Guild Wars 2

I am not sure if this is a problem in PvP, but in WvW I am getting Two Shotted now since yesterday’s patch and this just sucks…!

Anyone else?

Mesmers, Thiefs and certain Warri skills is the worst. I run tanky condi builds on my classes and one shot eats like 90% of my HP seriously!

Yep, the damage has been cranked up past 11 for now. Insane coordinated spike bursts, and conditions will melt you at a pace you’re not used to.

Probably will be like this for awhile until the devs figure out what the meta is shaping up to be.

Unfortunately, commanders lauding the people lollygagging about in the back of the zerg doing nothing simply because they didn’t die where everyone else who was actually fighting did die is not really helping matters.

Anet broke GW2
[15char]

Obviously some things would be broken with a change this big. But the meta will change as well and it will take time to tell whether or not the builds that are dominating right now are outright broken or if people just need to learn how to counter it. Personally I’m using this as a chance to redo all my builds since some have become significantly stronger, while others looks like they’re no longer viable.

It’s worth trying this level of damage out for awhile, it might be preferable.

It seems insanely high now, but that’s partly because we’re so used to what it used to be. It’s quite possible that we’ll become accustomed to the new levels over time.

Although there might just be some broken stuff that needs some adjusting though. At any rate, it doesn’t warrant a knee-jerk response.

Yamsandjams.3267:

It seems insanely high now, but that’s partly because we’re so used to what it used to be. It’s quite possible that we’ll become accustomed to the new levels over time.

So why even have Toughness as a stat if it is basically being ignored?

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Yamsandjams.3267:

It seems insanely high now, but that’s partly because we’re so used to what it used to be. It’s quite possible that we’ll become accustomed to the new levels over time.

So why even have Toughness as a stat if it is basically being ignored?

Actually, I personally think the damage is too high and should be adjusted. But we have to acknowledge that we’re speaking from a perspective which doesn’t exist anymore. If the damage was always like this, would we have evolved to a point where this was simply the normal levels, and the previous levels would have been considered extremely low?

Maybe that’s a moot question, but that’s what I was implying by my statement. It’s something that will need to ride for awhile before enough data is accumulated. Simply one day is not enough to make a judgement call, especially when whatever the meta is destined to be hasn’t even begun to settle in fully yet.

but it isn’t being ignored, I saw a guildie with a tanky spec live for a very long time against 7 people in WvW just last night.

I have no idea what build you’re running, but it’s possible that it was just a bad matchup against the builds your opponents were using.

Also full glass thieves have always been able nearly one shot even tankier builds if they can get the jump on them, so no real change there. I mean prior to the trait changes, I’ve had my full PVT guard get insta-downed by a full glass thief with max stacks and boons because he took me by surprise.

Nate.3927:

Also full glass thieves have always been able nearly one shot even tankier builds if they can get the jump on them, so no real change there. I mean prior to the trait changes, I’ve had my full PVT guard get insta-downed by a full glass thief with max stacks and boons because he took me by surprise.

I am a full glass thief and I couldn’t insta down people. But I wasn’t specced to one shot anyway, so in theory it would’ve been possible, the reality was different- you had fights, now it’s just burst burst burst “saw first, hit first = win”.
I’m done with wvw for now.

With the previous changes to stability and now the broken condi spam, melee builds = insta death in T1 zerg fights. Looks like the new meta is running around range spamming AoE.

Roaming is still fun though, I haven’t been 2 shot yet.

Yamsandjams.3267:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Yamsandjams.3267:

It seems insanely high now, but that’s partly because we’re so used to what it used to be. It’s quite possible that we’ll become accustomed to the new levels over time.

So why even have Toughness as a stat if it is basically being ignored?

Actually, I personally think the damage is too high and should be adjusted. But we have to acknowledge that we’re speaking from a perspective which doesn’t exist anymore. If the damage was always like this, would we have evolved to a point where this was simply the normal levels, and the previous levels would have been considered extremely low?

Maybe that’s a moot question, but that’s what I was implying by my statement. It’s something that will need to ride for awhile before enough data is accumulated. Simply one day is not enough to make a judgement call, especially when whatever the meta is destined to be hasn’t even begun to settle in fully yet.

