Guild Wars 2

Uninstall. Seriously. There is no place on a team for a condi thief, yet there are players who show up (always solo Q because nobody wants to play with them) and play it like it’s a sensible thing to do. Other builds have better condi pressure and/or can spike targets faster. It is far inferior to D/P in teamplay and it takes way too long to 1v1 somebody. And in fact many builds (any ele, meta scrapper, Meditrapper and symbolic DH, condi necro, condi mesmer, any warrior, condi rev, probably others) directly counter condi thief and cannot be beaten by it. It is inferior, and you will not progress past silver unless your teammates carry you.

Oh sweetie. Would you like some caramel with your salt? Seriously. It’s a just a game. He’s playing a class that doesn’t have a low “skill floor” as Evan calls it and is just trying to get by in a setting in which most people will tell him to play anything except thief… No matter the build.

You must be in bronze if you find people telling you not to play thief. It’s a great high-impact class… when you’re playing D/P. Even some staff thieves are useful thanks to the cleave. But not condi thief.

I played vs. a condi thief in ranked, he did end up killing our lord with evade spam, but dismal at any other place on the map. I countered him with s/d (yes – sword / dagger). #2 > CnD > Stealth attack and sometime after this they died, god forbid near anyone on my team.

The weakness is: you cant be immob’d, stun, or caught outside your evade frames – at all. Works against mindless ability spam, not against someone who’s specifically watching for the end of your evades.

I’m stuck in silver hell. I play d/p. You play one of four classes or they freak and tell you to kill yourself. If shadowstep and impact strike are on cooldown… I’m not stopping when there are still enemies up… Because mobility is all we have left as a class… So I’m told to uninstall. If we lose… It’s always the thief’s fault even even though he’s the only one who didn’t spend the entire match running into 1v4/5 at mid and expecting a different result each time.

Try playing against a good condi thief.

saerni.2584:

Try playing against a good condi thief.

Yeah I did lol. Ever heard of resistance? I waited for him to finish hopping around, CCed, and killed. They’re all offense, but there’s no variety in their offense, making them highly predictable.

Just to be clear, I’m not hating on the build. I’m hating on the people who play it in ranked matches.

The same thing can be said of any build. Moreso on thief because to change between most of the decent builds is a trait or two change. Thief is all offense. We always have been. We used to be the number one offense class back I. The long long ago. To balance it we’ve never had defense worth diddly. Not every one wants to play a low skill floor class. Don’t hate because of it.

Ever heard of boonstrip/steal?

To be actually clear:

A condi thief running Rending Shade will destroy warriors who over rely on resistance.

saerni.2584:

To be actually clear:

A condi thief running Rending Shade will destroy warriors who over rely on resistance.

Oh my god is this even a serious argument? Yes, if the condi thief is running D/D Viper then yes they might actually make use of backstab, in which case Rending Shade would actually be useful. But this assumes that they’re running Shadow Arts, which means they have to either drop Acrobatics or Trickery. Likely? I think not, unless they’re an idiot, in which case let’s go back to my main point: condi thief is not viable and neither are those who play it.

Huskyboy.1053:

saerni.2584:

To be actually clear:

A condi thief running Rending Shade will destroy warriors who over rely on resistance.

Oh my god is this even a serious argument? Yes, if the condi thief is running D/D Viper then yes they might actually make use of backstab, in which case Rending Shade would actually be useful. But this assumes that they’re running Shadow Arts, which means they have to either drop Acrobatics or Trickery. Likely? I think not, unless they’re an idiot, in which case let’s go back to my main point: condi thief is not viable and neither are those who play it.

You know there is more than just D/D Condi right? The P/D makes better use of Shadowarts.

yeah i do not think d/d version can support shadow arts o.o

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Huskyboy.1053:

saerni.2584:

To be actually clear:

A condi thief running Rending Shade will destroy warriors who over rely on resistance.

Oh my god is this even a serious argument? Yes, if the condi thief is running D/D Viper then yes they might actually make use of backstab, in which case Rending Shade would actually be useful. But this assumes that they’re running Shadow Arts, which means they have to either drop Acrobatics or Trickery. Likely? I think not, unless they’re an idiot, in which case let’s go back to my main point: condi thief is not viable and neither are those who play it.

You know there is more than just D/D Condi right? The P/D makes better use of Shadowarts.

Fair point. Another build that you wouldn’t take into ranked, but yes it does exist and is used.

Huskyboy.1053:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Huskyboy.1053:

saerni.2584:

To be actually clear:

A condi thief running Rending Shade will destroy warriors who over rely on resistance.

Oh my god is this even a serious argument? Yes, if the condi thief is running D/D Viper then yes they might actually make use of backstab, in which case Rending Shade would actually be useful. But this assumes that they’re running Shadow Arts, which means they have to either drop Acrobatics or Trickery. Likely? I think not, unless they’re an idiot, in which case let’s go back to my main point: condi thief is not viable and neither are those who play it.

You know there is more than just D/D Condi right? The P/D makes better use of Shadowarts.

Fair point. Another build that you wouldn’t take into ranked, but yes it does exist and is used.

You would take it depending on enemy comp, if I ever see 2+ DH on enemy team I sure as hell swap to P/P because DH are fodder to that Build, wouldn’t use it normally or against other Comps. The same could be said about P/D vs a Warrior heavy team and so on.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Huskyboy.1053:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Huskyboy.1053:

saerni.2584:

To be actually clear:

A condi thief running Rending Shade will destroy warriors who over rely on resistance.

Oh my god is this even a serious argument? Yes, if the condi thief is running D/D Viper then yes they might actually make use of backstab, in which case Rending Shade would actually be useful. But this assumes that they’re running Shadow Arts, which means they have to either drop Acrobatics or Trickery. Likely? I think not, unless they’re an idiot, in which case let’s go back to my main point: condi thief is not viable and neither are those who play it.

