subversiontwo.7501

> @"Jura.2170" said: > Um, no > > When WvW first started, ppl actually cared about stuff like ppt and holding more stuff than everyone else. Scouts were important, especially since they didn't get any loot from fights and had to pay for upgrades themselves. WvW wasnt meant to be only big PvP, it was something else with PvP added to it. And it was more casual and more fun than 5 x 5 PvP > > Things like megaservers and the alliances anouncement changed WvW. Ppl stopped caring about ppt and server pride or just left the game. Most scouts quit too. Most WvW players left are the ones who like fights most and ignore things like defending, sieging and ppt score. The only reason people cared more about stuff like PPT was because it was integral to the strategic goals of the mode and people still had faith in problems like scoring and population-balance to be fixed. That faith started changing far quicker than I think you believe. In fact, many original guilds left or reshaped themselves already by 2013-2014 for this very reason. Most pickup content back then, same as now, was produced by players, who entered into guilds, that gave birth to commanders who then shared that content with the server. I've easily played rather closely with 15-20 commanders (most of them regarded the- or a server main) in my 8 years of this game and I can't think of anyone who came up through the server rather than a guild or who cared more about their server than their guild. Plainly put: It wasn't Alliances or whatever that made people lose server pride, the people who created what the server was proud about were always in guilds and informal alliances of guilds (ie., guild-guild friendships). What we have seen since is guilds disappearing quicker than the general populace, that remaining veteran players feel that it is less and less worth to spend time and effort into building communities and when they do they are less and less inclined to share that content - it is many times against their interest to share as they position themselves better to partake in content by being restrictive. The reason for this is full servers, full maps, transfer fees, population imbalance and broken scoring, far more than anything else and those same problems have been the reasons since the game first came out. This has been a gradual change that has gone on ever since the game came out, but like any whirlpool, it picks up speed the closer it gets to the flush.

> @"Caedmon.6798" said: > Well,some people know how to counter and others,just never learn. But hey lets keep on complaining though ! Im sure it will make you feel better giving yourself this feeling of "Class is broken" instead of, "Im gonna improve myself and learn how to shut them down". Whatever works. I think that you are thinking about this in too small terms. While there may be alot of people who get killed by a certain class once or twice and then log in here to complain, that is far from everyone and the very topic of this thread should give you at least some indication of what the discussion actually is about. There may be some Thieves now who have issues with the "marked" mechanics and there are some Thieves now who dislike the profileration of pocket-healers and make threads asking for pure support builds and their classes to get looked at. However, the Thief is the only reason that "marked" exists to begin with and it is more or less the only reason that players on other classes that used to run solo now engage much less in that, use pocket-healers and limit themselves more to 3's, 5's and 10's at the "smaller" scales. This goes for players of all experience levels and preferences at smaller scale so it isn't just a pub-stomping issue (and pub-stomping issues alone has made Anet jump out of their seats in the past - the old Holorifle build for example likely got swatted only because it excelled at pub-stomping as it had little to no representation elsewhere). It was not an overbearing amount of Mesmers that caused any of these things. It was the Thief. It also means that **if you want those things to change** you would also need to give the Thief a proper, honest look. No one else is just going to roll over and die because the current state has made alot of less experienced players move onto Thief and they like to feel gratified. I don't even prefer solo play myself, even if I do enjoy some aspects of smaller scale content, so this isn't even an issue I'm particularily invested in even though I am opening my mouth about it every now and then. In fact, to some degree the current state helps players like me because we get more content for the stuff we prefer (3's, 5's, 10's, 15's etc.). However, some things are very obvious and I am interested in the health and diversity of the mode or I feel for friends who are more affected by this than me.

> @"Loosmaster.8263" said: > > @"subversiontwo.7501" said: > > https://boards.greenhouse.io/arenanet/jobs/2516806 > > > > Finally :3 > > Don't hold your breath... I am sincerely being a tad sarcastic, but better late than never I guess. It's not like it's a bad thing, it just seems very untimely for it to show up now :3 .

