Guild Wars 2

I was just pondering this as I believe it’s a bit on an issue with Thieves already very limited arsenal.

Currently there are two basic play-styles for Thieves. One focuses on Condition Damage, the other on burst damage, mainly from Critical Strikes. There is very little synergy between to two so most people opt for one or the other.

However our attacks suffer from this divide as well. Death Blossom for example doesn’t offer much for a Burst build but is the staple attack for D/D Condition Builds. This works the other way too with Backstab for example hitting for much, much less with a Condition Damage build, rendering it near useless for the build.

The problem I have with this divide is that it further limits our already very limited ability choices.

Instead of having 5 viable attacks to chose from, almost every weapon set hat 1…sometimes 2 abilities that are rendered obsolete because of our build.

Hence I pose the question, would you rather have clear-cut Condition/Burst damage weapon sets or do you like the current system?

What I mean by that is if you’d like to see certain weapon sets built entirely for a specific play-style? Pistol/Dagger might be entirely Condition Damage, Dagger/Dagger might be purely Burst damage etc.

I know all professions suffer from this issue to a certain extent but I believe it weighs heavier on Thieves because a) out limited arsenal and b) Initiative doesn’t force us to use inefficient abilities due to others being on cooldown.

I’m rather a fan of the mixed sets of thieves and the fact that they lend themselves to so many playstyles. I’d rather not see things “streamlined” so we’ve got “X stats? Use Y weapon. Z stats? Use C weapon.”

Instead of streamlining, I’d rather see more synergy added to areas that are lacking. Back stab, for instance, should have some kind of condition component.

It isn’t really something we “suffer” from, it is the way the game is designed, and thieves aren’t really lacking for powerful or varied build options as-is, why pare them down in an attempt to make GW2 function more like a traditional MMO?

the burst build(s) have taken the nerfbat pretty heavly the last few patches.
cond build or go other class, end of story

there is a very good synergy between defensive stats. There is a very good synergy for burst stats too (preci, crit damage, power). Condition build stat synergy can be obtained solely from traits (minor) and gears (major).
Burst builds benefit directly from: preci, crit damage, power, might, vulnerability, fury
Condition builds benefit directly only from condition damage and might, with a “cap” on them (eg bleed max 25 stacks from ALL sources) and is largerly unusable (any kind of target that is not player/mob cannon be conditioned, tho cannot be critted too)
Problem is: burst builds are being toned down, condition build remain very specific, and unlike defensive builds, there is no middle between them.
Splitting your stats between tough and vitality increases value of each
Splitting your stats between burst and conditions hurts both
Personally, I am more or so content with condition standing except for the three facts:
Bleed stacks after 25 cap should do instant condition-based damage, and do instant damage to targets that cannot be critted or conditioned, even if a little one
Vulnerability/general damage increase effect should affect condition damage
Gear should have wider selection of combinations of stats

DanH.5879:

the burst build(s) have taken the nerfbat pretty heavly the last few patches.
cond build or go other class, end of story

You must have a very narrow view of viable burst setups.

Although I think some of the confusion is stemming from the fact that power/crit based damage has apparently become synonymous with “burst” even though they don’t mean the same thing. You can have a burst condition build, or a sustained DPS direct damage build.

Tulisin.6945:

Although I think some of the confusion is stemming from the fact that power/crit based damage has apparently become synonymous with “burst” even though they don’t mean the same thing. You can have a burst condition build, or a sustained DPS direct damage build.

What is a burst condition build? The way I see it, burst and sustained damage are usually mutually exclusive. Power based damage can be either burst or sustained, but conditions are always inherently not “bursty”. I don’t see where burst condition does fit in there.

wintermute.4096:

Tulisin.6945:

Although I think some of the confusion is stemming from the fact that power/crit based damage has apparently become synonymous with “burst” even though they don’t mean the same thing. You can have a burst condition build, or a sustained DPS direct damage build.

What is a burst condition build? The way I see it, burst and sustained damage are usually mutually exclusive. Power based damage can be either burst or sustained, but conditions are always inherently not “bursty”. I don’t see where burst condition does fit in there.

A burst condition build would be a condition damage build effective at doing damage at whatever interval deemed “burst”. In some games, this means <3 minutes. In GW2 a burst phase is generally much shorter, <1 minute (for much of PvE) or even <10 seconds (for PvP). A burst condition build relies on quickly stacking high damage but low duration conditions like Burning and high-stack bleeds (abilities that give, say, 3 stacks for 5 seconds as opposed to 1 stack for 20). The “burst” merely refers to the timeframe within which the damage is done as well as the general unsustainability of that level of damage. If you can stack 25 bleeds in 4 seconds but can only do it once every minute or two, you’re using a burst condition build. Thieves miss out on this a bit since we can’t apply Burning, which is an inherently bursty condition meant to do all of its damage within a few seconds and scaling in duration instead of intensity.

