Guild Wars 2

So today, since this game has gotten boring and I’m pretty much just waiting for ESO to release, I did the thing I said I would never do. I changed my full glass thief into p/d dire perplex. I have always hated this spec since I believed it was extremely easy to play and required very little skill to kill people with. But, since I was bored I figured what the hell and spent 60 gold re-gearing into full dire with perplexity runes.

After full gearing up and re-traiting I went into eternal to do some roaming. My stats with full stacks are 2k toughness, 21k hp, 2100 condi dmg and since I am condi bunker no other stats really matter. My first solo fight was against a d/p zerk thief who appeared to be competent. I had been playing this spec for about 15 mins by the time this fight started and basically rolled my face along the keyboard and before I knew what happened the D/P thief was dead.

My next fight was a 3v1 vs a thief a warrior and a guardian. I targeted the thief first and pretty much ignored the guard and war since they did no dmg to my full tank spec even though the warrior had 25 stacks of bloodlust. I did not even have to dodge their attacks they were just irrelevant. With shadows rejuvenation and my high stealth uptime their dmg was negligible. After stomping the thief killing the other two was simply a matter of time since they would never be able to do anything to me.

My last outnumbered fight of the night was against two d/p thieves. As soon as they saw me one of the thieves refuged and instead of stealthing or trying to predict their movements as I would have to on my zerk thief I just decided to try to stand still and take their backstabs. They each hit me for about 4-5k each taking me to a little more than half life, and as soon as they were revealed I almost instantly condi bursted down one of the thieves. In a matter of seconds he had 11 stacks of bleeding 8 stacks of confusion and 4 stacks of torment. (he died trying to heal himself and taking 2k dmg from a confusion tick. The other thief tried to refuge his friend but I continued to faceroll the keyboard inside of it and soon got one loot bag. Instead of running as I expected him to do the other thief attempted to fight me and soon met with the same fate as his buddy.

So basically this spec is overpowered as all hell. I currently think it is not close the best 1v1 or 1vX spec in the game right now with almost no equal. I can do almost as much burst dmg as my zerk thief but with insane amounts of sustain and survivability. I had been playing this spec for less than 30 mins and was able to demolish these people who seemed to be somewhat not terrible in 1vx fights. This post not only applies to perplex thief but pretty much all condi bunker classes as they are all ridiculously overpowered. PLEASE nerf this spec. It was boring as hell to play and took almost no skill or thought in order to be successful.

TL;DR: Condi bunker classes, especially perplex thief, are insanely overpowered right now and need to be nerfed.

Competent players are OP.

Take away the precious perplexity runes and all would be well.

Never the less, even your face roll build can be beaten.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9BceGSMbEQ

The magic of easy mode Dire armor.

I personally take a different route with P/D

The funny thing is that a p/d thief can’t apply 8 stacks of confusion since they don’t have an interrupt. You’d have to take offhand pistol for that, which is what the old thief perplexity specs did.

Unless of course he’s saying he took scorpion wire or tripwire, but I find that doubtful.

In any case, 11 stacks of bleed and 4 stacks of torment sounds a bit low for a cookie-cutter p/d thief anyways.

EDIT: Just realized you can probably just use basilisk venom for the interrupt. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that.

Terravos.4059:

I personally take a different route with P/D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBj4pEnMzNA

Also, why don’t you use traveler runes for this build? It seems they would fit it much better than the speed runes, unless you really feel you need that vitality.

Yamsandjams.3267:

The funny thing is that a p/d thief can’t apply 8 stacks of confusion since they don’t have an interrupt. You’d have to take offhand pistol for that, which is what the old thief perplexity specs did.

Unless of course he’s saying he took scorpion wire or tripwire, but I find that doubtful.

In any case, 11 stacks of bleed and 4 stacks of torment sounds a bit low for a cookie-cutter p/d thief anyways.

EDIT: Just realized you can probably just use basilisk venom for the interrupt. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that.

Scorpion wire, basilisk venom, and sleight of hand.

It’s not the perplexity, it’s the Dire and overpowered nature of condition damage. This spec can be beaten in 1v1, but it never should.

It’s perplexity PLUS the OP nature of conditions. Stacking physical damage requires Power, Crit Damage and Crit Chance. Stacking condition damage requires only Condition damage (duration is irrelevant due to the broken +40% duration food), so Condition builds can stack hit points and toughness.

P/D thief is strong but it is one of those builds that you can ignore depending on what you are running i.e any of the normal roaming builds for other classes. Any 30 shadow arts 30 trickery power build should usually beat it. 10/0/30/0/30 Power build with S/D + P/D or D/P should come out on top of P/D condi with perplex.

It’s been around for along time the phase of complaining about it kind of passed Wild Bill and his vids made it popular perlexity makes it stronger but it does that for any condi build/hybrid.