Um, I think alot of it has been said already. The changes to core power Guard can be seen as both good and bad. It is a good change in theory because it possibly gave Guardians too many roles overall that could obscure classes with less overall roles. It may be a bad change in practise because most people have problems understanding the differences theory takes in practise and how norms come out of how players adapt. The core Guardian served a purpose of allowing Commanders a reserve of stab-bots (ie., a margin against losing Firebrands in situations when maps are full etc., so falling below critical mass could risk the entire group). I would say that the core power Guardian was perhaps more a sore spot for players on classes with low representation than it was a problem for gameplay. Either way, it is what it is, I don't feel like the change was unfair. Perhaps just unfortunate. If it pans out to still be regarded as viable even if it isn't ideal and would allow Elementalists to climb to the top and challenge the Rev for that status we may have a better balance on our hands than before. I'm just not sure if that will happen with these changes alone. Like others have said, I don't find the damage hybrid builds to be issues for larger scale gameplay. Burning converts into Aegis which is a very double-edged sword and is primarily why hybrids remained controversial (so it is much less that "condi will just be cleansed at large scale" and more that burning converts to power blocks, taking power damage from your allies). Burning may also be looked at on the smaller scale and as a pub-stomper / gate keeper. I realize that we see some profileration of it at lower end roaming and clouding, but it is even more of a delicate matter there. Burning still has to be allowed to be burning and Guards have to be allowed to be Guards. So they can definately do something against one-trick ponies that just rely on burn bursting but they also need to do that without completely hamstringing the core mechanics of the class and ruining much of the hybrid play the class may need there to stay somewhat appealing. If they go at those core mechanics they may not just need to rebalance but actually redesign the core mechanics of the class into something different. Guards are not full blown condi classes and even though that can be said to point out that they shouldn't be able to burst like they do, it also goes to show that what they do is rather counterable. It is actually a very good example of where the best change to deal with the burn Guardian builds is simply to look at damage/stack caps condi-wide so no idividual tick of anything transcends a certain damage figure or stack amount, essentially forcing the bursters to play a longer game to not overstack without completely neutering every approach at playing anything but full burst dedication. TLDR: Core power: Potentially good for balance, unsure if reached, possibly bad for Commanders (and a risk that Commanders will use larger FB margins instead). Burning: Like many other condi-burst ponies could use a look at. However, it needs to be careful not to step too much onto builds using things like Carrion, Celestial and the like because the core class mechanics, like the F1 and the stat-holes, are very much created with that in mind. A too hamfisted nerf of burn on Guardians could require a later core-mechanic redesign. A too hamfisted nerf on burning could cause interbalance issues among condi. The best solution is probably caps to make it less appealing to just burst-stack conditions in the PvP modes. If any condition could never tick above, let's say 2k just to throw a figure out, it would leave it up to condi builds to navigate that space themselves and it would allow Anet to simply balance classes between their access to condi again (more types = more damage, more amount = easier management).

I would love to see the tower/supply mechanics go away. However, in recent discussions some Thief mains have suggested that a change like this would be enough, I remain unconvinced so it will be interesting to see what this change will achieve over time. If they are right I am not going to be unhappy but I also do not belive this was ever an issue even if SB initiative costs will impact overall iniative management to some degree. The fact that we need those on-top mechanics suggests that there are balance issues and when we can take them away it would suggest that balance is in more of a managable ballpark. I still believe the the real issue with the dominance of Thief as a solo-small roamer in WvW (and as such unlike sPvP or objective-raiding aspects of WvW) is how so many things can be put into the same bag and get the flexibility for free and how that in turn scales with their unique resource system. Like Suchos says above (though I presume he's talking more about specific mechanics and I'm speaking more about the combination of weapons/initiative with utilities and traits), it is the combination of these things that has just scaled away to extreme proportions on things that are very valuable when roaming. Roaming itself obivously has a bit of an obscure role in the game and the mode at large, however, it is something alot of new players are subjected to as they enter the mode so it is not good to see such extreme imbalance there and it is not good to see such punishing gameplay available there and it is also something that is problematic for old players in situations that promotes the mode on various venues (eg., streamers, Youtubers etc.) or how it can be applied to just troll in general (player events etc.). Also, extreme advantages in some situations is not a good counter balance to lacking in other. Some arguments can be made for being weaker and stronger in different situations but it is never a good idea to let that scale away into extremes. I'd rather see the Thief improved in other areas to get some appeal where it is lacking than just see it be the uncontestable king of ganks and escapes.

