Guild Wars 2

I’ve never encountered an effective one skill build before but vault is definitely one of them 6.5-8K hit with a built-in evade that is repeatable several time in a role, wtf.

So you can’t hit them in the air due too evade, but you don’t want to be in their fairly large landing area because you don’t want the massive damage so you have to block, or dodge. There is a narrow window where you can actually hit them, I see a lot of people having a problem with it in ranked. I think it should have the evade removed or increased initiative to use so it can’t be used as an effective one skill build.

atm yes but only because the dumb signet + bound(damaging eavde) + vigor
I would rather tone down bound damage or remove the leap finisher from it
saying this as a thief main

Menyus.4610:

atm yes but only because the dumb signet + bound(damaging eavde) + vigor
I would rather tone down bound damage or remove the leap finisher from it
saying this as a thief main

i mean Channeled Vigor

Menyus.4610:

atm yes but only because the dumb signet + bound(damaging eavde) + vigor
I would rather tone down bound damage or remove the leap finisher from it
saying this as a thief main

actually thew signet aint dumb it just become dumb with dd elite

vault isnt the issue, the issue is bound, 4k dodges when u have upwards of 9+ is excessive.
vault can be countered by having good ping, and hitting them at the top of the vault. the evade frames are only for the first half of the skill.

Maybe kite and dont sit on a point like a DH trap. Vault evade frame is not through the entire vault btw, when vault is about to land there is no evade frame at all so you can time your daze/stun to hit the thief at nearly the end of vault animation. Bounding dodge is not even used 100% to always deal damage so dont act like every dodge is landed on your head because if it does its l2p issue. Not even speaking about the mobility sacrifice thief has to make to be somewhat relevant in teamfights with staff build + doesnt change the fact that thief can still be oneshot if he is caught off in non-evade.

Vicariuz.1605:

vault isnt the issue, the issue is bound, 4k dodges when u have upwards of 9+ is excessive.
vault can be countered by having good ping, and hitting them at the top of the vault. the evade frames are only for the first half of the skill.

Bound is not the issue, it’s such a minority of the damage output of staff as to be laughable.

Crinn.7864:

Vicariuz.1605:

vault isnt the issue, the issue is bound, 4k dodges when u have upwards of 9+ is excessive.
vault can be countered by having good ping, and hitting them at the top of the vault. the evade frames are only for the first half of the skill.

Bound is not the issue, it’s such a minority of the damage output of staff as to be laughable.

Thats funny cuz i get hit maybe 1 time with vault in the entire fight, but the 4k bounds are a much different story.

This is just another skill that goes on the long lists of HOT spec issues.

Its not OP because everything in HOT is OP but it does lack a certain amount of skill.

I am actually kind of guilty here. During the beta vault didn’t have evade, it was easy to interrupt and was just lacking so i did suggest for it to have some defensive (e.g. evade) and lower dmg a bit maybe as trade off. I did however not expect Anet giving vault so much damage after launch. Back then i still believed in common sense – boy, how wrong i was.

kdaddy.5431:

This is just another skill that goes on the long lists of HOT spec issues.

Its not OP because everything in HOT is OP but it does lack a certain amount of skill.

Yeah I agree no one skill should be so good that a class only uses that skill throughout a fight and be that successful with it. Sometimes I don’t get Anet logic, or why they are so slow to respond to these issues.

Vague Memory.2817:

kdaddy.5431:

This is just another skill that goes on the long lists of HOT spec issues.

Its not OP because everything in HOT is OP but it does lack a certain amount of skill.

Yeah I agree no one skill should be so good that a class only uses that skill throughout a fight and be that successful with it. Sometimes I don’t get Anet logic, or why they are so slow to respond to these issues.

Honestly I think they don’t have the staff to do it. Not enough dedicated personal

It’s not just Vault. I think Debilitating Arc needs a heavy nerf. Evade, immobilize cleanse, cripple, and consistent 3-4k damage with that permanent evade trash acro build.

Compare that to SB 3 which has 1/3 the cripple duration, usually 1/3 the damage, does not clear immobilize, and almost never hits unless barely outside of melee range. Both cost 4 initiative.

Vault thief is very easy to beat, both vault and bound are very predictable. The only time you’re ever going to get destroyed by them is if you’re not paying attention, D\P thief is still higher burst, utility and mobility then vault spam.

