Guild Wars 2

MarMaster.6241:

And there you have it.
I run a thief too. But, more in a thief hunter role, than in a group killer way. The game’s mechanics in WvWvW are broken regarding thieves.
We can skip over the l2p issue.

Wow. It has only taken 7 months to get an honest response regarding these issues. Cheers.

Any change in the thief situation in WvW? Last time I logged the backstab thieves could kill three or four on one simply because they could stealth pretty much through the entire fight. Please don’t bother with the “just lay down AOE” comments since that doesn’t bring them out of stealth even though it should.

marianitten.1247:

Remember. you only have to discover it.. not complete it.

Ahh man. That is it then. I would have definitely been doing the ones that I know where they already are.

EDIT

I “discovered” an additional two jp’s and even did them but still did not receive credit for them.

I am trying to complete my monthly quest but cannot since I am not getting credit for the jumping puzzles that I complete. Is anyone else having this issue. I submitted a bug ticket but haven’t heard anything back.

After playing for some time I believe that I have found the GW2 winning recipe (for me at least) to ACTUALLY have fun and play WvW. The WvW tokens are a joke, XP is really bad and loot drops are poop. Just use dungeon the drop gear and buy your gear from the AH in general. After I did this I actually found WvW fun since I wasn’t playing just to get gear to be competitive. I was so concentrated on getting my “PVP” gear that I completely missed the fact that it is zero relevant to have this.

Wow, zero responses. I am not sure if that is bad or good.

Just for good measure…Anet should start giving these out since they are actually a lot of fun. This might fix some of the ill will towards the company.

After discussion with other players with similar mindsets we have determined that you are almost in the goldilocks zone. I mean that you are releasing new content, updates and general fun gameplay regularly and are addressing issues in a somewhat timely manner. We did have a concern about the WvW class balance and general mechanics of the “competitive” game play. There are some issues with certain classes in WvW that are in need of adjustment but otherwise keep the updates coming. If you would like some feedback regarding the WvW concerns please feel free to send me a PM.

ps – One portion of the WvW involvement has to do with backstab thieves.

I blame thieves

So I have yet to see anything regarding the thief mechanics OR animations (anet culling) listed in the fixes as of late. I find it rather hard to digest that ANET would ignore the largest issue with WvW other than culling (self inflicted) that is apparent to me be ignored. Thieves are at this point are ruining WvW for the solo and low group contingent. Should a thief really be able to peramastealth a group of three and kill them and actually feel like they bested those players? It’s completely ridiculous that this happens.

Well…thieves. That about nails it.

Just from being in high pop areas and seeing the performance in the client drop significantly, what you mentioned should help a lot. Thanks for the actual response.

Katsumoto.9452:

swilkers.5938:

A premade on vent facing a pug of players just doing whatever. Not really impressive especially against elementalists in a choke point. You probably would have the same kills in a siege situation. Neither are really brag worthy.

Make a 4 man party and do this yourself. I await the video.

It’s very impressive. Most of the time you’ll never pull this off simply because of say, mesmer curtain pulls or something.

Sorry that you find this disparaging but you made my point in your own response. No mesmers were doing anything. No opposing players were using CC’s, no soldiers were charging and a large amount were being upped to 80. This wasn’t open field battle, it was a choke point. These players were terrible and may as well be in the lords room in SM. I believe that you caught lightning in a bottle and have a fraps of it. What does my opinion matter anyway?

A premade on vent facing a pug of players just doing whatever. Not really impressive especially against elementalists in a choke point. You probably would have the same kills in a siege situation. Neither are really brag worthy.

I just want to say thanks for the post. This helped me greatly. I was using a bunker build and it just wasn’t working out for my play style in WvW.

Aratoa.7398:

swilkers.5938:

Aratoa.7398:

Well, this is the most blatant troll thread yet.

Really? Take it how you will. It’s the truth.

No, it’s not. What you describe is not possible. You should have tried something more plausible like level 50 or so, you know, when you actually have stuff unlocked and usable.

Yes, you will die more than you kill but it’s ridiculous none the less. I just unlocked the second dagger to use that instead of the pistol. I will edit a video and post it.

Aratoa.7398:

Well, this is the most blatant troll thread yet.

Really? Take it how you will. It’s the truth.

Aberrant.6749:

Got a video of this?

Sigh…no. I can do it again though. It wasn’t difficult at all.

