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/c/2517953

Blam, pwned!

There are several background music in that map, they are used also in Kryta (human) and Maguuma Jungle (sylvary and asura).

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Does it really negate hallowed ground? I’d have to see if order matters too. Also, I do have issues with thief, but only because they cannot be seen most of the time and you aren’t prepared. I’d have to say thieves, necros, guards, and engis are really favored this map.

Also Warrior and Elementalists are in a good spot.
Warrior have some nice pushback (Kick, Stomp and Fear Me) and also quite good access to stability (Balanced Stance, Dolyak Signet).

Elementalists have Tornado, which is useless in any map except this, in which it is extremely strong.

Ranger has Rampage as One which is a 20s stability. He as also a knockback in Longbow and the wolf AoE fear.
Mesmer have GS with Illusionary Wave, which can be devastating when used at the right time and Temporal Curtain.

Regarding WoC, I think that boon removal priority is last in first out as it was in GW1. I would test it out anyway, thought.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

True about the necro. I had those issues on my thief which isn’t geared towards taking down a necro at canon. However, still think stability for guards give them too much of an edge. It’s not up 100% but long enough to outlast any non-guard in addition to being able to cc them once their stability is up. There are boon removals but it’s not as reliable. And guards can block/dodge them too. Guards are more likely to cc a necro or someone who have boon removal by the time they can get stability off and cc back. Given that both players are equally skilled, classes that have more access to stability by default given them an upperhand at the skyhammer which can determine node fights.

That’s why I love Well of Corruption in Skyhammer.
Unblockable AoE boon corruption
You might imagine how fun is to drop WoC on top of their Hallowed Ground.

Also, keep in mind that most boon removals are unblockable because of Aegis.
A Thief, for instance, can steal their stability and pull them off with scorpion wire + trap.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Not sure how skilled picking up a guard and spamming stability is. Also not sure how skilled chain fearing someone to death is (making necros have to do less work to win? sweet).

Stability can be removed/corrupted by pretty much any profession.
Also, there is no way to have 100% stability uptime.

Also, if you got chainfeared to death, you are doing everything incredibly wrong because you didn’t:
- Brought an istant condition removal, which every profession have access to.
- Brought a proper stunbreaker
- Had a good positioning
- Had stability on when you was in a dangerous spot
- Pushed off the Necro first
- Prevented the fear to be applied with any sort of blocks/invulnerability
- Teleported away from the ledge you fell from.

Which leads to the fact that you deserved to die because you were outplayed. Plain and simple.
Chain fear is extremely easy to counter, pretty much because Fear is a condition other than a control effect.

Marduh.4603:

p/d might stack from signet with berserk gear.

Thieves have no opportunity might receive. So a hybrid build is always worse than a focused build.

Actually, there are quite some ways to stack might.
Stealth, on dodge, on venom activation…

Has anyone experimented yet? I mean, in a WvWvW-PvE environment, since PvP doesn’t allow that much of gear customization.

With the arrival of the Celestial gear with all-stat bonuses and cheap crit damage, I think it would be possible to make some strong of condition-power hybrid builds for Thief, expecially when we consider that the highest damage set (D/D) is also the best bleed-applier set.

I thought about something with heavy accent on evasion with Death Blossom and Acrobatics, some Trickery for vigor and Critical Strikes, but I’ve just started the theorycraft.

Has anyone idea of any good hybrid build?
Let the thoughts flow! :P

PS: please, refrain to make posts like “Conditions are bad on thief”, “D/D sux” or whatsoever.

frans.8092:

I never complained, I was discussing the relative merits of various forms of damage mitigation available, with others, when you barged in and derailed the thread. So far you’ve not posted anything relevant to the original topic post or it’s immediate reactions, you have only been arguing and only with me.

Damage mitigation that doesn’t require you to stop attacking is better then damage mitigation that forces you to stop attacking.

That is something you said in this thread.
You’re not discussing the merits of various forms of damage mitigation available, you’re just saying that Thief damage mitigation is worse compared to other damage mitigations.
So you point is either that Thief defenses are weak or you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing.
In both cases, you’re wrong.

The only time I use it to cleanse conditions is to speed up getting out of combat after a fight, until then it is used exclusively for positioning and the side-effect is very welcome. If you regularly find yourself in need of condition cleansing you should bring a utility for it, or, if possible trait it in something you use, but not a weaponset.

That was my point.
Shadowstep is more than enough as condition cleansing in PvE because conditions aren’t that much.

You don’t trigger them to remove a condition, you use them to blink around the battlefield at the appropriate time, condition cleansing is a useful side-effect. And because it’s usually used frequently conditions don’t tend to become problematic.

The fact that you see the condition removal as a side-effect doesn’t mean that it is a side-effect. You can use the skill as condition removal as much as you want to use it as a teleport.

Find one post where I say that.

It’s the logical conclusion someone gets to after reading your posts.
You said the whole thread that you think that Thieves defenses are not good because they forces you to stop attacking.
I’ve said that PW doesn’t force you to stop attacking and, also, other professions doesn’t usually attack when defending.

