Guild Wars 2

Did anyone tried the new runes with P/D and was successful ?

I tried p/d deadshot in unranked but didn’t in ranked. I’m not enough confident with the build. I had interesting duels with warriors and thieves.

Secondary note : I just discovered recently that you could jump + #3 to apply tourment without beeing teleported back. It’s much more easy to land torment with that trick ! I got up to 12-13 stacks.

That will be ‘fixed’ soon then.

I tried it… it’s a no go. Runes seem to have been aimed towards ranger, though deadshot would’ve been cool had it been for thieves. It’s a good idea but opportunity cost to other runes and sigils is too great. Stick with Marauder and Scholar like always.

4s base bleed on the autoattack and sneak attack are way to low for the build to ever be viable in sPvP teamfighting

Wargameur.6950:

Secondary note : I just discovered recently that you could jump + #3 to apply tourment without beeing teleported back. It’s much more easy to land torment with that trick ! I got up to 12-13 stacks.

You could also have your back on upward slope and not get teleported. Something that ArenaNet will never (or could not) fix.

I’ve been testing with Deadshot Amulet and P/D. The build runs with Krait Runes, Agony Sigil and Torment Sigil (works well with the crit chance on the amulet).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAqYlsMhSnYRTwpJw/ELDFGXAYBkB8yBBh+zc+7/dAB-TJRAQBA4BAoxyA9Y/hudCAAA

I’m not done quite done testing and refining. It takes some getting used to given the lack of HP compared to Carrion.

I will say that I’ve used Shadowstrike several times now in contexts where projectile hate would otherwise prevent me from contributing damage. If you can maintain about 8 stacks of torment it can tick for around 2k (without vulnerability, boons, or other map specific stat bonuses).

saerni.2584:

I’ve been testing with Deadshot Amulet and P/D. The build runs with Krait Runes, Agony Sigil and Torment Sigil (works well with the crit chance on the amulet).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAqYlsMhSnYRTwpJw/ELDFGXAYBkB8yBBh+zc+7/dAB-TJRAQBA4BAoxyA9Y/hudCAAA

I’m not done quite done testing and refining. It takes some getting used to given the lack of HP compared to Carrion.

I will say that I’ve used Shadowstrike several times now in contexts where projectile hate would otherwise prevent me from contributing damage. If you can maintain about 8 stacks of torment it can tick for around 2k (without vulnerability, boons, or other map specific stat bonuses).

What’s the point of Shadow Arts on this build? Don’t see much stealth access. Not trying to be a kitten, just curious.

p/d even with the torment buff not useful or working as d/p power build
its nice for lower tier but when ppl start taking condi cleanse or some reflect you become preety much not needed.

Forum just ate a large post…sigh.

Ok, so the big things with SA are boosts to duration of stealth—makes it easier to land the attacks—and the extra stealth on steal. Also, the cooldown reduction to HiS and Shadowstep improve both of those immensely—6 and 10 second reductions respectively. Secondary buffs in SA are movement speed and damage reduction in stealth—both of which help with sustain and positioning in general and I think both are under appreciated.

P/D could use a means to gain unblockable stealth attacks, but that is true for a lot of thief builds in general. Would probably be OP, might not, who knows? Could be an option for testing through PvP in the off season. Otherwise, I agree with messiah about the block/reflects being an issue—and agree less so about condi clears (if there were less issues of block/reflect then the amount of condi clear wouldn’t be quite as debilitating.

P/D is largely about mastering when to attack, when to put away your gun, and how to use off hand dagger. My tips for success on cloak and dagger is to always aim for the easy target. You aren’t trying to do damage using CnD, so using it on a ranger pet, another player who isn’t your target, an environmental object, etc. can be a better choice. Stay calm and use it at the right moment and you will be a much greater threat.

having 4 torment stacks for 5 sec as the only thing going for the weapon set is not likely to make it good, besides SA which synergizes with p/d is a terrible spec for spvp

Not really, if you are using P/D the synergy helps make the set more viable.