As long as you deny Cloak and dagger you kill a large part of it’s dps and are careful of shadowshot. Body shot immob stacking is a bit ridiculous though.

It’s not perplexity that is the issue. I don’t even know if there is a issue it has all the stealth strengths a thief has with 30 shadow arts and it is a condition build.

Snuffles runs like all PVT armor and abuses hidden killer with D/P, it’s annoying (very annoying) to fight but I’ve seen her beat alot of people with it.

Run 10/0/30/0/30 P/D power build and it is the same playstyle and you kill much faster just not as fast as D/D or D/P.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Terravos.4059:

I personally take a different route with P/D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBj4pEnMzNA

Also, why don’t you use traveler runes for this build? It seems they would fit it much better than the speed runes, unless you really feel you need that vitality.

Its a fairly long and complicated answer, so I’ll try and explain it as best as I can.

I’m cheap

Carpboy.7145:

Yamsandjams.3267:

The funny thing is that a p/d thief can’t apply 8 stacks of confusion since they don’t have an interrupt. You’d have to take offhand pistol for that, which is what the old thief perplexity specs did.

Unless of course he’s saying he took scorpion wire or tripwire, but I find that doubtful.

In any case, 11 stacks of bleed and 4 stacks of torment sounds a bit low for a cookie-cutter p/d thief anyways.

EDIT: Just realized you can probably just use basilisk venom for the interrupt. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that.

Scorpion wire, basilisk venom, and sleight of hand.

Yeah my only interrupt was the daze on steal and i guess basilisk venom ( I did not know you could even interrupt with that). My utilities were too important to abuse stealth so I could not waste one on scorpion wire.

The 11 stacks of bleed, 4 stacks of torment and 8 stacks of confusion were from like a 3 second burst. If the fight had gone longer I could have easily stacked these numbers higher.

Lol, OP posted this in the thief forums as well. If you want thieves nerfed, just come out and say it, don’t hyperbolize.

Cygnus.6903:

It’s not the perplexity, it’s the Dire and overpowered nature of condition damage. This spec can be beaten in 1v1, but it never should.

THIS. Stop blaming perplexity runes, DIRE is the problem and the condition mechanic as a whole. Condition builds only require ONE stat to be effective, sure you can augment them with some crit for procing various effects or adding some duration but this is why dire armour is so successful.

It’s even better on a thief because you have the defensive stats PLUS stealth, blinds, mobility, the armour adds to the whole mix. Some bunkers are more effective than others, you can’t come up with some ridiculous statement about all condition builds being OP. It’s certain builds on certain professions, with the thief being even more successful thanks to stealth etc…

Fade.7658:

Lol, OP posted this in the thief forums as well. If you want thieves nerfed, just come out and say it, don’t hyperbolize.

I DO NOT want thief to be nerfed I actually think zerker thief is a little under powered in the current meta. My main has always been thief and it is the class I most enjoy playing. What I want nerfed is everything this particular build represents. Perplex runes and dire armor and so OP it is insane and they are slowly killing most other builds.

I was not exaggerating at all this was an exact recount of what happened I should not be able to fight and win 3v1 against three decent players with a build I have played for under an hour.

Overlord.1035:

Fade.7658:

Lol, OP posted this in the thief forums as well. If you want thieves nerfed, just come out and say it, don’t hyperbolize.

I DO NOT want thief to be nerfed I actually think zerker thief is a little under powered in the current meta. My main has always been thief and it is the class I most enjoy playing. What I want nerfed is everything this particular build represents. Perplex runes and dire armor and so OP it is insane and they are slowly killing most other builds.

I was not exaggerating at all this was an exact recount of what happened I should not be able to fight and win 3v1 against three decent players with a build I have played for under an hour.

If that’s the case, why not? People can roll a warrior and in under an hour, start curb stomping people just as easily, if not more so? If you faced a pair of d/p thieves that were decent, they would’ve eaten your lunch. D/p is far more forgiving than P/d ever was.

You faced mediocre thieves, and likely average players at best on the other counts. It’s far more likely than facing decently skilled opponents at every turn.

P/d is fine the way it is. It relies upon landing a c/d to deliver it’s damage, and is counterable with smart play, unlike d/p (up to a point) where the thief can enter stealth as long as they have init.

Perplexity runes are very strong, probably the strongest rune set imo, but are abused even moreso on other professions. Using perplex runes forces players to play higher than they regularly do, as you have to watch for it. They either can’t or don’t want to be bothered.

That being said, perplex runes are still extremely strong, and need more adjustment, which I expect to see in the rune/sigil/balance patch.

It’s been my experience that the good players that are hit with confusion, stop attacking, and adjust. Against noobs, or average players, it’s a death sentence.