No, for three important groundlaying reasons: **A)** **What you are suggesting is not updates to WvW, it is entirely different game modes.** **WvW certainly needs updates but it needs updates that exists within the concept of what WvW is** (a three-sided, perpetual content mode). That doesn't mean that, over time, more could be done with the confines of the mode or within the confines of the mode. I have spoken multiple times about how smart use of existing mechanics could fix problems in WvW and be applied to create new mechanics and forms of content (using structure control [and flagging] to create ownership permanence for a Risk-like mode that can be expanded into giving guilds tools to create "arenas" simply with WvW structures and ownership control etc.,). However, none of that ever leaves the root of WvW being WvW. Most ideas that come in when we have some happy-go-lucky PvE tourists always seem to take the route of how they can come in and explore, to go on a safari from a personal perspective and that is always naive and quite frankly daft. There's never any replayability, perpetuality or other players in mind there. It is just some fling of egoistic want. **B )** **What you are suggesting is experimental and ArenaNet have already experimented with offshoots for WvW enough**, in fact, they have done nothing but experiment and have either not come to implementation or the implementation has come as a beta or completely off the pulse of what the mode is about. For example, Shaman released a datamine on how they had developed a "Caravan capture" mode on a grand map. EotM can be seen as a beta that has never left the beta phase. Strongholds can be seen as what the game got instead of GvG arena / larger sPvP map (which is still an ongoing project with cycles over 6 years) and Alliances has been in production in at least three cycles by now, the last and current one marching on 3 years for as long as that. **C)** **What you suggest is not reasonable given what we know of the studio's, game's and mode's history** or what we can speculate ArenaNet have the resources and gumption for now. We exist in what can be compared to a maslowian stair (google it). To see the game mode branch out into new submodes and wild ideas is a luxury we can't afford when the mode is crawling at the bottom and fighting for survival. There are so many other things that the mode really needs and requires before we can even dream of things at the level where you are now. It is just so disconnected from where we are or have ever been.

> @"Mrgreen.8623" said: > But again the problem is still that Dev don't help them. Don't go in this direction. We need that to be emulated, not to be an exception... Well, the help that they need is not necessarily different target caps or balance but rather the ever looming issue to not be scrooged over by full servers and transfer fees. Full servers, queues and transfer fees are the problem here because _we, can't, play, with, friends_. Groups that zergbust in particular relies on _playing, with, friends._ If we have friends who yet not play GW2 we need to be able to get on the same team/map to _play, with, those, friends_. It is literally that god damned fundamental.

The target cap is what will likely decide its use or not the most. It is a shame though, this is the third time or something that they change it and none of those changes have been the good and obvious one to **just reduce its radius**. The bubble can be strong and dropable as long as it was only 180-240 like most other ground-target effects, so you could immidiately get out of it when peeled with just dodges. The problem with the bubble always was that the size of it just recreated more and more chances to stick people inside of it. Like, you could get bubbled, ripped, stunned, broken free, unable to get restabbed, dodge once or twice and still be inside the bubble to be stunned again. In short, the size of the bubble made it too powerful against breaks and cleanses. The fact that it can counter stab and thus become extremely powerful is not a problem in and of itself if you could only counter the CC and get out in a timely fashion as a counter play. It is the same thing that makes eg., Meteor shower powerful on Ele, that people can get slapped by it even after expending their dodges. In the case of the Meteor showerver however, it is less of a problem and more of a functional design choice. Like the shower, the size of the bubble also makes spamming it disproportionally strong. If it had a smaller radius you would have to make more conscious choices if you were to stack it broad or deep and how much you would want to stack it. I guess a 5-target cap will to some degree recreate that, but it will certainly do it in a rather toothless and boring way, nevermind all the overlapping effect-spam and short-stick bingo it will create when people pop multiple bubbles to hit a certain control figure (eg., 4 at once to cover 20 players for a breaking push or even just 2 at once to cover 10 players for ranged feeler). Radius is just such a better mechanic to mediate the gameplay of it. There was never any need to change its mechanics to up-end the role of the Warrior or diminish its value with weaker mechanics. It was always in the application. Something that powerful should never have been that encompassing. I don't mind that it is powerful.