I don’t agree that we can’t evaluate it now.

Your implication is that the player base will adapt to change but I don’t agree it is possible in this instance.

There is no way the tank or attrition player can adapt to these levels of damage. Let’s say you have a 3300+ armour guardian getting melted like a squishy – you have no way to adapt as you can’t add more toughness and traits are not going halve the damage you’re taking.

The only counter play is to become a zerker and kill them first.

This ends up with everyone playing zerker stats which is what Arenanet was trying to get away from by opening up attrition builds.

I haven’t experienced being two shotted, but I get burst down really quickly by both direct damage and condi. Before, I could dance around and even inside zergs as a full zerker backliner, but now I usually have to pull back once the blob gets a bit close. Can’t even risk staying on the periphery now.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Yamsandjams.3267:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Yamsandjams.3267:

It seems insanely high now, but that’s partly because we’re so used to what it used to be. It’s quite possible that we’ll become accustomed to the new levels over time.

So why even have Toughness as a stat if it is basically being ignored?

Actually, I personally think the damage is too high and should be adjusted. But we have to acknowledge that we’re speaking from a perspective which doesn’t exist anymore. If the damage was always like this, would we have evolved to a point where this was simply the normal levels, and the previous levels would have been considered extremely low?

Maybe that’s a moot question, but that’s what I was implying by my statement. It’s something that will need to ride for awhile before enough data is accumulated. Simply one day is not enough to make a judgement call, especially when whatever the meta is destined to be hasn’t even begun to settle in fully yet.

I don’t agree that we can’t evaluate it now.

Your implication is that the player base will adapt to change but I don’t agree it is possible in this instance.

There is no way the tank or attrition player can adapt to these levels of damage. Let’s say you have a 3300+ armour guardian getting melted like a squishy – you have no way to adapt as you can’t add more toughness and traits are not going halve the damage you’re taking.

The only counter play is to become a zerker and kill them first.

This ends up with everyone playing zerker stats which is what Arenanet was trying to get away from by opening up attrition builds.

Well, traditional zerg builds (or at least the ones I’ve been around) have typically favoured a higher toughness-to-vitality ratio. However, that sort of build is weaker against spike damage while being stronger against sustain damage, in addition to being weaker against condition damage in general.

As such, they could adapt by slotting more vitality. I imagine most zerg frontliners lost a ton of vitality with the way attributes were decoupled from the trait lines, so now they’re even more vulnerable to spike and condition damage than they were before.

Will that adaptation work? I don’t know, but people have to actually try it to see instead of simply playing one day in the same gear and labelling it as an unadaptable situation.

I agree with yams. My guard build lost almost all of it’s vitality and most of it’s toughness with the trait changes. I now find myself dealing crazy DPS but at the same time I am super glassy. Once I make some changes to my trinkets I expect to be able to find a happy medium that works for me.

that happened… was in downed already, but imagine perma immo+this… 22k with 1 skill
after this patch skills like endure pain, signet of stone and berserker stance are so broken. it gives too much advantage imo.

2,2k armor btw

Querini.6918:

that happened… was in downed already, but imagine perma immo+this… 22k with 1 skill
after this patch skills like endure pain, signet of stone and berserker stance are so broken. it gives too much advantage imo.

2,2k armor btw

8.4k rush ? lmao

For me personally it doesn’t change much. I’m terrible in pvp so i’m still dying all the time but faster than before lol

Yes. But it might be better now that the 5 cap on aoe got put back into place. I even tried going through my combat log to see what got me, but I rarely saw hits higher than 1500, it was just hundreds of small hits, death by a thousand razors type thing. It was just disappointing because this was supposed to be the time when metas were out the window and we could try new builds, and us sale babies had access to traits!

Honestly, you’re not the only one getting “two-shotted”. It seems like; if this is the new “new”, many of us are going to have to go for more tanky builds/gear. No one likes being a two shot, rally bot afterall.

This is bullkitten, kitten your game Arenanet. So glad I did not pre-order.

This is consequence for not making the game challenge, fun, risk-reward and skill play. This is more evidence Arena net continue to ignore our problems- instead of punishing no-skill, they reward it more.

