Condition Damage is bad?
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I love using condition damage. People will probably say it’s underpowered because they don’t see cute big numbers.
Granted, Conditions can be cleansed but that’s why you just keep stacking.
They both have their pros and cons. Toughness, and good timing will screw up high burst glass cannons.
Condition isn’t bad; just most thief players are quite scrubby. Play around with the builds, and you might find something amazing. That’s all the advice im gonna tell u. Also, Im a conditions thief
As stated, condition damage isn’t necessarily bad. Pistol/Dagger condition build is great in 1v1 or small skirmishes. However, it’s really the only good condition build. Condition removals don’t really do anything against it, since it applies bleed through its basic attack and stealth attack.
You can use Death Blossom spam builds, but they’re pretty much ruined by Condition Removers. When you’re out of initiative and the enemy cleanses all of the Bleed stacks that were just placed on, you’re forced to either use your initiative regen abilities or wait for it to come back. Even if you use the regeneration abilities, there’s no guarantee they don’t have another condition removal at the ready.
Short bow is awful with condition builds, and Pistol/Pistol is completely outshined by Pistol/Dagger.
Condition damage is fine in PvE, but in PvP it’s very hard to stack enough on a player to do damage, specifically in WvW, and when you do stack enough they end up cleansing it, i still love the build and i’m still sticking with it even though i always get pwned with it in WvW.
Ill take death blossom spam over P/D in wvwvw on my thief ANY day of the week. Combine it with caltrops and you are golden. P/D is better for spvp and 1v1. But if you use it in wvwvw you are basically screwing yourself because you are doing like a fraction of what any other class can do better. Where as the Deathblossom build you can change the tide of the fight. 1v1s and 1v2s might feel good if you win in wvwvw but they don’t count for jack either way in terms of contribution.
The problem which supposedly the devs agree with is the scaling in which condition damage stat relates to the actual damage per tick of the bleed/poison/burning is underpowered. So expect it to get buffed
The only thing I’ve read about the devs saying condition damage is weak with is destroying objects or breaking gates. I don’t see how getting up to like 150 damage per tick on a bleed is bad, when you can get like 15 stacks by yourself no problem. If they really buffed the damage on condition damage per tick, it’d be like a burst build but you can stack toughness and vitality with it.
The only thing I’ve read about the devs saying condition damage is weak with is destroying objects or breaking gates. I don’t see how getting up to like 150 damage per tick on a bleed is bad, when you can get like 15 stacks by yourself no problem. If they really buffed the damage on condition damage per tick, it’d be like a burst build but you can stack toughness and vitality with it.
I think your worry for a buff is them like doubling it or something. If anything it may be a 10-15% increase if any at all. Ofc you could be right about it only weak in their eyes for objects and gates. Personally I think bleed is fine, but Poison is the most lackluster, I would trade all the venom abilities for 1 that did a decent duration burning.
The main issue with conditions is people can remove ALL your stacks with one button.
Until a solution is found I doubt we’ll see anything else than direct damage builds in PvP.
Condition-based builds are not bad for PVP.
Every build in PVP has a counter.
Condition builds are based on maximising the damage you can deal to a group of people based on how well you can survive. Even if the person can remove conditions, they all have cooldowns.
In long-lasting fights, it is very hard to not get conditions.
I have tried it with Necro & a Thief and a Mesmer. Condition-based builds are fun and can be extremely painful to fight.
On a Thief, it is very easy to kill a person when you can get ~15 bleeds on a person in 3 seconds.
I think Condition builds work better in PvP than PvE.
In PvE there are a few things holding them back in Dungeons. Solo play it’s perfectly viable.
But in Dungeons:
1. There is a cap for 25 Bleeds. Fine if you’re the only heavy Bleeder but once 2 or even 3 players start rolling lots of Bleeds, then you’re in trouble and a lot of damage is lost.
2. Heartseeker likes to hit for roughly 5000 in certain PvE situations. And the ability is almost spamable. Now I haven’t done the maths but you’d need an awful lot of Bleeds to get anywhere close to such damage in a matter or seconds. I think Crit builds just deal more damage currently.
