Straegen.2938

Thank you! Pulling my hair out trying to figure out why it wasn't working. This step was not obvious to me... why not just charge 500 coins for one item is beyond me.

It will never be as good or as fun as it was with Ricochet pre-nerf.

Well roaming in WvW I find the axe weak. Dagger off-hand has a nice teleport but the axes are so slow by the time they arrive the target is gone because without ridiculous levels of boon striping few get immob'd anymore. Also the teleport doesn't place me behind the target it just teleports like steal. Pistol off-hand doesn't seem to have any synergy with axe at all. It can kill scrubs but so can every other weapon. In duels, it is getting torn up. Axe is just too slow to stack condi and relies on a gimmick for any burst that is pretty easy to avoid IMO. Absolutely worst thing about Axe/Dagger is that it cannot run anyone down despite having a nice teleport. You can catch them but the axes will invariably be behind you and the target so even the immob is useless in this situation if it works because none of the pre-cast axes will land. Maybe in PvE it will perform better where everything face tanks but as a WvW thief I am not interested in slow projectiles... the class simply does not have the sustain to wait for damage build up at least in WvW.

Staff always needed a built in block capability particularly from ranged attacks. I would even argue it should have block with reflect to help close distances and punish ranged attackers. It needed something even if it was a built in stealth mechanic to really work properly. While it certainly underperforms compared to virtually every other upgrade in every other class, it once had a narrow place before mounts and every class got high movement/teleports. Bound/Staff with D/P was a viable roaming spec in WvW, did OK in PvP and functional in PvE. Outside of staff and before it got nerfed into uselessness, Impacting Disruption on a P/D build was absurdly powerful in WvW and PvP. Next on the amazing list is Bandits Defense which is still one of the better active blocking skills in the game. Nothing else is decent outside of the sheer movement capability of Dash but sadly Dash is meh compared to other class movement capabilities now. Willbender alone is uncatchable by a Dash Daredevil even with multiple gap closers. Although Dash really does make the Speed Relic sing.

The hilarity of this request. Nearly everything beats the thief now in virtually every format of play. It isn't the fastest, doesn't hit the hardest, has near zero multi-target damage and cannot scale damage well any longer. Long gone are the days where a thief of any build variety had an advantage in 1v1 play. Now it is lucky if it can +1 a fight and not be utterly useless doing it.

ANet went down a dysfunctional path years ago in WvW when they prioritized AoE spam and ranged attacks over targeted and melee damage. Some of the hardest hitting abilities in the game mode come from range and many are ground targeted. One would think that over years we would see the rise and fall of classes in the meta as it shifts but the core remains. Guardians have never seen a significant nerf and Necros have been absurd for years now. Any decent design is going to prioritize risk/reward making up close combat more damaging and AoE/Range damage root players or have significantly less damage. It boggles the mind that Rangers still tee off on players from a mile away with ridiculous amounts of sustain and mobility in small battles.

For some reason they have obliterated melee builds in WvW which are high risk and low reward now. Instead ranged damage and ground targeting is the preferred gameplay.

I use the Action Camera and select targets by putting the Action Camera cursor over the target I want to hit similar to a traditional shooter. It doesn't work as well for some classes but works well for the thief. I converted the old CombatMod macro to use ANets built in system. Tab turns the Action Camera mode on/off so the camera works like most other 3rd person view games, left click attacks and right click dodges while in "Combat Mode" otherwise the mouse behaves normally outside of "Combat Mode". The macro also allows for the use of the scroll wheel to be mapped to weapon swap. On teleporting builds such as P/D you can watch opponents get dizzy trying to spin around and select me with a mouse. Even tab targeting sometimes gets confusing for them when there are multiple targets around.

So much this. They could roll thief back 5 years it would be SOOOO much better.

If you are running in a small group, you are going to do best with a glassier Guardian, Necro or Rev. Thief, Ranger, etc are good at solo roaming and such but aren't particularly good in group fights. You want a class that can snuggle with your Eles while pulling, blowing up, etc.

Players routinely misunderstand what balance is in PvP. Balance in the meta means access to meta builds and the ability to counter those builds. Players have access to all the current meta unlike other games where a lot of it is so gear/time dependent only certain players have access to certain builds. There are also counters for virtually every build in WvW. The meta in GW2 remains in a near constant state of balance because of its design. Just because a player chooses to ignore the meta and play something else doesn't make the game unbalanced. What people generally complain about is fairness or equality. Fairness that their class doesn't perform in XYZ scenario as well as others or that some meta isn't equal to others such as condition damage vs power. Different builds and classes aren't meant to perform well in every scenario. I don't take a thief into a zerg fight and call it unbalanced. As for something like condition meta vs power meta, there will always be some top dog build, class, damage, etc. It is inevitable. If they removed condi from the game, players would complain about some other XYZ thing being trash and unfair. If you are getting your kitten kicked by XYZ, counter it or use it but don't bring a knife to a gun fight and cry balance.

All you would see are thieves and rangers. Every other class would become almost unplayable.

