thief and condition
Too vulnerable to condition removal.
I was the best at burning things. Especially bosses that
didn’t move.
didn’t move.
Well, the thing is that while P/D can apply four different types of condis (which isn’t really that much already)(not including Cripple, which is a decent condi but Dancing Dagger is a horrid skill), in practice it’s only able to really apply two different conditions, bleed and torment. Body Shot simply has an extremely obvious cast and a fairly inaccurate projectile beyond a certain range, and even if it hits, the 1s immobilize and 5 stacks of vuln for 3 seconds are not going to mean much.
So that just leaves the auto, Shadow Strike, and CnD. Shadow Strike might be okay if P/D was a melee set or if SStrike was a ranged skill, but since it’s a melee attack, then you usually have to run up to your opponents and then SStrike away, and then run up to your opponents again so that you can SStrike away yet again. The lack of cohesion between the 1 and 3 skills makes this fairly pointless. The same goes for CnD- having to switch between melee and ranged all the time makes the weaponset highly inconsistent.
The auto attack itself isn’t bad, in spite of its massive aftercast, but in all honesty, given that most of the other skills in the weaponset are either bad or inconsistent, Bleed becomes the build’s only real condi, and that’s easily removed by condi removal.
Also, because the only way for this build to have any condi removal is by going for SA IV, P/D builds often become extremely stealth-centric. That’s okay in WvW, but in sPvP it’s inefficient because you’re basically always going to allow your opponent to decap a point because you’re playing attrition. And, of course, CnD ends up having to be your main source of stealth, and there were already the aforementioned problems with that skill anyways. Shadow Shot could be good if it was a single shot that stacked 3-5 stacks of bleed at once, but it’s easily avoidable because you can allow yourself to get hit by one or two shots, revealing your opponent, and evade the rest, taking only minimal damage.
Necro, on the other hand, has decent condi removal through other sources, and can tank pretty well anyways (especially with its 8k more health). Scepter and Staff weaponsets tend to work fairly harmoniously, the condition application is much larger, and there’s a much wider variety of condis that can be applied.
As for other thief condi builds… Venoms are just awful; the ability to apply a single condi from a utility (excluding Skale venom, though the vuln is really negligible anyways) really isn’t anything to be swooning over. Also, evading or missing hits will result in your stacks of poison decreasing, which makes the build even worse. D/D condi builds… LDB is a horrible skill that costs a lot of initiative, has a poor evade and range, and makes you extremely vulnerable. It doesn’t even apply a lot of bleeding anyways.
Arganthium what about the Runes of Balthazar and the ability to stop the animation of Withdraw (while u change weapons) + keeping the evasion animation as long as you like ? (+ Lotus Poison if you want as an for extra cleansing protection)
And the Potent Poison + with Sigil of Doom as D/D ?
Arganthium what about the Runes of Balthazar and the ability to stop the animation of Withdraw (while u change weapons) + keeping the evasion animation as long as you like ? (+ Lotus Poison if you want as an for extra cleansing protection)
And the Potent Poison + with Sigil of Doom as D/D ?
I’m trying to remember how the stopping of Withdraw’s animation works (I’m pretty sure it’s possible, but it’s somewhat difficult and somewhat inefficient)… Honestly, I’d have to try it out on some golems before I could give you my full opinion on that. Still, though, you’re not applying many condis (and certainly not in a large AoE), and it’s extremely difficult for you to apply large amounts of poison (even with the sigil), which makes LP and PP somewhat ineffective. And either way, LP in itself isn’t very good- it’s just a 4s weakness on a 15s CD. And you still need to solve the problem of being able to remove condis on yourself, as well.
I mean, I’ll try it out as soon as possible, but just from hearing it… I’m not so sure about how good it would be, even if that bug worked, partially because comparisons to the Necromancer still seem to put Necro on top, and you’re still applying very few conditions that don’t last very long anyways (can’t say I’m totally impressed with the 3.5 seconds of Burn tbh).
I think it’s funny every time I see Death Blossom.
Lol me too. Brings me back to the old days.