Guild Wars 2

Thief doesn’t need too much. I’m mind boggled really with what I saw when I played this spec properly (not build properly, because there is no “single, best meta proper build” ever- contrary to popular belief). We aren’t weak in damage, and we aren’t hurting in our engage/disengage department. We are hurting in our damage mitigation- we have low condi cleanse and 0 methods to obtain protection (and two long icd traits to get weakness along with shortbow for a combo field costing 7 initiative for 2 seconds or so).

I took this away: If our health portioning increased to what we have with marauder for baseline (so, berserker ammy has current marauder ammy hp) we’d be in a far better place. Condi clear in stealth is powerful, and EA is powerful. Along with our evades/blinds (depending on your preferred build ofc) you’d be very capable come HoT. I’ve been dueling/assassinating reapers, chronomancers, revenants, berserkers…you name it (minus scrapper cuz…well.. block+damage is just broken stupid). All we need are the hp boost and for the minor trait DF to get EA merged (and replace that trait with something else- I’d say landing consecutive blows grants a stun? or perhaps another stunbreaker not in acrobatics?)

tl;dr- Thief is actually very close to fine atm, which surprises even me (and I freaked out). If our hp increased so Berserker amulet gave the same hp as Marauder, and if Driven Fortitude merged with Escapist Absolution as the Master Minor trait in Daredevil we’d be in a rather fine place.

Ok, I’m ready. Bomb and flame this thread because I have to be wrong, lying, or stupid. My body…er… ego is ready !!!!

In another thread, I suggested that driven fortitude and escapists absolution be merged and baseline, due to how necessary escapists absolution is to all game modes. This can lead to a fix. If there was another trait which granted us more healing in the empty master slot (or a defensive boon like protection), then your troubles might be over.

That, or we switch the positions of EA and driven fortitude, and then double the healing that driven fortitude gives. that is also an option.

Serious Thought.5394:

snip

I haven’t bought HoT yet, maybe I never will. So, maybe you’re right when it comes to DD.
And someone already said it a while back which took me quite some time to understand: It isn’t thief, its the other classes. They dish out too much damage, they have too many invulnerabilities, they have too much passive stuff applied to them.
The problem is a bit more complex though, I said it many times before ankitten ot afraid to bore all of you and say it again; I’ve been soldiers before the introduction of ferocity, thieves couldn’t “one shot” me (I was a noob at that time, so I don’t really know if it was CnD+ BS or just BS), if I was running around in my valk gear they could. Still I was able to defend myself successfully with my soldier’s gear in 1vs1s, might have been even better if I hadn’t been a noob. I have been able to run in a zerg. With ferocity I felt as if the only 2 viable power gears were valk and zerker. Now we would have to go uber-zerker to compensate for the power creep of the other classes as they’ve gotten tankier and dish out insane damage, while we’ve gotten glassier but can’t go further than zerker = do more damage.
The introduction of ferocity halted the power creep and I have to say the fights the last 1,5 years were enjoyable. They can’t bring in another “ferocity-patch” as that would be the final nail for thieves.
So maybe they should try to figure out how the crit damage/crit chance and ferocity eras worked and find a balanced based on that as it would be kind of nice to be able to wear soldier’s again and also nice to be a frontline thief again (although I am but I have to get out of the fight all the time).

If I wanted to record some gameplay and post it on youtube, what would be good software? Is fraps worth the time? In the mood to show people Daredevil is actually very powerful, I just don’t know how or with what I can upload a video. Anywho, thanks to any answers on that.

I don’t think merging EA with DF will ever happen because EA is too good to be a minor.

I agree on the whole idea tho, Thief is nowhnere near as bad as people are making it to be. We’re very good at what we do, and a slight push into a very few things would be enough to ease the complaints.

The complete absence of protection access is something that was probably a design choice at launch which should be re-evaluated. Maybe reworking acrobatics so its less based on vigor and more on protection access.

Protection on heal instead of vigor ? Stability on dodge instead of vigor ? ( that’s a scrapper trait already sadly )
Just throwing out ideas here, but there’s potential.

Serious Thought.5394:

If I wanted to record some gameplay and post it on youtube, what would be good software? Is fraps worth the time? In the mood to show people Daredevil is actually very powerful, I just don’t know how or with what I can upload a video. Anywho, thanks to any answers on that.

If you have an Nvidia graphics card, see if you can get Shadowplay. It’s a very good recording software.

Serious Thought.5394:

Thief doesn’t need too much. I’m mind boggled really with what I saw when I played this spec properly (not build properly, because there is no “single, best meta proper build” ever- contrary to popular belief). We aren’t weak in damage, and we aren’t hurting in our engage/disengage department. We are hurting in our damage mitigation- we have low condi cleanse and 0 methods to obtain protection (and two long icd traits to get weakness along with shortbow for a combo field costing 7 initiative for 2 seconds or so).

I took this away: If our health portioning increased to what we have with marauder for baseline (so, berserker ammy has current marauder ammy hp) we’d be in a far better place. Condi clear in stealth is powerful, and EA is powerful. Along with our evades/blinds (depending on your preferred build ofc) you’d be very capable come HoT. I’ve been dueling/assassinating reapers, chronomancers, revenants, berserkers…you name it (minus scrapper cuz…well.. block+damage is just broken stupid). All we need are the hp boost and for the minor trait DF to get EA merged (and replace that trait with something else- I’d say landing consecutive blows grants a stun? or perhaps another stunbreaker not in acrobatics?)

tl;dr- Thief is actually very close to fine atm, which surprises even me (and I freaked out). If our hp increased so Berserker amulet gave the same hp as Marauder, and if Driven Fortitude merged with Escapist Absolution as the Master Minor trait in Daredevil we’d be in a rather fine place.