Is this more reason why i should mot invest in buying the expansion? To lose? To have a company refusing to give their customers a challenge, fun, risk-reward, effort and skill play? To have a company who put their customers suggestion last?

Obviously

Just to clarify, I am running fairly tanky gear with my classes, condi builds and I am still getting two shotted in WvW. I don’t enjoy combat like this if it only takes 2 skills/buttons pushed to get downed in like 3 seconds. One stun, daze, etc then you’re just insta-dead, that just sucks!

See, I’ve been having the exact opposite, I feel like I’m dying a lot less now. But I originally ran half-zerks, half-soldiers on most of my characters before the patch, so I already had some tanky gear. This seems to be affecting people who depended on getting tankiness from the stat lines only.

Nope. I’m specced for roaming, gear etc., and it seems the only class not suffering is guards.

I’ve stopped playing until they figure it out.

I expect to see lots of carrion and dire sets around.

My full knight guardian which before could dance around for minutes and even tie a fight against 2 guardians now can die in less than 1 minute due to the burning spike and could barely scratch them since would do a full heal. Surely isn’t being 2 hit but guardians can melt from condition just as fast.

On a side note, manage to find a condition trapper ranger. Nerf burning, Anet. Being hit by 6500 from burning alone isn’t fun and that was only one attack, the others burning attacks were all as high as 2400 not to mention on all the other kitten conditions.

Jayne.9251:

Nope. I’m specced for roaming, gear etc., and it seems the only class not suffering is guards.

I’ve stopped playing until they figure it out.

I’m on a necro and thief, roaming around in mostly exotics with some greens still (I just came back from a long break, was shocked to see there was ascended armor and that we could craft it now), and I’m managing to stay alive. Even survived long enough to escape from 4-5 man groups. And I only came back to the game two weeks ago.

Caedmon.6798:

Querini.6918:

that happened… was in downed already, but imagine perma immo+this… 22k with 1 skill
after this patch skills like endure pain, signet of stone and berserker stance are so broken. it gives too much advantage imo.

2,2k armor btw

8.4k rush ? lmao

One warr hit me for 11k with rush just after the patch and one for 9k before the patch, the skill always hit hard if the target is squishy.

DarkSyze.8627:

This is consequence for not making the game challenge, fun, risk-reward and skill play. This is more evidence Arena net continue to ignore our problems- instead of punishing no-skill, they reward it more.

Is this more reason why i should mot invest in buying the expansion? To lose? To have a company refusing to give their customers a challenge, fun, risk-reward, effort and skill play? To have a company who put their customers suggestion last?

Obviously

You are on a hell of a crusade with all this challenge and fun stuff.

It is a patch before the expansion. Change is coming. It is up to you to decide if you want to pre-order or not. There is a reason for what they did. Sometimes I feel people don’t look at the big picture before they react.

Just do what Frankie says and Relax. Everything has a reason. They just didn’t change some formulas and say have at it boys and girls.

Teevell.1684:

Jayne.9251:

Nope. I’m specced for roaming, gear etc., and it seems the only class not suffering is guards.

I’ve stopped playing until they figure it out.

I’m on a necro and thief, roaming around in mostly exotics with some greens still (I just came back from a long break, was shocked to see there was ascended armor and that we could craft it now), and I’m managing to stay alive. Even survived long enough to escape from 4-5 man groups. And I only came back to the game two weeks ago.

Don’t follow the ascended armor rabbit hole debate. You have plenty of time to decide if that is a must or not. From a player who only runs WvW I will say it isn’t mandatory at all unless you are into dueling. Even then it is questionable.

While I hate the gear you will do fine in WvW with exotic armor. You can obtain ascended weapons and accessories which is more than enough.

Crapgame.6519:

Teevell.1684:

Jayne.9251:

Nope. I’m specced for roaming, gear etc., and it seems the only class not suffering is guards.

I’ve stopped playing until they figure it out.

I’m on a necro and thief, roaming around in mostly exotics with some greens still (I just came back from a long break, was shocked to see there was ascended armor and that we could craft it now), and I’m managing to stay alive. Even survived long enough to escape from 4-5 man groups. And I only came back to the game two weeks ago.

