Guild Wars 2

Backstab seems kinda hard to land on a moving target in WvW and I see so many thieves just just going F1 1111111111 dodge 311111111111 (if D/P)
Is backstab even worth it anymore?

The thing about backstab is that everyone expects it after they see the daze from steal, and will often use some form of evade or block. Since there is a 1sec ICD, and unless you stacked stealth significantly, you will miss and stealth will expire without getting another chance to backstab. It is still totally worth it if by some form of miracle you land it, since it can be an easy 7k+ damage chunk.

Ye, moving targets can be a problem, but there are some ways to secure a backstab.
The safest, most commonly known one, uses steal.
Steal has no cast time and can be used WHILE casting something else.
If in stealth, that means, that you can precast your backstab and use steal, just as the BS animation is about to finish.
Same thing can be done with Shadowstep or even with Shadowshot.
Shadowshot basically has 2 parts to it. First you fire the projectile (this ports you to the target) and THEN attack. The second part can be canceld however if you chain another skill while the projectile is mid-air. Requires some timing but can be done consistently if you practice it a bit.

I’ve spent alot of time working on precasting backstab in to steal, its tricky but it seems to work pretty well, I actually almost gibbed a squish with just the backstab alone for 10k. Of course my failure keyboard butterfingers prevented me from actually finishing they guy off but still.

Mathematically since the AA damage buffs it’s no longer worthwhile for damage, and the ICD on stealth attacks if and when they miss kills most incentive to use it or try to bother at all.

The change of BV to one attack also made consistency drop as auto-proc passive negation will force any Mug + Stab combo to miss as well.

So at the end of the day, it’s usually not worth trying, unless you know you can get it to land.

It’s worth it as an opener still. I hit a ranger for 27k the other day, 13k backstab and he died before PI went off. I’ve seen 15k stabs on the same build.

It depends how you build though. I get mobbed by multiple players a lot, so I build to be able to nuke one guy right from the start to improve my odds of winning. That said, if my backstab would hit for 13k, my bounds and shadowstep will hit for 7-8k easily, so after the initial engage it’s less worth it, you’re right.

Something I found works quite well is stealthing, casting basi, waiting to destealth without attacking and using black powder’s projectile to interrupt. People always spam skills as soon as they see you so it’s likely to get the interrupt, they’ve probably wasted a couple defensives trying to predict your burst, and it sets you up to bound steal stab so the damage lands at the same time as the PI proc. At worst, you simply restealth (if you see endure pain or something). If you’re gonna land backstab, might as well try to end the fight with it.