Guild Wars 2

Honestly, it’s kind of sad to see the crit strikes d/p build being near obsolete and panic strike d/p being the current meta. Arguably, panic strike d/p is much more effective than crit strikes in the conquest game, but a lot of the skillful play and mindful positioning that was characteristic of crit strikes d/p can no longer be seen. The panic strike build is close to being as cancerous as the other celestial builds with a heavy reliance on improvisation RNG and passive immobolizes.

Of course, it’s a player skill issue. I play panic strike d/p because it’s easier, and also because I feel I shouldn’t be the one to dictate my team’s effectiveness based on my desire to play a harder, more skillfull build (crit strikes). On the other hand, the game needs less of these kind of setups and more setups like crit strikes.

Suggestions:

-Improvisation needs to be reworked. Instead, it could have a 100% proc rate of recharging the utility skill with the least cooldown left (for example, if SR had 20 seconds left and basi had 30 seconds left, SR would be recharged). In this way, there is some predictability and control over the spec, as well as some punishment for using it when a skill is just to come off cooldown.

-Panic strike, much like other traits such as incendiary powder and reaper’s protection, should have a notification like a venom. Instead of activating at 50% health for 4 seconds of immobilize, maybe it could act as a 3 second immobolize every 30 seconds (it can only be gained in combat, and will proc first after 5 seconds in combat. From then on, you will gain a new “charge” of panic strike every 30 seconds). These should also be avoidable.

-There needs to be some buff to Hide in Shadows to encourage crit strike build usage. Perhaps a cooldown reduction to 25 seconds.

I like the idea on Improvisation. That, or just simply "Resets the cooldown of a random utility when you steal. (Though I think yours has more merit because I think the worst part of Improv is extra Shadow Refuges in quick succession). Its certainly a better idea than how it is now which is just crazy RNG swings in power.

Unfortunately, Panic strike isn’t likely to change. There are so many passive procs in this game, to clean it all up they’d have to redesign a TON of traits. It just isn’t likely… That said, it is sort of frustrating though how much feels completely passive and in no-way controlled other than RNG or “points of battle” (50% hp).

What if Improvisation took 5-8 seconds off of the most common utility type equipped, when steal was used? That would keep it pretty in line with a master trait that typically reduces a utility type’s cooldown by 20%.

Chaith.8256:

What if Improvisation took 5-8 seconds off of the most common utility type equipped, when steal was used? That would keep it pretty in line with a master trait that typically reduces a utility type’s cooldown by 20%.

I think you failed to see the real problem which is critical damage just isn’t worth it anymore.

Fi

Aeroxe.8140:

Honestly, it’s kind of sad to see the crit strikes d/p build being near obsolete and panic strike d/p being the current meta. Arguably, panic strike d/p is much more effective than crit strikes in the conquest game, but a lot of the skillful play and mindful positioning that was characteristic of crit strikes d/p can no longer be seen. The panic strike build is close to being as cancerous as the other celestial builds with a heavy reliance on improvisation RNG and passive immobolizes.

Of course, it’s a player skill issue. I play panic strike d/p because it’s easier, and also because I feel I shouldn’t be the one to dictate my team’s effectiveness based on my desire to play a harder, more skillfull build (crit strikes). On the other hand, the game needs less of these kind of setups and more setups like crit strikes.

Suggestions:

-Improvisation needs to be reworked. Instead, it could have a 100% proc rate of recharging the utility skill with the least cooldown left (for example, if SR had 20 seconds left and basi had 30 seconds left, SR would be recharged). In this way, there is some predictability and control over the spec, as well as some punishment for using it when a skill is just to come off cooldown.

-Panic strike, much like other traits such as incendiary powder and reaper’s protection, should have a notification like a venom. Instead of activating at 50% health for 4 seconds of immobilize, maybe it could act as a 3 second immobolize every 30 seconds (it can only be gained in combat, and will proc first after 5 seconds in combat. From then on, you will gain a new “charge” of panic strike every 30 seconds). These should also be avoidable.

