So thought id jump in some wvw on a alt to get some easy xp, noticed 3 players trying to down a thief so I thought id give them a hand…got him low a few times and of course with culling + the near 0 Cooldown on stealth he easily popped in and out of combat non stop to the point most of us finally just said forget it…
On top of that it actually has pretty decent dmg…so lets see…stealth spam + good dmg + good survivability…Nope dont see a problem with that at all…
I realize a large part of this is a culling bug…but I think the biggest issue is the stealth CD starts immediately as u stealth meaning for a P/D thief all u have to do is hit 5, wait till CD is up, hit 1…rinse repeat…u have have perma stealth and enough initiative since this combo cost nearly none with the correct traits to spam this infinitely…
Please dont come here posting " this build is useless in large conflicts" no build is broken when its 50 vs 50…thats a no brainer…but in small conflicts which happen a lot its beyond broken and needs addressing…not even bothering with pvp till its addressed whats the point >.>’’ seriously last few Spvp matches ive done had 6-8 thieves per team lol
Culling is doing his job for him. It’ll get fixed.
Not sure what your PvP concern is… there ARE plenty of thieves… and mesmers… and D/D eles in PvP at the moment. Just get stuck in and fight. Those thieves aren’t P/D.
Bring condition removal. For sPvP stand on the cap point. Every time they stealth it ticks up for your team.
Stealth CD does not begin when they stealth, it’s when they attack from stealth.
Any Thief spec with 30 in shadow will troll upleveleds all day. WvW isn’t “fair” but it really is bad for people who are not 80 at this point.
Either way to fight this spec you need a lot of condition removal and the ability to stuff their C&D as much as possible. Strangely their surviveability actually goes up with more people who show up to the fight and try to zerg them (to a point). If you coordinate it’s fine, especially with knockdowns and dragging the fight away from mobs. Four randoms/uplevleds vs 1 decked out P/D thief is going to loose most of the time because they won’t bother trying to avoid C&D, they won’t revive fast enough, the won’t remove conditions and they are usually undergered and underleveld (like you). Probably also lacking in mechanics knowledge as well (like you). It’s the nature of the average WvW player who piles on to a fight.
OK let me put it this way….
We have build(P/D) that depends entirely on a melee skill(C&D).
And yet this build doesn’t have a single gap closer of any kind.
And yet is labeled as abusive,OP e.t.c.
I can’t find the logic….
Ss Ninja- Rank 50 Asura Condition Thief (The Bulgarians [BG])
My Ringtones on Zedge >>>C l i c k <<<
Bahhhh lol you gotta be kidding me with these topics who thinks this up.
I can go and equip a offhand dagger right and then stack a bunch of vitality and do the same thing. Or I could you know put on d/d and a ton of vit and death blossom. Or I could equip a ?/D and spam cnd.
I have 4% crit damage whats this super decent damage your talkiing about? At most get 1k out of a sneak attack and that doesnt happen often its all about the bleeds. I have tried tons of combinations with P/D and I’m telling you a condi p/d > dps p/d. P/D just doesn’t allow for good dps because the auto attack is crappy. So I don’t know where this good damage your talking about. 1k isn’t jack unless your running a glass then its still not that great damage.
Its the bleeds playa.
Also I have to add this perceived notion that everyone is running this build must only be representative on your server. There are a few that run P/D on my server but pretty much everyone runs D/D for the most part. I know thieves that have asked my build tried P/D and still go back to D/D.
P/D is over the top in WvW pretty much exclusively, though this is a product of the “culling” bug which will be fixed soon. It’s still annoying in sPvP for other classes I’m sure, but they’re countered pretty hard by S/D thieves, D/D Eles, several guardian builds, and conditionmancer necros to name a few off the top of my head, and the culling isn’t a factor there.
Ummmm “DPS” means damage per second, damage is also damage done by conditions! Don’t know if stupid or trolling. -shrug-
No one talked about that by the way.
@ topic:
At the moment it’s a culling isse, but rather a L2P (ew sry :/) issue.
It isn’t even that strong in 1vs1 (oh well except for clones etc.), if you know how to play because if you can evade/block/invuln CnD, he will waste his initiative. If you know P/D thieves, CnD is very easy to dodge (wait 2-3secs when he stealthed, then dodge/block etc.). Even more than half of Sneak Attack is really easy to dodge…
So it’s rather a L2P issue imo.
The only sure damage in this game is direct damage. Every class has condition clears. You let 1 shot of their opener hit you then roll or take the entire ~1200 hit and then clear after. When they come at you bro 2 or 3 shots later you get ready to avoid C&D.
Their DPS against anyone with reliable condition removal is really bad. A Sword/x thief needs to do nothing more than tap 2 twice to clear all bleed stacks.
If you don’t have reliable condition removal slotted then this build is going to counter you. Just like if you don’t have a stun break slotted any cc+burst bro will counter you.
