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Atrophis

Member
I've actually started levelling my thief alt. Got inspired by watching a Twitch stream. Yes, I'm going to run the cheesiest, most annoying stealth abusing build possible and go troll people in WvW. No, I don't feel any shame about it.
 

Katoki

Member
I've actually started levelling my thief alt. Got inspired by watching a Twitch stream. Yes, I'm going to run the cheesiest, most annoying stealth abusing build possible and go troll people in WvW. No, I don't feel any shame about it.

That's the spirit! It is what it is so don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Good luck with the trait unlocks though.
 
Trait line 5 (For the speed boost, tier 1, engineer, and other classes)

VI. Earn 100% completion in Frostgorge Sound

Level 70-80 zone


Shits shitted up the shitter.

I've done it on my Mesmer, it's not hard at all. Are you thinking it's like Cursed Shore or something?
 
The best part was that each boss would have had their own unique Thief mechanics that would change up the boss fight significantly, making a thief somewhat of a "Boss Assassin" you'd bring to shake things up. I had a similar idea for a 'sage' class in LotRO that didn't really fight so much as it supported everyone else by being smart and sharing that knowledge in combat.

And how could you implement something like that without making the class either essential or irrelevant?

For the sage, you described a buffbot, no?

I've done it on my Mesmer, it's not hard at all. Are you thinking it's like Cursed Shore or something?

Have you considered the level the engie will be at that point?
 

Ceres

Banned
I've done it on my Mesmer, it's not hard at all. Are you thinking it's like Cursed Shore or something?

100% the map isn't so much the issue. Although doing this multiple times gets boring (and will result in most wasting gold/skill pts on unlocks). But the trait that a lvl 70-80 map gives is for the adept tier which is unlocked at level 30. So if you want that trait, you need to wait until your character is a high enough level to get everything on that map.

Trait unlocks should correspond fully with the levels that you unlock that tier. All adept traits should be obtainable by someone between level 30 and 60 without the need of escorts.
 
I've actually started levelling my thief alt. Got inspired by watching a Twitch stream. Yes, I'm going to run the cheesiest, most annoying stealth abusing build possible and go troll people in WvW. No, I don't feel any shame about it.
Nor should you be. The traits work as Anet intended. But just for the sake of our server please don't be frontlining the SBI zerg, kthxbai.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Apparently the last story mission is a dungeon?!

Uh... can anyone recommend a good Guardian setup for it? Right now I'm doing a healing power build but it seems... pretty awful. I can't do damage and I'm not sure how useful healing really is in this game
Healing power can be very useful in that it acts as a buffer against mistakes. Your party will benefit from not having to play quite as sharply if you're pumping out a lot of constant heals. It's also useful in large chaotic groups where people around you getting damaged is inevitable. However GW2 is definitely designed primarily so that as your skill increases you will be taking less damage (and avoiding it altogether whenever possible), so an ideal basic dungeon set is whatever balance of damaging attributes (Power, Precision, Ferocity, Condition Damage, though not so much the last one with Guardian) and protecting attributes (Toughness, Vitality, and finally Healing Power) that you feel comfortable with using your class. As you've noted, going full healing power makes you sort of personally ineffective, while going full Berserker (the damage-above-all-else set, Pow/Pre/Fer) can result in you being downed every half-minute unless you're very comfortable with the class, especially with your low health pool.

I recommend some sort of mix of Soldier's, Knight's, Valkyrie, Cavalier, and Berserker armors and weapons. Keep your healing power set as an auxiliary one you can switch to, as you may find it very useful sometimes- leading a few new players through a new dungeon for the first time for example.

Another good point to make is that mix-maxing isn't quite that important in GW2. The other aspects of your build besides your stats will be more important for Arah. I'm not a guardian expert so I could use some other suggestions, but Wall of Reflection, Save Yourselves, and whatever options you like for condition cleansing can be very useful in there.

I will be wanting to do Arah Story sometime soon again anyway to unlock the PvP track, so maybe we can team up for it.
 

Morokh

Member
Just finished the backpack PvP track ! Phew !

Hammer War/Guardians are just on my 'I hate you' list, just behind friggin Thieves !
Infinite stealth, insane burst and full condition removal at the same time ! Yay ....... had one driving me insane in my last match going all guerrilla tactics on me :mad:

Tempted to go for the Arah track before it expires but I don't know if my nerves can take it xD

Any Necro PvP advice is welcome btw cause I more than often feel like I'm playing the 'ragdoll' class.
 

