Why is roaming dead? what happened?

[saerni.2584]

21 hours ago, Sylvyn.4750 said:

I assume you didn't mention thief because it is always implied it does well in roaming, and you didn't mention warrior because it is always implied it does poorly...😉

I actually run into Thieves far more rarely than other professions. That doesn't mean I don't see them just it's not nearly as common as you'd think going by the forums here. And most of the time in a XvX situation having a thief is a liability because it depends somewhat on having a solid brawler to survive long enough to "+1" and most WvWers explode too quickly to set up a +1, leaving the thief to just run away after the Ally goes down.
 

I see plenty of rangers, guardians, engineers and necros. That's what I see the most. Mesmers and mirages in particular are up there too.
 

Warriors are more rare but I do see them. Not going to argue they are a rare breed because only good warriors can roam and don't have stealth to cover an escape from a bad situation. Those Nike warriors aside but not everyone runs something that mobile. Spellbreakers tend to be the go to option but Berserkers or even Core make appearances. The issue that Warrior has is it has a fairly predictable kit making it much preferable to run with a dedicated partner instead of solo, which means maybe a Ranger or Thief to +1 while absorbing hits and dishing out CC and respectable melee damage (another issue is that many warriors are on pure melee kits that can be kited out when solo). 

[Xenesis.6389]

1 hour ago, saerni.2584 said:

I actually run into Thieves far more rarely than other professions.

 

Well of course you don't, they stealth a lot, and also thieves barely bother to fight each other, not unless you guys like to play peekaboo with each other.

 

Also mesmers and warriors are the least played classes I see in roaming these days. To say you see more mesmers than thieves is a good joke.

[saerni.2584]

1 hour ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

Well of course you don't, they stealth a lot, and also thieves barely bother to fight each other, not unless you guys like to play peekaboo with each other.

 

Also mesmers and warriors are the least played classes I see in roaming these days. To say you see more mesmers than thieves is a good joke.

So you think because you don't see thieves they must all be permastealth and avoiding you? Sounds a little paranoid to me. 
 

And yeah, I see a number of Mesmers. More common than Thieves at least.

[Xenesis.6389]

Just now, saerni.2584 said:

So you think because you don't see thieves they must all be permastealth and avoiding you? Sounds a little paranoid to me. 
 

And yeah, I see a number of Mesmers. More common than Thieves at least.

 

No the first half of that sentence is a joke, the second half not so much.

Good joke with mesmers though.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

4 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

Well of course you don't, they stealth a lot, and also thieves barely bother to fight each other, not unless you guys like to play peekaboo with each other.

 

Also mesmers and warriors are the least played classes I see in roaming these days. To say you see more mesmers than thieves is a good joke.

Tbh I agree with Saerni about seeing less thieves than other classes.

 

Part of the reason I say this is because most thieves don't avoid each other at all, quite the opposite. If there's a thief looking for fights you can pretty much guarantee he will have a pop at me over other classes stood next to me as thieves are usually glass cannons and he's looking for the easy kill, it's exactly the same thing I do when I see a group. So on average I'm far more likely to notice enemy thieves while roaming than anything else, and I still see more revenants, rangers and guardians than I do thieves. 

Edited November 24, 2021 by Jugglemonkey.8741

[Xenesis.6389]

I see less mesmers and warriors than thieves.

[saerni.2584]

27 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

I see less mesmers and warriors than thieves.

 

I was in WvW earlier today and the count was 1 Druid and one Warrior roamers (Both roaming on sustain condi builds). There was also a necro but I'm not sure he was roaming so much as suiciding? Not atypical to not run into a thief for days. 
 

The only thief I ran into today was with a Zerg of 15-20 taking PvD fights only. The last time I ran into Thieves roaming was earlier in the week and I saw two different Deadeyes back to back (hey @Bigpapasmurf.5623!) one of who I suspected I knew. This was so notable I even whispered to say hi because it wasn't a common occurrence. 
 

Edit: I'll keep this up and post rolling counts per day. 