You know there is more than just D/D Condi right? The P/D makes better use of Shadowarts.

Fair point. Another build that you wouldn’t take into ranked, but yes it does exist and is used.

You would take it depending on enemy comp, if I ever see 2+ DH on enemy team I sure as hell swap to P/P because DH are fodder to that Build, wouldn’t use it normally or against other Comps. The same could be said about P/D vs a Warrior heavy team and so on.

No, I wouldn’t do that. Rather than change to a highly specialized build like P/P which is inferior to D/P, I would change toons. You say a DH heavy team? I’ll get my duo partner to play necro, ele or engi, and I’ll play the complement to that. You’re holding back your team by switching to a build that has one use case. Thief’s job is not and never will be to kill a specific person on the other team, it’s to be the most mobile and the most sneaky, and use those advantages for decaps and backcaps, and of course to burst people down in node fights when necessary. Seriously, why spend your time learning how to play P/P or P/D when you could just learn better counters to those classes? Like for example I could learn how to play power rev to counter condi warr, since technically it counter condi warr, but why would I learn power rev for that purpose? Instead I could play an ele bunker or scrapper, which gives me far more utility to the team and a greater margin for error. I can’t kill the warrior alone on an ele bunker, but that role is sure as hell more useful to the team than P/D. I’m talking about conquest here, not dueling.

Huskyboy.1053:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Huskyboy.1053:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Huskyboy.1053:

saerni.2584:

To be actually clear:

A condi thief running Rending Shade will destroy warriors who over rely on resistance.

Oh my god is this even a serious argument? Yes, if the condi thief is running D/D Viper then yes they might actually make use of backstab, in which case Rending Shade would actually be useful. But this assumes that they’re running Shadow Arts, which means they have to either drop Acrobatics or Trickery. Likely? I think not, unless they’re an idiot, in which case let’s go back to my main point: condi thief is not viable and neither are those who play it.

You know there is more than just D/D Condi right? The P/D makes better use of Shadowarts.

Fair point. Another build that you wouldn’t take into ranked, but yes it does exist and is used.

You would take it depending on enemy comp, if I ever see 2+ DH on enemy team I sure as hell swap to P/P because DH are fodder to that Build, wouldn’t use it normally or against other Comps. The same could be said about P/D vs a Warrior heavy team and so on.

No, I wouldn’t do that. Rather than change to a highly specialized build like P/P which is inferior to D/P, I would change toons. You say a DH heavy team? I’ll get my duo partner to play necro, ele or engi, and I’ll play the complement to that. You’re holding back your team by switching to a build that has one use case. Thief’s job is not and never will be to kill a specific person on the other team, it’s to be the most mobile and the most sneaky, and use those advantages for decaps and backcaps, and of course to burst people down in node fights when necessary. Seriously, why spend your time learning how to play P/P or P/D when you could just learn better counters to those classes? Like for example I could learn how to play power rev to counter condi warr, since technically it counter condi warr, but why would I learn power rev for that purpose? Instead I could play an ele bunker or scrapper, which gives me far more utility to the team and a greater margin for error. I can’t kill the warrior alone on an ele bunker, but that role is sure as hell more useful to the team than P/D. I’m talking about conquest here, not dueling.

There is no need for me to learn to play P/P, I have practiced every weapon set and learned what I have needed to from them(perks of playing since launch).

On a DH heavy team I know a few things they have very low mobility compared to me, I don’t need to be sneaky sneaky and I can still abuse stealth if need be. With a DH heavy team I know I can kill any DH approaching and have them downed as soon as they hit the Node. It still excels at high burst and +1 team fights. You always choose the best tools for the situation and sometimes I don’t like swapping professions and I hav mainly Solo Queued this season normally no one on to complement my alt classes and so on.

Is P/P good for high Tier play? Probably not but I am not in High Tier, I adjust my strategy/Playstyle to what I am facing and currently in mid Gold most people besides Eles die to P/P.

Really going to need to question the above; if you’re playing thief, you’re doing it for the decap/+1 potential, which is pretty much exclusive to the profession in such competitive environments via shortbow, making weapon discussion on that level almost irrelevant; if you’re going to reroll, it should be done solely because there are multiple thieves and because someone’s not budging on switching.

Further, P/P aggressively hard-counters DH. If the thief plays reasonably well, the DH has almost no means of dealing with it at all.

D/P’s the best build in general and is the best pro-league competitive build as a consequence since it can deal with a plethora of situations and has great stealth and therefore +1 potential on top of good hard engage via teleports and disuption,, but adapting one’s build to specific situations can make fights a lot easier if the opposing team stacks a given profession.

I struggle to imagine you actually having fought a P/D thief as a warrior. If you had you might have a different opinion.

Huskyboy.1053:

Uninstall. Seriously. There is no place on a team for a condi thief, yet there are players who show up (always solo Q because nobody wants to play with them) and play it like it’s a sensible thing to do. Other builds have better condi pressure and/or can spike targets faster. It is far inferior to D/P in teamplay and it takes way too long to 1v1 somebody. And in fact many builds (any ele, meta scrapper, Meditrapper and symbolic DH, condi necro, condi mesmer, any warrior, condi rev, probably others) directly counter condi thief and cannot be beaten by it. It is inferior, and you will not progress past silver unless your teammates carry you.

You sir, are a silly fish.

Condi Thieves, of which there are many have every right and a very important place in Ranked PvP. Just because you don’t understand how to utilize your team’s thief, means jack-all to us.

• When a thief gets more objective neutralizer points than you get objective captures, they are not the problem, YOU are.