Most players in MMOs have little interest in difficult direct competitive encounters which is why PvP in MMOs is generally lackluster. PvP players tend to want to play PvP based games with a relatively balanced meta and fast respawns. RPG PvP really isn't a major genre in the gaming industry.

IMO the easiest way is to head over to gw2stats, click on your server, scroll down to Income Evolution and you can see the patterns of when the server is climbing in "Income". This is your servers peak times. You can also click on other servers and see if their peak times correspond to your play times. This is a bad week to get consistent results using this method because WvW frequently drops in activity during major events.

I server hop to cheap linked servers all the time just to get new experiences with new players. I find that refreshing even after nearly 10k hours mostly in WvW. I suspect by now there are very few serious roamers that haven't fought with me and against me at some point over the years. That said, I am still waiting for a GW2 WvW replacement that is worth making the switch. Unfortunately it just hasn't happened. As for players spamming in chat, just block them. There are typically a half dozen jokers on every server and the game has a block function.

Because the game designers think long ranged attacks and AoE should be the hardest hitting abilities in the game. Meanwhile almost anything with a short range single target weapon is SoL. Try taking a P/P thief into a fight with a Ranger. Unload is laughable even though it is substantially shorter range, on a character with less HP and has no direct access to stealth to close the gap. Even the venerable backstab which requires significant setup doesn't do as much damage as ranger ripping off pew-pew at absurd distances.

Damage should scale based on proximity and targets. Highest damage being closest and single target. This is where the game lost the plot. Melee damage that requires up close application should really pressure tank builds and require tank builds to employ dodges and such rather than just passive defenses. Ranged damage especially ranged AoE damage should take a significant hit unless it roots the caster.

True. As both a near full time ganker/roamer those damn warclaws make escape a seriously more difficult affair.

I have plenty of GW achievements to go along with my GW2 ones. In WvW, you get credit for tagging players in large scale play so it is pretty easy to rack up a few hundred kills in a couple hours of group play when the fighting is active. No need to kill players one at a time every 2 minutes for 7 hours a day 365 days a year. As for farming for a title, I didn't. I play because I enjoy the game and I am still playing even after maxing out all the WvW achievements. God of WvW wasn't even a thing when I started or finished. My point is that if a person wants to get a "long term" WvW title, it is still achievable just takes focus on large scale play.

I played New World quite a bit before they pulled it to redo a bunch of the PvP mechanics. It was a pretty great PvP game when they pulled it to develop it further. It was solid even in its Alpha state. Early on dying in New World had a pretty severe death penalty with loss of gear which I liked. They retooled it a bit as the game went along and softened it. Sounds like they are going to soften it even further once beta rolls around. My only dig at the game is that it was slow paced more akin to Monster Hunter than flying all around the battlefield. I play too much GW2 with the Action Camera setting on and Battlefront 2 so the game play felt lethargic.

Thief is absurdly difficult to play well in the current meta. Its best asset is essentially running away. Outside of the annoying Bound D/P build taking stealth on a thief is typically a nerf. DH condi would be a decent choice. Lots of durability, some escape (not a lot) and melts camps as well as mediocre players. There are some interesting Rev builds as well. Classes I loath in small scale fights are typically elementalists, torment revs and Bound D/P thieves. I will sometimes simply avoid condi bunker Necros because the fights take ages. Holosmiths are making a comeback but I find them pretty easy kills aside from the time it takes to kill one. BTW exotic armor and weapons is totally fine on Condi builds. You lose a bit but unlike power builds it isn't very noticeable since survival is much higher without the reliance on Precision and Ferocity for damage. Load up on some Dire armor and you will be good to go on a good variety of condi based builds.

Thieves are specifically designed to be strong in small scale because they are utterly useless in large scale so expecting to win vs a thief in 1v1 is dumb. However thieves have been nerfed so routinely over the years they aren't even a premier small scale class any longer. There are so few thief builds left that are functional. D/D, S/?, P/P are essentially dead. Rifle on life support. Shortbow pretty much only mobility. D/P and P/D are the only functional weapons left and they have been routinely nerfed. They are now mostly useless outside of plus one in fights, scouting, picking off bad players or killing other thieves. The only real negative issue left with thieves is the stealth mechanic in GW2 that allows for thieves to troll players with little recourse. Everything else about them has been nerfed to the point that only a handful of good ones remain. Anti-thief complainers have won. Take a lap because the class is a couple more nerfs away from getting a fork in them.

By "balance" patch you mean more thief nerfs, ignoring Rev damage, creating even stronger Pew-Pew and making Necros and Guardians even more OP? They will also screw up elementalist timing but not actually improve or balance anything on the class. Mesmers will get some build neutered but likely create a new build that has some strange balance issue. Oh and they will further nerf warrior melee abilities. The only smart thing they will likely do is leave engis alone. Did I miss anyone?

Necro is incredibly balanced otherwise they would dominate large scale meta.... oh wait. Ever fight a bunker Condi Necro in small scale? Two health bars that require obscene amounts of damage to get through while they casually land tons of condi... dire and trailblazer needs to be deleted from the game. Elementalists these days aren't far behind.