Complistic

Member
Any Necro PvP advice is welcome btw cause I more than often feel like I'm playing the 'ragdoll' class.

Go rabid conditions and you're an absolute tank. The other team will see how hard it is to take you down after a couple battles, then they'll typically save you for last. This is a mistake because you slowly but surely bleed them to death while removing their boons which greatly helps your teammates.
 

Morokh

Member
Go rabid conditions and you're an absolute tank. The other team will see how hard it is to take you down after a couple battles, then they'll typically save you for last. This is a mistake because you slowly but surely bleed them to death while removing their boons which greatly helps your teammates.

That reminds me of something that is not very clear with the new changes, does your armor stats count in sPvP (Berserker, Knight, Rabid ....) or is it just tied to the amulet you choose in the PvP Build menu ?
 

Proven

Member
Necros have some pretty decent build diversity. Their condi builds (currently in a few flavors depending on your pick of Grandmaster in Spite or Curses) are indisputably top tier right now. But there are also Power Necros (both melee and ranged), Hybrid Necros, and Minion Mancer Necros, along with other more niche builds.

On Stealth part 2: The versus multiplayer game I ever felt 100% okay with stealth is Team Fortress 2. But that was mostly because the class that could stealth, the Spy, was given a myriad of disadvantages. For one thing, he couldn't attack out of stealth; a Spy must always destealth (which came with a distinct sound unless he spec'd to try and decrease it) before he could attack you. You could bump into a person in stealth (body blocking), you could shoot around and if you got a hit on him you'd cause his stealth to shimmer (and the game had a large amount of splash damage weaponry), and there were multiple debuffs that would plainly reveal him even if he was in stealth or used the "fake death" item (you could set him on fire, cover him in milk, or douse him in urine). The only thing that infuriated me regardless was the fact that he was given an insta kill attack. I similarly raged at Snipers. I mostly played Medic.

The number one thing is not allowing a player to attack from stealth. Once you allow that, you give the player in stealth a massive advantage over everyone else. But since we have it in GW2, my wish would be to have a stealthing class not break target. Of course, if they stealth there will be no targeting ring and your attacks won't track them, but you'd still have their name at the top of the screen to give you a clear indication of if they were nearby. I know it doesn't sound like much but it'd be something that'd help from a psychological standpoint. Alternatively, take another rule from PvP and have WvW Thieves deal with a 4-second Revealed debuff.

That reminds me of something that is not very clear with the new changes, does your armor stats count in sPvP (Berserker, Knight, Rabid ....) or is it just tied to the amulet you choose in the PvP Build menu ?
It's based on your Amulet.
 
100% the map isn't so much the issue. Although doing this multiple times gets boring (and will result in most wasting gold/skill pts on unlocks). But the trait that a lvl 70-80 map gives is for the adept tier which is unlocked at level 30. So if you want that trait, you need to wait until your character is a high enough level to get everything on that map.

I guess they must not want you getting that trait at level 30 unless you've got a level 80 to front the gold and skill tomes?
 

swnny

Member
On Stealth part 2:..

I've always hated stealth in games that try to be competitive. It just feels so cheap and cheese. Guild Wars 1 did really well with the Assassin (which the Thief is based on) without using stealth. It focus on a different mechanic, which still allows for free movement and overall map control, but doesn't give you the advantage of being invisible. Yeap, I'm talking about shadow stepping. It still have the freedom of movement and outmaneuvering your opponent and (at least in GW1's case) it gives lots of opportunities for creative skills and thus tactics and combos.

Too bad for GW2, Anet went with this cheesy mechanic and made it even more annoying with the lack of counters. Seriously, the only counter to stealth in the whole game is the ranger's "Sic 'Em" and its not even a good counter, because you need a target. So you can only forbid an enemy to stealth for 4 secs, only before he stealths, and that's on 40sec cooldown.

Basically, at the moment, nothing stops a thief from dropping Shadow Refugee to stealth himself and an ally or two and go for a single enemy (at far cap point it PvP for example), and just oneshot him from the back. There is no counter play to this strategy what so ever. And that's the main reason stealth in GW2 is badly designed.

(In the case of this example, the draw back is that your teammates are outnumbered at other points, but them holding on for enough time, the enemy team will be with 1 person less for at least 20sec, meaning you are now outnumbering, not counting the additional cap point)
 
So, realtalk:

qlxtH5D.jpg


How're these stats for an Engineer. The only consideration to keep in mind, is I do not agree with 'Zerk or nothing', I do not agree with the "meta" of "damage > everything else", because numbercrunching and theorycrafting exist in a vacuum and rarely translate into real-world situations, unless you have a highly (and outlier) controlled scenario.