Thief Answer –
No, you just need to learn to play and not leave your back available

Every other player-
Yes, this is the lowest skill level class that griefers and 12 year olds play. I have been hit for 28K in three seconds on my Ranger. They permastealth and the game animation is broken. Which means that they can pop out of stealth and go back in before you even see them. They can get away from almost any attack and can stealth while taking damage. This is the only game in history that allows that. It’s known, ANET doesn’t care the least and thieves will continue to grief. Roll a Guardian or Warrior to give them a hard time.

Addition
1.7 – Thieves
Don’t worry about getting killed by thieves. It is the lowest skill class. The game would be entirely better without this class in the game.

Asthenea.1546:

Well thanks for the posts guys, I’m still gonna try one! It seems like every thinks their class is broken so if they are all broken I’d say that means they’re balanced! Cheers.

Play to level 10, love it and then realize @ 80 that you have been mistaken. Roll another class until ANET decides to release that “significant changes” update that all Rangers have been waiting for. Believe me, if ANY class can claim the “broken” tag, it is the Ranger.

CrakittenestAuto.9108:

While I agree that there should be a collectibles tab for tokens (if nothing else but to look cool when you fill it), I don’t think this needs to be asked with such hostility. ArenaNet literally just expanded the collectibles tab a week ago, which freed up a load of space. I would love them to expand it further, and I actually have some hope that they will.

If you consider what I posted hostile, you are a sensitive boy.

In my bank I have ten types of tokens that split at 250. Between the individual dungeons having tokens for each, WvW tokens, fractals, pristine fractals and stacks of event mats I am running out of space. I just purchased a new block of space that cost me 11G. There must be a better option for the players than this.

1. Why make tokens split at 250? Let them stack on.
2. Make another “collection” area in the bank just for tokens

This would pretty much fix the space issue. Also, the default bank space should be increased in general for the players since you like to give us tons of seasonal mats.

Working as designed

RandomHominid.3456:

swilkers.5938:

Can anyone clarify what “Reflect damage” means? Is is takes the damage that you would have taken and reflect it back (which is the most logical definition) or something convoluted? Anet is known for that.

Thanks-

What is the exact name of the skill(s) you are talking about?

There are four skills that have the word “retaliate” in it for the Guardian.

Healer’s Retribution (upon using a healing skill)
Retaliatory Subconscious (upon being dazed, stunned, knocked down, knocked back or feared.)
Virtue of Retribution (upon activating a virtue)
Wrathful Spirit (when aegis ends)

It seems to me that these skills ( as well as MANY other skills in many other classes) are VERY misleading in title. I would love to speak with the dev that chose this wording and correct them. In reality, not going to happen.

Ubi.4136:

Having a thief, mesmer and necro (all 80), I understand the issue, but tend to fall back to DAoC as a reference for everything. Can’t recall being one shot, although close, in this game, but can think of many occasions it happened (from a real perma-stealth toon – in this case mostly Nightblades in DAoC).

I don’t wait for toons to render as I am constantly spamming the closest enemy button, and attacking it. I have just as much trouble with (if not more) with the zerg rendering than thieves alone. At least with the thief, I hit closest target and have a red circle on the ground to attack. With the non-rendering zerg, hit closest target (to see how far the wave has pushed in) and you still have a guy 1200 away with 10 guys 5 away killing you.

For those asura getting beat down by thieves. Take pain inverter, hit it first, than heal, laugh etc.

Hmm…yeah DAOC will probably never be reproduced. That game required ACTUAL skill. The mesmer does have the second most coveted WvW skillset behind the thief. I truly hate dealing with mesmers one on one. They are just pita’s.

So how do thieves that play WVW feel about the animation issues that everyone else encounters? You stealth, hit players and stealth again. The player never sees you. You do obscene amounts of damage and the player that you are hitting doesn’t even know it. The entire mechanic is flawed in the game engine. Does this even bother you knowing that you are killing players that can’t even defend themselves? I play a Guardian now, it doesn’t really bother me. I pick on thieves. I just see it happening over and over with no acknowledgement from ANET. Please don’t take this as trolling, I am being serious.

Wow, zero responses. Glad that this GLARING issue is going to be addressed.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Retaliation deals fixed damage based on your power to the opponent every time you get hit. The amount of damage you actually take doesn’t matter. You could take 0 and still trigger retaliation. It won’t trigger on block or evade, though.

This just seems rather convoluted. Where is all of this information located by the way?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Retaliation deals fixed damage based on your power to the opponent every time you get hit. The amount of damage you actually take doesn’t matter. You could take 0 and still trigger retaliation. It won’t trigger on block or evade, though.