Ok, I’m ready. Bomb and flame this thread because I have to be wrong, lying, or stupid. My body…er… ego is ready !!!!

Completely agree. The difference between playing a thief and playing the other classes is just how many mitigation and hard counters to damage there are available to them vrs thieves. It wouldn’t take much to give the thief a lot more viability, but it really feels like they are terrified of giving thieves anything more then stealth and dodge.

alchemyst.2165:

Serious Thought.5394:

If I wanted to record some gameplay and post it on youtube, what would be good software? Is fraps worth the time? In the mood to show people Daredevil is actually very powerful, I just don’t know how or with what I can upload a video. Anywho, thanks to any answers on that.

If you have an Nvidia graphics card, see if you can get Shadowplay. It’s a very good recording software.

Seems I don’t. Any chance it will still work? Or is there another program I can look for?

If you run an AMD graphics card, use “AMD Gaming Evolved”, which is basically the same recording stuff for AMD cards, and it’s also free. Gaming Evolved and ShadowPlay should always be first choice over recording tools like Fraps/Bandicam nowadays, since they use your GPU instead of CPU to record gameplay – and that’s a lot faster. Plus, Fraps/Bandicam cost money.

What if I have factory >.<?

Nocta.5274:

I don’t think merging EA with DF will ever happen because EA is too good to be a minor.

I agree on the whole idea tho, Thief is nowhnere near as bad as people are making it to be. We’re very good at what we do, and a slight push into a very few things would be enough to ease the complaints.

The complete absence of protection access is something that was probably a design choice at launch which should be re-evaluated. Maybe reworking acrobatics so its less based on vigor and more on protection access.

Protection on heal instead of vigor ? Stability on dodge instead of vigor ? ( that’s a scrapper trait already sadly )
Just throwing out ideas here, but there’s potential.

They could just replace it. Do you know why no one picks Concealed Defeat? No that the brilliant “I’m here” downed trait but because it’s competing with SE even if wrongly nerfed EA being a major means two never used traits don’t mention PvE it is flawed anyway.

On your suggestions to Acro what wasn’t that something they did with DD? Why change a dodge based line to create another dodge based line? “Kind” of lazy and cheap but it does make it easier to balance. I agree some exaggerations were made but no “pushes” were ever mentioned or hinted.

Serious Thought.5394:

alchemyst.2165:

Serious Thought.5394:

If I wanted to record some gameplay and post it on youtube, what would be good software? Is fraps worth the time? In the mood to show people Daredevil is actually very powerful, I just don’t know how or with what I can upload a video. Anywho, thanks to any answers on that.

If you have an Nvidia graphics card, see if you can get Shadowplay. It’s a very good recording software.

Seems I don’t. Any chance it will still work? Or is there another program I can look for?

Nope. Shadowplay works with the hardware itself, so not having the right card for it will strictly not work at all.

Fraps is good, but not free, and can get costly after a while. Depends on how much you want to record. Dxtory is pretty much the best free one, and one of the most comprehensive ones out there in general, although it takes some time to fiddle with the options correctly due to how extensive it is. Do make sure you’re using a fairly low-space codec, though, as the high-quality ones can take up several gigs of space per minute of recording. I’d also suggest you have some kind of dedicated drive or partition for video as to prevent accidentally filling yours up.

I think bandicam has a decent free recorder as well that requires minimal setup? I know next to nothing about it, though.

I think you’re able to record with Open Broadcaster Software (Pretty sure that’s the name) its free but it takes some setting up.

Nocta.5274:

I don’t think merging EA with DF will ever happen because EA is too good to be a minor.

I agree on the whole idea tho, Thief is nowhnere near as bad as people are making it to be. We’re very good at what we do, and a slight push into a very few things would be enough to ease the complaints.

The complete absence of protection access is something that was probably a design choice at launch which should be re-evaluated. Maybe reworking acrobatics so its less based on vigor and more on protection access.

Protection on heal instead of vigor ? Stability on dodge instead of vigor ? ( that’s a scrapper trait already sadly )
Just throwing out ideas here, but there’s potential.

This actually deserves mention. Thieves were reworked awhile ago to be able to get protection. With the introduction of boon hate came the ability to steal boons, and the main way for thieves to do this was flanking strike. Now split into larcenous strike, though.

Boon stealing has been hit several times since then. First it was nerfing the boons stolen on flanking strike to 1. Second was splitting flanking strike into two skills, with larcenous strike stealing the boon. Third was increasing the overall initiative cost of the chain to 5 instead of 4. Fourth and finally was the butchering of the acrobatics line, which removed all of the previous benefits and replaced them with utter crap.

Currently, the only boon stealing thieves have is on Bountiful Theft. The fall of S/D has means a two-fold hit, in that we are both subjected to stability and protection, and can no longer access it. I’m not a fan of just giving thieves stability or protection, but I am all for giving us more boon stealing. Given that Acrobatics might as well not exist at this point, it is the perfect place to add boon stealing. Just pick any trait to replace; they’re all garbage anyway.