And if you use the Deadshot Amulet the duration is 6.75 seconds. You can, in admittedly ideal circumstances, stack up to 12 torment at a time through this ability alone.

EDIT:

And the set provides boonstrip from range as well as on demand immobilize (highly underrated).

This DA Ammy plus a rune cannot really beat the efficiency of Carrion + Undead (or Thorns). The condition duration means very little when the conditions are easily cleansed or transferred. I’m still scratching my head on what the Devs think players will do with this new ammy. If they’ve made Vitality as the major stat and Prec as the minor stat, it would probably worked out better — basically a Viper with Vit instead of Power.

Condition duration bonuses are more helpful on builds that utilize short term but high damage conditions. An example is the Sneak Attack ability or Shadowstrike which gain damage from duration increases that are small enough to avoid cleanse.

An instant cleanse will eliminate all the damage, so an increase in base damage won’t matter that much. The duration increase on a short term condition will be a lot more damaging. Because once they can no longer cleanse the final result will be more impactful.

saerni.2584:

Condition duration bonuses are more helpful on builds that utilize short term but high damage conditions. An example is the Sneak Attack ability or Shadowstrike which gain damage from duration increases that are small enough to avoid cleanse.

An instant cleanse will eliminate all the damage, so an increase in base damage won’t matter that much. The duration increase on a short term condition will be a lot more damaging. Because once they can no longer cleanse the final result will be more impactful.

Yes this true. I found I get more damage overall with longer durations while sacrificing overall condition damage precisely for the reasons you mention.

This also applies to non damage conditions. As example someone blows his cleanse and has weakness on with long duration it can last until your next cooldown for Lotus poison. Same with cripple slow/vuln. Long durations ensure more of these have an impact for a longer period of time and pressures a cleanse just to remove.

I have a close to 6 second immob off a trap in WvW. There a number of classes that lack access to a direct Immob cleanse so must use one of their generic cleanses to rid themselves of Immob because they can not afford to be locked in place for 6 seconds.

Were that immob only 2 seconds there much less pressure to cleanse.

Here pistol 2 comes into play. With long duration the immob is 2 seconds. One of those they can just eat it but if I put a few in a row (especially with teamates nearby) and they can not afford to wait. They now need to break it or use a block.

How this translates to PvP I am not sure.

In PvP having an immobilize is really useful in team fights. It is similar to hitting them with basi venom just as everyone’s burst hits. If they can’t break it or block it it adds up to a lot of damage.

Of course, this requires coordination and target calling. Some teams do that well and others never seem to even try. Honestly, as a single target damage dealer, having good target calls and teammates kittenpond to target calls is sometimes a big determining factor.

JonnyForgotten.4276:

saerni.2584:

I’ve been testing with Deadshot Amulet and P/D. The build runs with Krait Runes, Agony Sigil and Torment Sigil (works well with the crit chance on the amulet).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAqYlsMhSnYRTwpJw/ELDFGXAYBkB8yBBh+zc+7/dAB-TJRAQBA4BAoxyA9Y/hudCAAA

I’m not done quite done testing and refining. It takes some getting used to given the lack of HP compared to Carrion.

I will say that I’ve used Shadowstrike several times now in contexts where projectile hate would otherwise prevent me from contributing damage. If you can maintain about 8 stacks of torment it can tick for around 2k (without vulnerability, boons, or other map specific stat bonuses).

What’s the point of Shadow Arts on this build? Don’t see much stealth access. Not trying to be a kitten, just curious.

Hide in Shadows, Steal and Cloak and Dagger. If you’re good at landing CnD you shouldn’t will have any trouble without more stealth abilities.

Since we aren’t contesting a node when we are in stealth, this build will never be viable. You won’t ever be killed (if played properly), but you will lose the point and use too much time killing anything for it to be worth it. P/D aren’t he best team fight set either after they removed Ricochet.