In PvP however it’s great. Yeah, Condition removals are quite abundant but the popular Bleed builds all have very short duration bleeds so it’s not a huge issue. I personally am a big fan of Pistol/Dagger.
They’re good to have, but they’re not something you can rely on exclusively. In PvE, enemies rarely, if ever remove conditions from themselves so you can bleed/burn/poison most of them to death.
In PvP, conditions are there to help you wear down an opponent, not be the only thing that kills them. They also force them to use their con. removal skills and so giving out conditions often makes them use up their abilities faster.
I do however hear there are enemies in dungeons who are healed by condition damage though. always be prepared to change tactics quickly. That’s why I don’t recommend making an build that’s based solely around condition damage. They’re handy, but you can’t rely completely on them.
User will be infracted for this post.
Condition damage works in PvP or playing solo. in Large groups for champions or dungeons its very lackluster. Ok lets say you are LDB thief, you can stack 15 stacks of bleeds solo other 4 ppl 100% sure can stack 10 more. the rest of stacks after 25 are gone. The damage will not go up and that portion of damage is wasted. Now imagine 3-4 condition ppl do dungeon. 50+% of all damage is wasted, making it not the best spec for dungeons.
Former Devils Inside Thief R43
You know, I’m sorry I haven’t read this thread to the fullest but i’ll take the advantage to express a thought about condition damage.
Perhaps condition damage shouldn’t just come with almost every auto attack. Perhaps condition damage can be adjusted and placed on the 2-5 skill buttons that take a c/d or initiative.
Hurling condition damage on someone feels so easy and meaningless yet it can really ruin someone’s day. If cond damage was on a 5 – 10 sec c/d or on a 4- 5 initiative but stacked 5 or 8 or 10 bleeds instantly (I wouldn’t know a calculated amount right now) it would make it more meaningful and skillful perhaps?
Then maybe condition removals can be thought thorough and balanced around that standard.
[I hope this didn’t confuse or anger any passionate players.]
(edited by Mandra Madador.1709)
I play a condition thief and I love it. Just remember to take caltrops o.o its your single best aoe skill as a thief especially since you can use it while stealthed. You can usually drop it and if you stacked condition duration, itll stack 12 times on its own and you can give 25 stacks of bleed if youre continuously going 2x pistol shots → c&d→ stealth shot while theyre over caltrops. The main thing you have to look for is that you can fight an exteded fight in a condition build unlike our more bursty counterparts. However we will still die if cc’d (but who doesnt?) and you will absolutely hate necros that return your conditions to you and spread it to everyone around you. All condition build chars hate necros. Youll learn to fear them as well when you fight good ones.
Going p&d will remove most of the effects f condition removal. You stack bleeds often.
Condition damage is pretty good on a thief, but you want it alongside base damage. It’s pretty common for people to build one dimensional thieves, and they do work, but you can in fact use condition damage without being a ‘condition build’ – and you’ll often be better off for doing so.
If a thief had twice the HP, condition builds might be good.
But a thiefs life is basicly kill before you get killed. And with the low HP pool you better kill fast.
Also as said, conditions can be transfered, healed, removed.
Condition damage doesn’t look native to the Thief. It’s not integrated well.
You can make it work by being stubborn but the Thief weapon skills and traits need a re-work to add real support for it.
Just look at Dagger/Dagger…. Stacking Condition damage wastes Damage from your 1,2,3,4,5 and your stealth skill.
So your “1 and 3” skills can put up DoT’s which can be removed.
That doesn’t really make much sense to do, now does it? Especially when “3” spam wastes initiative, easily can miss, and disorients the player by wildly flinging them around.
I like Condition build. You can’t play it like a Power build though, you can’t just stand around trading blows, you need to be very mobile, laying damage and then rolling away and avoiding taking any yourself. It probably doesn’t work in PvP being condition negation is too easy, but in PvE it works great.