Don’t follow the ascended armor rabbit hole debate. You have plenty of time to decide if that is a must or not. From a player who only runs WvW I will say it isn’t mandatory at all unless you are into dueling. Even then it is questionable.

While I hate the gear you will do fine in WvW with exotic armor. You can obtain ascended weapons and accessories which is more than enough.

That’s good to know, thanks. I mostly just mentioned it to point out that even someone who isn’t geared in the absolute best, and is still re-learning what half their skills do, can survive in WvW just fine.

I think people need to adapt their builds a bit, the damage is definitely higher, but so is class utility. I find all classes can do things they couldn’t before, trying to tank the damage rather than use your newfound avoidance is silly.

Ele: Teleport, and stone heart is easy to pick up, along with auto frost aura, well if you build for it and properly cc, you can survive lots.

Engineer: Block, double toolbelt superspeed, mortar range

Guard: Blocks that punish your enemy with burning, teleports

Warrior: insane mobility, invulnerability

Mesmer: Stealth, teleports, clones (sometimes help)

Thieves: Teleports and stealth

Ranger: Double block, double leaps, invulnerability

Necro: Tank it, sorry, I’m not familiar enough with this class, but I can’t stand classes with no mobility.

Everyone has some new toys to “bunker up” to avoid burst damage, but its more focused on avoidance than mitigation now. More active play, which is fun, but harder for players with low coordination in-game.

Loboling.5293:

Everyone has some new toys to “bunker up” to avoid burst damage, but its more focused on avoidance than mitigation now. More active play, which is fun, but harder for players with low coordination in-game.

I don’t exactly disagree with you, but I survived primarily with avoidance before this patch. I could run full berserker and still be the last to drop most of the time. Simply by playing smart using evades, teleports, stealth, los, etc. Now that the AOE cap is back on, maybe I can do it again, I haven’t bothered to try. I would drop after dodge rolling out of an AOE before I had a chance to teleport or stealth, I could rarely get into range. And stealth doesn’t protect you from damage; aoe and cleaves will still hit you. Even after popping in tankier gear, I still got wiped out. But this was the day of and day after the patch. I haven’t bothered to enter WvW again, since I don’t have the badges or gold to spend on new gear. I’s one of those sale-babies.

Yooo Engi Grenade toolbelt skill. literally 90% me on 3.5k armor 25k hp war. lol

Bubby.6475:

Yooo Engi Grenade toolbelt skill. literally 90% me on 3.5k armor 25k hp war. lol

That thing is bugged right now, it’s basically causing every grenade to be two grenades, so it’s doing extreme damage. I imagine it’ll be one of the first things on the chopping blocks once they do a good pass of bug fixing.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Bubby.6475:

Yooo Engi Grenade toolbelt skill. literally 90% me on 3.5k armor 25k hp war. lol

That thing is bugged right now, it’s basically causing every grenade to be two grenades, so it’s doing extreme damage. I imagine it’ll be one of the first things on the chopping blocks once they do a good pass of bug fixing.

It’s doing piecing damage, so if you throw it slightly behind the target they get hit twice. It’s crazy

Jana.6831:

Nate.3927:

Also full glass thieves have always been able nearly one shot even tankier builds if they can get the jump on them, so no real change there. I mean prior to the trait changes, I’ve had my full PVT guard get insta-downed by a full glass thief with max stacks and boons because he took me by surprise.

I am a full glass thief and I couldn’t insta down people. But I wasn’t specced to one shot anyway, so in theory it would’ve been possible, the reality was different- you had fights, now it’s just burst burst burst “saw first, hit first = win”.
I’m done with wvw for now.

And that’s why. This is my stab pre-patch.
With baseline toughness going up, it’s actually become more difficult to achieve these types of stabs. Most of mine are falling in the 15k zone, which is around average/low of what I did before the patch.

Frankly, this is a matter of learning skilled play and using better-optimized defenses. With the number of all-in thieves on the rise, I find myself letting them engage and blow cooldowns/initiative and just retaliating and killing them after they’ve burned everything. A lot of thieves appear to be not used to handling builds involving high levels of burst or being hit back without high toughness and SR recovering all of their health.