• When a thief ganks the enemy’s main support on his way through mid and you loose 4v3. he his not the problem YOU Are.

• every time a thief puts a target up on an enemy and you ignore it, YOU are the problem

• every time a Gingerbread Man thief contests a point 3v1 for 30 seconds and you can’t cap even one point. YOU are the problem

• every time a thief decaps two points before either can be recaptured by either team. YOU are the problem because they just gave you the time you needed to cap two points!

• every time a thief fake rushes a lord, and three of the enemy time leave points to stop him, and you can’t at least DECAP a point, YOU are the problem

• every time a thief takes the time to break down the door early in the match, and when you finally rush lord you for some reason take down the OTHER door intead of going through the open one…YOU are the problem….and stupid

• every time the thief kills the same two players three times before they can get to a point, and you can’;t seem to cap a point. you are the problem

• If a thief is not performing their role well, fails to decap points, fails to take beasts, or fail’s to gank a low enemy, or a Gingerbread man thief fails to contest mid for 30 seconds while his team gets their to save it, THEY are the problem. But it has nothing to do with the build. (except gingerbread man, we are the only thieves that can contest mid solo)

emkelly.2371:

Huskyboy.1053:

Uninstall. Seriously. There is no place on a team for a condi thief, yet there are players who show up (always solo Q because nobody wants to play with them) and play it like it’s a sensible thing to do. Other builds have better condi pressure and/or can spike targets faster. It is far inferior to D/P in teamplay and it takes way too long to 1v1 somebody. And in fact many builds (any ele, meta scrapper, Meditrapper and symbolic DH, condi necro, condi mesmer, any warrior, condi rev, probably others) directly counter condi thief and cannot be beaten by it. It is inferior, and you will not progress past silver unless your teammates carry you.

You sir, are a silly fish.

Condi Thieves, of which there are many have every right and a very important place in Ranked PvP. Just because you don’t understand how to utilize your team’s thief, means jack-all to us.

• When a thief gets more objective neutralizer points than you get objective captures, they are not the problem, YOU are.

• When a thief ganks the enemy’s main support on his way through mid and you loose 4v3. he his not the problem YOU Are.

• every time a thief puts a target up on an enemy and you ignore it, YOU are the problem

• every time a Gingerbread Man thief contests a point 3v1 for 30 seconds and you can’t cap even one point. YOU are the problem

• every time a thief decaps two points before either can be recaptured by either team. YOU are the problem because they just gave you the time you needed to cap two points!

• every time a thief fake rushes a lord, and three of the enemy time leave points to stop him, and you can’t at least DECAP a point, YOU are the problem

• every time a thief takes the time to break down the door early in the match, and when you finally rush lord you for some reason take down the OTHER door intead of going through the open one…YOU are the problem….and stupid

• every time the thief kills the same two players three times before they can get to a point, and you can’;t seem to cap a point. you are the problem

• If a thief is not performing their role well, fails to decap points, fails to take beasts, or fail’s to gank a low enemy, or a Gingerbread man thief fails to contest mid for 30 seconds while his team gets their to save it, THEY are the problem. But it has nothing to do with the build. (except gingerbread man, we are the only thieves that can contest mid solo)

Thanks, this gave me a laugh. Good stuff. So firstly, can you find me a top-rated player who wastes their time playing condi thief? I can think of two top thieves, Sindrener and Magic Toker. Feel free to delve through their Twitch streams to find them playing that in a tournament. But let’s not just talk ESL 5-man level play, Sindrener plays D/P everyday in ranked and unranked. Why? Because it’s the best build at what it does, juking, stealthing, and spiking.

Sure, this Gingerbread man build sounds great, who doesn’t want a build that can 1v3? The answer is, people who want a build that directly helps its teammates. Sure, in low-level play there might actually be 3 players stupid enough to keep hacking away at a thief they can’t kill. But even a player that’s been pvping for 2-3 months will know better than to keep attacking something they can’t kill for a long time. A magi ele can also 1v3 for a while, but they additionally have plenty of healing power and cleansing that can actually help in a node fight. Not really sure a thief will ever be bringing that kind of utility to the table.

Condi thieves do have an important place in ranked pvp: the losing team. When played well, sure, it can be effective. But there are other builds for thief that are superior for juking, stealth, and spike damage. And there are other builds on other professions that provide better condi damage, even condi engi is preferable since it has a stronger condi burst. There’s really no evidence that condi thief is great in any way or that it’s somehow it’s a better pick than a magi ele, or a condi engi/rev/warrior/mesmer. Even burn guard is probably better after its recent buffs. You can keep telling yourself that it has a “important place in Ranked PvP” but really, how many thieves in the top 250 right now got there maining condi thief? I’ll leave you to do the math.

Also, for the record, most of the useful things you mention thieves doing aren’t really specific to condi thief. So I’m not sure why you put those in when really things like ganking low HP enemies or breaking down doors (which don’t take condi damage) are better accomplished by a power-based thief build.

I Got to legendary on condi thief….the first season playing it. because i had team mates who know how to utilize it.

And to be clear, I’m not a pro player. guess what? 99.99% of players are not. so far your ramblings only prove two things.

1. You are an elitist pig who probably blames everyone else for your losses

2. You think that this game is something other than a game…which is just sad man, like really.

Also, for the record, most of the useful things you mention thieves doing aren’t really specific to condi thief. So I’m not sure why you put those in when really things like ganking low HP enemies or breaking down doors (which don’t take condi damage) are better accomplished by a power-based thief build.

Dude, Sinister, or even Vipers amulet does just fine at taking down doors. especially when we’re talking about early in the match.