“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
Just look at Dagger/Dagger…. Stacking Condition damage wastes Damage from your 1,2,3,4,5 and your stealth skill.
That’s why it works best for Thieves. With most classes you have cooldowns, so if you only proc conditions on your 1 and 3 attacks, you use those, and then are left twiddling your thumbs until they come off cooldown, or wasting time with non-condition attacks. With the Thief, you can spam whichever attacks benefit you most, so instead of having to wait five to ten seconds between Death Blossoms (which is likely what it would be as an Elementalist ability), you can spam it as fast as it can go until you run out of Initiative, refill and repeat, and while you’re tapped out you can just avoid the enemy.
“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
I play a condition thief and I love it. Just remember to take caltrops o.o its your single best aoe skill as a thief especially since you can use it while stealthed. You can usually drop it and if you stacked condition duration, itll stack 12 times on its own and you can give 25 stacks of bleed if youre continuously going 2x pistol shots -> c&d-> stealth shot while theyre over caltrops. The main thing you have to look for is that you can fight an exteded fight in a condition build unlike our more bursty counterparts. However we will still die if cc’d (but who doesnt?) and you will absolutely hate necros that return your conditions to you and spread it to everyone around you. All condition build chars hate necros. Youll learn to fear them as well when you fight good ones.
Going p&d will remove most of the effects f condition removal. You stack bleeds often.
i hate necros.
If a thief had twice the HP, condition builds might be good.
But a thiefs life is basicly kill before you get killed. And with the low HP pool you better kill fast.
Also as said, conditions can be transfered, healed, removed.
This is not entirely true. We have so much mobility in combat it is quite possible to kill an opponent and never take a hit, or very few at least. The common mistake I see failed condition thieves making is that they actually stand there and get hit. You have to simply approach every fight as if it’s going to be a stand off of some duration.
I don’t have to kill them fast so long as I don’t let them hit me…..just chipping away at them bit by bit until they cave. It does work quite well and is (to me anyway) WAY more entertaining than simply insta-gibbing someone one trick pony style with a backstab crit.
Granted, this is from a WvW perspective. The reality in sPvP atm is you NEED to kill fast due to the close quarters. In WvW, though, conditions are very viable for soloers, even arguably stronger as they work well vs even tanky builds as well as glass cannons.
~Shadowkat
If you take a good hard look at the skill trees that include buffs to condition damage based thieves you should feel underwhelmed. So many of the best group utility and stronger damage traits simply are not there.
If you think about how much Power, Precision and Crit % you will sacrifice to make a decent condition damage set you should feel uncomfortable. More so, you should know that condition damage thrives in sPvP, which you wont need a set for. Building a condition damage set for PvE or WvW may end up being a setback.
I speak from the perspective of a thief who started to build condition damage first, then later went back to replace every bit of condition damage in my build and armor.
Why? Well you will never get 100% of you condition damage worth out of every single fighting scenario, but you will get 100% out of the other traits. You will almost never be the only profession stacking bleeds! This is a major flaw with building condition damage as you are immediately nerfed when enough of other condition stacking classes are around. The more people around, the weaker you become. You can still get plenty of damage out of your condition based skills without throwing a bunch of emphasis on condition damage. A power/crit/back-stab thief will still apply bleeds, they just won’t rely on them.
Keep in mind that I am not telling you not to build condition damage. I am only telling you that I would definitely never tell you to build condition damage… I wonder how many people have actually tried both.
If you’re in a situation where your bleeds are getting overwritten then you aren’t really necessary to the situation anyways. They do need to fix the bleed caps and the way poison stacks though, and they’ve already claimed to be looking into those situations. In the meantime, I’m having a lot of fun.
“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
@ Adaneshade I couldn’t disagree more.
High burst gib builds are better for sPVP and PVE, not wvwvw.
