With the release of the most recent patch, I’ve decided to make my first post on the forum which may turn out a bit long so I’ll include a TL;DR at the end. I’d like to point out that this isn’t a QQ thread – I’m simply seeking clarification on what direction PvP is going to take in the coming weeks.
I’ve been playing PvP (as well as the other modes) since release, and have nearly 2000 games on thief, with a further thousand split between other classes. I’ve experimented with many builds ranging from the meta to obscure things such as trap thief or P/P. Most recently, I’ve been playing P/D condition thief and before people all jump on me to say that it’s a bad build in PvP – I play for fun (and I found this build fun) and I’m not overly interested in being the best. I generally play with my girlfriend and another friend and while I wouldn’t claim to be an outstanding player, I’m certain that I’m not a bad player either.
So, onto the matter at hand – as everyone has noted, damage since the patch has jumped significantly, with people dying left, right and center, stealth/stun builds downing people in moments and bunkering becoming nearly impossible. As evidenced by the forum, reactions range from people who really like this change and post to say that they don’t want it to be reverted to those who are enraged and claim that the balance team are clueless. My initial reaction when I started to PvP after the patch was to think that there had been a bug that had caused damage to jump to these huge levels.
There is, of course, fun to be had in setting up your burst and watching your target melt but was it actually the intention of the devs to create this new huge-damage meta? Perhaps to shake up the celestial-bunker meta that some believe to have become stale and unsuitable for spectating or e-sport?
To provide an example- as I mentioned, I was running condition thief (Rabid, D/P SB, 2/0/6/06) before the patch hit and to keep things familiar for my first few games post-patch, I stuck with the same weapons, amulet, rune and sigils and went SA/DA/trickery. I’m running shadows embrace, shadow protector and shadow’s rejuvenation meaning I have condition removal every 3 seconds as well as regen and health recovery in stealth.
So I get hit with a condition burst at full HP and get 6 or so conditions on me. To react to this I go into stealth by using CnD on a crate pile (Battle of Khlyo) to remove my conditions and prepare to counter-attack. Unfortunately this counter-attack doesn’t happen as 1 condition removal every 3 seconds (as well as passive healing and Withdraw) wasn’t enough to stop me dying in stealth shortly after all from this one burst.
Before this turns into “l2p”, I know that I messed up here to be hit by a burst that’s strong enough to kill me, and had I been running Shadowstep I could have cleared the 3 of the conditions or perhaps traited Pain Response and then I might not have died. Or alternatively, I could have been more careful and not been caught by the burst in the first place, or killed them before they let their burst out. I’m including this example to illustrate that what was designed to be an answer (which was effective pre-patch) to being hit with conditions was effectively worthless in this meta. This, obviously, isn’t the only example and I’ve both killed and died to players before defensive mechanisms have even come into play, even when I/they have been running defensive amulets and/or runes.
I have tried other builds post patch, and indeed, thief is a strong class and things die quickly (from stealth) which is definitely enjoyable in its own way, but I can’t imagine that it was the intention to make entire trait-lines and playstyles unusable in a patch which had build diversity in mind. I’m also not opposed to adapting to this meta, but as someone who prefers a more indirect playstyle (such as supporting, debuffing, stealth or misdirection) to a simple hit-things-very-hard, I’m not entirely appreciative of a meta where bursting is king.
It seems to me that non-bursty thief (already a dubious choice pre-patch) has been rendered almost completely useless in PvP by the huge damage that people are throwing out on both the condition and physical front. And we all know that it isn’t the only one – many other builds which focused on wearing down a target slowly or outlasting them with healing have been made all but entirely obsolete.
(continued)