Also, PSA to those of you who are condi thieves in ranked spvp. you guys do you. have fun, and if you are not very good at the game, just practice and enjoy yourself. its a game not life.

emkelly.2371:

I Got to legendary on condi thief….the first season playing it. because i had team mates who know how to utilize it.

And to be clear, I’m not a pro player. guess what? 99.99% of players are not. so far your ramblings only prove two things.

1. You are an elitist pig who probably blames everyone else for your losses

2. You think that this game is something other than a game…which is just sad man, like really.

Also, for the record, most of the useful things you mention thieves doing aren’t really specific to condi thief. So I’m not sure why you put those in when really things like ganking low HP enemies or breaking down doors (which don’t take condi damage) are better accomplished by a power-based thief build.

Dude, Sinister, or even Vipers amulet does just fine at taking down doors. especially when we’re talking about early in the match.

Also, PSA to those of you who are condi thieves in ranked spvp. you guys do you. have fun, and if you are not very good at the game, just practice and enjoy yourself. its a game not life.

Yeah maybe I am an elitist pig, idk, but that’s different from being wrong. Kinda lame that you enter this conversation with a personal attack rather than sticking to the facts, like explaining to me why condi thief is an intelligent choice over another class, and why it’s generally a useful choice like D/P is. One thing to play it in a very specific situation like against stacked DH, another to get to Legendary while maining it. Maybe you consider it fun to play an unoptimized build in ranked but the rest of us don’t think it’s very fun to “utilize” your build, and by that I mean carry you. Losing isn’t fun, and condi thieves are very unoptimized for the current meta, which is a far cry from Seazon 1. Note how I mentioned top 250 now, not top 250 from 11 months ago. You can play it yeah, but the rest of your team ain’t having fun working around its weaknesses.

I understand that you may enjoy it, but you’re basically trolling your team by choosing to play it. Again, I understand that you enjoy it, just as the guy who sits in HotM saying “GW2 is WoW for poor people” undoubtedly also enjoys sitting around trolling people dumb enough to take his bait. At least I can turn off map chat if I don’t want to read what he says, but I can’t trade out a condi thief on my team.

D/D condi is just a staff build that trades team fighting potential and cleave for greater ability to solo hold/contest a node longer. It can be effective until someone identifies the thief is playing condi and someone playing one of the many meta mender’s builds volunteers to handle them. In platinum and legendary, this usually happens.

ya condi thief is bad, i love it when enemy team has one its just a free win

Many sustain ele and druid builds have trouble killing anything. I can imagine a D/D condi thief would be perfectly happy holding a captured point against a sustain ele who won’t die but won’t be off fighting with his/her team at the other points.

There are a lot of kinds of condi builds. D/P has a condi build. P/D has a condi build. D/D has an infamous condi build. Are they as strong as other builds? Maybe not, but that argument is the same as saying what isn’t “in meta” should never be played. That brings a lot of assumptions into play—like what is actually the strongest.

Take D/P. Here is a set “in meta.” So people practice to get good with the set. Because people practice with it, and it has a high skill ceiling, they gain a lot of skill using it. Now does that mean another set would be inferior if they switched? Of course! Because they have a lot of experience and muscle memory built up on D/P. And none or relatively little on the weapon set they switched to.

saerni.2584:

Many sustain ele and druid builds have trouble killing anything. I can imagine a D/D condi thief would be perfectly happy holding a captured point against a sustain ele who won’t die but won’t be off fighting with his/her team at the other points.

In theory, yes. In practice, you would need A) the opposing team to allow you to full cap their home node for this to happen, and for their team support to rotate to it rather than someone whose class and build is better suited for this role. This is allowed less and less as level of play rises. It’s really easy for other players to keep track of a thief with no stealth or dash.

What happens to the D/D condi players is they play the build, win a TON of games against newer players, and raise their MMR. Once this happens, they begin to play games where their build no longer works well and they’re not practiced enough with the builds that function better against good players (such as D/P dash, to a lesser extent: Staff bound, and to much a lesser extent: D/P bound). D/D condi is a trap! It gets people so many easy wins but puts a glass ceiling on their capability of progressing to higher tiers of skill. Those short term benefits of carrying games against newer players just aren’t worth it.

evade frames? but what if my condi thief is p/d?

reikken.4961:

evade frames? but what if my condi thief is p/d?

Gotta evade harder m8

People can play what they want, in any game mode they want.

Huskyboy.1053:

Uninstall. Seriously. There is no place on a team for a condi thief, yet there are players who show up (always solo Q because nobody wants to play with them) and play it like it’s a sensible thing to do. Other builds have better condi pressure and/or can spike targets faster. It is far inferior to D/P in teamplay and it takes way too long to 1v1 somebody. And in fact many builds (any ele, meta scrapper, Meditrapper and symbolic DH, condi necro, condi mesmer, any warrior, condi rev, probably others) directly counter condi thief and cannot be beaten by it. It is inferior, and you will not progress past silver unless your teammates carry you.

So what is your problem? The problem is not the class(es) but the people who always whine about everything bcz their ego is bigger than this planet!
Get life and think about yourself for a second idiot!

redcore.3940:

So what is your problem? The problem is not the class(es) but the people who always whine about everything bcz their ego is bigger than this planet!
Get life and think about yourself for a second idiot!

Hey thanks for asking, I appreciate the question. I’ve basically already answered this multiple times over, but the general answer is that condi thief does what other builds and professions do, but worse. This thread is not about the Thief class, as you said, but about Thief condi builds, as the thread’s title indicates. Here’s my more comprehensive answer, please let me know if you have any more questions (after you’ve actually read through the thread):

Huskyboy.1053:

Thanks, this gave me a laugh. Good stuff. So firstly, can you find me a top-rated player who wastes their time playing condi thief? I can think of two top thieves, Sindrener and Magic Toker. Feel free to delve through their Twitch streams to find them playing that in a tournament. But let’s not just talk ESL 5-man level play, Sindrener plays D/P everyday in ranked and unranked. Why? Because it’s the best build at what it does, juking, stealthing, and spiking.