Yamsandjams.3267:

The funny thing is that a p/d thief can’t apply 8 stacks of confusion since they don’t have an interrupt. You’d have to take offhand pistol for that, which is what the old thief perplexity specs did.

Unless of course he’s saying he took scorpion wire or tripwire, but I find that doubtful.

In any case, 11 stacks of bleed and 4 stacks of torment sounds a bit low for a cookie-cutter p/d thief anyways.

EDIT: Just realized you can probably just use basilisk venom for the interrupt. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that.

run 30 in trickery (also condi damage line) for Sleight of Hand and run Scorpion Wire on your belt. Boom. I can keep 8 stacks of confusion on my enemy easily.

This build is not fun to play at all. I geared my thief in the same gear as you, played it for a few days, and ended up salvaging everything. It is total cheese and wrecks people who don’t see it coming.

The worst part about this build is that it isn’t very good at all. You get like bleeding, torment, confusion, and that’s it. Only three conditions to clear means you aren’t doing jack to someone who has any condi removal.

Overlord.1035:

Fade.7658:

Lol, OP posted this in the thief forums as well. If you want thieves nerfed, just come out and say it, don’t hyperbolize.

I DO NOT want thief to be nerfed I actually think zerker thief is a little under powered in the current meta. My main has always been thief and it is the class I most enjoy playing. What I want nerfed is everything this particular build represents. Perplex runes and dire armor and so OP it is insane and they are slowly killing most other builds.

I was not exaggerating at all this was an exact recount of what happened I should not be able to fight and win 3v1 against three decent players with a build I have played for under an hour.

They couldn’t have been decent if you won. A 30 trickery s/d thief should wreck you because his steal is on a cool down like yours with daze. He can remove condi without stealth and has evades ready for when you try to sneak attack. Any 30 trick thief should win against p/d condi sleight of hand is a very strong gm trait you should try it in a power build sometime.

Any decent roamer would check your food if they saw you and automatically assumed perplexity and been ready. I can’t think of any combination of roaming builds with 3 decent players that you should outright win. Maybe d/d thieves. 3 good players won’t stand around and be CnD fodder unless a Mesmer is around or ranger not paying attention to his pet.

I’m not saying it isn’t good. It is IMO the best general purpose dueling build as it is the one condi build that can handle a necro. Still it isn’t a guaranteed win especially 3v1.

Look up amonatory’s thief video he posted on the forum. 30 trickery s/d and p/d power and watch him wreck a d/p thief and a p/d condi thief just after killing a warrior.

This had been my experience also with 30 trick in a power build with s/d you just roll over p/d condi thieves with it as long as you know how p/d condi plays

Here is the video on my phone so sorry for double post. This is s/d + p/d power same trait setup as the typical p/d condi running around right now but much more fun. At the end he kills a warrior and 2 thieves come after him d/d power and p/d condi the p/d is even running smoke screen which is a good counter to other p/d thieves.

Amon is a good thief but this shows 30 trick is very very good there is a reason 30 trick is sPvP meta now. Try running old school p/d condi. and it is a lot harder to kill people with 20/0/30/20/0 or 0/0/30/20/20. Which where the old builds before sleight of hand buff and perp runes introduced.

Perplexity runes only work against people who don’t watch their own conditions.

Dont nerf condi damage
Buff cleanses

Rock is fine, nerf scissors
~paper

Stand The Wall.6987:

Dont nerf condi damage
Buff cleanses

Rock is fine, nerf scissors
~paper

They all still lose to fire.

P/D thieves won’t be as popular so long as their hard counter, D/P thieves, is around.

Blind spam completely ruins this build.

Terravos.4059:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Terravos.4059:

I personally take a different route with P/D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBj4pEnMzNA

Also, why don’t you use traveler runes for this build? It seems they would fit it much better than the speed runes, unless you really feel you need that vitality.

Its a fairly long and complicated answer, so I’ll try and explain it as best as I can.

I’m cheap

Well said.

You know nothing about OPness of condi thieves until you’ve seen El Taquito Bandito’s firework condi build. If that doesn’t scream OPness, I don’t know what else does? XD

Colt.9051:

You know nothing about OPness of condi thieves until you’ve seen El Taquito Bandito’s firework condi build. If that doesn’t scream OPness, I don’t know what else does? XD

They nerfed his fireworks

WHat build did you use?

Did you say you have 2,200 condition damage stat on that build? The most I have ever seen is 1500.

Silentshoes.1805:

Did you say you have 2,200 condition damage stat on that build? The most I have ever seen is 1500.

I currently run 2320ish atm. If I ran Scavenger runes, I’d be sitting at ~2450. WvW, of course.

edit: 2311 (counted the bl buff, 30 points accidently)