Edited November 24, 2021 by saerni.2584

[Xenesis.6389]

I see less mesmers and warriors than thieves.

[saerni.2584]

4 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

I see less mesmers and warriors than thieves.

I believe you believe this. 

[Dawdler.8521]

I am seeing an absolute kitten ton of dragonhunters and druids lately instead, everyone on the exact same trapper power and condi builds for respective class.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[Vanthian.9267]

On 10/28/2021 at 1:07 PM, Khenzy.9348 said:

Two things killed the roaming scene.

1-Thief.

2-Stealth.

 

Thief has been the undisputed king of roaming for 9 years and is not going to change for the forseeable future. Which ties in well with my next point, stealth. Stealth and the spammable nature it has with the Thief profession is absurdly broken and with a clear lack of effective, rewarding and enjoyable counterplay. It's a mess of a combo that frustrates players that want to try all other professions, and when they do, they end up fighting Thieves that have constant blind spam, endless disengage, endless sustain through stealth, constant detarget through stealth, constant invisibility with incredible and mostly unpredictable burst damage, no other class can compete with this in roaming unless you have something niche or broken your self: SIck 'Em+Wolf Stance one shot combo, or Holo/Scrapper granade spam; those broken or niche cases get nerfed eventually so Thief is always left alone as the king, so as to nerf Thief you'd have to redesign how stealth works with them or the entire profession, which is not going to happen, ever.

 

In time, those other players eventually quit or start playing Thief themselves. Then you have this mess of Thieves vs Thieves fighting eachother endlessly either unable to kill themselves or disengaging at will which frustrates all parts involved, so they end up quitting too. That's it.

Be careful with the truth.  Don't want the Thieves sub-forum to see this or they will brigade you with their confused emoji. 

[Atrom.1564]

Probably because its more relaxing to run around with a large zerg, where you dont have to think that much about what skills to press or where to move.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

5 hours ago, Vanthian.9267 said:

Be careful with the truth.  Don't want the Thieves sub-forum to see this or they will brigade you with their confused emoji. 

Well, let's apply logic here shall we. Roaming was a thing. Now it is not so much. Thieves always had stealth, high damage, and all the other stuff that is always complained about, and as stated they have been a strong roaming class for 9 years. So, if thief was always the way it is when roaming was popular on all classes and now roaming is suddenly less popular unless you're a thief, it is far more reasonable to ask what has changed than what has remained constant. 

I'll give you a clue. It starts with W. 

Edit: Beyond that, the general skill level of people has improved as has been noted by others in this thread. I used to watch the videos of a thief called Yishis when I first started the game, looking back on them now the players he kills play appallingly badly. Here's an example:

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Jugglemonkey.8741

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

9 hours ago, saerni.2584 said:

I believe you believe this. 

I guess it depends on context there. I see less power mesmers and warriors solo roaming for sure, and the few that you do see are usually the exceptional players that have played that class since release. I see far more condi mesmers roaming and warriors on zerg builds than I see thieves though. Also not sure what server Xenisis is on, Saerni is US and I'm EU so there may be differences there too. 

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

6 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

I am seeing an absolute kitten ton of dragonhunters and druids lately instead, everyone on the exact same trapper power and condi builds for respective class.

It's a popular thing in PvP atm from what I hear? So it figures you'd see more roaming too. They are also "safe" options as they heavily discourage melee while also having decent sustain and ranged options, so they're able to deal with more things on a single build that way. 

[saerni.2584]

1 hour ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

It's a popular thing in PvP atm from what I hear? So it figures you'd see more roaming too. They are also "safe" options as they heavily discourage melee while also having decent sustain and ranged options, so they're able to deal with more things on a single build that way. 

DH has strong mix of range and melee area denial. That would be strong in itself but adding stealth helps to cover glass damage stats that might otherwise get you killed too quickly to set up your damage. It's a strong roamer in WvW because the stats are that much higher and in sPvP because they can cover nodes with traps while applying ranged pressure. 
 