Well that doesn’t really happen then. If I pop the reflect skill, I still take damage. I always take damage and the description of the skill doesn’t describe the trait at ALL. Once again, I am an ANET casualty. Has no one at ANET EVER played any game other than this? A CC is a CC, not a condition. Reflect means take NO damage and the damager takes ALL of that damage. If you need more advice let me know.

Can anyone clarify what “Reflect damage” means? Is is takes the damage that you would have taken and reflect it back (which is the most logical definition) or something convoluted? Anet is known for that.

Thanks-

Thanks for the release teaser for JAN-FEB but I didn’t see anything listed about the animation / rendering issues that almost everyone experiences in WVW.
AKA
-Invisible armies
-Thief issues (perma invisible)
-Player slideshow
-etc

Any dev response would be great, thanks.

I was on my Guardian in WvW and came across a defender that was a Guardian. We fight for around 2 minutes solo and I noticed that the player was using a GS but the attacks looked like the one hander and shield animations. Another two of my teammates decided to jump and in the enemy player just stopped taking damage for way longer than any ability that a Guardian has. It took three players everything that they could do to kill this guy. He actually killed two of us before we killed him. Later on, I saw the same player soloing four enemies in the jumping puzzle. Does this seem legit?

Agadar.4931:

On my exotic-geared ranger, I poke at my enemies with slow-motion arrows which barely even scratch their armor – assuming they hit in the first place.

On my guardian, I literally keep entire WvW zergs alive.

It is no wonder I’ve abandoned my ranger and made my new guardian my main.

It’s unfortunate and sad because all of the fixes are listed in the forums. The dev just needs to implement them and worry less about snow days and special events.

Rhaps.8540:

Insightful, new, helpful, constructive… I’d use none of these words to describe this thread.

Clever, intelligent and relevant..I’d use none of these to describe your comment.

On my alt, a Guardian. I immediately bought some gear and went to WVW. I had the opinion that the Ranger was below average but after playing the Guardian class in WVW I realized that below average was giving the Ranger a compliment. My Guardian ran a tank build and I had twice as many kills as my Ranger and died half as many times. I also did support and almost leveled again JUST doing that. It’s official at this point, my Ranger isn’t even my alt, it’s third in the list and I only have two toons at this point. Oh and by the way, my Ranger is completely geared out including ascended gear unfortunately. Maybe in a year when the “significant changes” patch actually comes out, I will blow the cob webs off him. Unfortunately with the current state things and personnel (cough) we won’t be seeing that very soon.

mamourrir.9641:

Alvarez.9840:

Good Job Jon, you guys really did a great job. I mean, FIX A BUG, wow.

better than nothing. At least they are working on rangers !

Yeah, you are right. This is LITERALLY the least that they could do and have the Ranger listed in the patch notes.

I posted a video of 28K in three seconds by a thief. ANET doesn’t give half of one quarter of a kitten about it. The players that play thieves will just laugh when you say anything and tell you to LTP.

I only have 1000 kills in PVP and my alt has full WvW gear. Thanks jumping puzzle and thanks ANET!

Fellknight.4820:

A ranger without track or reveal is like a thief without stealth leaves no point to having the class in the game.

I’m actually no thief fan boys have raged on this thread yet.

DaisyRogers.6837:

Traps are actually in a good place. It is like the necro needing to spec to GT wells or increase the size of marks.

Works well on its own, works better when traited.

Only things that needs some love is to remove or greatly reduce the spirit internal timer. And move the grand master spirits move trait up to first tier and place something else there. Spirits are useless unless they are following. Since it is about impossible to get any milage out of them until end game no one ever really uses them and or have settled into other builds by the time it becomes viable.

Pets hitting on the run would solve ranger DPS tremendously. If they fix this there would be no need to fix weapon damage as we would be complete.

Pet aggro works just fine, I actually appreciate the aggro system of the game and how it prioritizes. Some fights I have to kite more than others, no big deal. I don’t want to stand in place and pew pew pew.

RaO fix… lol… yeah… that’s all I got. It works fine as is and can build up a nice combo with my pets. The stability is bonus.

Sorry to break the news to you, pet aggro doesn’t work fine.

Fomby.4295:

Lol, you don’t see anything that would make them overpowered? I see three things that would be ridiculous.

•Trap damage increase
•Your rampage as one condition skill would destroy heavy condition based builds
• 25-30% damage increase off the top??? That’s ridiculous.

I do think that there are problems with the class, many of them coming from pets, which I know they won’t be fixing any time soon, if ever. So I agree that something’s should be looked at. But these things would make us more OP than thieves.