As for my stats, if something seems low or problematic, I'd be curious to know why. I'm not good with numbers, I actually *hate* the stat system in GW2 - not because of how it works, but because of how it's represented. Give me A through F ranks or something, but these three decimal point figures just don't translate into anything to me personally. Bear in mind I didn't take math in high school past the 2nd year (they literally gave up trying to teach me math).

PS: Only ascended weapons and trinkets, armour is still all Exotic.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
I guess they must not want you getting that trait at level 30 unless you've got a level 80 to front the gold and skill tomes?
No way. 10 silver and 2 skill points is completely realistic for a fresh level 30 to spare on a important adept trait. The activity unlock is just totally out of whack versus that at the level the trait first becomes available.
 

Zeroth

Member
I listened to the fabled "game is ded" speech on DR today. I've only heard about it thanks to the mockery of it here, so I thought it was like just a mythical thing that wasn't actually said seriously. Well, thanks megaservers for proving me wrong!
 

Moondrop

Banned
Basically, at the moment, nothing stops a thief from dropping Shadow Refugee to stealth himself and an ally or two and go for a single enemy (at far cap point it PvP for example), and just oneshot him from the back. There is no counter play to this strategy what so ever.

I don't want to address the greater topic of stealth, but when I see Shadow Refuge go down I bomb the hell out of it. Feels like I down the thief 50% of the time.

Regarding the use of Shadow Refuge before engagement- eh, if they're willing to do that it means they can't use it to escape. I don't run zerker amulet so my characters won't be one-shotted.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Can someone explain what the heck the newest patch is about? I was to ask Rubi if she had something funny in her coffee this morning or what
 
Can someone explain what the heck the newest patch is about? I was to ask Rubi if she had something funny in her coffee this morning or what

My guess would be those there enemies had their loot removed due to them either glitching out or dropping things they shouldn't have, or being exploitable.
 
Can someone explain what the heck the newest patch is about? I was to ask Rubi if she had something funny in her coffee this morning or what
Her comment is weird but nothing she mentions is actually in the patch notes. Wonder if those champs were exploitable so they removed the drops for now...or she is just messing with us.
 
it almost reads like a riddle or something

what was found has been lost, but when returned shall be found again

When he who is the Chosen One
Shall tread upon the Ancient Path
And battle there to overcome
The Forces of the Dark
Then shall the Seven be restored
And even banished from this world


I miss the Ancestral Trail. Coolest magazine/story/thing ever. It's been 22 years and I still have that stupid passage memorized. I wonder if it has anything to do with why I like the Living World, since they share a lot of common ground.
 

swnny

Member
I don't want to address the greater topic of stealth, but when I see Shadow Refuge go down I bomb the hell out of it. Feels like I down the thief 50% of the time.

Regarding the use of Shadow Refuge before engagement- eh, if they're willing to do that it means they can't use it to escape. I don't run zerker amulet so my characters won't be one-shotted.

When you see the refugee, then yeah, you either nuke the place or push them out of the field.
I was talking about a opening strategy with no counter play. And I'm yet to see someone survive double Deep Freeze (currently unbreakable) and Ice Storm coming out of nowhere. :) No matter what amulet you are running, only an invulnerable will buy you few seconds and if you don't have such skill, you will be long dead before the second freeze is over.

Of course, this is just an example of how a single player have absolutely no chance against a good coordinated spike like the one described above. And because the duration of the stealth from blast finishers + refugee is long enough, you could easily avoid the "supporter" until he leaves for mid, and by the time he is back (if even coming back in a 1v2 scenario), his buddy will be down.
 

Emitan

Member
Healing power can be very useful in that it acts as a buffer against mistakes. Your party will benefit from not having to play quite as sharply if you're pumping out a lot of constant heals. It's also useful in large chaotic groups where people around you getting damaged is inevitable. However GW2 is definitely designed primarily so that as your skill increases you will be taking less damage (and avoiding it altogether whenever possible), so an ideal basic dungeon set is whatever balance of damaging attributes (Power, Precision, Ferocity, Condition Damage, though not so much the last one with Guardian) and protecting attributes (Toughness, Vitality, and finally Healing Power) that you feel comfortable with using your class. As you've noted, going full healing power makes you sort of personally ineffective, while going full Berserker (the damage-above-all-else set, Pow/Pre/Fer) can result in you being downed every half-minute unless you're very comfortable with the class, especially with your low health pool.

