Guild Wars 2

Dawdler.8521:

And dont complain about the freakin Moa.

So tell me what to do if you get moa’d from stealth and moa #5 get interrupted? 10s of unbreakable control = game over

Hey there,

is it just me or has Mesmer become the most ridiculous class in solo roaming (1vs1)? I solo roam in WvW since headstart with all of my toons (engi, ele, thief, warrior). I’ve tried so many different strategies and builds with all chars, but nothing works against decently played mesmers.

Constant clone and phantasm spam with plenty of conditions and burst potential both from melee and range, damage from pets while mesmer is stealthed (no revealed), knockback, block, stealth, blink and perma vigor if you manage to hit them with melee, ridiculous 10s unbreakable control via moa…

I’m sick and tired of fighting them. Maybe its just me and Im to stupid lol. But it took the fun out of solo roaming for me entirely. So Im left with two options: either ignore mesmers at all and run away (stupid) or just quit this game.

Just saying, now flame me to death. ^^

teg

Evasive Powder Keg does more harm than good during stealth. And as a 5 point minor trait its hard to avoid.

Dear Anet,

please disable Evasive Powder Keg when engineers enter stealth. In the current state of game you cannot dodge while stealthed because the bomb on dodge will immidately reveal you.

Since Toss Elixir S is on a huge cooldown (60s) you should not be revealed accidentally.

Another option would be that bombs from this trait doesnt reveal you but thats probably a direction you dont wanna go.

Keep up the good work.

Thx teg

@EFWinters: The problem is not 1vs1. Its zerg battles and the ease of applying retaliation to an entire blob. Flamethrower #1 hits 10 times in 2s. Each tick hits up to 5 targets. Thats a maximum of 50 hits in 2s.

Retaliation damage is: 198.45 + (0.075 * Power)

So with 3000 power its 423 * 50 = 21.150 damage from retaliation.

Engi Grenade Barrage is 7 grenade = a maximum of 35 hits. Thats 14.805 damage from retaliation.

Warr Axe anytime chain is 6 hits which cleaves to up to 3 enemies (18 hits). 7.615 damage from retaliation.

Warr Volley (rifle) hits up to 3 targets (pierce) 5 times (15 hits). 6.345 damage from retaliation.

Do you need more examples?

No passive ability should deal such massive amounts of damage!

Its a similiar problem as with confusion before they nerfed it. People said “just stop attacking when you have 25 stacks confusion”. But thats stupid.

In the case of Retaliation only a few professions/ skills are punished extremely hard. It doesnt make any sense at all.

AFAIK engi is the only profession who can constantly hit up to 15+ enemies from range. Hitting 15 players with chill, poison, blind, bleed and vulnerability is invaluable in WvW zerg battles. Sure, conditions can be cleansed, even more in a large blob. But engis reapply conditions every now and than. On the other side engis are punished extremely hard by retaliation. High risk, high reward.

@Ambrecombe: Thanks for that info. Do you know how it works for stacks of conditions? E.g. I have 5 stacks of bleed on me. Does all 5 stacks get converted from me to the enemy or just one?

Undertaker.2731:

love the blobladon warrior from DvK that i was chasing for half a map and ran like there was no tomorrow until he found a 2 blobladon mates and then decided not to run anyways… a big fat LOL to you mate

Chasing one player around the map is absurd nonsense. A big fat LOL to you bro! ^^

Juba.8406:

also it procs even if you have no conditions

Thats the main problem imo. You start fighting, it procs with not conditions, goes on cooldown for 10s without doing anything at all.

If it wont proc unless you have conditions on you, it would be worth a try.

blutstein.2468:

teg.1340:

OMG I ever read ‘on crit’ but its ‘on hit’ for Shrapnel. That makes Shrapnel really useful.

I’m still undecided about Sigil of Earth. It’s on a 2s internal cooldown. What happens if it procs on a grenade which hits 5 enemies. Does all 5 enemies get the bleed proc or just one?

just one.

Thats what I feared.