My experience is that you get maybe 50-60% DH, 20-30% FB and 10-20% Core Guardian. Most run DH but there's a sizable variation in the builds (not everyone runs trapper) and the FB and Core versions can both be effective roamers or small scale fighters.

[Atrom.1564]

Same old, same old... thieves spamming a thread where stealth or thief gets mentioned in a negative way 😆

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

4 minutes ago, Atrom.1564 said:

Same old, same old... thieves spamming a thread where stealth or thief gets mentioned in a negative way 😆

They felt disturbance in the force and fear of possible bonk to their beloved cheese mechanic called stealth. So of course they'll bounce here with staff.

[Atrom.1564]

5 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

They felt disturbance in the force and fear of possible bonk to their beloved cheese mechanic called stealth. So of course they'll bounce here with staff.

There is nothing unbalanced about spammable access to stealth coupled with a specialization like Shadow Arts, combined with the ability to teleport around in a large scale open area 🤡

[Norbe.7630]

Balance thieves, make their ambush skills a cc instead and the damage is like the any other 2 digit damage cc skills of every class.

But boost their damage when they are on revealed buff to level out (I know there's a trait about that).

Also the the stealth function should have decay timer on the amount of duration that cc will inflict. The longer you stay stealthed the shorter the duration of cc vice versa.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

1 hour ago, Atrom.1564 said:

Same old, same old... thieves spamming a thread where stealth or thief gets mentioned in a negative way 😆

I read all kinds of threads on these forums, and I'm free to reply to comments as I see fit. As are you 🙂

[Clownmug.8357]

8 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

Well, let's apply logic here shall we. Roaming was a thing. Now it is not so much. Thieves always had stealth, high damage, and all the other stuff that is always complained about, and as stated they have been a strong roaming class for 9 years. So, if thief was always the way it is when roaming was popular on all classes and now roaming is suddenly less popular unless you're a thief, it is far more reasonable to ask what has changed than what has remained constant. 

I'll give you a clue. It starts with W. 

Edit: Beyond that, the general skill level of people has improved as has been noted by others in this thread. I used to watch the videos of a thief called Yishis when I first started the game, looking back on them now the players he kills play appallingly badly. Here's an example:

 

 

I agree wholeheartedly with your post here even as someone who generally dislikes thief gameplay. The fact that thief and stealth heavy builds have always been around indicates there's probably not much co-relation with the perceived decline in roaming.

The skill level of players also does seem to have improved on average compared to years ago. I think it's funny when some people claim all the good players left a long time ago. It's more like some people just started out good while others are now catching up to where they were through experience. This is pretty typical of a multiplayer game that's been out for years and now has a decent sized veteran population.

I'm not sure what your "W" clue was alluding to though. Win trading?

Edit: Oh, it's probably warbeast. I would't really agree with that though.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Clownmug.8357

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

18 hours ago, Clownmug.8357 said:

 

I agree wholeheartedly with your post here even as someone who generally dislikes thief gameplay. The fact that thief and stealth heavy builds have always been around indicates there's probably not much co-relation with the perceived decline in roaming.

The skill level of players also does seem to have improved on average compared to years ago. I think it's funny when some people claim all the good players left a long time ago. It's more like some people just started out good while others are now catching up to where they were through experience. This is pretty typical of a multiplayer game that's been out for years and now has a decent sized veteran population.

I'm not sure what your "W" clue was alluding to though. Win trading?

Edit: Oh, it's probably warbeast. I would't really agree with that though.

Yeah, I was alluding to warclaw as it's the single biggest change to how small scale plays, as now stealth is a bigger factor in both avoiding and participating in outnumbered fights than what mobility is. I'm not gonna say that it's responsible for everything, but I would say it'd be wise to consider the impact of everyone suddenly now having thief level mobility when before they did not. In any case it's nice to see you don't let a bias blind you to a reasonable argument ^^

Edited November 26, 2021 by Jugglemonkey.8741