stilym

this turned out to be a awesome update (i did expect that). so much easier to do progress and dailies with PUGs and its even more beneficial for guild groups. I have multiple chars with 20-30 AR, its so cool that i can switch freely between them mid-run if we need something specific in some fractals. We need ranged DPS i get on my ranger, asura - 30 secs and im on my guardian reflecting stuff and giving stability, dredge - im stealth running bombs with a thief. finish up maw with whatever char i want the daily/progress.

disconnects are no longer a problem and neither are overflows.

also, you can set up a easy fractal to start with while waiting for that person that always needs 2 more mins before we start

Getting people in your group with no/low resistance doing levels way bigger then they really are on, is practically a non-issue. Contrary to complaints from some people here (mostly those that just complain about everything for the sake of complaining about something ), this happens very, very rarely. A level 5 with no resistance has no reason to play level 20, he doesnt get lvl 20 loot, only gains 1 level on completion, dies more, all fractals take longer etc. And almost nobody does it. I PUG every day 20s/30s/40s, it is a non-issue. The level of play did not decrease. Just because you had a bad run after the update, doesnt mean the update itself was bad or the reason for your fail. On average it happened the same before the update, i used to get undergeared players in our groups at about the same rate as now. these hypothetical swarms of noobs that destroy the elite 20/30/whatever club, wasting countless hours of their own time, with no benefit for them, just to spite you simply do not exist.

Im almost never asked to ping my AR either. If i am, i just do it. whats the freakin big deal.
if it turns out that some people dont want to play with me because of my gear choice, whats the big deal, thousands of other groups/players out there that will.

Great update, great solution to level-fragmentation and disconnect problems, end of story. stop making stuff up and/or making such a big deal from those very rare occurrences when something like this happens. Even if it does happen and you end up with a 0AR player on level 40, just replace him . Level and quality of play actually improved quite a bit, with less restrictive, disconnect-fail free and more fun system.

TL:DR; after extensive testing the update is hear by declared - brilliant. woohoo!

Mjölner, on 13 February 2013 - 03:23 PM, said:

with 15 in acrobatics (a really good line for pve, never a waste to put points here) you get a trait that returns some of the endurance back on dodge. effectively its a 3rd dodge (you do need like an extra second or something between 1st or 2nd dodge, havent timed it but its short). with signet it means you can pretty much chain 6 dodges. you can also get trait that gives you vigor on heal and one on steal (15s party wide and also transfers boons from enemies to partymembers). i dont run those two in pve though. adept minor and signet is all you really need. The signet never leaves my bar, its so awesome, lot of people underrate its usefulness, especially in a organized setting when you can give people full endurance on request. i cringe when i see thieves running the crappy power signet over this. Compare it to "shake it off", everyone loves that one (and it is good), cures a condition on everyone and often heals people for like 1k+. SoA has similar cooldown (25s to 30s, both untraited) and cures a condition on everyone. but full endurance is so much better then 1,3k-ish health. and as a bonus when not using it, you get the passive (90 precision), meaning more damage and more self heals (pies).

Then you get instant evade on S/D that hits like a truck, long lasting delayed evade on S/P (again huge dps and huge self heal with omonom pies), instant evade on SB (spaming it in oh s*** situations will not only evade everything thrown at you, but also move you out of agro range very fast) and on D/D. all of those spamable to a varying degree and unlike dodge, they work when immobilized.

You need to learn to use this stuff appropriately, thief has a very high skill ceiling. But that skill progression is very satisfying, its what made thief my fav class along with its feel/style (all this evading, teleporting back and forth, fast moves etc.) . Almost deleted it back when i started playing, thought it sucked at everything. Now with practice, im this almost unkillable (ok ok, i exaggerate a bit ) DPS machine that also provides amazing party support. And nobody looks as cool doing it as a thief

matsif, on 13 February 2013 - 04:18 AM, said:

sorry but you are wrong. first of all "  I spend more time reviving them (even the elite thief players)" - thats just a ridiculous statement. "elite" thieves will almost never go down. elite players could make a party of just 3 thieves (well 3 of any class really) and do any dungeon in the game without getting downed a lot. I play a thief, i wouldnt call myself elite, i wouldnt even call my self "great" (i would use "good" ) and i have no problems in any dungeon in the game, and i dont go down often.

thieves are great in dungeons. i did all dungeons and 40+ fractals with mine. they are not so squishy as some people think. no class can dodge as much as thieves and you have a evade on pretty much every weapon combination. Dodges and evades stay awesome while high toughness/vitality/healing loose effectiveness as the content gets harder.
i dont go down that often and play a heavily DPS oriented setup (pretty much everything zerker, but some traits are in defensive lines. omnom pies for harder content).
For dungeons sword/X and shortbow as secondary is the best setup. dont go p/p with SB (except for a few specific bosses, just switch before the encounter). With a bit of practice you will have no problems staying alive with sword and it outclasses p/p by a huge margin and is a lot more fun to play.

they pump out awesome DPS (not just a short burst, but sustained) and provide excellent support. yeah support, its not just healing people. By far the best class at spamming blind - doesnt work on bosses but is amazing against hard hitting veteran mobs - take cliffside fractal for example, no class is as good for taking out the middle seal (blind everything that comes) and the arms (blind everything that comes in tunnel, plus you can stealth hit the seal if the party messes up and makes chanters spawn on both sides). Pretty much every dungeon has encounters where blind is VERY useful.