P/D in a team fight can be very effective. I use Rending Shade, which strips a lot of boons. A warrior who is sustaining due to his boons will quickly die in a team fight if I am there. If I can strip resistance off of him, which is common, I can quickly have a DoT on him that can kill him even with full Adrenal Health active.

Any thief that isn’t using full evade build won’t be able to contest points anyway unless they win the fight. Most thieves will also struggle against a bunker, even if they win the fight there will be a better use of their time in decap/teamfight elsewhere.

I also want to point out that stealth is how this build does damage. Sneak attacks, which I argued elsewhere could afford a buff in sPvP, are something that requires stealth to activate. The build doesn’t camp stealth any more than necessary to initiate an attack or withdraw to another node.

Frequent stacking trumps duration in this game now.

Sad but true

Azukas.1426:

Frequent stacking trumps duration in this game now.

Sad but true

You can have duration and stacking and duration+ stacking > frequent stacking.

P/d has an opportunity to stack a number of conditions which in turn generally leads to a cleanse. You followup this cleanse with more conditions. Given duration tends to be a constant no matter the situation there no meaningful sacrfice made when selecting longer durations. Taking longer durations does not mean I stack conditions less frequently.

Your statement not accurate.

The boon stip on P/d with rending is very real and can quickly turn a team battle in your favor. The high Immob access in a p/d build can also be of tremendous benefit in a team fight.

While I wvw I can give just one example out of many. I was semi afk watching a battle rom afar where three of our guys were fighting a bunker ele and DH . This fight seemed to go on forever with very little damage done to those two enemy. One of our guys is downed and does not return and i join in the fight. All I really focus on is stripping the boons off the ele and the fight was over in a few minutes. The damage i was putting out was certainly contributing but this NOT a power thief. It was the boon strip with follow up immobs that tilted the fight.

Now it true that if I try and save a camp in WvW and am on my own the build suffers, I need that stealth and if I drop into it the camp can flip. I can see how this would translate to PvP as a weakness.

Some bunker sustain builds are just generally good at holding points (camps or circles in PvP). Sometimes a sustain build will just sit and laugh at whatever class you are on for this reason. But that is a difficulty of a game mode where having an immortal ele/druid/dh will carry the game.

A team might blame me, the thief, for not doing enough to decap when they are 3v1ing the ele on a point and the ele isn’t dying. Hard to decap when the rest of their team is roaming around and picking off my teammates. And that is irrespective of whether I’m condi or power. The thief will not be able to stand on point and the bunker will decap or cap.

Point capture could be a channel rather than simply “stand in circle.” That would at least allow people to compete for a node outside of the “capture zone” where you can trigger the channel to capture/decap. But that is less about P/D and more about the health of a competitive gamemode where bunker has a fundamental advantage by being better able to contest and protect captured points.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

This DA Ammy plus a rune cannot really beat the efficiency of Carrion + Undead (or Thorns). The condition duration means very little when the conditions are easily cleansed or transferred. I’m still scratching my head on what the Devs think players will do with this new ammy. If they’ve made Vitality as the major stat and Prec as the minor stat, it would probably worked out better — basically a Viper with Vit instead of Power.

The duration comes in when you are mixing several different condis at a time, some short, some long. It basically stretches things out so that I always have a good set of ticks going between cooldowns, endurance regen, and ini regen. Also tends to result in a fair number of kills from down- like if I decap and get rushed by 3, a lot of times I can have at least 2 on the ground when team gets there (really great when i time it so they drop right after I go full dead, so no rez).

So long as DH trapper builds remain ridiculously easy to play yet highly effective, P/D is a no go. Even if you can spring the traps on point you still have to cut through a ludicrous amount of defensive sustain while avoiding big ranged shots.