OMG I ever read ‘on crit’ but its ‘on hit’ for Shrapnel. That makes Shrapnel really useful.

I’m still undecided about Sigil of Earth. It’s on a 2s internal cooldown. What happens if it procs on a grenade which hits 5 enemies. Does all 5 enemies get the bleed proc or just one?

You can hit up to 5 targets up to 3 times with 1 grenade skill. So in a 1vs1 each grenade skill got a triple chance to generate a crit. So with 33% crit chance you would have 1 crit for each grenade skill used. IMO thats more than enough to trigger on crit effects as soon as the cooldown wears off.

I’m running the same build with dire weapons/armor and rabid trinkets. I’m at 28% crit chance which is enough for me to trigger burn on crit every 10s. I dont use Shrapnel because IMO 15% isnt worth it even with a high crit rate. I also dont use Sigil of Earth.

But I would like to hear other oppinions about Shrapnel.

I have done tons of solo roaming with all of my toons (warrior, thief, ele, engi). All of them can solo flip camps easily. None is faster than my GS/LB knights/zerker warrior.

- use zerker stance
- pull all behind a corner
- use stability
- use LB #2, #3, F1
- use 100b
- use WW against the wall

done.

DAT TREES !!!11 ^^^^^^^^^

I never play sPvP so cannot speak for that. Sure this build has cons and I dont win any 1vs1. I try to compensate the lack of condition cleanse by utilizing the environment, e.g. kite around obstacles while throwing nades and bombs for zone control. Works pretty well. D/D thiefs are not that big of a deal with Elixir S. P/D thieves can be tough but like me they also suffer decent condition cleanse so it all depends on who can land conditions faster. And as I also play thief as alt this helps alot for negating C&D + doing proper zone control.

I do alot of solo roaming on my condi engi. This is my build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqyX3zSiF1LJyoCdGoC1nIF5nl95hcxWQIA-jUCBoOChk0A0HIkIgZSFRjtsuIasaGYqUER1OEFRrWIAFzBA-w

I have yet to find a profession which I cannot kill 1vs1. D/D ele with diamond skin can be tough but its doable. You have to go through 1-2k HP without conditions. Its not that hard unless they manage to surprise you.

I prefer Elixir S over Elixir Gun due to the instant access to stealth. I use stealth alot either to escape from outmanned fights or to unleash havoc at the beginning of a fight.

The last fight for me was a minute ago against a guard in ruins. Then I ran to the south ruin and died when I reached the stairs behind the ruin. I didnt recognize any lag. And I was plain dead, no downstate.

WTF?

I just died instantly without any enemies around. Was out of combat running through ruins. My health went from 100% to 0% in about half second. Then I was dead. No Downstate. No enemies. Battle log is empty showing no hits.

Hacks? Drunken admins? Huge bug? Exploit?

I wouldnt say that DAOCs stealth system was better than in GW2. Sure stealthing incombat is extremely annoying and frustrating in GW2. In DAOC you cannot stealth while in combat but you can stealth forever while out of combat. As a result there were places in DAOC with plenty of stealthers out there waiting for victims. Stealthers popped out from nowhere, ruining battles all day long.

At least in GW2 you see them coming unless they SR around the corner.

mini.6018:

Immobilize bug .ppl can dodge while immobilized lolol = Miss your attack,miss flurry damage,etc

You cannot dodge while immobilized. But you can use skills which trigger evade.

Bolas indeed are great. It seems anyone just expect stuns from warriors. So if they cannot move they just throw their stunbreaker. I killed so many players just by using Bola or Pin Down + 100b. Its unbelievable. lol

Read the patch notes:

Immobilize can now only stack 3 times.

There were plenty of threads like that. Anet never listened. Killshot is fine: huge casttime, huge damage.

BTW: The damage shown in the screenshot is nothing special. You can deal way more damage with 1 killshot by piercing into an enemy blob (Crack Shot). Half a year ago I made few screenshots of my warrior dealing 48k+ damage with one (piercing) killshot. And I wasnt even fully glass canon. lol

@Jae: Your pro elitism rant finally convinsed me. Bravo!