Yeah but only a Sword/Any thief, because none of the other skills are that reliable for condition removal (spammable)
Also Condition Builds are way harder to counter than burst builds (except if the foe uses immobilize but even then, use a condition clear, run away and cc him).
Harder to counter because there are almost no great condition clear skills (see above)
Yeah but only a Sword/Any thief, because none of the other skills are that reliable for condition removal (/spammable/)
Any thief with 10 in shadow, Guardians have a trait and a signet that will remove 1 every 10 seconds. They can slot purging flames or conditions to buffs or many other things to get rid of them. Necros can transfer, eles can remove them at will. Everyone has counters to this.
it’s absolutely ridiculous. p/d is a goofy spec that has little use in serious pvp, but that doesnt mean it should have a godmode attached to it.
You are really making your rounds. This is the 3rd thread I’ve seen you QQ about P/D within a few minutes. You need to l2p. This build was really good at release but has become less and less powerful as people learned to stop being glass and to slot condition removal. Throw in some understanding of thief mechanics and bam, the build isn’t that great anymore.
@ Stiv
Yeah of course there are reliable condition removes but they are not enough, because P/D thieves apply lots of bleeding (no whining intended) rather short for many times than long for some.
@ nerva
Stop being annoying because noobs (I am serious!) just whine their kitten off on forums because they can’t COUNTER these thieves. I repeat it for you: LEARN TO PLAY!!! or use P/D yourself if it’s “SO OP”
Edit: Look up “slicgw” on Youtube if you’re so eager to play P/D (or learn to counter it by watching maybe?)
Culling is doing his job for him. It’ll get fixed.
Not sure what your PvP concern is… there ARE plenty of thieves… and mesmers… and D/D eles in PvP at the moment. Just get stuck in and fight. Those thieves aren’t P/D.
Culling has nothing to do with a 4v1…
L2P maybe, or stop running out in wvw with a lowbie character and crap gear and expect to kill someone with maxed everything lol.
Yea p/d is fun and you can troll I run it mostly in WvW. Bunker Type guardians, eles, p/d thieves, bunker type rangers. Take forever to kill if you kill them which is usually only because that person decided to stay to fight. Most are stalemates or a bit close.
This is what happens in the majority of my encounters in WvW. People see a thief assume glass cannon as they burn all their burst at the very beginning, mesmers, warriors, other thieves etc. They get a few bleeds on them. Then they are standing in caltrops. They wipe bleeds or just heal keep fighting blow burst again then they either die from staying to long or they leave.
There are still a alot of people running around with no condi removal but its about half I would say thieves honestly are the class I see the most with no condi removal shadow step is used more as a let me stall and reset baslisk venom and come back.
I don’t usually have a problem with s/d thieves most are same combo, pop haste, oh snap he just SS away and my shadow return is way back there. I have fought 1 s/d thief though that did give it to me from yaks bend he was pretty good.
The concept of p/d in WvW allows for consistent sustained conditions. Common condition removal abilities won’t help too much. Persistent ones will, though.
The veggie pizza really helps a lot of builds like this though.
I’m glad to see P/D making a minor comeback. It was fun as hell to run it in sPvP back in beta. Lacked some of the punch of power builds, but hilariously difficult to kill.
If you can’t read English, please do not reply to my post.
There are two elements that make Pistol/Dagger Thieves significantly stronger in WvW than they actually are.
1. Culling
2. Food – The Food alone can add up to 40% Condition Duration. That makes a HUGE difference to the DPS they deal.
The food just allows you to get to 100% duration without having to go points in DA and more flexibility in the build. It allows for an effective 0/0/30/20/20 build.
100% duration is just 8 sec bleed 75% duration is 7 sec easy to achieve 7 secs without food.
There are two elements that make Pistol/Dagger Thieves significantly stronger in WvW than they actually are.
1. Culling
2. Food – The Food alone can add up to 40% Condition Duration. That makes a HUGE difference to the DPS they deal.
The food just allows you to get to 100% duration without having to go points in DA and more flexibility in the build. It allows for an effective 0/0/30/20/20 build.
100% duration is just 8 sec bleed 75% duration is 7 sec easy to achieve 7 secs without food.
The extra tick is usually only good vs people you would have killed anyway. No reliable condition removal.
Thieves really aren’t as great in sPvP, and the amount that use P/D in there is almost non existant, so I have no idea where you drew that conclusion from, but to answer your other post
It’s culling that’s having this effect, which is being worked on. Without culling “stealth spam” is considerably weaker, which is why you see less of it in spvp, where there is no culling. Also, you have to consider the fact that he did not kill you. Your post made it seem like you guys just got bored and walked away. If he couldn’t kill you, is there anything OP about it? I mean, I can easily sit in a tower and spam AoEs from where you can’t hit me, but I probably won’t kill you.
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