In PVE, since you have a stack cap on bleed, and a lot of abilities in the game do bleeding, you it becomes useless especially in a boss fight
In Wvwvw, if you are a high burst build all it takes is ANY other class to drop you in a few hits, 1 little touch of CC and you are DONE, with the high burst build you are only good at solo killing other solo players and lets face it, you both aren’t contributing to the war effort, you can do that in spvp.
With a condition thief in wvwvw you are 100x more valuable, not only can you kill solo, but running with a zerg you have a VERY important purpose. Whenever your zerg/group engages another zerg/group, you jump into the middle of your enemies zerg or go around it drop caltrops, hit a few death blossoms and dagger storm back in the direction of your group. This will 9/10 win the fight for your group by not only disorienting the enemy but doing nice damage AND slowing any retreat/kiting ability. At the same time if your group is losing this is another way of ensuring they have a successful retreat
I’ve put all my stats towards condition damage and I am only getting 115 per bleed. What am I missing?
Lionguard Lyns fan club member.
did you use superior rune of corruption on your weapon?
as i browse necrothread, to help you out in condition damage spec,
they found/figured out that an additional 100 condition damage is equal to 5 bleed per tick
since they can reach 2000+ condition damage stat easily thats why their bleed is so hard
for a thief who has 1400+ base state for CD added by 25 stacks of superior rune of corruption, your bleed should be around 130+
TIP: if you want to maximize your equipments based on Condition damage, go to necromancer thread, they have tons of combinations at hand
It is in PvE because of bleed cap. I prefer power/crit in PvE. In PvP condition damage is all right.
Main: Thief
Alts: Warrior, Necromancer, Mesmer, Elementalist (bunker)
Alts: Warrior, Necromancer, Mesmer, Elementalist (bunker)
@ Adaneshade I couldn’t disagree more.
High burst gib builds are better for sPVP and PVE, not wvwvw.
In PVE, since you have a stack cap on bleed, and a lot of abilities in the game do bleeding, you it becomes useless especially in a boss fightIn Wvwvw, if you are a high burst build all it takes is ANY other class to drop you in a few hits, 1 little touch of CC and you are DONE, with the high burst build you are only good at solo killing other solo players and lets face it, you both aren’t contributing to the war effort, you can do that in spvp.
With a condition thief in wvwvw you are 100x more valuable, not only can you kill solo, but running with a zerg you have a VERY important purpose. Whenever your zerg/group engages another zerg/group, you jump into the middle of your enemies zerg or go around it drop caltrops, hit a few death blossoms and dagger storm back in the direction of your group. This will 9/10 win the fight for your group by not only disorienting the enemy but doing nice damage AND slowing any retreat/kiting ability. At the same time if your group is losing this is another way of ensuring they have a successful retreat
Maybe you should reread my post, I just said EXACTLY what you did lol >.< not sure how you got the opposite? Conditions pwn WvW, crit for sPvP.
~Shadowkat
@ Adaneshade I couldn’t disagree more.
High burst gib builds are better for sPVP and PVE, not wvwvw.
In PVE, since you have a stack cap on bleed, and a lot of abilities in the game do bleeding, you it becomes useless especially in a boss fightIn Wvwvw, if you are a high burst build all it takes is ANY other class to drop you in a few hits, 1 little touch of CC and you are DONE, with the high burst build you are only good at solo killing other solo players and lets face it, you both aren’t contributing to the war effort, you can do that in spvp.
With a condition thief in wvwvw you are 100x more valuable, not only can you kill solo, but running with a zerg you have a VERY important purpose. Whenever your zerg/group engages another zerg/group, you jump into the middle of your enemies zerg or go around it drop caltrops, hit a few death blossoms and dagger storm back in the direction of your group. This will 9/10 win the fight for your group by not only disorienting the enemy but doing nice damage AND slowing any retreat/kiting ability. At the same time if your group is losing this is another way of ensuring they have a successful retreat
Maybe you should reread my post, I just said EXACTLY what you did lol >.< not sure how you got the opposite? Conditions pwn WvW, crit for sPvP.