I recommend some sort of mix of Soldier's, Knight's, Valkyrie, Cavalier, and Berserker armors and weapons. Keep your healing power set as an auxiliary one you can switch to, as you may find it very useful sometimes- leading a few new players through a new dungeon for the first time for example.

Another good point to make is that mix-maxing isn't quite that important in GW2. The other aspects of your build besides your stats will be more important for Arah. I'm not a guardian expert so I could use some other suggestions, but Wall of Reflection, Save Yourselves, and whatever options you like for condition cleansing can be very useful in there.

I will be wanting to do Arah Story sometime soon again anyway to unlock the PvP track, so maybe we can team up for it.

Blew all of my money buying rare Berserker's gear but I guess I can mix up my cleric stuff with it for some survivability.
 

Mxrz

Member
Still new to the game? - Soldiers (or Knights if you dont want to wvw.) When you are comfortable with dungeons and fractals, move on to full zerk. Save your soldiers for wvw. Zerk is great, but dead zerks do no dps.

Stealth - blerghghfhk.

One thing I am disliking, alot more map whining and pouting from people wanting events to fail. Latest one is in Brisban with the giants. Its worse when they go in on new players for just playing the game/winning events. All for some meaningless achievement.

Sometimes I really do wish the game had open world pvp.

So, realtalk:

PS: Only ascended weapons and trinkets, armour is still all Exotic.

Looks similar to my engineer alt, but mine is in rabid.

Random aside. Why does it feel like the GW2 wiki is more frustrating to use than the old GW1 wiki? Its like you need to type the exact wording of an item, or a page is darn near isolated so its almost impossible to find via the usual wiki trail. Maybe its just me.
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
I listened to the fabled "game is ded" speech on DR today. I've only heard about it thanks to the mockery of it here, so I thought it was like just a mythical thing that wasn't actually said seriously. Well, thanks megaservers for proving me wrong!

WHere is it at?
 

Retro

Member
And how could you implement something like that without making the class either essential or irrelevant?

For the sage, you described a buffbot, no?

I actually dug up the old post I made on Guru describing it (January 2011, so well before launch). The image I included to demonstrate it has long since disappeared. Here's the list of things the Assassin (We didn't know it was Thief back then) could do;

The three techniques that appear within the UI element are unique to each enemy type or player profession, and boss characters have special technique setups as well. The Assassination Techniques are not always damage-dealing;

- Could interrupt a specific attack that otherwise could not be interrupted.

- Could allow the Assassin to direct who the enemy is targeting, directing the enemy away from injured allies.

- Allow the Assassin to steal valuable healing items from the enemy's supply and toss them to wounded allies.

- Inflict unique debuffs specific to that encounter.

- Direct where Area Effect attacks will land, directing the damage away from players or forcing the target to injure other enemies.

- Control the position of the enemy temporarily by penetrating muscle and utilizing pressure points.

In essence, the Assassin Class is a decent melee class, but exceptionally strong Support because he or she ALWAYS has three abilities tailored SPECIFICALLY to whatever it is currently assassinating.

The idea was that the Assassin profession was just an "okay" melee class on its own, but because it was Boy Scout-like and always prepared by virtue of it's Assassination techniques, made up for a lack of armor or typical MMO stealth. Interestingly enough, in that same thread, I had a similar little diatribe about stealth too.

As for the Sage class, it was originally for LotRO so "buffbot" doesn't necessarily have the negative connotation it would in GW2. The idea was basically "How can you have a Wizard character without it being the kind of magic-user that sticks out like a sore thumb in Middle Earth". Because LotRO doesn't really have a 'mage' class (or it didn't, until the Loremaster was added) despite Gandalf being fairly iconic. The idea was, the sage used wisdom and knowledge of his enemies to weaken them while simultaneously rallying everyone around him with hope (LotRO didn't have 'health', it had 'morale', so players could inspire each other with battle cries and it all made sense in a neat way). I didn't pick at the idea too much, honestly, I was just looking for an angle to incorporate that archetype.
 

Atrophis

Member
When he who is the Chosen One
Shall tread upon the Ancient Path
And battle there to overcome
The Forces of the Dark
Then shall the Seven be restored
And even banished from this world


I miss the Ancestral Trail. Coolest magazine/story/thing ever. It's been 22 years and I still have that stupid passage memorized. I wonder if it has anything to do with why I like the Living World, since they share a lot of common ground.