I find the condi changes much more difficult to deal with just because the pressure from burning is so obscene right now. Full dire guards playing extremely passively/defensively and getting huge constant burning stacks is imho over-difficult to deal with. Everyone should have seen OP engineer coming, and the bugs are not helping either.

DeceiverX.8361:

Jana.6831:

Nate.3927:

Also full glass thieves have always been able nearly one shot even tankier builds if they can get the jump on them, so no real change there. I mean prior to the trait changes, I’ve had my full PVT guard get insta-downed by a full glass thief with max stacks and boons because he took me by surprise.

I am a full glass thief and I couldn’t insta down people. But I wasn’t specced to one shot anyway, so in theory it would’ve been possible, the reality was different- you had fights, now it’s just burst burst burst “saw first, hit first = win”.
I’m done with wvw for now.

And that’s why. This is my stab pre-patch.
With baseline toughness going up, it’s actually become more difficult to achieve these types of stabs. Most of mine are falling in the 15k zone, which is around average/low of what I did before the patch.

Frankly, this is a matter of learning skilled play and using better-optimized defenses. With the number of all-in thieves on the rise, I find myself letting them engage and blow cooldowns/initiative and just retaliating and killing them after they’ve burned everything. A lot of thieves appear to be not used to handling builds involving high levels of burst or being hit back without high toughness and SR recovering all of their health.

I find the condi changes much more difficult to deal with just because the pressure from burning is so obscene right now. Full dire guards playing extremely passively/defensively and getting huge constant burning stacks is imho over-difficult to deal with. Everyone should have seen OP engineer coming, and the bugs are not helping either.

I really don’t get what your mission is – destroying thieves, demanding that all defenses they have go down the drain because you redeem it “skilless play”?
It’s great if you were a one trick pony, but most of us weren’t but we can’t do anything else right now, no matter what we do.

And btw I didn’t ask anyone to stand around, eat my 25 stacks of vulnerability and then take a backstab. So I can make a screenshot to show the world how skilled I am.

DeceiverX.8361:

Jana.6831:

Nate.3927:

Also full glass thieves have always been able nearly one shot even tankier builds if they can get the jump on them, so no real change there. I mean prior to the trait changes, I’ve had my full PVT guard get insta-downed by a full glass thief with max stacks and boons because he took me by surprise.

I am a full glass thief and I couldn’t insta down people. But I wasn’t specced to one shot anyway, so in theory it would’ve been possible, the reality was different- you had fights, now it’s just burst burst burst “saw first, hit first = win”.
I’m done with wvw for now.

And that’s why. This is my stab pre-patch.
With baseline toughness going up, it’s actually become more difficult to achieve these types of stabs. Most of mine are falling in the 15k zone, which is around average/low of what I did before the patch.

Frankly, this is a matter of learning skilled play and using better-optimized defenses. With the number of all-in thieves on the rise, I find myself letting them engage and blow cooldowns/initiative and just retaliating and killing them after they’ve burned everything. A lot of thieves appear to be not used to handling builds involving high levels of burst or being hit back without high toughness and SR recovering all of their health.

I find the condi changes much more difficult to deal with just because the pressure from burning is so obscene right now. Full dire guards playing extremely passively/defensively and getting huge constant burning stacks is imho over-difficult to deal with. Everyone should have seen OP engineer coming, and the bugs are not helping either.

Yeah, 22k hundred blades, and Anet think light classes that need 12k hp to do equal damage are fine. What a mess.

Jana.6831:

I really don’t get what your mission is – destroying thieves, demanding that all defenses they have go down the drain because you redeem it “skilless play”?
It’s great if you were a one trick pony, but most of us weren’t but we can’t do anything else right now, no matter what we do.

And btw I didn’t ask anyone to stand around, eat my 25 stacks of vulnerability and then take a backstab. So I can make a screenshot to show the world how skilled I am.

If I wanted to destroy thieves, I would ask for the removal of traits like HK and SE, increased revealed debuff use throughout other classes, reduced damage, and wouldn’t be advocating for better general condition cleansing, better revealed mechanic use, and/or more base health as I have done for a very long time.