Power/crit isn’t inherently “bursty” any more than condition damage is inherently better for sustained damage. It all depends on how you’re synergizing your attacks and the length of the conditions you’re applying.

Tulisin.6945:

I’m rather a fan of the mixed sets of thieves and the fact that they lend themselves to so many playstyles. I’d rather not see things “streamlined” so we’ve got “X stats? Use Y weapon. Z stats? Use C weapon.”

Instead of streamlining, I’d rather see more synergy added to areas that are lacking. Back stab, for instance, should have some kind of condition component.

It isn’t really something we “suffer” from, it is the way the game is designed, and thieves aren’t really lacking for powerful or varied build options as-is, why pare them down in an attempt to make GW2 function more like a traditional MMO?

This is an awful way to balance. This only makes weapons awful for one scenario while being mediocre at another. You can’t give weapons just random conditions so that you think they can play a certain way. You should be forced to use certain weapons if you want to play a certain way. That’s the entire point of having multiple different weapon builds.

Backstab shouldn’t have a condition component. It’s a burst attack, nothing more. Just because you want to be able to abuse it in a unicorn build doesn’t mean it needs a condition.

Also, there is no such thing as burst condition builds in this game. I don’t see how you can claim this. Unless you can deal like 3000 damage per second via a condition without taking a while to apply it (like 25 stacks of bleed), it can’t burst like burst builds can. Although I agree that Power/Prec/Crit dmg doesn’t always equate to burst, since, as you said, there is also sustained DPS builds that use this.

Tulisin.6945:

Instead of streamlining, I’d rather see more synergy added to areas that are lacking. Back stab, for instance, should have some kind of condition component.

I don’t get why everybody is just hammering on Backstab (or Daggers in general, except LDB) for not having con damage, but not on the con dmg attacks for being terrible for direct dmg Thieves.

What is with the Pistol Auto attack? What with the Pistol Stealth attack? Why does nobody care about LDB being utterly aweful for direct dmg Thieves?

I think we need those “Condition Weapon-” and “Direct Damage Weapon-” sets, or everything is a bad hybrid, or only used by half of it’s potential.

People cry about Thieves using only a very few number of skills (spam x), but what else should they do?

A condition Thief using Daggers can only use Death Blossom to do good damage.
A condition Thief using Pistols can only use Pistol AA/Stealth attack to do good damage.

Just as well as a direct damage Thief using Daggers can only use HS and Backstab for good damage.
And a direct damage Thief using Pistols can only use Unload for good dmage.

Everything else is utility (only used in specific situations) or just useless, depending on the spec.

I would prefer a Direct Damage Thief being able to use all his Dagger skills, just as much as i would prefer a Condition Thief being able to use all his Pistol skills.

Now you can argue that that would actually limit Thiefes to weapons, depending on the spec.
While that is true, it actually already is the case to be honestly.

[I hit the cap once again, read further on next post]

A direct damage specced Thief using Pistol/Pistol just isn’t effective since he can only use Unload spam for damage, which is as easily dodged as a Dagger/Dagger Condition Thief only being able to spam LDB.

The limitation is already there.

But atm, theres a further limitation in place.
The limitation of Condition Thieves using Pistol/Pistol getting a useless dual skill with Unload, and the Direct Damage Thieves getting a useless dual skill with LDB.
That already cuts the skillbar of these sets to 4 skills (or 1 skill for the oppsite spec).

Can this be fixes by giving all skills both, con and direct damage?
Absolutely not.
You can’t give one skill a nasty bleed and a high direct damage component.
Sure, a direct damage Thief wouldn’t do much damage with the bleeds, but still, it’s a condition on the enemy, which can cause all sorts of problems with limited condition removals (in numbers of conditions) and condition stacking as well as with Traits (increased dmg if the enemy has a condition comes to mind).
Also a condition Thief would probably do to much damage with a hybrid attack since it’s not like they don’t have power and the base direct damage value has to be also reasonably high to make it viable for direct damage Thieves in addition to the great Condition damage on everything.

So there are different three solutions:

1) Spec Specific Weapon sets:
Best examples: Pistol/Pistol getting reworked to fit Condition Thieves more. Changing Unload to a Condition Damage skill (applying bleeds and burn for example).
Dagger/Dagger reworked to fit direct damage Thieves more. Changing LDB to a direct Damage skill (removing the bleed, adding more base damage and power scaling or vulnerability).