When I’ve asked you to give me an example of skills that doesn’t force you to stop attacking while mitigating damage, you named some skills whose most part were skills giving protection.

The implicit message of your posts is that you think that a profession to be on par with other professions in PvE needs passive damage mitigations (thus, protection), so a thief, to be considered viable and wanted, needs those abilities.

I didn’t say that, I said you can’t attack while dodging, which was said in response to a line of reasoning that claimed thief has good defence through, amongst others, their endurance regeneration.

Read above.

If you had actually followed the thread you would have understood. I’ve even tried to brief you on it, but you seem to prefer to ignore that and repeat your mantras.

What? WHAT?
I’ve said that Black Powder is a great damage mitigation skill.
You said it doesn’t work against mixed mobs.
Stooperdale said “That’s why Smoke Screen is so good” and you answered “The cooldown is really too long for that”. I’ve then showed you how similiar skills have even longer cooldown and don’t even mitigate the damage of melee mobs.
What’s your point, really?

It doesn’t increase the heal of Life Siphon, as far I know.
It increases the steal health effects of the Blood Magic traits, like Vampiric, Vampiric Precision, Vampiric Master and so on. The increased health you are gaining is probably because of the more Healing Power you have for picking up the trait.

Regarding regen in Death Shroud, it is intended that it doesn’t heal you.
Once time ago you were able to be healed while in Death Shroud, but now it isn’t possible anymore because, according to developers, it was too strong for Necros.

frans.8092:

You, obviously. They are positioning tools, not condition removals. You don’t Shadow Return away from your target in the middle of an attack chain and break it to remove a condition, you use Shadow Return to reposition yourself. Cleansing a condition is a side effect, no matter how useful that is is, it is generally not the reason to use it. Putting Shadow Step and Shadow Return on cooldown to cleanse conditions is wasting a tactical tool for it’s side effect. If you don’t realize the importance of their primary use, positioning, you don’t understand much of the Thief.

I didn’t know I was talking to a Thief pro. Funny thing is that you are complaining about thieves being weak in dungeons and, in the same topic, you are claiming to know the thief well. Those two things can’t stand together.

If you need to cleanse your conditions, you should use your Shadow Return as condition cleanse. If you need to reposition yourself, you should use IS/SS as mobility skill. Condition removal isn’t a “side effect”. It is an effect, period.
Depending on the situations, the condition removal is far more useful than the repositioning fact, in other situations both are useful.
If you don’t undestand that, then you probably don’t understand the Thief, not me.

frans.8092:

Now, who’s talking ridiculous. You know little of thief, but you know even less about me. Don’t even try to make statements about what I want.

Man, each post you made in this topic yells “I want protection on Thief”.
Even what you want to do, which is attacking while mitigating damage is facetanking.
You can’t say in every post that the fact thieves can’t attack while mitigating damage (which I proved it is false: PW) is an issue and then pretending you don’t want to facetank. This is just stupid.

frans.8092:

No, I didn’t, I said the recharge was too long to supplement Black Powder to overcome it’s weakness in fighting mixed mobs.

So what?
I really don’t know what you want.
Smoke Screen is an amazing utility which most professions envy to thief. What’s your problem with that skill?

If you need to tank melee mobs, use Black Powder. If you need to tank ranged mobs, use Smoke Screen, but you haven’t the 100% uptime, as every profession can’t block every projectile 100% of the time.

Stealth.9324:

I am all Ear to see how Eles can shine in this map with our CC we have, Updraft at 40s CD and only hit for a small area in front of you. Sure we can stay alive by giving ourself stability every 10s if trait and other Class can bring 4,5 CC and spam it….Oh and did I forget bout the Cannon that cover large area, deal dams equal to 80% of our health and undodgable ?

One word: Tornado.

I’m running the same build, except that I’m using Knight armor with Zerker trinkets.
It is extremely strong. Life Blast while wielding axe is really something enemies should be aware of.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Ok, that’s fair! Do you have any suggestions then, to maybe change the map a little to make up for classes that might not be as good at CC?

Someone mentioned making it harder, but not impossible, to knock people off the edge. Would something like that make you feel better about sticking to your class?

This is great feedback, btw. We really appreciate the constructive nature of these threads.

To be honest, I don’t think this map needs any change.
I found each profession to have enough tools to shine in this map.

Making it harder to knock people off the edge means making this map just like the other PvP maps, which is what everyone who is complaining about the map want.
They just want the new map to be what they were used to know as a tPvP map.
People will fight far off the edges to not be pushed off and it will all end to become Kyhlo with Skyhammer instead of a Trebuchet.

This map brought another way of play PvP which was needed. Conquest gets boring after 6 maps with the same theme and some secondary objective, fighting the same way people in every map to get a node gets boring after a while.

