Calebrus

Yui San, on 16 January 2013 - 04:21 AM, said:

Dont forget gw1 at launch actually had fewer skills than gw2 at launch.

GuanglaiKangyi, on 17 January 2013 - 04:28 AM, said:

Reason they do that is because everything is so easy in GW2 there is no need to do gear checks.
And alot of people (myself included) see a lack of skill/experience in people who want to do exactly that.

Some very good mesmer advice here, particularly from Calebrus.

The only thing I might add that I find helped me get past that hump, I buffed my illusions a bit so they don't die (traits and the signet) and start off with warden/phantasms.. they last longer, and hit pretty darn hard. As has been said here, the regular illusions die far too fast and are only good for shattering, for the most part.  But having a tougher warden/phantasm up  can buy you the time to sit at max range and zap away with GS.  Swap weapon sets and have 2 wardens/phantasms up right away.

Also, Calebrus... could you post a link to your build and traits?

Super Elixir on the elixir gun used to be pretty broken. Even now, good timing with Kit Refinement can allow you to have at least one healing light field down permanently, and adding medkit with Packaged Stimulants and you're a long way to what's probably the closest thing to a monk in GW2, and that's just to start off with.

A typical guardian wins out on damage prevention (especially against enemies resistant to CC) and boons, and a guardian that specialises all the way towards support can match the engineer for healing as well and thus come out ahead overall, but Mel's claim is not as unbelievable as you say.

Calebrus, on 15 December 2012 - 03:10 AM, said:

Agree. No other trait says "You deal 50% more damage and proc 50% more often." No matter how you balance grenades, that kind of trait is fundamentally unbalanced. It should not be a crutch that the kit has to lean on.

OTOH this way, grenades still have a good boss condition damage niche, for maxing out vuln and bleeds. They should also now be the best at proccing crit sigils.

Aurawind, on 08 December 2012 - 08:43 AM, said:

my supermarket is holding a sale, 20% off on bread. i once bought bread there. i'll go get my 20% refund back.

Why is the engie so under-estimated?
They have top class damage, top class support and can bring supply drops (which used right, can prevent wipes).

yeah , it seems I have router/firewall problems )

No server forums is dissappointing.

Frail, on 13 August 2012 - 02:01 AM, said:

Wouldn't this be their fault as "average" players for not using it, and not the fault of the Engineer profession itself? If the condition removal is available to use, and with Engineers it's available in abundance, it's no one's fault but their own if players choose not to use what is available to them. It's completely unreasonable to expect every build to have ample condition removal. You have to give something to get something.

I'm not going to complain about the time and just be happy they're allowing folks to play a bit more.

Lumm, on 25 July 2012 - 08:03 PM, said:

Initiative Restorers on the weapon bar would be a great addition, even if it was only 1 initiative per strike ( any more would be OP ) - as an example, as the current "1" skill is basically just a filler skill when we don't have initiative anyway, it would be more beneficial to have it restore 1 initiative per strike. To balance this, simply reduce the overall damage of each strike.

It would help with sustained damage significantly in that one aspect alone, as most of our damage doesn't come from our "1" skill, but the other skills ( and unfortunantly, a lot of it comes from our Dual Skills, which is why they get spammed ).

Adding more damage to any of the weapon skills is the possibility for them to become another LBD or Unload spam, which is counter productive to fun gameplay. No one wants to spam 1 key.

However - rather than focusing on damage-based weapon skills, I honestly think the Thief would be better suited as a condition profession. We're THIEVES. We don't fight fair! Sure, we should have some moderate-to-good burst, but we should also be Kings of Unfairness.

It should be shown on our weapon bars aside from the obvious already in-place skills, such as Choking Gas.

Example? Aa frontal low-stab skill on the Dagger should be a quick bleed, 3 stacks of bleed, 5s ( as an example ).
Pistol should have an "Explosive Shot" type skill that applies 2s of Burning ( to counter being spammed and stacking 10s of burning ), or tack it on to Headshot, so that it has more use than a 0.25 Daze duration.

This is mainly an issue with Blind, but as the Thief has the most prominent access to blinding, I'll say it here:

I do not like that Blind forces you to miss 1 attack. Always, just 1 attack. Any type of quick-acting profession will plow right through that blind and decimate you, which is 70% of the most popular and most used PvP builds anyway - QZ, Frenzy, etc. Combined with the fact that most professions have access to single skills that have multiple individual attacks, it negates the usefulness of Blind as a hard CC significantly.

What I do think Blind should do:

Causes XX% chance to miss attacks for Y duration. Stacks in Intensity. Example:

1 Stack of Blind: 10% Chance to miss attacks. Nothing serious.
2 Stacks of Blind: 20% Chance to miss attacks. A little subpar. Could be interesting.
3 Stacks of Blind: 30% Chance to miss attacks. Not too bad. Still not great like a KD.
4 Stacks of Blind: 40% Chance to miss attacks. Now it's pretty nasty. 2/5 attacks missing.
5 Stacks of Blind: 50% Chance to miss attacks. 1/2 attacks missing.

But keep the duration low, so it's not abused - but at the same time, it allows for disabling of a different kind. A more pre-emptive disabling, which is what the Thief is good at anyway, but making Blind more viable in tPvP.

That way there's an actual reason to wipe Blind rather than simply "1" and continue on. What's more, it means standing in Blinding Powder or Smokescreen far more dangerous than, "oh. I got blinded for a second. I'll just QZ through this and kill you."

Getting hit by an Unload through Smokescreen does more than JUST damage - it applies lots of blinds, which would also decrease the opponents damage output.

There are a few certain skills that would make it grossly OP - namely, Dagger Storm. However, it makes the Thief a GREAT disabler. Right up there with Mesmer, in fact - and then that alone will push the envelope of balance further into place, as you can focus on Blind Disabling ( amongst others ) or the way of the Mesmer Disables. Thief would be viable in tPvP for that reason alone.

Granted that is not an end-all-be-all solution, as it would still force the Thief into one role, but it would be yet another huge step in the right direction, if coupled with other things as well, of course.

However, I will also admit that I am somewhat hesitant to put my faith into a %-to-miss condition, even if it only lasted for 3-5 seconds. Lowering the percentage to 5% is too low to be effective, but more than 10% is too high and you'll hit 100% quite easily, which is just not fun at all. I think 7% is a solid, effective number. But again, I'm iffy on that concept myself.