> @"Threather.9354" said: > **Combat balance** > _Concentration stat:_ Tune down in WvW from 1% boon duration per 15 to 1% boon duration per 21. This would solve the issue of minstrel stacking. > _Superspeed:_ Tune down effectiveness to 66% from 100% and/or reduce the amount it can be provided AoE or _at least_ make it affected by cripple and chill > _Speed runes:_ Tune down effectiveness to 66% from 100% > > Related thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/119043/bold-claim-and-reality-superspeed-upkeep-is-making-skill-ranges-and-radiuses-too-low These were bad ideas in past threads and they are bad ideas here. We already have a situation where melee damage roles hardly exist and you seem hellbent on just dipping the game further into just long-range CC and damage pirateships. > **Population algorithm/relinking system:** > _Population count:_ Count populations as totals on the linking, not main server and link server separately > _Relinkings:_ Get rid of them. Less amount of tiers is enough. Some people just prefer to play with higher activity and some servers are better fit for most people. Current situation is worse populationbalancewise between tiers than before. So when a guild or a group of guilds do well and hordes of dead weight that have no interest in communication or cooperation wants to transfer into their content they should be forever doomed to no longer be able to recruit players to their guilds on that full server? The only effect that is going to have is that those groups out of self-preservation will go out of their way to make those other players quit or move. It is going to redefine what we consider toxic today. Just look at what happens when servers get over-linked or full and no-linked today. We don't want more of that.

> @"Mrgreen.8623" said: > The goal is not to say: 40 is bad.... but a 10 Vs 40 can be an option, a crazy one but still can be "possible". If 10/15 people can have more impact that will change the way we play. The blob will be more careful... still stronger of course... but not mighty powerful... Would this entire thread be pointless if that was the case? Because it is. You can literally just go to Youtube and type in "Cakewalk" to get a bazillion examples of 10 vs. blob. There are some other groups in the 10-15 vs. blob too. The problem is rather that there are very few guilds left so there are even fewer guilds who focus on- or dabble in zergbusting left. The sad truth is that we have a game mode that new players from other games can't enter so our only faucet of new players are existing players of an MMO that has taken a sharp turn into casual single-player content. The players who can come in mirror that behaviour and expectations. Most people find it pointless to build guilds and other communities as a result, whether they are antisocial players themselves or feel like there are not enough socially active players left to ask. Look at any pickup group today and you are going to see 75%+ of the people who even made it onto coms have their mics turned off as if everyone had technical, physical or social limitations to the expected norm. Conversely, that makes them even easier to kill for a smaller organized group, but since they are so sparse anyway, they gain little attention.

Hopefully they touch it when they touch conditions again. If there is an overabundance of corruptions it's useful to have a counterpoint to that. Preferrably they can make corruptions far more rare and just let cleanses be cleanses so more tickers just go out of the system. PoP can be another trait entirely. Ideally when they look at conditions they look at the spam of them relative performance as well. For PvP I much prefer the vanilla system when some classes had about two conditions and others had one. The HoT PvE changes that made it a norm for most condition-oriented classes to have access to 3-4 conditions and up just made the system difficult to balance and most likely is a factor in lag issues as well. If they're doing splits they may as well look into restoring that for the PvP modes. If that's off the table they should really look at the caps too, there's no reason for conditions to be as potentially bursty as they are given the mechanics and concepts of power and condition damage. If balancing ramp-up and management is difficult they can just cap it off so it never ticks individual ticks as high as can be reached now.

> @"God.2708" said: > > @"subversiontwo.7501" said: > > https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wvw+scourge+guide > > > > Among the first five entries you have guides from Risen, Metallone and Shari. > > > > There are always going to be opinions on what and who is representative but for your purposes of getting a general understanding I'm sure any of them works. Couple that with talking to people in your server community (commanders, someone you see alot on scourge, someone from a decent enough guild, if your server has a community guild or a guild that fills that function, etc.) and you should have a grasp of what is expected of you in general content. > > > > Ed. Ps. Core Guardians are generally accepted as damage dealers in pickups now so you could always just try a different build on your main. It might help with gearing and just having a general experience with the confines of the class. > > I appreciate that this edit has already aged poorly. Haha, indeed, that patch just landed with a good dose of irony.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wvw+scourge+guide Among the first five entries you have guides from Risen, Metallone and Shari. There are always going to be opinions on what and who is representative but for your purposes of getting a general understanding I'm sure any of them works. Couple that with talking to people in your server community (commanders, someone you see alot on scourge, someone from a decent enough guild, if your server has a community guild or a guild that fills that function, etc.) and you should have a grasp of what is expected of you in general content. Ed. Ps. Core Guardians are generally accepted as damage dealers in pickups now so you could always just try a different build on your main. It might help with gearing and just having a general experience with the confines of the class.