Also, I found this map to be incredibly skill-friendly, way more than the other maps. Good positioning and right-timed dodges never mattered as much as they do in Skyhammer. Having a bad positioning and not dodging at the right time will kill you, why, in the other maps, they will just cause you some extra annoying you can easily overcome.
Added to this, the map is much more fun to watch compared to other maps, another thing tPvP needs.

That’s why it should be a tPvP map and why other maps should have a such inspired design as this one.

This map is way, way more skill-based than other maps, it is extremely fitting for a tPvP environment.
It is fun to watch, fun to play, unforgiving and with higher learning curve compared to the other ones.

What’s the difference of a map being CC centric and other tPvP maps? In other tPvP maps it is only bunkers and conditions anywhere, so why people are complaining if they release a map in which both conditions and bunkers are not the best way to go?

And, by the way, I agree about templates. They are extremely useful.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Nope, I can adjust to it and lose mostly to thieves with the surprise gank. I don’t have problems playing a game I guess I have to play, but really don’t like the idea of it.

Well, then it is a matter of opinion. You just don’t like the map and I can easily undestand that.
It doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be in the tournament rotation, since a lot of people like it and it surely doesn’t discourage skillplay.

Errant Venture.9371:

There’s a difference between adjusting your build/playstyle to suit a mechanic or strategy and having to spec for massive CC/CC counters to oneshot others/avoid being oneshotted by spammable CC.

People are destroying balanced teams with 3 necro + 2 engi setups. Doesn’t that suggest that there’s a mechanics issue and not a build adjustment issue?

There is no difference. You are just adjusting your build to suit the map, bringing more CCs, more stunbreakers and stability.

You can play every profession with a good amount of CCs. If people play Necro and Engi it doesn’t mean they are stronger. The map has been out from 1 day, how can you say that early that something is broken? You can’t even say that every people are running 3 necro + 2 engi since you wouldn’t have enough statistical data to make such a statement.

Also, every profession is strong in this map.
A guardian with banish+stability is strong. A thief with stolen fear from necro or traps is strong too. A ranger with longbow is strong. I can go on until I’ve named all professions.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Circumstances shouldn’t be related to maps however. If a balance patch comes, sure, it makes sense to adjust instead of qqing. But having to totally change your playstyle due to a gimmicky map mechanic, that’s kind of ridiculous.

So it all goes down to the fact that you don’t want to adjust your playstyle…
Well, enough said.

Errant Venture.9371:

That’s a BAD thing. Are we playing Guild Wars or Build Wars? You should play to beat the other team, by being better PLAYERS than them. You shouldn’t be able to win because your build/profession is better at spamming CCs to get a oneshot kill.

So let’s throw random skills in our bar and expect to win because we are good.

Nope. A good player is also a player who dodge enemy CCs and can push the enemy down. It is just a different and less forgiving gameplay you’re probably not used to.

If you know that you’re going to play in Skyhammer, just build accordingly. People should know where they are playing in, don’t just ignore that factor and take the build they want to take.

bhagwad.4281:

It’s the only measure of talent. In all other fights you’re hiding behind your teammates who make up for your weaknesses and you for theirs. In a very real way, nothing matters other than 1v1s.

Actually, reducing talent to 1v1 skill is reductive.
Talent is a mixture between good build, good team coordination and, of course 1v1 skills, which consists in good timing and class knowledge.
A skilled 1v1 player is nothing with an horrible build or a completely uncoordinated team.

Errant Venture.9371:

Because knockback + fear are incredibly spammable and it doesn’t take a lot of skill to use them. Killing a talented player or bunkering a point against a good player is pretty kitten hard. Using a knockback/fear rotation rotation until someone reaches a ledge or immobilizing them on a glass platform is pretty easy, especially when you consider the ration of CC to stunbreak/condition removal.

Positioning isn’t “Hard” on this map either: You’re forced to either stand next to a wall and eat damage on tiny, cramped points until you blow up, or get CC’d off edges. That doesn’t take a lot of skill, to make that decision. It’s not fun, and it’s not competitive. Players asked for big, open cap points like Foefire so that team fights and skilled team-oriented play could develeop. Instead we got Cheese Wars where the team with the most knockbacks wins.

I don’t agree with this at all.
Every profession have access to some sort of pull, knockback or fear as much as every professions have access to stunbreakers, dodges and, of course, a brain.

You can’t be lauched off a ledge if you are good enough to find a good positioning. You just have to make sure you aren’t between your enemy and a ledge, that’s all.
If you failed to have a good positioning, you can still use your stunbreaker to save your kitten .

There is a lot of counterplay in this map and, most important, it is fun.
It adds diversity to the boring linearity of other maps.

Mammoth.1975:

You can’t avoid them all, the guy with stability can.

Besides, how hard is ‘hug the door like it’s a long lost lover’ anyway? You’re going to die if you’re standing anywhere else in the cannon room, no question.

Start casting knock, switch direction for one moment, boom headshot. Pr0.

Stability can be removed, stolen and corrupted. Mantaining a good positioning can’t.

Why are you just focusing on “hugging the door?” You can knockback your enemy too.
It’s up to you to be good enough to push them off before they do that to you.