That isn’t a problem exclusive to P/D though. And a condi spike at the right time can be very effective +1 again all kinds of DH, and pistol at least has range pressure compared to other options.

da 223 trick 312 dd 332 p/d air/blood sb bl/leeching meta uility destroyer amulet scholar runes >~>

The way I see it is if you build your P/D right you get a nice burst. Stealth>RF running towards target>SS>Stealth>SS>BP>Stealth>RF running to target>SS>Swap to D/P and spam HS. Good burst pre-HoT. Gave Torment, Confusion, Bleeds and Poison. Sadly it is not effective anymore. To much condi cleanse now, Vit/Toughness were nerfed for thief making it so you arn’t nearly as tanky anymore, Stealth CD now, a true P/D build requires vanilla spec to maximize potential (DD has no place for P/D), stealth heals are kitten and nerfed making the main part of D/P OH sortve useless.

Unless proven otherwise I feel strongly that power is the way to go these days.

Not sure what you are talking about Rocky…thief vitality toughness has been low for a long time game wide.

Also there is more condi cleanse but that cleanse relies on what I’ll call the “HoT mechanic” in that all of them rely on continuous attacks. DD for example relies on evade, which requires an attack to avoid. Ele can have on hit condi cleanse over 75% hp. DH, with plenty of blocks can clear condi on block. The HoT mechanic requires players to stop attacking long enough to overcome it. There is counter play in some sense—although I agree it can be exceptionally strong taken with other traditional clears.

But, and this is a big but, condi cleanse does not pose the biggest challenge for P/D. Rather, projectile hate from certain classes/builds is what makes using the set difficult to use. It takes more knowledge of individual classes to know when it is safe and effective to attack. It’s not l2p so much as l2counter and that makes it sometimes feel far less rewarding compared to power D/P or other melee set.

While I can not speak to PvP Saerni is correct about how those cleanses work premised on an evade or active block or from a burst (Berserkers) or some such.

In fact in WvW I have found that very often with another player teamed with me my condition damage goes down overall because I can not control what that other player does and he will very often aid in removing those conditions by being subject to a zerker burst, hitting a guardian while blocks up or continously attacking an EA thief that just evades said attacks while cleansing my conditions.

Baba, you had mentioned in the other thread about condi about me swapping one rune to Earth from Torment so I wanted to respond and this seemed a decent thread to continue along those lines.

In HotM testing, the Earth sigil does result in 2-3 stacks of extra bleed (most of the time 3). Three stacks of bleed on this build is about 250-300 extra DPS compared to about 147? ish DPS on torment. I’m going to do some additional tests in actual combat in spvp matches, but I forgot to switch during my “work off my skill rating decay matches” that I did today, so I’ll be testing that out tomorrow.

My thoughts after some reflection are similar to my thoughts on condi duration in a sense. While cover conditions are important to prevent cleanse, much of condi damage is actually applied between cleanses. While a covering condition does help prevent a cleanse from eliminating all of the damage, most major cleanses when taken eliminate substantively the bulk of the condition damage. Another spike is required, or at least new applications of base condi, in order to realize any substantive damage. For that reason a lot of the damage is actually whatever is applied in a burst. I think it is possible, given that reasoning, that the Earth sigil’s extra DPS over the torment sigil is more significant over the course of a match.

Changing back to the topic, PI being so powerful is actually a boon for me because a lot of thieves I run into in PvP, unlike in WvW, take PI over EA and that makes my life much easier. Catch a thief, load them up with conditions, and wait a few seconds for them to die is much harder against good thieves (who take other cleanses as well) than keep autoattacking and watch their HP melt.

Well I am hoping we get to see some of this tuning happen in WvW as well. I am not yet sure a higher crit rate over less toughness and vitality can work there just due to the amount of AOE and enemy numbers one tends to encounter. I just found overall what it adds just not enough unless one has some investment in power as well.

Unlike Ranger, warrior and Necromancer there not anything on the way of adding extra conditions to a thiefs attack when a crit occurs. in the traitlines. With this classes using an on Crit sigil can really pile on conditions in a hurry while still having the luxury of a decent enough hit pool and armor to take hits in turn.

It would definitely be more telling in smaller scale battles where you did not have to deal with too many variables as far as incoming sources of damage concerned.