> @"Kylden Ar.3724" said: > > @"Strider Pj.2193" said: > > > @"K THEN.5162" said: > > > 1 more day until the 2 year anniversary of this lost-cause of a promise! Looking forward to another year of WvW content being ugly, overpriced mount skins for the boring and overpowered warclaw!! > > > > Actually, it’s 2 months until The **3 year** anniversary. > > > > This thread was the second update on it. > > For 4 years we have been lied to. It started with Colin (kitten hype master), it continued with Mike O'B (kitten kitten) and now, they don't even give us a name to direct our loathing at. It's sadly 5 years or more. If you read the first qoute by Colin he says that they have been working on a major overhaul for over a year. The Megaservers released in april 2014 while the first experiments for WvW with EotM released in september 2014. Colin back then in interviews mentioned how the back-end team that made Megaservers would be kept intact to keep working on things, implicating that more work could be done for the beta stuff put into WvW or just iterative work in general. As we know today, little to nothing has been done with EotM since september 2014 and it just sits there even though there are plenty of things that could be done with the back-end of it or with what they learnt from developing it. I've mentioned it in other threads but I think the saddest part of the issues that plague WvW is that they could be addressed with existing tech and that so much more could be done with just smart application of design to avoid needs for larger tech additions and drawing further upon the tech that's here now. * Outnumbered to fix scoring and adapt to a multi-overflow system * Megaserver flows to fix queues (already exists in EotM?) * Possibly streamline old server WvW to not have borders and just overflows on a map carousel * EotM with a better map to have a grand three-way mode without servers * OS with a better map (same map as EotM) to have a persistant grand three-way using the invulnurable walls tech to create guild-owned structure permanence and ultimately get a grand strategy mode akin to what exists in EVE, WoT or New World. The tech exists, it's just a db entry to get it. * Using the guild-owned structure permanence and simple structure/wall layout changes to let players control access and run GvG events inside owned structures (even now the SM throne room is as good or better than any existing Arena option). There are so many creative things that could be done with what they already have that they could reinvent all the peripheral modes in the mode. Most of this should not require heavy programming efforts, however, with spaghetti code you never know. In theory though, most of this is simple implementation such as changing database values or reskinning maps (which SCW once claimed was difficult in GW2, but everything is relative).

> @"Calisanna.8732" said: > > @"DKRathalos.9625" said: > > > @"Kylden Ar.3724" said: > > > > > Well, it does. Also, > > > > > > # Alliances When!? > > > >  > > > > This made my day ? The intro to WP's latest video may make your day again:

> @"noncha.2761" said: > meme post? Such accusations, it is education. We are answering questions and helping wayward souls on their journey to better understanding. 

**I think context is important:** Superspeed sits in the same situation as stab, winds, resistance, certain stances and everything else. It is some sort of attempt at capping off all the boon and control spam. It is also some attempt at reigning in a grip over PvP balance after the modes have been thrown to the wind of PvE balance where more CC just adds to the fun of having buttons to mash and the norm is to keep stacks of boons maxed as a micrograme. This discussion, same as any related discussion, need to look at the macro of PvP and take into account that the norm here is still ranged combat with literally no classes what so ever currently filling a melee damage role. Control also generally trumphs base mobility and self-reliant panic-buttons. Alot of these discussions are often rooted in less experienced players not assuming that opposing players will adapt or counter in situations of overbearing control. I'm not saying everyone in this thread is an inexperienced player, I'm simply saying that discussions of this kind are often marred by that oversight. People assume that they will get to land more damage but may not take into account that opposing players will also be more apt at just taking your buttons away and killing you with little chance at counterplay. They also may not consider that it will just push balance further in favour of long-ranged self-reliant builds that will ultimately shift the environment more towards a kind of clouding that no one wants to command in and the mode will just see less tags and less organized play. That may be appealing at first glimpse for someone who do not play in close cooperation with friends or take part in leading organized content but they will notice it once content just get sparse in general and there are no tags around anymore. **Does that mean that balance-bridging mechanics like superspeed are ideal?** No, not at all. A proper balance of base mechanics would be alot better. That however would require a major overhaul of those base mechanics and a much deeper split with PvE mechanics (which can be counter-intuitive, even if that isn't a major concern of mine - also, if we're talking about ideals I'd much prefer PvE to find other routes to engaging gameplay than spamming those effects there too). Just bare in mind that it would require making powerful control skills very rare as well. Things like chill and stun are incredibly powerful so they have powerful counters and should those counters become less outstanding then so would the control need to be. However, that's certainly my ideal for sure, that many of the powerful control effects could become very rare and we could tune down the counterplay to them as well to open up role diversity. **Does that mean that there are no better solutions?** No, not at all. You can certainly find better overarching solutions. However, you need to ask yourselves if you can trust ArenaNet with that. If you are talking to other players you also need to ask yourself if you can trust a deeper understanding in their suggestions with that. I do not and that is why I am usually on the side of defending general mobility- and open-field- encouraging mechanics in balance discussions. I simply believe that these are the best hope for now and my faith in the developers or most other players to find something better, rather than worse, is rather low.