Vault is a bit like Surge of the Mists. It does (or did) crazy high damage while also evading. But Surge of the Mists was also a CC so if you didn’t have stability and got hit, you were done for. Vault can be dodged. My suggestions for Vault is to increase initiative to 6. Then, buff other Staff skills so that a Thief can’t just Bound and Vault for insane damage while also evading. With these changes, Vault would be the easy-to-dodge bursty skill, but the others would be lighter hitting but harder to avoid while also applying good pressure.

Bound could also use a damage decrease, but that’s another topic. Changing Vault to be less spammy I think is the best solution, but boosting others skills to be more useful as damage skills will help make Staff a better weapon.

Solstace.2514:

Vague Memory.2817:

kdaddy.5431:

This is just another skill that goes on the long lists of HOT spec issues.

Its not OP because everything in HOT is OP but it does lack a certain amount of skill.

Yeah I agree no one skill should be so good that a class only uses that skill throughout a fight and be that successful with it. Sometimes I don’t get Anet logic, or why they are so slow to respond to these issues.

Honestly I think they don’t have the staff to do it. Not enough dedicated personal

Staff…haha.

I agree that vault damage is crazy if you land it. I was having fun destroying people in unranked with it last night. However, I think people should remember that if DD is not evading very often or out of the fray, they will die in seconds. Also, vault is a ground targeted skill that is highly telegraphed and has a vulnerable frame to it. It is counterable. It could probably use a minor damage nerf, but to see 8-9k hits, a thief has to build pretty glassy. I don’t see those numbers on an acro build.

I would actually love to see some functional changes to the other skills (the vulnerability on dust strike was a good start. I think it should be cone aoe though) while nerfing the damage of vault. Vault spam is boring, but so is debilitating arc spam. I’d like to see a DD build that actualizes their vision for it, something with enough survivability to have a meaningful team fight presence apart from aoe damage.

Edit: in other words, I want to be able to live long enough without evading to be able to provide the weakness, blinds, whirl finisher/projectile reflect to my team with consistency.

If you’re struggling being able to fight this build I encourage you to play it and see its weaknesses, it’s pretty silly making a forum post about a build that isnt even used in high level play, vault spam thief is a bad crusher build that you can use to kill noobs who hold down their S key and waste dodges. If you wanted vault spam to be sort of viable at high level play you’d have to pick up acrobatics for more survivability and you’d lose a ton of damage. ( Your vaults hit for 4-6k with Acro. )

Ninski.5680:

If you’re struggling being able to fight this build I encourage you to play it and see its weaknesses, it’s pretty silly making a forum post about a build that isnt even used in high level play, vault spam thief is a bad crusher build that you can use to kill noobs who hold down their S key and waste dodges. If you wanted vault spam to be sort of viable at high level play you’d have to pick up acrobatics for more survivability and you’d lose a ton of damage. ( Your vaults hit for 4-6k with Acro. )

the whole “isnt used in high level play thing” doesnt work with any class. watching sindreners stream ive seen him matched with vault spam thieves before. and tons of DH which everyone said struggled at high tier of play. the main weakness to vault spam is other thieves (because skills hit instantly from a distance) and that its extremely slow so decapping doesnt work. but it is very strong in 1v1’s and oftentimes team fights. on that note i dont think its op. i think it plays its role well and isnt that bad. sure it might “do too much” but that doesnt warrant a nerf. its not over performing in any way.

All they need to do is remove all high offensive and high defensive capabilities from the same skills, or kitten them like Blurred Frenzy or Pistol Whip no one really complains about those skills because they do mediocre damage are rooted with large precast and after cast in regards to PW I don’t believe Blurred Frenzy hasn’t much of a precast. But those skills sacrifice and make the user vulnerable while skills like Vault and pre-nerf SoTM did not, then they could also take it a step further that if you have any invuln style affect that you can deal/apply damage while under said affect. The balance in this game is a joke, I can only wish for a complete overhaul that will never come.

There is too much sustain and too much damage on top of AoE and Cc spam and passives that due nothing to promote skillful gameplay.

do you play vault thief? If you know how to play it, you will never have problem against it anymore. Is so easy to dodge…

BlaqueFyre.5678:

All they need to do is remove all high offensive and high defensive capabilities from the same skills, or kitten them like Blurred Frenzy or Pistol Whip no one really complains about those skills because they do mediocre damage are rooted with large precast and after cast in regards to PW I don’t believe Blurred Frenzy hasn’t much of a precast. But those skills sacrifice and make the user vulnerable while skills like Vault and pre-nerf SoTM did not, then they could also take it a step further that if you have any invuln style affect that you can deal/apply damage while under said affect. The balance in this game is a joke, I can only wish for a complete overhaul that will never come.