Have you even looked at the damage that traps do?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trap

“•Your rampage as one condition skill would destroy heavy condition based builds
-That is the point, this gives you a very short window to get away. You know, like every other class has.

25-30% Damage increase
Do you even play the Ranger class?? This wouldn’t even put Rangers to par with Warriors or Thieves. I have full exotics, 50% crit with over 2K power and only crit for (sometimes) 5K. So a 30% increase would put us at 6500 crit on average for myself at least. You are 100% absolutely wrong. I posted a video of my Ranger getting hit in three seconds by a thief for over 32K. Play a Ranger in WvW some more.

So yeah, I stand by my statement.

Calavero.3420:

Nah.

Against a stationary mob in Orr, at ranged my Ranger and Warrior can kill the mob in about the same amount of time.

Have the mob start moving, that changes completely.

Rangers need some form of weapon-based burst (we shouldn’t have to change our whole spec and forgo having decent ranged damage to do what all other classes can do just by pushing “2”, for instance), and our pets need to work against moving targets.

I understand where you’re coming from, but if all your changes were implemented, the Ranger class would be brokenly overpowered.

Would you rather have a broken car that runs or a broken down car? It’s obvious that ANET isn’t going to fix the core issues with the class. I would rather have buffs on my broken class than four updates a month for the next 15 months. It’s absolutely unacceptable the way it is now. I fail to see how any of what I posted would make the class overpowered. It would put it on par with other classes.

Your link is baaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

EDIT

Sorry, you have to copy and paste the link.

The list of bugs, complaints and general unhappiness with the Ranger class is entirely fixable. You don’t have to roll out 3 “fixes” at a time to do it either. Here is a list of things that can be implemented tomorrow that would turn this class on its head and bring joy to those that have long since shelved their Rangers.

TRAPS-
-Make traps enlarged by default. There is no reason to have to use a passive ability for this
-Double the trap effectiveness by default (CC length and condition)
-Significantly (100%) increase the damage dealt by traps (condition damage)

ABILITIES
-Make hide in plain sight an actual ability and not a passive ability. Give it a 10 min cooldown.
-Give Rangers access to control ALL of the pet abilities

PET
-Pet AOE taunt for PVE and make them actually hold aggro
-Get rid of half of the useless pets or make the useless pets usable (aka the pig and such)
-Give a pet the ability to detect stealth
-LET US STOW THE PET
-Make the pet stay on passive

General Ability
-Increase the shot distance of the longbow by 10% by default
-Make “Rampage As One” ignore conditions as well as CC

And finally!

DPS-
-Increase the general DPS by Rangers (off the top) by 25-30% and scale it accordingly with strength. The precision crit percentage should be adjusted to match the scale. Also the pets would need a significant increase to match this.

THIS is how the “significant changes” release should have looked. I would buy the dev that did all of this an omaha steak.

Thieves get a ridiculous amount of “get out of jail free” cards. This is a huge complaint as well as being OP in PVP. One way to even the odds is not to let ANY class or player stealth while they are taking damage. If a player has DOTS on them, they should never be able to use stealth until the DOT is done. This is the only game that I have ever heard of that allows players to run around in stealth while they have DOTS. This would not be class specific though. Also, the animation for the stealth"fading in and out" needs to be done away with since the game engine can’t translate it fast enough. By the time a thief pops in and out, they don’t even appear to the other player. You can fade out but not in. These suggestions don’t nerf any DPS so it shouldn’t be that much of an issue to the “good players” and also gives opposing players more of a fighting chance and should solve some of the complaints by players.

I guess that the definition of “significant changes” differs from person to person. Unfortunately the dev in charge of rangers thinks that making pets less stupid is a significant change. I would like to trade devs please. Give the rangers the thief class dev. They seem to like to buff the heck out of a class.

I would swap out “Hide in Plain Sight” for “Shared Anguish” but its pretty good.

And I logged off after I picked up a crowbar and opened 100 crates with nothing in it.

So in the 17 bullet points I don’t see anything about the animation bug. How about that? It’s bad enough that the thief class is entirely OP but to add to the problem, you have a well known AND documented problem that you fail to acknowledge or fix. It really doesn’t matter the least since your game engine can’t keep up with it. Players that play the thief class think everything is okay. “Yeah you suck, don’t give us your back” comments are galore. We can’t even see them until it’s too late since the animation is BROKEN. I had a thief hitting me for three seconds before they even appeared on my screen. Can I have some kind of explanation please?