2) Hybrid Skills:
Everything gets tagged on a condition and a reasonable direct damage.
To prevent it from being overpowered, both would have to be weak, leaving both direct Damage and Condition Thieves underpowered, creating only one viable spec, the hybrid Thief, which can do both conditions and direct damage, but neither good.

3) Hybrid Weapon Sets:
The way it is now.
Every weapon set can be used more or less effectively with every spec, while only half the skill bar is effective, leaving every Thief with 1 to 3 core (viable) skills, which are used all the time (giving the impression of spamming), while the rest of the skills would actually hurt the Thief if activated because of the Initative System (subpar skills building up global CD [consuming Initiative], reducing the amount of effective [viable] skills used), leaving them to be never used.

My conclusion:

The Spec specific Weapon sets would actually be the solution with the least limitations in play and the most skill vareity.

No half skill bars, no subpar hybrid skills and way more skill vareity (look a con and direct damage skill, look, another one, and another, and another…) sounds, at least to me, better than the other solutions, even if it means some specs will be even less effective with some weapons than they are now already.
But since Unload and LDB spam aren’t viable in high play anyway (dodging) and pretty boring to play and to play against while requiring absolutely zero skill to play, why endure so much sacrifices just to keep tham?
It would also be the least work (design and balance wise) to only rework these “out of place” dual skills, to fit the canon of the rest of the appropriate set.

__
I didn’t wrote that just to give you a TL:DR afterwards.
If you are interested in this debate, read it.

Funny you mention that. I created a build about two weeks ago and I considered it a burst bleed build.
I’ve managed to stack 23 (sometimes 24) stacks of bleed in about 7 seconds.
I don’t use it anymore though.

P/P condition set? No thanks.
Hybrid sets are fine if every skill has purpose distinct enough to be used in some conditions that aree not too limited. eg body shot is only useful for buffed guild claimers, as well as being the only useful skill in this situation = bad.
Head shot – instant interrupt on DEMAND = good (has a very specific role, but useful in many situations)
Black powder – aoe blind field = average (viable for more purposes, but usable in less situations)
Black powder obviously not getting changed at this time, but body shot needs a rework. As for pistol auto, a good way to improve it is to make is a two-shot chain. First one does 2x bleed, seond one has higher weapon damage multiplier

Asum.4960:

Tulisin.6945:

Instead of streamlining, I’d rather see more synergy added to areas that are lacking. Back stab, for instance, should have some kind of condition component.

I don’t get why everybody is just hammering on Backstab (or Daggers in general, except LDB) for not having con damage, but not on the con dmg attacks for being terrible for direct dmg Thieves.

I didn’t say condition damage, I said conditions. The majority of the conditions thieves work with are non-damaging (control) conditions. Conditions like these reward skill and create synergy without necessarily rewarding condition damage stacking.

Tulisin.6945:

Asum.4960:

Tulisin.6945:

Instead of streamlining, I’d rather see more synergy added to areas that are lacking. Back stab, for instance, should have some kind of condition component.

I don’t get why everybody is just hammering on Backstab (or Daggers in general, except LDB) for not having con damage, but not on the con dmg attacks for being terrible for direct dmg Thieves.

I didn’t say condition damage, I said conditions. The majority of the conditions thieves work with are non-damaging (control) conditions. Conditions like these reward skill and create synergy without necessarily rewarding condition damage stacking.

Well, then i would prefer the term CC (crowd control) over condition, which describes bleed, burn or poison most of the time.

I vastly prefer the weapon sets having a mixture of direct and condition damage. It would honestly just feel arbitrary and unncecessarily gamist to “force” condition builds to use pistols and force direct damage build to use daggers. No, thanks.

I completely agree we need synergized weapon sets for specific purposes or everything must have both. I see a lot of dagger burst thieves against the idea, but their argument doesnt hold much merit since All 3 hits from the auto chain benefit them more then condition (3 has a very lackluster poison), Heartseeker only benefits them, CnD only benefits them, Backstab only benefits them, Dancing dagger could be also argued to only benefit them (high damage and a D/D cond thief is gonna have caltrops for cripple anyway).

So that leaves really D/D condition thieves with only ONE viable weapon attack, with burst thieves having 5 including the stealth attack.

Its the same for every weapon combination we have atm, with P/D being the only weapon set that actually synergizes the most for BOTH builds but still has off-and-on abilities.

So yea, its pretty clear we NEED (different from what burst thieves may WANT) a fully synergized weapon set for condition and a seperate one for burst OR all abilities having both. If you want to make Pistols the condition specific set, there has to be a talent or changeup that gives the weapon set AOE/Bouncing (not 5%, more like 50%+)