There is too much sustain and too much damage on top of AoE and Cc spam and passives that due nothing to promote skillful gameplay.

Yeah nobody complains about Pistol Whip because nobody plays sword\pistol anymore because it got nerfed and blurred frenzy is used more as an invuln rather then damage because the current mesmer meta is based around condition damage rather then shatter burst. Blurred Frenzy still hits hard if people are playing GS\sword\shield zerker shatter.

What a spammable evade skill should look like
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Disabling_Shot_

Vault OP by comparison
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vault

Changes you could make to vault.
Replace the evade with a 1/2 second Stability
Replace the evade with a 1/2 second Aegis

Eh. It’s only really useful in certain situations/against bads. The true potential of the set doesn’t come from just vault, which is something most people don’t seem to understand.

ez, just increase initiative to 6. 5 is really dumb.

Solstace.2514:

Vague Memory.2817:

kdaddy.5431:

This is just another skill that goes on the long lists of HOT spec issues.

Its not OP because everything in HOT is OP but it does lack a certain amount of skill.

Yeah I agree no one skill should be so good that a class only uses that skill throughout a fight and be that successful with it. Sometimes I don’t get Anet logic, or why they are so slow to respond to these issues.

Honestly I think they don’t have the staff to do it. Not enough dedicated personal

I dont know who was in charge of each class professions elite spec but when i look at HOT its almost like they didnt care about PvP till the last second.

Because vault thief 1 v s 1 and d/d are just super thoughtless. Yet easily countered by DH with its also near thoughtless trap spam. It took them 5 seasons to nerf revs OP power attacks and didnt give it any more sustain.

I would bet money that they were crafting raids came up with these great ideas and made these elite specs. I mean they are really cool, they said bam it finally works in raids and the HOT map areas.

Then they were like ok lets send the expansion out and BOOM, WvW is like WTF! PvP is like WTF!

And we are sitting here going 5-dodge-5-dodge-5-dodge-signet-steal-1-1-1-5-dodge-5-dodge-5-dodge- ohhh crap i got hit heal skill-dodge ………………………………………………………

Vault is really good against those who are not.

Ok from druid perspective going vs vault is just too easy (I use mostly bunker s/d spec). You can dodge whole staff 5+dodge spam with your own dodges and evades and thief has 0 inactive. 0 inactive means dead thief.

This spec rightly inferior to unpredictable d/p.

Dunno how thief mains would feel about this… But for Vault why not just put the evade frames at the end with the damage?
It does hit hard, but it would make it not be “evade, ‘quick big spike’,- evade, ‘quick big spike’.” keeping the spike from being pressure-able once the thief is in the air yet still allowing for counter play. (hell I’d even be fine with buffing the damage a little) It would also feel more like an attack as opposed to just another safe spike.

Also to be fair, once the thief is at the peak of his vault unless you can instantly CC him (when most things have a cast time) your window of opportunity is to small before the next evade

As for bound… Maybe make the coefficient 1.32 to 1.35? I dunno I actually think bound is ok on it’s own, but when you consider the access to safe damage that already exists… Also since it’s a doge you can’t very well balance it similar to my suggestion to Vault, you NEED the reliability.

Daishi.6027:

Dunno how thief mains would feel about this… But for Vault why not just put the evade frames at the end with the damage?
It does hit hard, but it would make it not be “evade, ‘quick big spike’,- evade, ‘quick big spike’.” keeping the spike from being pressure-able once the thief is in the air yet still allowing for counter play. (hell I’d even be fine with buffing the damage a little) It would also feel more like an attack as opposed to just another safe spike.

Also to be fair, once the thief is at the peak of his vault unless you can instantly CC him (when most things have a cast time) your window of opportunity is to small before the next evade

As for bound… Maybe make the coefficient 1.32 to 1.35? I dunno I actually think bound is ok on it’s own, but when you consider the access to safe damage that already exists… Also since it’s a doge you can’t very well balance it similar to my suggestion to Vault, you NEED the reliability.

not logic, if you want an evade you want it now, you want to react to incoming attack, not and hab that gives you and evade 1/2 second after unless you can read the mind of oponent an act preemtive, problem is spameability in combo with dodge and signet and that they do big damage bringing “the permaevade” thief, logic changes are only increase cost to make non spameable , or reduce damage a lot

megilandil.7506:

Daishi.6027:

Dunno how thief mains would feel about this… But for Vault why not just put the evade frames at the end with the damage?
It does hit hard, but it would make it not be “evade, ‘quick big spike’,- evade, ‘quick big spike’.” keeping the spike from being pressure-able once the thief is in the air yet still allowing for counter play. (hell I’d even be fine with buffing the damage a little) It would also feel more like an attack as opposed to just another safe spike.

