Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: I dislike playing condi builds and have played power builds since GW2 launched.

Since the influx of thieves again in PVP after the AA buffs I thought I’d try to make a build designed to counter the other team’s thief.

So on my lunchbreak I was messing around and initially created a condi burst DrD build and jumped into two hotjoin games to test. It was full of thieves/Daredevils – perfect testing ground.

Oh my, this was the saltiest experience I’ve ever had in this game. I went toe to toe eight times with enemy thieves and obliterated them, once 2v1 on point. In turn they started verbal abusing me to no end for running cheese. I kinda expected that.

I ended up spectating most of them and to no surprise almost none of them had meaningful condi clears. Not as utilities and not as traits.

Seeing as most of my condi burst comes from utils (spider venom & impairing daggers) I only have one stunbreak/escape (ShadowStep) on a big CD. It’s an easy build to lock down.

How can players complain about other player’s builds if they do not adapt their own builds accordingly? Surely you must expect someone on the other team to have a condi setup.

Some people just have the mindset that anything that beats them must clearly be OP.

Being a little less snarky, it’s been a while since I’ve played thief in PvP myself, but one of the things I remember is that it’s hard to get in adequate condi clears on a thief without making big sacrifices on your ability to do, well, thiefy stuff. So I can understand choosing to accept that condis will counter your build so that you can maintain effectiveness regarding other things.

This does, however, imply recognising that your build has a weakness and that being beaten by someone who exploits your weakness just means they countered you, not that they’re inherently OP. I’d imagine you’d do a lot less well if you were facing lockdown builds with lots of condi clears. :P

@Draxynnic.3719
Exactly. Knowing your class weakness wins you half the fight or allows you to avoid fights which do not favour you. As thieves we can pick and choose who we fight. As a power thief, if I run up to a condi reaper, or a p/p engineer or a Mallyx rev I know I’m gonna be in for a tough time.

These other thieves continuously ran onto points to fight me, knowing full well I am condi evade spam cheeser – then berating ME when THEY die over and over?

It’s a level of childishness and toxicity I’ve never encountered before. Maybe it’s because of the bad rep condi builds have. If I was on my staff power build and Steal + Staff2 + Staff5 exploded them – they would have accepted it and not say a word.

godmoney.6025:

Disclaimer: I dislike playing condi builds and have played power builds since GW2 launched.

Since the influx of thieves again in PVP after the AA buffs I thought I’d try to make a build designed to counter the other team’s thief.

So on my lunchbreak I was messing around and initially created a condi burst DrD build and jumped into two hotjoin games to test. It was full of thieves/Daredevils – perfect testing ground.

Oh my, this was the saltiest experience I’ve ever had in this game. I went toe to toe eight times with enemy thieves and obliterated them, once 2v1 on point. In turn they started verbal abusing me to no end for running cheese. I kinda expected that.

I ended up spectating most of them and to no surprise almost none of them had meaningful condi clears. Not as utilities and not as traits.

Seeing as most of my condi burst comes from utils (spider venom & impairing daggers) I only have one stunbreak/escape (ShadowStep) on a big CD. It’s an easy build to lock down.

How can players complain about other player’s builds if they do not adapt their own builds accordingly? Surely you must expect someone on the other team to have a condi setup.

Thief condi clear is in the toilet and perhaps one of the worst out of all the classes atm. To spec full condi on a thief and only contribute by hunting the other thief can be perceived as you being an kitten .

Personally run what you like since you paid for the game yet you need to understand any verbal backlash you get for doing such a thing is deserved in most cases.

As someone who have very low condition removal in my build I know I have two choices when facing a condition thief:

1. Kill him with my initial burst.

2. Run away and do something that actually benefit my team.

I don’t get why people always try to engage a fight they know they can’t win… If I’m not running any good condition removal I won’t stay long vs condition specs unless I got them down in a few seconds. Once they start to stack me up I’m going down, which is my fault for not doing the right thing.

Geiir.7603:

As someone who have very low condition removal in my build I know I have two choices when facing a condition thief:

1. Kill him with my initial burst.

2. Run away and do something that actually benefit my team.

I don’t get why people always try to engage a fight they know they can’t win… If I’m not running any good condition removal I won’t stay long vs condition specs unless I got them down in a few seconds. Once they start to stack me up I’m going down, which is my fault for not doing the right thing.

1 condi burst and you die. It can be delivered from stealth and youll eventually get hit.

Should be two condi bursts as shadowstep/signet of agility are pretty good at clearing at least one condi burst.

I don’t think that hotjoins are the best place to draw conclusions from about PvP thieves in general. Don’t think unranked is a good place to draw conclusions from either but that’s a different story.