A couple of pointers: 1. I guess there is some merit to listing focus parties for vanilla as there were far more guild groups per pickup back then but it does muddle the overview a bit since I can't remember many focus parties in pickup in vanilla and if you consider guild-groups there's more variety in the HoT and PoF stuff too. 2. Don't forget the destroyer Warriors in vanilla 3. If the PoF chart is to be a full expansion representation keep in mind that the Minstrel SB is something pretty new and it's also questionable how much of a support it is even if it is running Minstrel stats 4. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, keep in mind that this like everything else is very much down to general behaviour patterns and that people less and less play what can work to more and more just do whatever someone tells them to do for convenience reasons - that easily has as much to do with the profileration of minstrel+zerk extremes as anything else. In fact, there are plenty of traits today that would suggest using more middle-ground stats that simply isn't being used as we just coast through leveraging numbers and no one really bothers to look into whether its warranted to throw some half-tank onto something that either get onepushed or sits high on Arc. To cut to the chase with my point: If there were more guild groups (or people playing in groups of friends in general) there would likely be more variety and less just going through the motions and doing what you're being told. There's an interesting and not immidiately appearant overlap between "population balance" and "meta" in that.

> @"Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365" said: > And I still don't know what thread is about... I'm getting too tired to read through the posts properly, I will check back tomorrow, but at first glimpse I think the thread is about alot of middle-ground stat-distribution falling short at larger scale combat. If that's the case it's also both true and a pretty interesting discussion. There are plenty of things it could branch out into talking about.

I agree with the OP, I too think it is perfectly reasonable to be able to just stand on walls and unload LB2 after LB2 with impunity on my Tower Ranger. Nothing should be able to touch me, there are walls there for pete's sake! Walls I say!