Also to be fair, once the thief is at the peak of his vault unless you can instantly CC him (when most things have a cast time) your window of opportunity is to small before the next evade

As for bound… Maybe make the coefficient 1.32 to 1.35? I dunno I actually think bound is ok on it’s own, but when you consider the access to safe damage that already exists… Also since it’s a doge you can’t very well balance it similar to my suggestion to Vault, you NEED the reliability.

not logic, if you want an evade you want it now, you want to react to incoming attack, not and hab that gives you and evade 1/2 second after unless you can read the mind of oponent an act preemtive, problem is spameability in combo with dodge and signet and that they do big damage bringing “the permaevade” thief, logic changes are only increase cost to make non spameable , or reduce damage a lot

The point I was making was to change the functionality of Vault from a safe evade with big damage, to a spike that happens to be safe in the second half of the PBAoE’s cast.

There are already a ton of other options for on demand evades, there is little reason beyond usability why vault needs it too, having it just creates the evade spam we have now, but not having it makes vault worthless.

What you stated is why I addressed the fact that the suggestion I gave for vault CANNOT be used for bound.

As a side note, Monster Hunter does the same thing for the aerial styles as I suggested for Vault… Plus this game could benefit from scaling reward to hard reads. (you know for anything that isn’t fighting a thief.)

Also just to throw it out there delayed doges are beneficial vs things like Moa and Killshot. Esepcially if we don’t want to go down the power creep route of increasing evade/block/invlun durations that we have been sinking into.

IMO messing with ini cost is a bit shallow, and would likely not solve the issue of evade spamming.

I just had a match with not one, not two, but three of these thieves, two of which would always travel as one, as the third followed one of the other two players around as they went for other points. Always bounding, always vaulting, never letting themselves be caught alone…

It was not pretty.

Foefaller.1082:

I just had a match with not one, not two, but three of these thieves, two of which would always travel as one, as the third followed one of the other two players around as they went for other points. Always bounding, always vaulting, never letting themselves be caught alone…

It was not pretty.

They need to say hi to a power warrior.

Moonsinn.5382:

Foefaller.1082:

I just had a match with not one, not two, but three of these thieves, two of which would always travel as one, as the third followed one of the other two players around as they went for other points. Always bounding, always vaulting, never letting themselves be caught alone…

It was not pretty.

They need to say hi to a power warrior.

If the war misses his stun, or the thief has his stun break ready, its only a matter of time until the power war looses.

The patient thief will pick away. The best will only +1.

rennlc.7346:

Vault is really good against those who are not.

Staff thief is such an interesting case where the power distribution of the kit changes so radically with skill.

If you regularly play against bad players Vault is absolutely the major source of power for staff. Vaulting onto bad players wins fights as they sit there eating it helplessly – it does a lot of damage and easily wins against an opponent just spamming their buttons while you facemash 5.

If you regularly play against strong players, particularly stronger duelists, the keystone skill on your bar is Debilitating Arc. That’s what allows you to use Bound aggressively and frustrate less mobile foes with your slipperiness. Vault is still a valuable tool, but one that works more akin to a Backstab – something you +1 with, or otherwise use to punish a preoccupied foe that doesn’t have the awareness to track your animations and timings.

Complaining about Vault spam is like complaining about 5-trap Dragon Hunters. Not that you don’t have a point, it’s quite good at certain skill levels…but the complaint makes pretty explicit what your skill level is.

Ensign:

rennlc.7346:

Vault is really good against those who are not.

Staff thief is such an interesting case where the power distribution of the kit changes so radically with skill.

If you regularly play against bad players Vault is absolutely the major source of power for staff. Vaulting onto bad players wins fights as they sit there eating it helplessly – it does a lot of damage and easily wins against an opponent just spamming their buttons while you facemash 5.

If you regularly play against strong players, particularly stronger duelists, the keystone skill on your bar is Debilitating Arc. That’s what allows you to use Bound aggressively and frustrate less mobile foes with your slipperiness. Vault is still a valuable tool, but one that works more akin to a Backstab – something you +1 with, or otherwise use to punish a preoccupied foe that doesn’t have the awareness to track your animations and timings.

Complaining about Vault spam is like complaining about 5-trap Dragon Hunters. Not that you don’t have a point, it’s quite good at certain skill levels…but the complaint makes pretty explicit what your skill level is.

“Debilitating Arc is OP” ~Ensign 2017

Grab your pitchforks everybody!