Generally speaking though spec’ing for the thief 1v1 condi matchup is a bad idea for how rarely it occurs. Most builds already provide enough condi clear to fight against condi rev’s, which are more prevalent than condi thieves. Heck condi thieves are definitely possible to deal with too, given a good initial burst.

godmoney.6025:

Disclaimer: I dislike playing condi builds and have played power builds since GW2 launched.

Since the influx of thieves again in PVP after the AA buffs I thought I’d try to make a build designed to counter the other team’s thief.

So on my lunchbreak I was messing around and initially created a condi burst DrD build and jumped into two hotjoin games to test. It was full of thieves/Daredevils – perfect testing ground.

Oh my, this was the saltiest experience I’ve ever had in this game. I went toe to toe eight times with enemy thieves and obliterated them, once 2v1 on point. In turn they started verbal abusing me to no end for running cheese. I kinda expected that.

I ended up spectating most of them and to no surprise almost none of them had meaningful condi clears. Not as utilities and not as traits.

Seeing as most of my condi burst comes from utils (spider venom & impairing daggers) I only have one stunbreak/escape (ShadowStep) on a big CD. It’s an easy build to lock down.

How can players complain about other player’s builds if they do not adapt their own builds accordingly? Surely you must expect someone on the other team to have a condi setup.

Devoting your build to counter another and expecting them to somehow magically do better against you is kind of silly, frankly. You made your build to counter them by exploiting their weaknesses; you said so explicitly in your original post. How do they have the room to adapt their build within a match (where build modifications are not permitted to begin with) to a build they know nothing about (because you apparently designed said build) when their builds are designed to perform at best against the majority of the other classes (trying to adapt to everything)? All while the core class offers horrible condition cleansing…?

And then to expect them to not be upset when deliberately trying to shut them down via both combined builds and tactics with what’s basically and widely-considered as one of the most low-skill and cheesiest builds to play?

They might be in the wrong to talk trash, although you mention you expected it, but I’m sorry there’s no justification to calling foul play because they didn’t change their entire build and concept around a one-off match which in order to counter would make them pretty much horrible to other classes and builds.

This isn’t about adjusting but you frankly just tooting your horn or getting an excuse to call other players bad.

DeceiverX.8361:

godmoney.6025:

Disclaimer: I dislike playing condi builds and have played power builds since GW2 launched.

Since the influx of thieves again in PVP after the AA buffs I thought I’d try to make a build designed to counter the other team’s thief.

So on my lunchbreak I was messing around and initially created a condi burst DrD build and jumped into two hotjoin games to test. It was full of thieves/Daredevils – perfect testing ground.

Oh my, this was the saltiest experience I’ve ever had in this game. I went toe to toe eight times with enemy thieves and obliterated them, once 2v1 on point. In turn they started verbal abusing me to no end for running cheese. I kinda expected that.

I ended up spectating most of them and to no surprise almost none of them had meaningful condi clears. Not as utilities and not as traits.

Seeing as most of my condi burst comes from utils (spider venom & impairing daggers) I only have one stunbreak/escape (ShadowStep) on a big CD. It’s an easy build to lock down.

How can players complain about other player’s builds if they do not adapt their own builds accordingly? Surely you must expect someone on the other team to have a condi setup.

Devoting your build to counter another and expecting them to somehow magically do better against you is kind of silly, frankly. You made your build to counter them by exploiting their weaknesses; you said so explicitly in your original post. How do they have the room to adapt their build within a match (where build modifications are not permitted to begin with) to a build they know nothing about (because you apparently designed said build) when their builds are designed to perform at best against the majority of the other classes (trying to adapt to everything)? All while the core class offers horrible condition cleansing…?

And then to expect them to not be upset when deliberately trying to shut them down via both combined builds and tactics with what’s basically and widely-considered as one of the most low-skill and cheesiest builds to play?

They might be in the wrong to talk trash, although you mention you expected it, but I’m sorry there’s no justification to calling foul play because they didn’t change their entire build and concept around a one-off match which in order to counter would make them pretty much horrible to other classes and builds.

This isn’t about adjusting but you frankly just tooting your horn or getting an excuse to call other players bad.

In your very post you express your disdain for a d/d build by claiming it “Cheesy” that shows an attutude among a certain group of thieves that only a certain type of build acceptable.

This is the definition of elitism and this is why those same thieves do not spec enough condition clear. It is those thieves that label every build they do not approve of as "cheese’ that have to get over themselves. A build either works or it does not. All builds have weaknesses and there many in that d/d condition build. (just move out of range of the dbs for petes sake and spike when the ini gone)

Or they can lose and complain to as you put it to “people with no skill”

D/D condi is currently labeled as a laughing-stock noskill cheese build in the PvP and WvW communities. I’m sorry, but this is just the normal perception of the build by the public, including many people who actually run it to troll with.