My apologies. You are correct. Sorry, must have been a minute of dyslexia and my head switched around those 2 sentences
no worries, I play exclusively in WvW, never PvE or sPvP. Because of that I use the following build……
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckzzc9cmlavomlavop9MfxcscVkq08kiO7khG7kiO7070M7kNo70V7ow270m
(Also has equipment setup) [Using full Rampager’s armor]
~Shadowkat
did you use superior rune of corruption on your weapon?
No, I had sigil of Agony. I guess 115 is what to be expected with just speccing Trickery and going with 6 +condition damage runes on the armor and carrion amulet.
TIP: if you want to maximize your equipments based on Condition damage, go to necromancer thread, they have tons of combinations at hand
Good advice, I’ll think about switching to corruption on my weapon too.
Lionguard Lyns fan club member.
the necromancers also noted that if your condition duration is below 50% dont invest on it, because its useless, (because everyone, almost everyone, carry a utility that cleanses condition)
as 50% equates to a meager 1 sec additional tick
and they also noted that, seemingly 13 secs is the cap bleed timer,
no worries, I play exclusively in WvW, never PvE or sPvP. Because of that I use the following build……
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckzzc9cmlavomlavop9MfxcscVkq08kiO7khG7kiO7070M7kNo70V7ow270m
(Also has equipment setup) [Using full Rampager’s armor]
My personal opinion. Carion gear is better for that build. In Rampager you are getting precision and toughness, and you aren’t making much use out of the crit, even less without crit damage.
I go for a 30 Trickery, 20 Acro, 25 SA build when I wvwvw and thats about all I do, with full Carion
D/D + SB (only really use it for IA and COmbo field, may switch it for P/D) HiS, Caltrops, Shadows refuge, Signet of shadows and Dagger storm. I have Steal, Shadows refuge, Last refuge, Instinctual response and CnD to stealth me. I have Might on dodge and when I stealth. Ive noticed you do not really see a benefit from the condition duration in Deadly arts till you hit 25 points into it
(edited by Knyx.5926)
Actually, I like that I’m not a one-trick pony….since my build has plenty of power, combined with this gear my non-condition attacks are actually pretty decent plus I have a 60% crit chance without any spec in the precision line so I crit alot. This enables me to no be totally countered by classes with alot of condition purges because I can fall back to direct damage in a pinch.
~Shadowkat
umm how are you getting 60% crit chance when with 30 into Critical strikes and all Berseker gear except like 2 jewels is at 52%. Also full Carion gear is going to get you more power then the points you have in Deadly arts
I should add that the adventurer 6 piece bonus is worth more than any amount of HP as it effectively allows me to do continuous evasion while fighting. Don’t need higher HP if you never take dmg :-)
~Shadowkat
hmmm how did you get 60% crit chance without any trait at crit tree?
as far as i experienced only rampagers full set + trinkets will give 75% crit chance with 30crit tree
since rampagers has the highest precision armor in game
I should add that the adventurer 6 piece bonus is worth more than any amount of HP as it effectively allows me to do continuous evasion while fighting. Don’t need higher HP if you never take dmg :-)
Same could be said for toughness, but in wvwvw it has been shown HP> Toughness.
umm how are you getting 60% crit chance when with 30 into Critical strikes and all Berseker gear except like 2 jewels is at 52%. Also full Carion gear is going to get you more power then the points you have in Deadly arts
The sheer amount of precision on the Rampager’s gear, full precision spec only gets ya 300 precision…..Where I’m able to get 1915 out of the gear alone. I was mistaken on 60%, I must have checked with a buff up. With no orbs or buffs it’s 52%, my apologies. Still enough to allow me to be effective in both direct damage and DoTs.
~Shadowkat
I should add that the adventurer 6 piece bonus is worth more than any amount of HP as it effectively allows me to do continuous evasion while fighting. Don’t need higher HP if you never take dmg :-)
Same could be said for toughness, but in wvwvw it has been shown HP> Toughness.