Back by popular demand: History lessons 

> @"UNOwen.7132" said: > - It actually is just one thing. Shortbow 5. It means they can always escape, and the rest of the class basically doesnt matter as a result. > - And even with all of that, thief is *really* bad against most condi builds. They can handle mesmer because plasma is op, but otherwise? You run, or you die. > - You already mentioned cleanse on dodge, which isnt very good. Stealth on dodge is Rifle Deadeye, which is really bad, and also cant be used with that "cleanse on dodge" one. > - Also, you keep saying "you can put more stealth", but ignoring that most of them dont even put in stealth (only D/P does, and only as a stunbreak, which is not replacing the supposed free space from the cleanse utilities they pick anyway), that isnt even the issue with thief. > - Yeah except that doesnt add up. Thief has those traits, uses a lot of cleansing utility, and *still* dies to conditions. I took the liberty to cut your post into pieces that I find relevant. My apologies if I pull anything out of context to where it feels misconstrued. That is not the intention. I think you're making a mistake assuming this a dig at Thieves duelling-, power- or general fighting strength. It is not. In fact, same as with my first post, there are certainly areas in which the Thief as a class can see improvement to its fighting ability (larger scale combat is one of those). I'm not suggesting that the Thief is a poor duelist either, it's fairly popular among above average players there too for a reason. However, it is not necessarily a problem in that context. Instead, this is about the general reset ability and what that does to the game in a larger scope. How it feeds into negative behaviours in that larger score and affects content. It lets experienced players bully new players. It premiers ganking and it allows players to deny content to too high of a degree. I'd also say that is primarily what has lead to a profileration of the class in recent years (while the class has always been a popular roamer). With that said, in a context of general roaming and clouding rather than organized roaming and duelling I rarely see players shoot away with SB5. That is at least not the primary mean to reset and re-enage over and over. While you call those traits and builds that use them bad, you do see them quite frequently. There are plenty of players trolling around using both DE and DD builds with those traits. Not necessarily because it lets them win against an equally many, good or prepared players on condition builds but because it lets them play non-commitedly and gank less experienced or roaming-prepared players regardless if they are power, condi or support heavy. It's the balance of picking the fights and re-picking the fights or all the trolling opportunities in various ways that comes with it that is my gripe with it. It isn't necessarily even an issue for me but rather an issue that I see looking at other players who get driven out the mode. I've been around this game mode for long enough to know how to adapt enough to fight most players to a draw at least. There may be times when I am on a risky build, feel like I've earnt a kill and get annoyed by the resets and content denial but I do not necessarily play that way very much and that is far less a concern for me in general than what I see it do to other players who are newer, less adaptable or more subjected to content denial and trolling. I'm not even suggesting that Thieves shouldn't be (one of-) the best roaming, resetting or underhanded classes. Some of that comes with the territory. It's the ridiculous balance of it, which has lead to the implementation of tower debuffs, supply debuffs etc., and rising amount of problem-related behaviour and players adding to it. It comes back to those hamfisted counters that have been implemented as well. They're not there to even out the fighting-strength of Thieves in an engagement. They are there to check the reset-ganking behaviour a bit. They are just, obviously, doing a rather poor job at it, as it thrives, and these things should never have been balanced that way to begin with. They're only there because no one can be bothered to find a better balance between resets and keeping the style. Like I've said a couple of times already, I found that balance to be pretty decent in vanilla and see it as creep-related.

> @"Swagger.1459" said: > Just wondering, why are you again trying to change what was designed to be a condition melee spec into a super support spec? Are you not aware of the Druid's design function and how much attention it needs as a support elite? I don't know Swagger, the Soulbeast has been a mess of a bit of everything from the get-go. Its weapons say conditions (or hybrid), its utilities say group-support and its unique spec mechanic has always had far more power options than condition options. It could be perfectly logical to redesign most of it around a melee damage group-utility role akin to vanilla core Guards and actually derive some mobility functionality from that to make other support classes more appealing in tandem with Soulbeasts, instead of adding more of that utility directly to those support classes as has been discussed. That doesn't have to take from giving better functioning group-utility to the Druid based on what the Druid was designed around. To put it as crude as possible: Making Soulbeasts damage- and stab bots does not take from making Druids better heal- and stealth bots. I can't even count the times I have suggested just removing the pre-nerfed state of Soulbeast stances (half uptime, not benefiting from traits) and giving the Druid some of the Spirit/Nature magic mechanics back in form of glyphs and traits, like it used to have (or just changing the mechanics of Spirits to make them functional in PvP, if we can give lousy rune Golems 50k HP and decent programming nothing stops us from giving Ranger spirits that instead, maybe that is not the best option out there given recent history but it's not like there would be Ranger blobs out there for "chinese GvG"). I'm sure they can think of something better that could make Druids better and have more flavour (that would also let them nerf the ridiculous imobility spam).