What I do disagree with is the notion that thieves are terrible without spamming stealth and playing passively with extremely high defensive mechanics and just resetting fights until they get it right. I am one for rewarding skilled play, which is why I continue to play signets and let myself get struck and engaged upon and still win fights which you claim you are losing due to inherent disadvantages. If this was a class or design problem, then people already adjusted to what’s being played a lot wouldn’t be doing fine. This is a change of pace that people aren’t used to because for the past three years they’ve gotten away with playing passively and letting mechanics cover up mistakes.

I said I’ve stabbed higher because people are making some kind of claims like the recent changes are to blame for such high damage; they’re not. The damage has always been there, it’s just that people now have the option to spec 6 deep into DA/CS/Trickery and as such they’re getting all of the utility benefits of PS/Trickery builds with the damage of DA/CS builds. SA perma-stealth might-stack builds got nerfed on the basis that it was unfun and made P/D a little bit too strong and the trait line too rewarding in terms of its damage dealt and overall defensive power for playing passively. So SA players are now thrown into either playing more aggressively for their damage, or are going to hit for less and still be squishy in full berserker gear because they’re down 300 toughness and probably haven’t compensated for it in their gear, not to mention the general nerfs to precision have caused an ultimatum among berserker-built players.

I’m still supportive of reverting PT back to precision -> vitality as a means of bolstering our durability (notably against conditions), especially come the removal of Applied Fortitude, but members of the thief community appear to defend the changes made here.

I want to re-iterate that my screenshot means nothing about my personal competence but is purely an indicator that crazy damage is nothing new, and that the players which have previously played builds which function to deal such damage are at no losses and are performing just as well or better relative to most of the other thieves out there which relied on SA for damage from stacking might or recovering health from making mistakes. I’ve always stood by my claims that SA builds lower the effective skill ceiling for the thief, and that most of the thieves I’ve mentored have agreed they’ve gotten better as thieves and players by dropping out of the trait line. With the reduced potency of the line and changes to how many builds are being played, we’re seeing my claims prove true. Claims of skill do not come from my damage logs. Those are stats doing the work. Surviving encounters, which is apparently what has become difficult, is what defines skilled play, which is where I make my claims about how letting opposing thieves engage first and them still dying is where this is a player skill discrepancy.

You yourself said that SA was ridiculously overpowered and that everybody who uses it is a bad thief. And that not only once but everytime someone spoke about it.
SE is already nerfed.
The recent changes are to blame because your screenshot was from someone who was upleveled, had 25 stacks of vulnerability and wore no clothes. The usual backstab was 7,5 k before the patch, maybe 13k if the “victim” was upleveled/had vulnerability, was nearly downed or running an unfortunate build. So, try your backstab under the same conditions now again and then we can talk?
And I actually don’t care what you think makes a bad thief – all other lines had/have way more utility which mostly relied on steal, so all you needed to do and all you need to do right now is to “spam” steal – and I don’t know if that is more skillful.

Edit: Grammar/typos

a caught thief is a dead thief.

cc kills us.

Jana.6831:

You yourself said that SA was ridiculously overpowered and that everybody who uses it is a bad thief. And that not only once but everytime someone spoke about it.
SE is already nerfed.
The recent changes are to blame because your screenshot was from someone who was upleveled, had 25 stacks of vulnerability and wore no clothes. The usual backstab was 7,5 k before the patch, maybe 13k if the “victim” was upleveled/had vulnerability, was nearly downed or running an unfortunate build. So, try your backstab under the same conditions now again and then we can talk?
And I actually don’t care what you think makes a bad thief – all other lines had/have way more utility which mostly relied on steal, so all you needed to do and all you need to do right now is to “spam” steal – and I don’t know if that is more skillful.

Edit: Grammar/typos

I did. It’s nerfed, and now works as a trait line people are putting on equal terms with the rest of the trait lines (sans acro) as to its effectiveness, instead of being an instant-pick.