Holy shit. Holy fecking shit. I've been trying to remember the name of this for two decades so I could search it out again and out of the blue, in this thread of all places, the answer is revealed. I'm kind of sitting here in shock. I'm serious! Fuck, now I'm going to have to buy a bunch off eBay and relive my childhood.
 

Shiokazu

Member
im going to optimize my guardian burning today

>-> those thieves are FUCKED 5K BURNING DAMAGE I WANT TO SEE YOU LET IT COME.

( its also extremely effective on zergs )
 
Holy shit. Holy fecking shit. I've been trying to remember the name of this for two decades so I could search it out again and out of the blue, in this thread of all places, the answer is revealed. I'm kind of sitting here in shock. I'm serious! Fuck, now I'm going to have to buy a bunch off eBay and relive my childhood.

I really wish I had kept my collection. I had the complete 26 issue set for the first half (Ancestral Trail). I never even knew about the 2nd half (The Cyber Dimension).

Those magazines were just too amazing. Mature storyline (especially for a 12 year old), lot of hidden things to find in the drawings, a collectible card game, puzzles, riddles.

I'll never forget the first issue's cover:

asbOlLp.jpg
 
Stealth is OP for a Thief..

These are the traits I am running for Stealth build, haven't gotten all the new traits..

I am full Zerker gear no defense at all..

Shadow Arts Trait line,
Master of Deception
Reduces recharge on deception skills. 20% helps with Shadow Refuge/Shadow Step
Shadow's Embrace
Remove conditions periodically while in stealth. 1cond Every 3 secs
Shadow's Rejuvenation
Regenerate health while in stealth 384 HP/sec

Acrobatics Trait line.
Fleet Shadow
Move 50% faster while in stealth
Hard To Catch
Shadowstep away and gain swiftness when you are disabled (stun, daze, float, knockdown, launch, knockback, sink, or fear).
Assassin's Reward
Heal yourself whenever you use a skill that uses initiative. Heal yourself for each point of initiative spent: 84 healing at my current stats, so when i use cloak and dagger i heal myself for 504 points.

Trickery Trait line
Merciful Ambush
Stealth yourself and your target when reviving an ally.

I am full zerker and piss people off in WvW, but there are thieves running around with Zerker/Cleric/PvT stats when you think they actually ran out of combat to get full HP think again some of them heal like crazy..
 
I actually dug up the old post I made on Guru describing it (January 2011, so well before launch). The image I included to demonstrate it has long since disappeared. Here's the list of things the Assassin (We didn't know it was Thief back then) could do;

The idea was that the Assassin profession was just an "okay" melee class on its own, but because it was Boy Scout-like and always prepared by virtue of it's Assassination techniques, made up for a lack of armor or typical MMO stealth. Interestingly enough, in that same thread, I had a similar little diatribe about stealth too.

Hrm, yeah, a misdirect class could very well work.

Would be more interesting if you condensed both archetypes in one, though. Have it either be focused on misdirecting the boss, or "sharing his intricate knowledge of the target with the party" i.e. giving mob specific buffs, depending on spec. Or both. The buff angle would make it adapt to pvp party play quite well too.
 

Katoki

Member
Been playing around with the new invigorating precision grand master trait and find that I don't really notice the lack of the huge executioner trait numbers. The thing is that I'm sitting at 52% critical chance somehow before food and oil while having a fair chunk of power so I get relatively decent and consistent critical hits in. I suppose it works really well as a supplemental thing but disappointing if expecting a huge survivability boost. It's all I can really say for now since I got lucky last night with catching a Grenth defense event.
 

Katoki

Member
87 weeks ago was when I posted images having the Bazaar in the background and my thief with an incomplete fractal capacitor. My thief has a lot more shiny stuff going on with her now and the new strider armor skin which means its probably time to upload new images for the sake of stuff to look at in another 87 weeks since I never remember about the Minus site.

@katoki on minus
 

Katoki

Member
Just lost our EB keep. Nothing got refreshed in any of the towers or keep after the last commander left since that's how people work and now our corner is blue. IoJ is definitely pulling overtime. We can still get 5th, I think.

Edit: They took the keep first and then flipped everything else. I posted the above part knowing that we weren't going to do shit because the BL commander was spouting EB won't help us stuff the same way EB bitches about the BL commanders sometimes.
 
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