Sure, this Gingerbread man build sounds great, who doesn’t want a build that can 1v3? The answer is, people who want a build that directly helps its teammates. Sure, in low-level play there might actually be 3 players stupid enough to keep hacking away at a thief they can’t kill. But even a player that’s been pvping for 2-3 months will know better than to keep attacking something they can’t kill for a long time. A magi ele can also 1v3 for a while, but they additionally have plenty of healing power and cleansing that can actually help in a node fight. Not really sure a thief will ever be bringing that kind of utility to the table.

Condi thieves do have an important place in ranked pvp: the losing team. When played well, sure, it can be effective. But there are other builds for thief that are superior for juking, stealth, and spike damage. And there are other builds on other professions that provide better condi damage, even condi engi is preferable since it has a stronger condi burst. There’s really no evidence that condi thief is great in any way or that it’s somehow it’s a better pick than a magi ele, or a condi engi/rev/warrior/mesmer. Even burn guard is probably better after its recent buffs. You can keep telling yourself that it has a “important place in Ranked PvP” but really, how many thieves in the top 250 right now got there maining condi thief? I’ll leave you to do the math.

Also, for the record, most of the useful things you mention thieves doing aren’t really specific to condi thief. So I’m not sure why you put those in when really things like ganking low HP enemies or breaking down doors (which don’t take condi damage) are better accomplished by a power-based thief build.

Hot Boy.7138:

People can play what they want, in any game mode they want.

Not if we’re trying to win against the game’s better players consistently.

Husky, even though you’re right about the limitations with condi thief builds, people are going to keep disagreeing with you as long as you talk to them like a prick. If your point is good (and it is), you don’t need to use insults to attempt to force it on people.

If you honestly believe that condi thief is underpowered—which needs some specificity as to what weaponset you are talking about—then the question becomes how would you buff it in order to make it strong enough to compete?

Just coming here to attack players who want to compete with it, and attacking us for trying to compete with it, isn’t productive.

Take a build that runs P/D. They doubled the torment on Shadowstrike. Is this not enough or is that fine? Should we buff the condition output or durations? Is Sneak Attack’s duration too short in sPvP? Or is the problem that there isn’t enough poison built into the offhand dagger set (increasing total condition potential application). Are venoms, which are what I used to burst condition damage, still underpowered and need buffs? Is it merely the damage that needs a buff or another decrease in the cooldown?

Personally, I think the bleed damage/duration on Sneak Attack is oddly small compared to the PvE and WvW variants. That could be buffed significantly without becoming overpowered in the gamemode. The reason is the present trend in HoT condition clears that require a player to stop attacking in order for the conditions to not be cleared (think Diamond Skin or Escapist’s Absolution or Hunter’s Fortification or Adaptive Armor—not a clear but 20% reduction when struck—or (special mention) Druidic Clarity which is just a massive condi clear once they have done enough damage/healing on a short timer).

Rather than a tone adjustment I think you need to make productive suggestions if you want people to listen to you.

Also, Like i said, i got to legendary on condi thief when I was new to the class as a whole. I never had a problem. I lost matches of course, everyone looses a match now and then, but I for the most part had a fairly easy time of it. I’m not saying condi thief is better than power, but if i want to play condi thief, dad gomnit I’m going to play it. if you want a team comp exactly how you want it then run in a premade group and leave your opinions at the door. You talk to people like a jerk, you get spoken to like a jerk.

saerni.2584:

If you honestly believe that condi thief is underpowered—which needs some specificity as to what weaponset you are talking about—then the question becomes how would you buff it in order to make it strong enough to compete?

Just coming here to attack players who want to compete with it, and attacking us for trying to compete with it, isn’t productive.

Take a build that runs P/D. They doubled the torment on Shadowstrike. Is this not enough or is that fine? Should we buff the condition output or durations? Is Sneak Attack’s duration too short in sPvP? Or is the problem that there isn’t enough poison built into the offhand dagger set (increasing total condition potential application). Are venoms, which are what I used to burst condition damage, still underpowered and need buffs? Is it merely the damage that needs a buff or another decrease in the cooldown?

Personally, I think the bleed damage/duration on Sneak Attack is oddly small compared to the PvE and WvW variants. That could be buffed significantly without becoming overpowered in the gamemode. The reason is the present trend in HoT condition clears that require a player to stop attacking in order for the conditions to not be cleared (think Diamond Skin or Escapist’s Absolution or Hunter’s Fortification or Adaptive Armor—not a clear but 20% reduction when struck—or (special mention) Druidic Clarity which is just a massive condi clear once they have done enough damage/healing on a short timer).

Rather than a tone adjustment I think you need to make productive suggestions if you want people to listen to you.

This thread is a productive suggestion: don’t play condi thief in ranked. However, if you’re looking for productive suggestions for Devs to look at, increase thieves’ access to burning and confusion. DoT builds do not favor thieves, as they’re not built for sustain, yet thieves have access mostly to bleed and torment, the latter of which is only significantly dangerous to nubs when it’s stacked up to 8 or more stacks. 4 stacks does not impress me, even without cleansing it’s only going to do about 3k damage max. Because thief has poor options for sustain, they need condi spikes the same way power thieves need direct damage spikes.