There are a few things wrong with your statement:

SE got nerfed as general cleansing and buffed as a DoT cleanse. I don’t endorse the 3s wait on cleanse on entering stealth; it might be a bug? Not sure. Now instead of cleansing 3 stacks of vuln instead of 14 stacks of bleeding, it’ll cleanse the bleeding. It doesn’t save you from an immob + bomb combo during your stealth, but that’s what withdraw, Shadow Shot, Infil Return, IS to another target, Shadowstep, and Shadow Return are for. Using HiS and/or any/all of those on cooldown? Welp, you just got successfully combo’d like how BV combos CnD/stab after you force a stunbreak from your opponent.

That screenshot was on an 80 guardian. I remember because that was my frst 20k+ stab after the changes to Assassin’s Signet. A glass cannon build, but a guardian nonetheless. Not sure if you’re seeing the damage log extending fairly far back (the fight went on for a bit more), but if I were able to have screened the target and not died, maybe I’d have better proof for you. And no, my damage has barely changed since the patch. I ran a 100% critical hit on stab build with executioner before the patch using a sigil of intelligence build. I had 25 might from an ally nearby stacking it and combined from the 16 I stack myself. The vuln would be at 3 stacks from CnD. I have my old build posted on the “Post your thief build” thread with the proof of concept spelled out exactly. With changes to toughness baseline, my damage has remained basically identical, if not gotten a little lower since glassier specs are now inherently tankier than before. You’re honestly talking out of your butt to make claims that everyone’ backstabs were 7k before the changes. I’m sorry you never got the chance to fight me in WvW; if you did, you’d understand that my damage actually was this high and that there’s a reason people ask me for help and with build advice because they have seen my damage firsthand. I’m not even sure by what you mean of trying “under the same conditions now.” I have. That’s how I’ve verified on a lot of targets my damage has gone down in most cases. Lead Attacks and PT have given some bonus modifiers only to pure glass targets not running defensive gear or some mitigation traits, which a lot of players are doing now to offset the loss of defensive stats and gains in offensive ones.

Okay.

DA yes does have more on-proc effects than SA. This has nothing to do with skilled or passive play, though, and is more punishing for failing a steal, no? I’m certainly not seeing thieves only apply pressure with steal (that’s actually done best by perma-stealth SA/Trickery condi builds, but is still an ineffective way to play). Again, it’s not about the damage as I mentioned, but the aftermath if your opponent is any good, or conversely, if you get jumped or caught off guard. SA allowed for mistakes to be made and go unpunished rather easily. That’s where I draw the basis of determining what defines skilled play. And now that we’re in situations where players are being punished harder for making mistakes, and the effectiveness of the forgiveness of the trait line has been reduced, we’re seeing who’s been getting carried by it and who hasn’t.

Which is why I told people not to use it to begin with, because come nerfs or changes, it will be very difficult to re-learn the basis again and break habits that will get you killed that used to not.

DeceiverX.8361:

snip

The thieves I know which are mostly D/P didn’t take SA before the patch but are taking it now – because it’s “op” in their words – and it’s especially suited for D/P which was one of the easier weaponsets to play anyway.
That’s a hell of a lot work to clear some condis and like I said in another threat – I don’t really want to use any of the availlable tricks to clear the rest of the condis and, like I also said, if they wanted to buff the condi clear they could’ve included a system like boon stealing, but they didn’t.
Sorry, but I don’t believe you – a video would’ve been nice, but I guess that ship has sailed.
Alright, so you had 25 stacks of might when you did that hit but call former SA OP because of the might – and you needed help to land that kind of damage – ok.
I know for what other thieves hit me and that was about as high as my hits – if they were glassy we both hit for 9k, if they weren’t it was about 7-8k. The highest I hit was 14k (one hit without sigil procs) against a ranger who was probably wearing greens. Or had no traits. And that was before might was nerfed.
Well, people ask me for build advise as well – but I don’t feel like a pro because of it.
Thing is, you were probably running in a group and using a full glass signet build – they do more damage and I said so in my first post “I wasn’t specced into very high damage” – I’m a roamer not a spawn camper.