Seriously, how do you kite a GS/LB warrior with perma swiftness via SOR/FS. I’ve done solo roaming with this build for months and won like a gazillion 1v1+. Mesmers are the only class which gave me trouble. But thats true for most professions cause mesmers are king of 1vs1.

I know, I know. Its too late. A.E.D. has arrived. Anyways…

How would you design a new heal skill for engineers?

This is mine:

Big ’ol Healing Bomb (25s cooldown)

Set a timed charge that launches nearby foes. The detonation catapults you up in the air while healing you. You evade all attacks.

Damage: ???
Launch: 400
Radius: 300
Healing: 5500
Evade: 1.5s

Toolbelt (16s cooldown)

Ignite a bomb which catapults yourself to the enemy.

Damage: ???
Regen (3 1/2s): 780 Heal
Range: 1200

I play warrior in WvW since headstart. I played almost any build in WvW both before and after warrior love.

Really, if you get kited as a warrior your doing it wrong. Maybe you dont know half as much as you think you do!?

MikeJo.4169:

Yes, people can easily counter us, but what is left for wars to counter those who can easily kite us?

Are you kidding? There are so many tools on the warrior which prevent you to be ever been kited again: Rifle, Longbow, Greatsword, Sword, Bulls Charge, Bolas, Rampage, …

Why no Invigorating Speed?

Healing Signet heals for more hps, sure. But its a #6 slot skill.

As mentioned in the Dulfy link: The synergy with Automated Medical Response could be interesting:

- Trigger AED when >25% HP
- AED cooldown resets when < 25% HP
- “Die”
- Get healed for 12k+

If you dont “die” within 4s you can use AED another time.

Thx for your opinions on that. I’m still undecided. My gold pool is currently too low to give it a try.

Any wvw vids out there as a showcase of how viable celestrial is for solo roaming?

@Nirvana: Bombs are indeed dangerous in zerg fights because you have to be in melee range. If you really want to use bombs on the enemy zerg blob you have to “surf the zerg”. You have to predict where the zerg will be in the next seconds and lay your bombs accordingly. But its extremely dangerous due to the amount of Earthshakers flying around nowadays.

Just use Nades for zerg fights and you will loot… alot! Only a few player skills in this game are capable of hitting more than 5 targets in WvW. Nades has 6 of them. Just pay attention to not kill yourself through retaliation.

The crafting station.

Just kidding: I would go for Greatsword + Longbow for huge AOE damage + burning.

Shield Bash (3k) → Staggering Blow (5k) →Earthshaker (5k) → Backbreaker (5k) → Fierce Blow (5k)

This combo deals huge damage even for non-zerker warriors. And its not that easy to break out of this combo with stun breakers alone. Sure its easy with stability but not every profession has great access to stability like warriors do.

My main is a warrior and I’m totally fine with the proposed damage nerf.

Hi,

currently I run a p/s bomb, nade condition build on my WvW engi. I’m using full dire armor + rampager trinkets, so my conditions are pretty strong but the direct damage skills hit like a wet noodle.

I’m theorycrafting around a hybrid (not so) full celestrial build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqyX3zSiF1LJyoCdGoC1nIF5nl95xbxWQIA-jkCBoeBkqAkEBI5rIasl1FRjV3Ly6FYqWA6WJ1noIa1CBoYCA-w

On all my other chars I ever focus on either condition or power damage but never mixed them up. But engineers seem to be different. So much conditions spread around but also so much power damage potential.

What do you think? Is the idea viable or complete garbage? Anyone playing such a mixed build?

thx teg

PS: I play WvW only so please dont focus your answers around PVE or sPVP.

High range damage is nonsense. Shortbow and Pistol is far from high damage and far from high range (restricted to 900 range whereas all other range professions got 1200-1500 range).

Also stealth is not spamable from range. CnD is melee range and costs 50% ini. DP stealth will be nerfed next patch.