Shadow refuge - probably one of the best support skills in the game - long lasting stealth for everyone, it heals and is a dark field (procs lifesteal). Cloak your party to skip stuff, break agro, awesome for rezing (stealths the downed player, heals him a lot by itself and cloaks anyone that comes to finish the rez).

Signet of agility - full endurance for everyone, support hardly gets better then that. dodging is by far the best defence in the game and everyone can do it a more if there is a thief around. Take the mining suit in dredge fractal for example - you need full endurance to dodge his agony move (and at 40+ you pretty much have to dodge it). No problemos with a thief there, every time he uses it the thief activates the signet and the entire party has full endurance to dodge (soa cooldown is shorter then dredges). Somebody misses the dodge, thief is there to cloak him (suit breaks agro, SR heals him up and he can finish the rez himeself, nobody needs to go to that player). As a bonus you also remove a condition from everyone.

Smoke screen - a wall that blocks projectiles, blinds foes passing through and is a combo field. countless encounters where its extremely useful.

Cluster bomb - best blast finisher in the game (some argue that guardians hammer #2 is better. i prefer cluster. even if you disagree, the fact is the guardian that joins your group almost never runs hammer, because the GS is better. and most thieves will have the shortbow).

Stealth - awesome.

Add a ton of dazes and stuns, vulnerability, boon removal, some group boons, teleports, occasional exploit if you are into that (like skipping first alpha fight or bugging out some bosses) and you will see that thieves rock in dungeons.

take the grawl boss in lava fractal for example (considered one of the hardest/most frustrating bosses)- thief is incredibly useful here. boss itself is no big deal, his arrow is easily dodged so you dont need any walls of reflections or shields to hide behind or anyone to heal you when the boss is alone. but when those nasty elemental spawn, is where the thief shines. pop dagerstorm and decimate them in seconds, omnom pies will keep you on full health while you storm right into the middle of their pack, dishing out massive damage on pretty much ALL the elementals around (no other skill in the game comes close to daggerstorm in encounters like these), as a bonus you reflect their projectiles back. when it wears off spam cluster bomb for a second round of massive damage on large number of targets. put down smoke screen for extra blinds and block and refill everyones endurance when the boss looses the shield.

Or lets say Alpha in CoE - use shadowstep to skip first fight with him if you want. Against alpha you are the only class that never needs to dodge. when he uses his 100 aoe circles move, while everyone else is dodging away, you just hit pistol whip and evade everything while keeping DPS at 100%, no downtime (it syncs almost perfectly with his attack, just dont use quickness) . Trapped in crystal, shadowsteps and steal will get you out, nobody needs to waste time getting you out.

Etc, etc. take any path of any dungeon or fractals and you can see how thief is great at dealing with it and has the tools to help out the party deal with it as well.

Warriors are kings of dungeons, simply because their DPS is unmatched and they have FGJ and stuff like banners coupled with decent inherent tankiness. but you cant always run all warrior groups and i wouldnt want to anyway. a single guardian is probably #2. i would put thief on #3 together with a mesmer (i think thief is better but im probably a bit biased so lets call it a draw). Ranger is my "main" but unfortunately they are probably the weakest dungeon class (in a tough battle with necros and engies ). still ive done pretty much all the dungeons (including arah) with mine and fractals to 36 i think, but they need some love in this department. Rangers are fun and can tackle any content in the game, but they just need a few  signature skills/traits/abilities, so you can say "great we have a ranger in our group which means we get X, sweet!".

My advice is to just play what you like more. Its not all about 100% optimization. When i make groups (pugs or guild) for any dungeon/fractals i never pick classes. i would never kick someone out because they are a ranger or thief or whatever. and i wouldnt sit around waiting for a guardian/warrior. take whatever is available. never had much problems with this approach. Few mins that i would save on a dungeon run if i optimized everything are not worth the hassle (unless you are running something very specific like cof1 speedruns, you want to optimize that with warriors, because the speed is the main factor and you are doing it like 20 times in a row). PUGed my way to 40+ fract on thief and 30+ on ranger, did every dungeon and had fun. The failed runs I had where never due to class composition, but too many bad or badly geared players in the group or party members being *s, creating bad atmosphere or getting into fights and rage-quiting or kicking each-other over stupid stuff.

TL;DR - thieves rock, rangers rock (but imo are less effective), pick what you personally enjoy more, both can handle all content and contribute if you practice and learn to use them effectivley

P.S. its not cool, but the fact is in my experience my ranger had most trouble with getting kicked out or not accepted into groups. it does not happen a lot, but dont get upset when it does always easy to find another party, those are not nice people anyway. do what i sometimes do when it happens, pm someone in the group, tell them you are actually a guardian and just need to relog. they will invite you back right away. then shout in all caps "NOBODY KICKS ME OUT! I QUIT!", leave and go with another group.

AiponGkooja, on 24 November 2012 - 01:16 AM, said:

erm no it wouldnt, it would be wrong and confusing. you give the discount based on the base item price, not based on some other discount. a key costs 125, when you buy 5 keys you get a discount. when you buy 25 you get a bigger discount. and in this case its 50% off on 25 keys. its completley accurate and a correct way to calculate it.

It would get terribly confusing if you had more tiers and you based each one on the price of the previous one insted of the base price

i bought 25 myself, will keep them for the next event. hoping MF boosters, character slots or minis come next.