But that is not what this thread is for. As it is right now it’s an inferior way of doing damage, and with shortbow it only ties D/P for decap potential. Has less stealth, unless you’re running offhand pistol and Bound (meaning less mobility). And finally, it’s a poor option for bunkering compared to ele or druid, and while a bad DH bunk might will die faster than a condi thief bunker, they can also contribute to team fights. Regardless of the weaponset, it’s never the best at what it does, ever. The productive choice is to choose something else.

How would Burning make sense for a thief? they don’t have a torch, they don’t have an elemental affinity, they don’t have magic (i mean, i guess shadowstep is magic but you know what i mean.)

Confusion, they have a 6 stack on steal. which is fairly substantial.

Honestly, the biggest problem with condi thief IMO is that a thieves condi traits are all in the wrong place. look at the thief’s trait lines and you’ll notiuce this is a huge problem with more than just condi. Everything is so far spread out that a thief cannot take advantage of their abilities without giving up more important things.

Is Condi an inferior way of doing damage? eh, probably, but it also has less counters to it. Sure, direct damage does more damage, quicker, but it is countered by everything from high HP regen, Burst heals, Blocks, and Invulnerability. not to mention that if you fail to kill with your first rotation, you have to reset.

Condi burst damage is stopped by Blocks, Condi Clears, and Resistance. Thats it. The large majority of invulnerability skills don’t stop condi by design. On top of that, Condi allows you to put pressure on an opponent and keep the pressure on while you prepare for your next burst.

My personal build is designed to take advantage of every resource a thief has to maximum effect. I like playing it, and I have had success with it.

When you play on a team who knows you and how to use you, you are far more likely to succeed. If you are having problems with players playing condi in ranked, thats your problem, not theirs. you should have played on a dedicated team who only play the “meta”.

Don’t tell people what they can and can’t play. And don’t tell people to uninstall if they don’t play the way you think they should. that is not your right as a player.

PS: Feel free to make suggestions politly. Like what build you think is superior. no one will falt you for that, and its honestly nice of you to do that, but making an entire thread just to bash players who play a build is mean spirited and honestly despicable. any respect those players may have had for your suggestions is gone because you just treated them like crap. and I’m right with them.

yes plz give thief burn anet i dream to be this strong!

emkelly.2371:

How would Burning make sense for a thief? they don’t have a torch, they don’t have an elemental affinity, they don’t have magic (i mean, i guess shadowstep is magic but you know what i mean.)

Lore is not really of interest to me nor is it relevant to a discussion about optimal builds in ranked. If you want to get into it, what is Torment really, and why do thieves have access to it? Why is it applied when I stab somebody? It’s a videogame, conditions don’t make much sense, and they don’t have to. If thieves had a burning effect on Body Shot, would it matter? To me what matters is whether the thieves on my team are playing these unoptimized condi builds. Thief condi builds could be better in the future, but the thread is about why they should not be played in ranked at this moment in time.

Confusion, they have a 6 stack on steal. which is fairly substantial.

Why not on other skills? If we’re going by what makes “sense” then I think it should be applied on the Sword stealth skill.

Honestly, the biggest problem with condi thief IMO is that a thieves condi traits are all in the wrong place. look at the thief’s trait lines and you’ll notiuce this is a huge problem with more than just condi. Everything is so far spread out that a thief cannot take advantage of their abilities without giving up more important things.

I don’t know that this is bad, but you are correct, they are very spread out. Increases to power damage are also spread between deadly arts and critical strikes, in sPvP only one of those is taken at a time.

Is Condi an inferior way of doing damage? eh, probably, but it also has less counters to it. Sure, direct damage does more damage, quicker, but it is countered by everything from high HP regen, Burst heals, Blocks, and Invulnerability. not to mention that if you fail to kill with your first rotation, you have to reset.

Condi burst damage is stopped by Blocks, Condi Clears, and Resistance. Thats it. The large majority of invulnerability skills don’t stop condi by design. On top of that, Condi allows you to put pressure on an opponent and keep the pressure on while you prepare for your next burst.

All of the things that counter power damage also counter condi application/damage, with one exception: skills which only make you immune to direct damage, such as Endure Pain. Those are different to invulns like Distortion. Warrior also has Berserker Stance so it’s not like they’re more weak to condis or anything.

People often get confused on this topic; “they’re invulned but still taking condi damage, clearly this doesn’t counter condis!” It does. They’re taking damage from condis that were applied before the invuln was activated, just like they’ve already lost health from direct damage attacks landed before the invuln. It’s the same thing, you cannot apply condis or hit with direct damage when someone is invulned. Thief’s condis are applied through attacks, just like power damage, and those attacks can miss, be blocked or be neutralized by invulnerability. A burst heal can be saved to heal after a certain amount of condi damage has been taken. Regen counteracts condis more effectively, if I have 10k health and I can regenerate 10k health in 10 seconds, it doesn’t matter to a power user. If they can deal 12k damage in 3 seconds then it doesn’t matter how much regen I have, the damage has been done and I’m dead. Since condi damage is generally dealt more slowly, it’s more effectively counteracted by regen.

When you play on a team who knows you and how to use you, you are far more likely to succeed.

Who are these teams and where can I find them? In the current ranked system you can’t rely on your team to know much of anything. I was playing D/P yesterday, in Gold 1, and was teamed with a guard who kept trying to decap far… by himself. And the worst thing is that if you watch Sindrener, Phantaram, etc’s Twitch streams you’ll see these kinds of bad rotations occurring in Platinum or Legendary too. Completely nonsensical. D/P already requires the team to allow the thief to play its role, but at least the majority of players know what D/P’s role is. Introducing a infrequently-played and inferior playstyle to a population for no real reason isn’t going to work out well with 3-4 strangers. If you’re going to do it, at least be honest about the fact that this is a choice you’re making for your own enjoyment and to the detriment of your team.