So at the end stealth is spamable via CnD if you target doesn’t know what he’s doing. As soon as CnD misses (via dodge, block, blink, evade) the thief is forced to stealth via utilities which all are on fairly high cooldowns.

Also perma 25% run speed… its a complete joke because EVERY profession has access to it nowadays. Most professions have (nearly) perma swiftness uptime, so as a thief you are actually 8% SLOWER than most professions.

You wanna sell this as an advantage… really?

PPT is all about numbers and 24/7 coverage. Bigger numbers/ coverage win. True story. Sure you can win a few outnumbered fights every now and then. But that barely makes any difference in the long run.

Anyhow WvW at least for me is not about the points, it’s about the fights. So for me WvW for sure can be taken serious. I do alot of solo roaming, just for the sake of fun. And it works. At least for me.

Hi,

on my human thief the run animation is too slow when I wield a shortbow. I’m using Dagger/Dagger and Shortbow combined with 6 Superior Runes of Traveler, which grant me 25% run speed.

When I’ve equipped Dagger/Dagger everything works fine. But when I switch to Shortbow the Run Animation is just as slow as I would run without 25% run speed bonus. The legs of the character move much slower than with Dagger/Dagger equipped which is quite confusing. It gives you the feeling that the 25% run speed doesnt work.

The problem only occurs when the Shortbow is in your hands. If you put it on your back the run speed animation is just as fast as with other weapons.

Its extremely annoying. Please adjust the run speed animation for Shortbow on Human thief characters!

Thanks teg

Another nice option would be to leave Last Refuge as is but make it active instead of passive:

When Last Refuge triggers it enables an additional skill (Blinding Powder) via F2 button. This skill disappears after 5s or after activation.

Kadin, this is also a valid suggestion. Please post it in the appropriate suggestion thread so hopefully Anet reads it:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Suggestiont-to-fix-Thief-trait-Last-Refuge/

I’ve filed a bug report for Last Refuge yesterday:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Thief-trait-Last-Refuge/

Feel free to add your comments there so this issue gets Anets attention hopefully.

baylock.1703:

teg.1340:

Stealth IMO should either trigger revealed when you deal damage (no matter if its direct or passive damage through pets) or when you take damage. Otherwise its too strong. So for mesmers it should be the other way around: get revealed when you take damage in stealth.

Revealed for thieves was introduced for a reason…

what part of stealth is utility for mesmers you dont understand? and its not offencive for mesmers its deffencive

No. It’s not defensive. Your clones deal damage while you are stealthed. That’s the whole reason of this thread.

Another option would be that all pets stop attacking while mesmer is stealthed. Now stealth is defensive! Problem solved.

Stealth IMO should either trigger revealed when you deal damage (no matter if its direct or passive damage through pets) or when you take damage. Otherwise its too strong. So for mesmers it should be the other way around: get revealed when you take damage in stealth.

Revealed for thieves was introduced for a reason…

I use all of my skills from d/d constantly: HS is decent damage, DD for anti-kite, DB for evading while immobilized.

If you want to utilize on swap sigils, you can use another d/d set or use this trick:

weaponset 1: mainhand dagger, offhand nothing
weaponset 2: mainhand nothing, offhand dagger

Then you can trigger weapon swap effects every 10s while constantly running around with d/d.

I’m not sure Anet is aware of the issues, so my intention is to get Anets attention.

It’s hard to believe for me that they knowningly ignore it.

JonPeters.5630:

I couldn’t find a thread to place this in. Here is a summary of what I have seen discussed on the thief changes and some more clarity into what our initial thoughts were and where we stand currently.

Initiative changes
We believe this is one of the most controversial but important changes this patch. The important thing to understand is that we have been and will playtest this a lot more before we push this change. The default rate of initiative regeneration was simply to low and was causing players to either take traits to suppliment it, or to have their effectiveness suffer. This is something that has to change. What these changes intend to do is to increase the power of every single thief build that is not running these traits, and to ever so slightly reduce the maximum amount of initiative you can have per second if you min/max those traits. I know its easy to theorycraft what is going to happen here and there is a lot of danger in that. It is hard to get a sense of this change without playing it, and believe me if I could I would let everyone test a change of this magnitude and gather some more empirical and data driven feedback, but currently our resources are limited, but we still believe that this is a change whose time has come. We will monitor it very carefully when we do release it to make sure it is working as intended.