-There needs to be some buff to Hide in Shadows to encourage crit strike build usage. Perhaps a cooldown reduction to 25 seconds.

i called the shift to 60206 over 26006 a while ago because critical strikes is absolute garbage in terms of utility and versatility, it forces you into a very narrow role while limiting your effectiveness everywhere else.

60206 is just the logical conclusion to d/p as 20066 is to s/d.

60206 is only “easier” because it actually tries to work with the weaponset’s mechanics defensively rather than just give you the highest dps possible.

I don’t agree with any Passive that takes control away from the enemy Pc. If they ever do change PS they should also do the same to SOH.

These are the two biggest “crutches” in the thief traitline. And they are both Unneeded as we get both an interrupt and immobilize from our wpn sets.

(headshot, Sword auto 1 + stealth + Back attack, B/v, Ect) and (Short bow Auto 1 + stealth / pistol 2/ sword 2, Ect)

SOH is far from passive….

“panic strike is dumb”

great title….not.

Jelzouki.4128:

“panic strike is dumb”

great title….not.

Seems to get right to the point, doesn’kitten You knew what to expect when you clicked on it. #SuccessfulTitleIsSuccessful

Gabriell.4856:

SOH is far from passive….

While it may not be exactly passive, it does add another layer of ridiculousness to the already most powerful ability in the whole game, and on a pretty short cooldown. o.O Hard to deny that. I don’t really have a vendetta against thieves anymore, but steal is pretty kitten crazy. I mean have you looked at the traited tooltip on it? Its like 10 pages long.

The problem with Panic ez strike is that you don’t need to be good to make it works and it does work pretty well.

Also this build is all about rng and passive play, last refuge, improv, panic strike, and now vamp runes lol.

crit strikes thief= high risk high reward
panic strike thief= medium risk medium reward
S/D thief= low risk low reward

Isint that how it should be? Why do people QQ. Crit strikes is still good but its just hard to play in this meta thats why nobody plays it. Its much better to play an easier build and do something for your team instead of being downstate food and then claim that your hard build is not viable anymore.

Edit: Also nothing is more braindead than a shoutbow warr or a turret engi. If they nerf panic strike cuz it was ‘’too easy to play’ then LOL are you kittening serious.

It’s more about utility so PS fits better, thief is here for mobility and scare other zerkers not to be the main damage dealer.

glock.6590:

crit strikes thief= high risk high reward
panic strike thief= medium risk medium reward
S/D thief= low risk low reward

Isint that how it should be? Why do people QQ. Crit strikes is still good but its just hard to play in this meta thats why nobody plays it. Its much better to play an easier build and do something for your team instead of being downstate food and then claim that your hard build is not viable anymore.

Edit: Also nothing is more braindead than a shoutbow warr or a turret engi. If they nerf panic strike cuz it was ‘’too easy to play’ then LOL are you kittening serious.

How exactly is s/d low reward? I main thief but have been playing shatter mesmer for months now – and I can tell you that s/d thieves are really the biggest reasons thieves are known to be “hard counters” in a regular team situation to a mesmer.

Don’t get me wrong d/p is strong, but if you can mess up their stealth, they’re done. S/D can spam evades all day and you don’t even need to pay attention to clones. Also sword #1 is plenty strong when used with steal.

glock.6590:

crit strikes thief= high risk high reward
panic strike thief= medium risk medium reward
S/D thief= low risk low reward

Isint that how it should be? Why do people QQ. Crit strikes is still good but its just hard to play in this meta thats why nobody plays it. Its much better to play an easier build and do something for your team instead of being downstate food and then claim that your hard build is not viable anymore.

Edit: Also nothing is more braindead than a shoutbow warr or a turret engi. If they nerf panic strike cuz it was ‘’too easy to play’ then LOL are you kittening serious.

Yes, that is how it should be. But instead, we have this.

crit strikes thief= high risk high reward
panic strike thief= medium risk high reward
S/D thief= low risk high reward

glock.6590:

crit strikes thief= high risk high reward
panic strike thief= medium risk medium reward
S/D thief= low risk low reward

Isint that how it should be? Why do people QQ. Crit strikes is still good but its just hard to play in this meta thats why nobody plays it. Its much better to play an easier build and do something for your team instead of being downstate food and then claim that your hard build is not viable anymore.