Torment is easy to understand from a lore perspective. Its a wound that opens wider as you move, causing more damage. (just saying)

The reason confusion is not applied to other skills is because it would be completely OP. pure and simple. The old perplexity Thief was nerfed for a reason, and that was just a rune. imagine if a thief had access to confusion on demand along with their other access to condi’s.

Nope. HP Regen does not counter Condi burst. no regen in the game can keep up with 5k ticks of condi. Burst heal only delays the inevitable, and a burst heal is one time per cooldown while condi just keeps ticking. so if my condies are ticking for 5k and you burst heal for 10k i’m still wining the HP game. Evades will stop a condi burst, but as a thief it is my goal to have the drop on you thereby denying your evade. the evade does not help after the fact. And invulnerability does not stop condi damage. I don’t know where you are getting your information, but you are wrong.

Evade: all attacks miss
Invulnerability: Ignore Direct Damage. Does not stop Conditions
Block: Stops any blockable attack. Unbockable attacks will still go through.

Warriors have great access to resistance, and great access to HP Regen. but not every class is the warrior.

Who are these teams and where can I find them? In the current ranked system you can’t rely on your team to know much of anything. I was playing D/P yesterday, in Gold 1, and was teamed with a guard who kept trying to decap far… by himself. And the worst thing is that if you watch Sindrener, Phantaram, etc’s Twitch streams you’ll see these kinds of bad rotations occurring in Platinum or Legendary too. Completely nonsensical. D/P already requires the team to allow the thief to play its role, but at least the majority of players know what D/P’s role is. Introducing a infrequently-played and inferior playstyle to a population for no real reason isn’t going to work out well with 3-4 strangers. If you’re going to do it, at least be honest about the fact that this is a choice you’re making for your own enjoyment and to the detriment of your team.

I cannot believe that first line was ever written. if that’s the way you think about your teams then it’s no wonder you blame everyone else for your problems. Dude, find some friends you like playing with, create a party, and queue up and develop strats for winning.

Someone like you, solo queuing and expecting people to play your way, should be playing in a premade group, not solo queuing. And if you do solo queue, you should be understanding that solo queues are not meant for players like you. get over yourself.

And here it gets personal again, making kittenumptions about what I do/don’t do. I duo quite frequently actually. That and discuss strategy, including decaps and such. Does not account for players who don’t read chat or have no intention of playing like a team. Still not sure why you’re using the phrase “premade group” because that concept is dead in ranked. It’s not even possible to play with friends, only friend. Pretty lame that you’re making statements you know to be false in order prop up your personal attacks.

I’m not going to reexplain how invulnerability works, you clearly don’t get it. Reread my explanation until you do. And your torment explanation is just a description of bleeding (why else would an open wound kill me in less than a minute?) so idk where you’re going with that. Add to your comments about the perplexity rune, that’s is just a blank “too OP” explanation that’s not actually an explanation. If the condi application is too high according to some abritrary threshold, then lower the number of stacks or duration.

And you are correct that regen alone doesn’t counter condi stacking, but it doesn’t counter power damage either. I don’t know why you keep contrasting these as if they are completely separate concepts, condi is not generally stronger than power, and in the case of thief it’s weaker.

Condi thief is just as good as Power thief as long as they decap and +1 effectively.

They are more likely to encounter lighter classes with weaker condi clear on far points because the heavies are busy pushing mid, and the heavies generally have more access to condi clear/mitigation (with the exception of revenant).

Condi damage can be less damage on paper but comes with some advantages.

If poison is part of the condi spread then heals are 33% less effective. So condi needs to do less damage to overcome healing. Also, even though condi does its damage over time, if there isn’t enough condi clear then that person will die before they have the chance to heal back up (i.e. use a healing skill or other form of reset).

Your suggestions would make me (or another condi thief) into OP gods of the field. In sPvP my opening combo right now is 16.2k damage—without counting the variable damage of the confusion I apply on steal. My suggestions would be to increase the sustained damage portion (i.e. bleed on Sneak Attack) and thereby increase the burst by roughly 2k. So the burst would go to 18ish and the sustained damage would be stronger as well. Give me burning and more confusion access and my burst will easily exceed 25-30k. That would be OP. I’m not saying I’m overly powerful now, but you do need to be careful in saying “buff condi because it sucks” when the reality is not nearly as hopeless as you seem to think.

And saying “telling players not to play is productive” is clearly wrong. It isn’t a reasonable suggestion so if no one will take your “advice” it won’t actually matter at the end of the day.

I do not think p/d condi needs burns. If that PvP uptweak to 4 torment stacks extends to wvw and pve than there a few other things to look at that can help.

1>increase the base bleed from sneak attack and the AA to 5 seconds.

2>Increase the vuln stacks off CnD to 5 stacks

3>increase vuln duration body shot to 5 seconds.

Consider making sneak attack unblockable.

saerni.2584:

Condi damage can be less damage on paper but comes with some advantages.

If poison is part of the condi spread then heals are 33% less effective. So condi needs to do less damage to overcome healing. Also, even though condi does its damage over time, if there isn’t enough condi clear then that person will die before they have the chance to heal back up (i.e. use a healing skill or other form of reset).

Your suggestions would make me (or another condi thief) into OP gods of the field. In sPvP my opening combo right now is 16.2k damage—without counting the variable damage of the confusion I apply on steal. My suggestions would be to increase the sustained damage portion (i.e. bleed on Sneak Attack) and thereby increase the burst by roughly 2k. So the burst would go to 18ish and the sustained damage would be stronger as well. Give me burning and more confusion access and my burst will easily exceed 25-30k. That would be OP. I’m not saying I’m overly powerful now, but you do need to be careful in saying “buff condi because it sucks” when the reality is not nearly as hopeless as you seem to think.