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

Infusion of Shadow
For basic use this trait’s functionality is not going to change. By many players it was being used to grant some initiative when going into stealth. However there were some abusive builds that were using this to maintain very long stealth uptime without having to use their utility skills. The problem with this is that it lets them recharge those skills while in stealth, which takes away the risk associated with using them. We are ok with thieves blowing their cooldowns to have longer stealth, and we are ok with theives bouncing in and out of stealth, but we were not ok with thieves maintaining long duration stealth through abusing a single trait.

Flanking Strikes
I agree that this move may be overkill on the thief. We are currently discussing undoing it. The main motivation was that we really wanted to move Trickster to adept tier to encourge use of those utilities, and the most obvious candidate to move up was Flanking Strikes. This isn’t how we should be making that decision, so we will discuss this and get back to you.

Vigorous Recovery & Bountiful Theft
I’ve seen a lot of talk about this as well, and discussing this already this morning the current vigor is a bit too high, but we may have overdone the reduction. I was thinking about going back to 5s or 6s on Vigorous Recovery, and going back to 10s or 12s on Bountiful Theft.

Thanks,

Jon

Dear Jon,

any chances we get Last Refuge fixed for Dec, 10 patch or later? Please read this bug report:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Thief-trait-Last-Refuge/

Thanks teg

Hi Anet,

Last refuge activates blinding powder when your health reaches 25% which stealthes you. But as you use your weapon skills you immediately destealth and get revealed. Stealth and revealed management is an integral part of the thieves defense. Thieves need full control of when they stealth and when they get revealed. Getting accidently revealed while being low in health is deadly.

Here’s a few suggestion how to fix this problem (pick one):

- Let Last Refuge cancel all your actions. You’re unable to use offensive skills for 1.5s.
- Let Last Refuge activate Black Powder instead of Blinding Powder.
- Let Last Refuge grant you protection and regeneration instead of Blinding Powder.
- Let Last Refuge remove all conditions + grant immunity to conditions for 3s instead of Blinding Powder.
- Let Last Refuge ignore revealed.

I’ve also filed a bug report for this issue for further investigation: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Thief-trait-Last-Refuge/

Thanks teg

I’ve filed a bug report for this topic:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Thief-trait-Last-Refuge

Hopefully Anet does recognize it.

Dear Anet,

the thief trait Last Refuge is broken since the introduction of the revealed debuff. It was perfectly fine before revealed was introduced but now it does more harm than good.

Main problem:

Last refuge activates blinding powder when your health reaches 25% which stealthes you. But as you use your weapon skills you immediately destealth and get revealed.

Stealth and revealed management is an integral part of the thieves defense. Thieves need full control of when they stealth and when they get revealed. Getting accidently revealed while being low in health is deadly.

Please refer to this thread in the suggestion subforum for possible solutions:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Suggestiont-to-fix-Thief-trait-Last-Refuge/

Thanks teg

Further discussions to this topic:

- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Remove-Last-Refuge-Now
- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Will-Last-Refuge-ever-be-removed/
- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Last-Refuge-4/
- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Last-Refuge-3/
- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Last-Refuge-2/
- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Last-Refuge-1/
- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Last-Refuge/

Black Teagan.9215:

Not every thief use daggers in the mainhand and BP is useless if player or monster play Ping-Pong (CC’s) with you or use range and aoe attacks.

So you want an out-of-jail card which saves your kitten in every possible situation? That would be way over the top for a 5 point minor trait.

Black Teagan.9215:

teg.1340:

Simple fix:

Last Refuge:

Use Black Powder when your health reaches a certain threshold.

Health Threshold: 25%

And how should this help?
Black Powder works only against Meleeattacks.

Serious question? HS through the smoke fields grants stealth…