Guild Wars 2

I was looking at the damage on GW2 Editor. 3rd Auto Attack: Lotus Strike: (no attributes) 391 damage
Backstab: (from the back, no attributes) 852.
When an auto attack deals slightly less then half the damage of a “powerful massive damage” tricky to pull off attack, something must be wrong. Is GW2 editor glitched?

PS: I don’t use backstab AT ALL. I was planning to, which was why I found it.

You’re not really seeing scaling with those numbers, so backstab will perform much better with more power/ferocity/etc. However, it’s not the huge burst that it used to be, primarily due to the power creep that happened with HoT and the dps boost that auto attacks received a few months back.

Look at it this way. Adding a single piece of body armor that increase the power by 45 (soldier), Lotus Strike damage increased by 17 while Backstab increased by 39.

With a full set of soldier gear, Lotus Strike increased by 163 while Backstab increased by 358.

yeah backstab isn’t worth going out of your way to use

It could use a boost, but it’s still better than autos and you can still surprise burst with it. Considering the setup it requires, though, it should hit harder or at least grant might.

It was and still is a big deal.

Everything else is just so power-creeped that it doesn’t seem to be a big deal anymore.

Average backstab hits for 3k in pvp. AA is way better simply because in short amount of time you do more dmg and it requires 0 set up.

I don’t think backstab needs dmg buff (we would just nuke each other too fast, lready do anyway) but it should be able to deal with defensive powercreep (e.g. ignore it) that was introduced with HoT (blocks, perma prot, passive dmg redux etc.).

Dagger is literally all about porting to a target and auto-attacking them to death now because 1) the auto-attack does ridiculous damage now and 2) positioning yourself to land consecutive backstabs in WvW/PvP mostly just sees you dying to myriad high damage cleave/AoE. It’s sad that this is has happened to the class, but these are just the lingering consequences of HoT.

Backstab+Steal and your current meta thief/necro/mesmer is at 50% health. What more do you want?

Simonoly.4352:

Dagger is literally all about porting to a target and auto-attacking them to death now because 1) the auto-attack does ridiculous damage now and 2) positioning yourself to land consecutive backstabs in WvW/PvP mostly just sees you dying to myriad high damage cleave/AoE. It’s sad that this is has happened to the class, but these are just the lingering consequences of HoT.

Yeah this. I still backstab when target isn’t paying attention but easier most of the time to just shadow shot or steal + aa and it leaves you more initiative. Soft targets go down fast anyway and the tanky ones don’t really feel much from the backstab…require some peeling blocks/invuln procs/etc.

When I do land a backstab interrupt with dual sigil procs + pulmonary impact it’s crazy nice and will 1 shot some squishies. Just highly situational.

here’s an opinion on bs from someone who’s played thief since beta, and d/p for almost 2 years. BS is still really strong depending on the build you use. currently most people run the dash dodge for the chill/cripple clear, and mobility. (I personally prefer bound for the extra dmg/utility) with the dash dodge you’ll probably run scholar runes and have around a 60% chance to crit with it. a critical bs will hit 5-8.5k depending on who you’re hitting. A non critical bs will hit 2-3.5k which isn’t really worth it with lotus strike hits 2-3k. NOW if you are running bound you should be running rune of the daredevil. which guarantees a crit after a dodge. your burst combo now become basi venom (if you have it), Pistol 5, dodge, steal, bs. all these attacks should hit at once dealing a 14-18k burst (assuming your also running impact disruption which you should be) this is because the daredevil rune guarantees the bs will crit and ensure you get the 5-8.5k your looking for (usually hit 7k’s on average)with this burst if you pick your target right and time it you can insta down anyone with your initial burst. which is kittening brilliant imho.

Guardian here. Used to like dueling people before HoT. I’d do ridiculous things to try to keep from getting back stabbed. Stand with my back to a wall. Turn frequently. Dodge at odd times.

…I don’t even worry about those in fights anymore. It’s the 10k Vault I watch out for

Sorry if that’s a buzz kill for ya, but yeah I literally don’t even think about BS when fighting theives now because of this crazy powercreep

Silhouette.5631:

Guardian here. Used to like dueling people before HoT. I’d do ridiculous things to try to keep from getting back stabbed. Stand with my back to a wall. Turn frequently. Dodge at odd times.

…I don’t even worry about those in fights anymore. It’s the 10k Vault I watch out for

Sorry if that’s a buzz kill for ya, but yeah I literally don’t even think about BS when fighting theives now because of this crazy powercreep

Core Guard/Thief matchup was fun. It was a test of the Guard’s capability of keeping tabs on the thief/learning how the thief plays to do well, and the thief’s to keep distance and engage when the moment was opportune and try to blow the guard up.

Right now it’s just not really fun as DH counters core thief and DD counters core guard, and DH/DD fights are basically who runs out of gas spamming their abilities first.

The coefficient is much better with Backstab. The average damage with 2500 power, 50 percent crit chance, 200% crit magnitude against 2000 armor:

Lotus Strike = 2k-ish

Back Stab = 4.2k-ish

Backstab will clock more than twice as hard as Lotus Strike. That is solid damage for a skill that uses no initiative and requires minimal setup. Keep in mind this is average. On a crit Back Stab will hit for over 6k.