And saying “telling players not to play is productive” is clearly wrong. It isn’t a reasonable suggestion so if no one will take your “advice” it won’t actually matter at the end of the day.

What you say about poison is true, but it’s a null point when compared with D/P (which is what I’m comparing condi thieves against). Dagger AA applies 6s of poison, and you also use shortbow 4 to apply poison in certain situations. Regardless of how much damage you do with the poison it always has the -33% heal debuff, so that’s not an advantage that condi builds have against power D/P.

A large part of condi thief’s weakness is that it has access to few conditions, and condi clears get rid of all stacks of a set number of condis. Doesn’t matter if I have 20 bleed stacks, 1 condi clear gets rid of all of them. It’s a structural weakness of the build(s) that can’t be fixed by more stacks or longer durations, thieves need access to cover condis or a greater variety of non-damage condis.

Everything that I’ve said following “uninstall” has been backed by reason, so it’s entirely reasonable. You might not like my reasoning but it’s backed by facts, as well as evidence such as that no ESL thieves play condi thief. And who knows, maybe some people will see this and start playing D/P instead, we have no way of knowing. But it’s better than saying nothing and getting stuck with players on mediocre builds.

Huskyboy.1053:

saerni.2584:

Condi damage can be less damage on paper but comes with some advantages.

If poison is part of the condi spread then heals are 33% less effective. So condi needs to do less damage to overcome healing. Also, even though condi does its damage over time, if there isn’t enough condi clear then that person will die before they have the chance to heal back up (i.e. use a healing skill or other form of reset).

Your suggestions would make me (or another condi thief) into OP gods of the field. In sPvP my opening combo right now is 16.2k damage—without counting the variable damage of the confusion I apply on steal. My suggestions would be to increase the sustained damage portion (i.e. bleed on Sneak Attack) and thereby increase the burst by roughly 2k. So the burst would go to 18ish and the sustained damage would be stronger as well. Give me burning and more confusion access and my burst will easily exceed 25-30k. That would be OP. I’m not saying I’m overly powerful now, but you do need to be careful in saying “buff condi because it sucks” when the reality is not nearly as hopeless as you seem to think.

And saying “telling players not to play is productive” is clearly wrong. It isn’t a reasonable suggestion so if no one will take your “advice” it won’t actually matter at the end of the day.

What you say about poison is true, but it’s a null point when compared with D/P (which is what I’m comparing condi thieves against). Dagger AA applies 6s of poison, and you also use shortbow 4 to apply poison in certain situations. Regardless of how much damage you do with the poison it always has the -33% heal debuff, so that’s not an advantage that condi builds have against power D/P.

A large part of condi thief’s weakness is that it has access to few conditions, and condi clears get rid of all stacks of a set number of condis. Doesn’t matter if I have 20 bleed stacks, 1 condi clear gets rid of all of them. It’s a structural weakness of the build(s) that can’t be fixed by more stacks or longer durations, thieves need access to cover condis or a greater variety of non-damage condis.

Everything that I’ve said following “uninstall” has been backed by reason, so it’s entirely reasonable. You might not like my reasoning but it’s backed by facts, as well as evidence such as that no ESL thieves play condi thief. And who knows, maybe some people will see this and start playing D/P instead, we have no way of knowing. But it’s better than saying nothing and getting stuck with players on mediocre builds.

You are inaccurate when you claim Condi thief has low access to multiple conditions.

The only conditions a thief does not have easy access to are burning, taunt , fear and chill.

P/d just as example in a condition build can easily get weakness, vuln , immobilize, torment, confusion , bleed , poison cripple.

in a p/d build all of these can be applied with regularity outisde the 24 odd seconds of cooldown on the confusion and the cooldown on weakness which is a very manageable 10 seconds ( lower if they take DD and the weak on crit trait).

On a single steal a p/d thief can apply poison, bleed immobile, vuln weakness and confusion. This followed up by an easy torment app along with amble access to cripple via uncatchable or dancing dagger. the thief has plenty of cover conditions.

Venoms + Steal + Dodge (Uncatchable) + Sneak Attack + Shadowstrike =

6 stacks of poison, 5 stacks confusion, 6-8 stacks of bleeding, 8 stacks of torment (6 outside of sPvP), 6-18 seconds of cripple.

You can make that 10 stacks of confusion if you combo inside throw gunk.

saerni.2584:

Venoms + Steal + Dodge (Uncatchable) + Sneak Attack + Shadowstrike =

6 stacks of poison, 5 stacks confusion, 6-8 stacks of bleeding, 8 stacks of torment (6 outside of sPvP), 6-18 seconds of cripple.

You can make that 10 stacks of confusion if you combo inside throw gunk.

Yeah, we know. That burst is great right up until it gets cleared or the person you just bursted down gets rezzed because condi thief cleave is garbage. Power builds don’t have these limitations.

rennlc.7346:

saerni.2584:

Venoms + Steal + Dodge (Uncatchable) + Sneak Attack + Shadowstrike =

6 stacks of poison, 5 stacks confusion, 6-8 stacks of bleeding, 8 stacks of torment (6 outside of sPvP), 6-18 seconds of cripple.

You can make that 10 stacks of confusion if you combo inside throw gunk.

Yeah, we know. That burst is great right up until it gets cleared or the person you just bursted down gets rezzed because condi thief cleave is garbage. Power builds don’t have these limitations.

Any condition build has conditions that can be cleansed along with weak cleave. This not restricted to the thief.

Now surely in such a match there others with cleave on a team and is a thief generally the one tasked with cleaving a downed enemy?

Do conditions builds work in PvP or do they not because both on PVP boards and on Wvw I am reading a whole lot of “they are op”.