jaif.3518

By nerfing counterplay (boon strips/removal) and introducing more support weapons you are slowly turning WvW into raid content. Less rock-paper-scissors, more rotations, min/max squads, etc. By doing this you will slowly drive away various fight guilds (casual and hard-core), but true raiders aren't going to be interested in WvW. It's simply not as engaging as current PvE content. This will cause a fall in population, not a rise. What makes wvw engaging are counter-tactics and variety, not static gameplay focused on button rotations and maxing numbers (heal or dps) My 2c.

Because in competitive game modes many players bandwagon to the successful servers for easy rewards. Competitive play requires some form of forced allocation. I don't think this restructuring effort is the right way to achieve that, mind you, but reality is that something is needed.

This is the only real news ... leaving room for another delay.

I'd love to see vids of that. Every once in awhile I load up on beastie traits and head out to wvw land to see what I can do with the Jaguar (and others). I think the best I've seen in recent memory was a 6k hit, and of course that's meaningless unless it's the last one as everybody has 42,000,000 escapes. 🙂 I hadn't thought it would be used in PvP, I'll do some searches.

Stalk (Jaguar): Reduced the cooldown from 24 seconds to 20 seconds. This skill now applies stealth rather than the Stalking effect. Damage bonuses from this skill still last 6 seconds, even if the pet is revealed. Sorry, i'm feeling a bit dense. Is "stealth" vs "stalking" effectively a nerf? It sounds like they want to make sure someone can reveal the Jaguar.

Translation: Nothing more this year. Hopefully anothet beta early next year. Maybe more after that, but no promises. Maybe a guild feature added early next year. Im glad to see support for wvw is still the same. They continue to bank on being the only wvw game in town. They are right for now, but we'll see what the future brings.

spellbreaker has winds, right? More importantly, banners are the other side of the coin - dropping a banner on the point gives the team an advantage. More generally, you can't only look at this from the negative/denial side, you need to also look at classes that can enhance in an area as well. Shouts, spirits ... these types of things are not evenly distributed either. Finally, as has been pointed out above, utility vs weapon is a very artificial split. It's a question of what tools your class has, not how they are split.

Thanks all, I probably didn't notice that it was on cooldown.

Reason I ask is that I see that they break immobilize with warrior's sprint, but don't seem to grant stability with brave stride.

I'm not saying they are invulnerable. I'm not saying everything is perfect. I, like many others, play my thief in WvW from time to time, and I'm aware of some of the issues. But it's largely a low-risk, low-reward, high-effort class. You spend most of your time running around looking for the right setup, then hit suddenly when the time is right. You escape if you need to, or get the kill...maybe 2 kills if you're good. It's really the opposite of high-risk, high-reward. On the other thread going on here - I've taken my thief out as a deadeye support class (cantrips and boons), and it's fun in a pug but I doubt it compares to druids & tempests. I would love to see thief builds that would allow them to participate well in zergs.

Mostly a thief's fate is entirely in his own hands. If he dodges, he lives and there's almost nothing the enemies can do. A well-played staff user will sail through large groups of people. A necro, for comparison, is relying on brute force - DR+Health+STAB. If the enemy overwhelms, they lose. But I do agree with your basic thrust - not all thief/mesmer builds are the same, and some are much harder to play than others (high skill floor). I just didn't want to write a thesis. In the main, though, most thieves do no play "high risk". They take a tuned single-target build and gank whoever they find, running to safety if they make a mistake or start to lose. Quite honestly, it's also not "high reward", as all the setup and work (it is work) to get one kill is not the same as dropping an AoE and getting bags-per-cast.

I enjoy playing thief in WvW from time to time, but it's certainly not "high risk". It's the opposite - you can disengage any time you want (mesmer is similar, certain other builds on other classes similar). High risk is taking a core necro roaming. If you get dismounted in the wrong spot you're pretty much dead.

Which professions do you think benefitted from weaponmaster? Rev - GS & SB are pretty big options now. Necro - Pistol and Torch open up a lot, not sure about GS (seems like it's best on reaper). I had fun with pistol on a spellbreaker, not sure it's a big win, though. I want to try hammer mech, hammer soulbeast.

Why don't you play core rev, jalis/shiro, and equip a GS? Outside of that, soulbeast one wolf pack. Whatever you do, you're going to need to press some buttons, sorry. 🙂

I've had fun with dagger/pistol on my spellbreaker. Plan to try on zerk also.