I guess it's time to welcome the OP to WvW and the WvW forums where everyone else have been asking the same thing for the past 8 years, to no avail. However, I'm just dipping in to comment on that there's an interesting piece of discussion between Strider's and Solanum's post. If we take the maps as an example, the issue has never been that players in WvW does not want new maps. The issue has been that, as Strider says, content is primarily produced between players and the maps we have gotten has not taken that into account. We do want new maps we just want maps conducive to WvW player-player content. The argument is as simple as we want new maps but we do not want bad maps, we want good maps. If whoever makes the maps do not understand the sport called WvW they can not make map a for it. Take any sport and you can see that maps, pitches, rinks or courses are all designed meticulously with the sport in question in mind. If we take the sport of Ice Hockey for example, such a small difference as rink scale between Europe and North-America has produced different traditions and values (even if the modern status of the NHL has made this less and less notable over time). If there were even larger differences between the rinks those traditions would ultimately transform into completely separate sports and that has been the problem with EotM and DBL. In fact, I would still argue that most of the content that EotM and DBL has seen has not been because they are conducive to WvW content but because they have not been and as such driven away most subsets of the player pool leaving those maps richer with specific types of players (karma trains for EotM and roaming for DBL respectively). I know that some people say that they prefer the DBL map thanks to the map itself. However, I would still maintain for the vast majority it may be preferred simply because it has more roamers and less blobs so it has absolutely nothing to do with the map itself for creating roamer-roamer content. If there was an instance of EBG with an exclusive- or just larger pool of roaming targets then they would prefer that. So if anyone want to make new maps or reskin existing maps, by all means, I think most WvW players would appreciate it if they were conducive to actual WvW content and not just appealing to some because they drove 75% of the WvW players away. Knowing the general attention WvW sees and what has been said about maps and WvW systems in the past, I guess we can't hope for much though. For example:  So we know that maps are more complicated to deal with in WvW than in PvE and in GW2 relative what can be expected in general. However, it is also true that what is "super hard" for 3 people may not be so hard for 30 people or that the WvW systems in general are far more dated than anything else in GW2 and need overhauls that have been abandoned time and time again or stay forever delayed (again, because it obviously takes more time for 3 people to achieve something than 30). If all else fails, maybe the should just rebuild the entire WvW system from the ground up, taking what they have learnt and build something that feels the same but runs differently so they can implement and iterate future-proofed. It's not like the core tenets of the WvW mode is that complicated compared to the needs of other modes and systems. Over the course of 8 years spaghetti code becomes a poor excuse for a 300-150 sized company when 25-man sized companies have built full MMO games in 18 months, including the game that WvW was modeled after.

The effort and argumentation would suggest this is just a lowball troll, but since the thread is sitting here anyway: The issue with Thieves is hardly their steal, in fact, when people discuss that the Thief should be nerfed that also comes with some understanding that bad things that have been put in place to limit the Thief should also be removed. The nerf to swipe over steal is a pretty nonsensical nerf that presumably was just added to give some trade-off when ArenaNet was hellbent at finding trade-offs for certain elite specs. That project, like most things WvW and balance, is seemingly half-way abandoned. I can't speak for everyone else but I also consider nerfs to the Thief so things like tower/guard reveals and supply reveals can be deleted. It is better if characters are balanced by characters. With that said, as has been repeated far too many times already, the issues with the Thief mostly lies in combinations of its core mechanics with the unique resource system they have relative other classes cooldowns and their stealth/escapes. It's not just one thing but a combination of creep that exist over their resources and traits that let them focus the entire build around their core mechanics a get a bunch of other things for free. For example, having traits that remove conditions while stealthed and/or dodging means that you do not have to divert cooldown-dependent utility skills to that and can just load up your utilities with more stealth, escapes and resource-modifiers. So it gets more stealth and through more stealth also more cleanse etc., it becomes a self-inflating system where you can just load up a bunch of stealth and escapes while other classes have to make tough choices. The elite specs have added to this by providing further stealth on dodge, cleanse on dodge and so on. If ArenaNet wanted to make a trade-off there that is what they should have adressed, taking away some of the core spec's access to stealth/escape mechanics from the elites' kits. The steal was never such a thing. Furthermore this also conflates with the base resource management because, for example, if you can put more stealth in your utilities from free cleanses then you can use less resources to achieve stealth from weapons that way and reserve- or compound your stealths for longer or more stealth etc. For example, the amount of leaps a D/P setup can do in its smoke field is problematic and counter-intuitive to begin with. If smoke is produced by a utility that compounds. Thieves are not the only class that has recieved traits like these (top tier functionality added to core class-unbound mechanics) but since the root Thief class mechanics are so strong such unbound mechanics just scale away even more on Thief than on other classes for who those mechanics are also powerful. For example, Warriors have had traits that at certain times have merged into very powerful combinations with their cleanses on swaps or breaks on movement-skills but those are not added ontop of such powerful class mechanics as stealth and initiative. Those are examples of things that need a look at. And like I said, I want them looked at because I want the bad tower- and supply mechanics thrown out. Those should never have been added (or been needed to be added) in the first place if the systems (skills and balance) team had done their due dilligence before the balance splits of PvE and competetive.