Edit: Also nothing is more braindead than a shoutbow warr or a turret engi. If they nerf panic strike cuz it was ‘’too easy to play’ then LOL are you kittening serious.

Nothing is also more braindead than d/d ele and cele engi. Shoutbow is only 5% harder than those two specs because it can’t handle chain CC gank.

Cele engi? You don’t need to land grenades from max range anymore, all you do is hard bait dodges and then you CC chain people to death with your instant cast overcharge and frame-eater slick shoes which can’t be evaded, blocked AND eats through stability stacks. And if you get focused? Just use slick shoes stun break jumping puzzle every 23 seconds, get vampirism runes and 16 second gear shield, gg.

D/D Ele? Getting focus fired? Just spam mobility, heals, stun breaks and z-axis teleports and call it skill. In a 1v1 against someone? Just spam protection fire breath ice breath and block projectiles with earth attune #2. Like even S/F ele is braindead now that they buffed z-axis.

Panic strike is more balanced than any of those because at least Thief as a class just takes more skill than any meta crap that Ele or Engi has. Thief at least dies to random cleave and can’t have perma-vigor or protection up-time.

TL;DR Karl Mclain for president, and Jon Peters for vice president mistress secretary.

I personally think that a slight buff to critstrikes thief is more necessary than nerf to Panic Strike.

ronpierce.2760:

Jelzouki.4128:

“panic strike is dumb”

great title….not.

Seems to get right to the point, doesn’kitten You knew what to expect when you clicked on it. #SuccessfulTitleIsSuccessful

I don’t know what you just said.

But it is not a good way to propose change, making the claim that something is just “dumb”…there could be better choices of words, like (un)balanced, etc.

I agree panic strike, like other passive procs, are braindead. However, the worst is probably power necro, or rather proc-necro, which relies on proccing air/fire and chill of death to 1 hit-KO somebody. These procs should be spread out so that they at least require some kind of active use other than “immediately applies when opponent is under 50%.”

As it is, so much of pvp is about immunities, instant damage, and unavoidable procs.

Also, Aeroxe, you may want to modify your post as I have been infracted 2x for describing specs as “cancerous” to imply they hurt they game and are pervasive (even if that is kind of following the definition of the word). Somehow it is against forum rules. I’ll probably be infracted for saying this even though it is just a declarative statement, but wanted to let you know fyi.

Oh and lets not forget how braindead Guardian and Ranger is as a class compared to Thief. And power necro. All of those things are like Turret Engis compared to Thief really.

Panic strike should really be the least of anyone’s worries cause at least Thief is punishable compared to so many things.

P.S
You people want actual hard mode that’s effective? Just play DPS Warrior Hammer + Axe or Mace MH + Axe MH with Frenzy. I would say Mesmer too but then Medi-guard and Long Bow Ranger and a lot of things make it anti-fun to play Mesmer.

Please do not implement this improv suggestion. It should be changed, but your idea is absolutely crazy

Panic strike D/P is one of the most cancerous and annoying things in the game, even more when played with Blinding Powder.

In a team evnironmente is basically like hammer medi guard: while one is 1111111111111111→ 50% →switch hammer→ PROCZ,

the other one is stealth→bow→stealth→ bow→stealth→50%→ PROCZ

And don’t even get me started on random Impro procs recharging all utilities.

The build needs to go, or changed dramatically.

Mrbig.8019:

Panic strike D/P is one of the most cancerous and annoying things in the game, even more when played with Blinding Powder.

In a team evnironmente is basically like hammer medi guard: while one is 1111111111111111-> 50% ->switch hammer-> PROCZ,

the other one is stealth->bow->stealth-> bow->stealth->50%-> PROCZ

And don’t even get me started on random Impro procs recharging all utilities.

The build needs to go, or changed dramatically.

I don’t think they need to nerf anything besides the sigils. Alot of classes get so much from them. Whether that be warriors killing you with swaps or thieves/rangers/necros/mesmers/guardians killing you with air/fire procs.