Lets get one thing clear: D/P is something different than D/D. Someone running D/P with 2 in DA and 6 in SA was likely “OP” and sitting in stealth – someone using D/D didn’t have that opportunity. So if you don’t have a guard right next to you who gives you aegis and whatnot, you will have troubles to survive without going 4-6 in SA (before the patch).
If you always have someone who buffs you, it’s easy to go full glass.
I don’t feel I made a mistake if someone catches me off guard – that’s a very usual situation in wvw. And I don’t think I need to punish myself because someone jumped at me by flushing all my defenses down the toilet because some zealot told me to.

If you’re on NA we maybe even fought, I’ve been there the first year I played this game and half a year in wvw. If you’re on EU we might meet some day.

Jana.6831:

(more snipping)

They’re taking SA now because CS is still weaker than DA and SA is still better than CS, and they can put the six points into SA now and get the very potent defensive benefits SA has such as [filter avoidance] SR. Typical PS was 6/0/2/0/6. They already don’t need the gains of CS since the build relies so heavily BP/HS -> stab -> spam 3/1 -> repeat. I admit D/P is less skillful than D/D, but D/D can and always has had better stealth uptime than D/P when played correctly. Getting CnD to land as soon as the stealth effect begins to end will re-trigger stealth before the phase-in animation triggers, allowing for D/D builds to have seamless chain-stealth. Before the removal of Infusion of Shadow, D/D could maintain permanent stealth/max initiative with no use of utilities through the use of CnD alone.

I don’t see how one button is a lot of work to avoid being nuked by conditions. Like really, I’m not understanding where you’re coming from here.

Boon stealing readily exists on S/D and from Bountiful Theft in the Trickery line, but I’m not really sure how it helps with conditions, since resistance will be stolen on the lower-mid end of priority per previous discussion with Karl, and Regeneration really doesn’t do much.

I had 25 might for the damage against an 80 guardian. With signets I engage with 16, so I was only getting an extra 9 off of support. I’m saying SA could provide similar damage to full signets innately without the need to blow utilities.

Again, nothing has really changed with my build. Mathematically, you’re looking at about a 10% increase when taking into account the baseline toughness being added, since I previously stacked almost all of the damage modifiers attainable now (the only differences are PT + LA). Based on a full-burst spec for what you’re seeing now coming from full signet builds, take off 9% and that’s pretty much what I did regularly. There are no other differences.

Not really sure how me being in a group (I wasn’t in the screenshot as I shared it with a friend of mine on facebook who is one of the people I would have been running with, but posting that would be a little weird) would affect things unless someone is playing support or that the 9 might really matters. I got the might from a pug guard next to me IIRC who was buffing up as we were fighting outnumbered.

But I’m not really sure how your build qualifies as a roaming one and mine does not (spawn camping with my build is an awful idea due to the cooldowns). Since my friends live in timezones well behind mine and work nights, most of my WvW play is solo or just alongside random people. Again, this is surviving encounters in what I believe is skilled play rather than depending on traits or mechanics to keep me afloat. Do recall I’ve mentioned multiple times the damage I deal does not come from skilled play – it’s the surviving that’s where I get my definition, and as a primarily solo player as well, I disagree with your claims that SA was in any way necessary to survive. That’s why I label the trait line poorly. Also recall that your initial complaint in the the thread was about burst damage being too high since the patch, and that it’s difficult to play against it, and that my initial response was that high-end burst largely hasn’t changed, and that those who have played builds using it are merely accustomed to different counter-play strategies. Those who didn’t are in a skill vacuum right now because they don’t know how to deal with this type of play. It’s not that SA players are inherently less-skilled or always will be, but it’s that without pushing the envelope, they’ll fall behind in the event something that allowed for mistakes to be made gets nerfed/changed, or the meta changes (as it has now), they’re in a situation where they are simply not up to par at handling the employed strategies in a skillful way like those who have learned to master countering said strategies out of necessity with a lot of time and effort.

If I’m coming across as gloating, my apologies, but I can only attempt to prove that what I’m saying has merit (so that you will believe me) by trying to identify facts (screenshots, community interest in my proven results) which have occurred and that I am not just some idiot pretending and wasting your time.

Protection needs to block 50% incoming dmg and 30% condi dmg. Thats the solution