Toughness only mitigates some……evasion is 100% as well as causing most attempts to CC to fail. I don’t claim to know how everything plays out. But with the particular rune/gear set I have I’m very effective in open field skirmishes. Granted it’s a VERY twitchy playstyle that many MMO gamers would not at all enjoy. (Almost feels like it follows the fight approach of capoeira by never stopping motion long enough to be pinned down)
~Shadowkat
Yea, I mean I am definitely going to test your setup even though I love mine. I just feel like relying on dodge is just another way of pigeonholing your defense, especially when in wvwvw since there are sooo many more enemies that can knock you down, knock you back, immobilize AND fumble you. I find stealth to be much more useful then dodge in wvwvw, but that is ONLY my opinion. One of the many reasons is that if I am knocked down or immobilized I just steal to an enemy that is father away which stealths me, If I take 20% more of my health in a hit I stealth, and if I reach 25% hp I stealth, not to mention Shadow refuge, and everytime I do stealth I blind nearby enemies. This with the 20 into acro I still have the ability to dodge more then normal.
just keep in mind without ANY critical damage it might look cool when you crit 52%-60% of the time but you are probably doing the same if not less then me per hit with all my power and 0% crit.
NOTE: Even if you could have infinite dodge you won’t be able to dodge everything because of not only there is a split second between each dodge anyway where you can get hit, but latency is also a factor
It’s true that if I fight enough ppl at once, someone will land something. I tend to pick my fights though. I am mostly a soloer and avoid the larger groups. I’m not going to sit here and say I win every 1v3 I come across or anything, I do get pinned down occasionally. I ‘m just assuming that it happens to every spec. I’ve nothing against the stealth builds at all, I just prefer my setup having tried multiple gearsets and specs.
~Shadowkat
One key thing to keep in mind if you do try my build is to save Withdraw and Roll for Initiative for disables and Shadowstep for knockdowns (I tend to use steal on CD as it’s a free poison refresh and gets me a goodie to use vs my target ^.^, prioritizing steal by class in 1vmany fights…Warrior > Necro > Mesmer > Engineer > Thief > Ranger > Ele > Guardian)
~Shadowkat
Yea Im different I run with the zerg and once there is an enemy group to engage I jump into the middle of their group or run around it and jump it, Caltrops→ 3-4x Death Blossom→ Dagger storm toward my zerg. Changes the tide of the fight and increases the available of retreat for your group whilst decreasing theirs
I think that Knyx has a point, however Stealth isn’t a garaunteed safety net either. Sure, you blind people when you stealth, but you can still be hit in stealth. I think that factor puts stealth and dodge on-par with each other (dodge giving Might and returning Endurance, Stealth blinding and healing). To each their own, I guess.
This is my first post in the forums (other than some minor troubleshooting I had to do last week), but the build that I have been using is this: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckMz9mMMwvmMMwhMx0GG0mRboscR8kiO7kiU7kiO7070M7kuB70m7kNo7owZ. I stumbled into Pistol/Pistol about two weeks ago and loved Unload, but it just didn’t do a lot of damage. I find that Cloak and Dagger does decent damage on top of also stealthing me so that I can use the sneak attack version of Vital Shot. I’ve got about 300-ish +condition damage on me in sPvP. Last night, a guild mate ankittenpt flip-flopping between teams and had a blast, but in most cases I came out on top of everyone else in the match! It was pretty amazing, and I did this all night until 2 AM when I had to call it quits.
What I’ve been doing is using #2 (Body Shot, Vuln.), and then using #1 repeatedly on auto-attack until something happens. I try to anticipate it, but if I get jumped I immediately mash #3 (Shadow Strike? I don’t know, the Guild Head thing is wrong because Repeater is not the P/D #3 skill) to get away. #4 (Dancing Daggers) to slow down a group and dodge around (or chase).
I found last night (my first sPvP matchup) that I had the hardest time against the wizards (Mesmers/Elementalists) who had clones…I usually swapped to my Shortbow to use Cluster Bomb in close range after laying down a Poison field, but then I’m stuck on shortbow, so that when I switch back to P/D the clones are back up…ugh!