Getting hit for 6k auto attacks is really bad for the game. It is the reason I don’t play anymore. I dont understand the logic behind people thinking fire/air is a good idea. It is just not fun to play against auto attacks which hit you for 6k. That is the definition of no counter play.

There is nothing wrong with passive procs unless you just started playing. You know that a power necro can one shot you if you’re close to 50% HP, why hanging around the necro and then cry about spinal shivers if you knew it was gonna happen?

Same goes for panic strike thief, you need to be prepared to have a condi clear or defensive utility off CD if there’s a thief porting to you and you’re low on hp.

If everything had counter play was predictable and had a cast time , it would be super lame. And who ever has the most dodges would win. Just think about fighting a hammer warrior . All u need is maximum amount of dodges to beat it since its extremely telegraphed and predictable.

Without any passive or insta cast dmg, S/D thieves would be the most cancerous thing in the game. Because there would be no way to land damage on some1 that has 70% evade uptime.

glock.6590:

There is nothing wrong with passive procs unless you just started playing. You know that a power necro can one shot you if you’re close to 50% HP, why hanging around the necro and then cry about spinal shivers if you knew it was gonna happen?

Same goes for panic strike thief, you need to be prepared to have a condi clear or defensive utility off CD if there’s a thief porting to you and you’re low on hp.

If everything had counter play was predictable and had a cast time , it would be super lame. And who ever has the most dodges would win. Just think about fighting a hammer warrior . All u need is maximum amount of dodges to beat it since its extremely telegraphed and predictable.

Without any passive or insta cast dmg, S/D thieves would be the most cancerous thing in the game. Because there would be no way to land damage on some1 that has 70% evade uptime.

without air/fire, trickery acro S/D would deal minmal damage and pose 0 threat.

just saying

glock.6590:

There is nothing wrong with passive procs unless you just started playing. You know that a power necro can one shot you if you’re close to 50% HP, why hanging around the necro and then cry about spinal shivers if you knew it was gonna happen?

Same goes for panic strike thief, you need to be prepared to have a condi clear or defensive utility off CD if there’s a thief porting to you and you’re low on hp.

If everything had counter play was predictable and had a cast time , it would be super lame. And who ever has the most dodges would win. Just think about fighting a hammer warrior . All u need is maximum amount of dodges to beat it since its extremely telegraphed and predictable.

Without any passive or insta cast dmg, S/D thieves would be the most cancerous thing in the game. Because there would be no way to land damage on some1 that has 70% evade uptime.

Really, not really. The reason why s/d (20066) works is because of the saving grace that is fire+air proc. Why do you think no one used 20066 before for s/d? s/d used to be 26060 because you needed to dive deep into crit strikes if you wanted to do any significant damage as a thief. This is the same reason why panic strike works so well right now – not only because of the lowered CD, but because damage could be made up for now that fire+air stack.

No one would play a glass thief without putting 6 in crit strikes before. Executioner was/is really strong.

The damage from crit strikes is fun, but in the current meta it doesn’t consistently allow for doing enough damage to make up for its weaknesses.

Panic strike having more survivability means you can be more involved in certain fights, plus there’s more team friendly aspects to it.

Crit strike’s lack of staying power combined with the amount of staying power builds current have are really the biggest reason it doesn’t fit as well in the meta at the moment in my opinion.

It’s more out of curtousy to other players that I swapped to Panic Strike. The extra damage on crit strikes is nice for me, but Panic Strikes allows allies in fights to make up and surpass the damage you would have applied with crit strikes. Also the extra weakness that can be applied is useful in supporting allies. Then of course anytime you get those extra recharges means one more stun, stun break, or refuge which is only helpful to your team.

I feel like players prefer playing along side a Panic Strike thief because they are bit more team centric than Crit Strikes thieves.

Is the build a problem? I couldn’t say honestly. It feels like it’s come into the limelight out of necessity to deal with meta comps involving the three celestial builds. At this point though we probably won’t see this meta shift much until the expansion shifts it for us.

The only options seem to be to suck it up or do what others and I have, who are just taking a break until they do some updates to change the meta.

The Reason 2/0/0/6/6 works is three factor’s.

What Ameterasu said: but keep in mind that burst builds also need the fire/air procs.