It was fun picking on warriors, engineers, thieves, and guardians, though the guardians took forever.
All in all, I did very well with this build compared to constantly trying to reposition myself with daggers, or not being bursty or survivable enough with sword/pistol or sword/dagger.
I noticed on someone’s link above that they had earrings and rings in their guildhead link slots. Is there a vendor for that in the Mists?
I think that Knyx has a point, however Stealth isn’t a garaunteed safety net either. Sure, you blind people when you stealth, but you can still be hit in stealth. I think that factor puts stealth and dodge on-par with each other (dodge giving Might and returning Endurance, Stealth blinding and healing). To each their own, I guess.
This is my first post in the forums (other than some minor troubleshooting I had to do last week), but the build that I have been using is this: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckMz9mMMwvmMMwhMx0GG0mRboscR8kiO7kiU7kiO7070M7kuB70m7kNo7owZ. I stumbled into Pistol/Pistol about two weeks ago and loved Unload, but it just didn’t do a lot of damage. I find that Cloak and Dagger does decent damage on top of also stealthing me so that I can use the sneak attack version of Vital Shot. I’ve got about 300-ish +condition damage on me in sPvP. Last night, a guild mate ankittenpt flip-flopping between teams and had a blast, but in most cases I came out on top of everyone else in the match! It was pretty amazing, and I did this all night until 2 AM when I had to call it quits.
What I’ve been doing is using #2 (Body Shot, Vuln.), and then using #1 repeatedly on auto-attack until something happens. I try to anticipate it, but if I get jumped I immediately mash #3 (Shadow Strike? I don’t know, the Guild Head thing is wrong because Repeater is not the P/D #3 skill) to get away. #4 (Dancing Daggers) to slow down a group and dodge around (or chase).
I found last night (my first sPvP matchup) that I had the hardest time against the wizards (Mesmers/Elementalists) who had clones…I usually swapped to my Shortbow to use Cluster Bomb in close range after laying down a Poison field, but then I’m stuck on shortbow, so that when I switch back to P/D the clones are back up…ugh!
It was fun picking on warriors, engineers, thieves, and guardians, though the guardians took forever.
All in all, I did very well with this build compared to constantly trying to reposition myself with daggers, or not being bursty or survivable enough with sword/pistol or sword/dagger.
I noticed on someone’s link above that they had earrings and rings in their guildhead link slots. Is there a vendor for that in the Mists?
Yea thats why I have both stealth and dodge readily available, whilst I am specced and slotted (utility) more for stealth then dodge. I found in group vs group as well Roll for initiative and withdraw to be even more lackluster because of so many classes out there that really can match your mobility and just catch right up to you with 1 weapon skill, where as stealth will break their target, you just gotta be smart and not run in a straight line
Those items are the wrong ones, should have looked more closely….I’m using :
http://www.gw2db.com/recipes/8110-coral-orichalcum-amulet
with :
http://www.gw2db.com/items/26449-exquisite-coral-jewel-s
not sure why I selected those (brain fart).
~Shadowkat
Yeah to get away quickly I tend to shadowstep to a point where they chase then shadow return do 2x dodges spend init on hearseeker180 degree turn do both utility rolls then 2x roll and heartseeker again. Ordinarily the initial port/return confuses them just long enough for me to put enough distance for signet of shadows to kick in and I’m gone at that point.
~Shadowkat
But then again, I wouldn’t caught dead charging into a zerg as I dislike the entire zerg mindset and prefer to do small fights vs ppl who hone skills…..Too many zergers get complacent spamming ranged stuff and never develop any real combat prowess of their own.
Not to say that’s you by any means, Knyx, as it takes some serious cohones to melee deep inside that mess.
I just like to fight vs ppl I actually respect as a real threat to me on their own not relying on some zerg.
Was a serious soloer/8v8 guy in DAoC as well, never was into the zergy siegey stuff.
~Shadowkat
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