Sleight of hand: This will allow the thieve to interupt heals, which is important when you lack dps and have to 2vs1 people.

Might “Meta”: There is so much might from sigils/runes/traits ect that a thief can drop power /crit line Grab bountiful theft And not lose that much dps. Personally until the recent change to flanking strike, i thought that build was a joke. but as i didn’t stack might it was common for them to crit me for 500-1000 dmg, on a 25/30/0/0/15 thief… It’s a bit diffrent now because of the iniaitive changes, the meta spec has more access to initiative then burst build.

Glock s/d thieves, mesmers, ranger’s ect. All need air/fire, Your forgetting that they have pretty much nerfed every power build in this game. without them there useless. you can not put out enough DPS to break though some of these sustain classes.

As for 70% uptime on evade…. 1/2 second dodge animation on FS animation itself is closer to 1 second. Shortbow evade again 1/2 second with an added backstep afterwards animation is closer to 1 second. Dagger 3 … yeah right. Withdraw.. you guess’d it another 1/2 or 3/4 second evade again about a 1 second animation. s/d thieves are easy to kill, you just need timing, and in the MESMER case you need to dodge steal (for there stability) and proceed to make them a hacky sack. it is that easy…
take away there mobility… that’s all you need to do….

For kitten and giggles.. Ranger s/d (4) or is it (3) 1 1/2 second dodge animation… that’s right you can fit every thieve dodge animation into that one ability’s D animation..
(please remember that CDs keeps this balanced)

Sorry Op i went way off topic but it had to be said. So back to Panic strikes: Immobilize stacking. That is the main problem with this trait. on its own its not that bad. Stacked with other immobilize on thiefs its annoying. Stack it with allies+ your immobilize and it becomes brutal.

Mrbig.8019:

glock.6590:

There is nothing wrong with passive procs unless you just started playing. You know that a power necro can one shot you if you’re close to 50% HP, why hanging around the necro and then cry about spinal shivers if you knew it was gonna happen?

Same goes for panic strike thief, you need to be prepared to have a condi clear or defensive utility off CD if there’s a thief porting to you and you’re low on hp.

If everything had counter play was predictable and had a cast time , it would be super lame. And who ever has the most dodges would win. Just think about fighting a hammer warrior . All u need is maximum amount of dodges to beat it since its extremely telegraphed and predictable.

Without any passive or insta cast dmg, S/D thieves would be the most cancerous thing in the game. Because there would be no way to land damage on some1 that has 70% evade uptime.

without air/fire, trickery acro S/D would deal minmal damage and pose 0 threat.

just saying

Oh the old good days where s\d critical strike was not for everyone

Gabriell.4856:

Chaith.8256:

What if Improvisation took 5-8 seconds off of the most common utility type equipped, when steal was used? That would keep it pretty in line with a master trait that typically reduces a utility type’s cooldown by 20%.

I think you failed to see the real problem which is critical damage just isn’t worth it anymore.

Fi

That isn’t a problem at all. It is good to see multiple viable specs. I’d rather fight a panic strike thief any day over the days when S/D or S/p were OP.

My point is nobody should ever die to passive procs only. If you died thats probably because you got hit by other stuff aswell not just air/fire or spinal shivers, It comes down to an l2p issue basically.

I knew people would bring the ‘’S/D thief low dmg without air/fire argument’’ but the build would still be cancer if there was no insta cast or passive stuff in the game. Asking nerfs on insta cast and passive abilities is like asking to buff all the crap with alot of sustain or evades.

glock.6590:

My point is nobody should ever die to passive procs only. If you died thats probably because you got hit by other stuff aswell not just air/fire or spinal shivers, It comes down to an l2p issue basically.

I knew people would bring the ‘’S/D thief low dmg without air/fire argument’’ but the build would still be cancer if there was no insta cast or passive stuff in the game. Asking nerfs on insta cast and passive abilities is like asking to buff all the crap with alot of sustain or evades.

Yeh getting auto attacked out of stealth by 2 zerker classes and getting hit by 4 combined procs for about 12k plus whatever other skills they use = l2p.

Obviously anyone who disagrees with you has l2p issues.