And no, I think D/P shadow shot 1spam is just as cheesy and stupid.

I’ve run both builds and both do stupidly well to the point where I felt guilty playing them because it trivialized combat and frankly wasn’t fun playing as or against.

FUN FACT: AoE kitten s thieves. Thief has plenty of AoE.

If a thief does not load up on condition clears when they fight a condition build, they will die. That’s why something like Escapist’s Absolution was asked for and that was why we got it. Doesn’t fully block condition builds, but that trait alone is enough to give players a chance.

DeceiverX.8361:

D/D condi is currently labeled as a laughing-stock noskill cheese build in the PvP and WvW communities. I’m sorry, but this is just the normal perception of the build by the public, including many people who actually run it to troll with.

And no, I think D/P shadow shot 1spam is just as cheesy and stupid.

I’ve run both builds and both do stupidly well to the point where I felt guilty playing them because it trivialized combat and frankly wasn’t fun playing as or against.

See I really do not care what the “Pvp community” thinks on a given build unless a build is OP by design which d/d condition is not. from what i see that crowd does not “approve” of any build unless they read of it on the meta where every rotation used is detailed for them.

One more time the people “laughing at the build” think too highly of themselves and should get over themselves . If they are as skilled as you say they should never die to it.Those that use it and end up dieing all the time because of it will stop using it.

What you are trying to do is force your own preferences on everyone else and then pretend you speak for the entire community. You speak for a segment of the same those the same that "laugh at p/P builds’.

Your points as to what is “fun” and what is not are subjective points. The unicorn build (which d/d condition in fact is) goes back to launch and people have been using it ever since launch. You do not like it, I get it . You are more skilled then everyone else. I get it. you like point out how you can generate 20k backstabs I get it. Do you know how long it takes for a d//d condition build to generate 20k in damage?

d/d condition is easy to counter. skilled players should not die to it. If it was op then it would reflect that in the numbers that use it and the numbers that rise to the top of rankings with it.

There are any number of people that play this game from the twitch crowd who prefer their esports to people who just like to try everything and anything. There are older people whose reactions times not as fast as anothers. there are people who are much more casual in their gaming . I fail to see why every build and every weapon type has to appeal to one segment of players.

yolo swaggins.2570:

FUN FACT: AoE kitten s thieves. Thief has plenty of AoE.

If a thief does not load up on condition clears when they fight a condition build, they will die. That’s why something like Escapist’s Absolution was asked for and that was why we got it. Doesn’t fully block condition builds, but that trait alone is enough to give players a chance.

I have an s/d build (wvw) that uses escapists, trickster ,unhindered along with the clears in the Acro line ofr PR. It pretty immune to conditions. I could choose to drop escapists so I can get PI or I can choose to drop unhindered for Bounding and more damge or I can drop trickster and take Bountiful theft, but than I would have less condition clears and those d/d condition builds would be much more a problem.

I would certainly never conceive of qq’ing about the choices I made in my build if that d/d build bested me.

Well…thieves generally don’t need much condi clear since you can often just blind/evade condi application or shut down the target with CC. Condi thief, however, often is one of the strongest anti-thief condi builds since it can evade the CC and blinds while also tossing out enough AoE condi to keep up pressure on stealthed targets.

I’ve played around with condi thief a bit lately and it’s definitely a strong choice for countering thief and burst-heavy teams. However, it’s still a pretty 1-dimensional build without the utility and flexibility of something like D/P.

It’s pretty also strong for Stronghold since you can evade attacks while peppering NPCs with condi, but staff DD seems to do the same thing, but better.

DeceiverX.8361:

How do they have the room to adapt their build within a match (where build modifications are not permitted to begin with)

He’s playing hotjoin, he said. You can adapt your build, skills, traits and amulet at any point in hotjoin as long as you’re not directly in combat.

DeceiverX.8361:

How do they have the room to adapt their build within a match (where build modifications are not permitted to begin with)

He’s playing hotjoin, he said. You can adapt your build, skills, traits and amulet at any point in hotjoin as long as you’re not directly in combat.

People complained about condition builds for thieves before Anet rebalanced and created a more condition heavy meta.

In a way, I think this arises out of a mindset that says “if I dodge it or stealth out of an attack that is my skill” and “why should I have to clear a condition, that isn’t skill, it’s just a button press or a passive.”

Now, I think that if Anet converted the condition dealing skills to pure damage skills with all the damage up front these “condition” builds (across classes) would be equally powerful. I think people don’t like knowing they are losing health and being unable to do anything about it. It prolongs their mental suffering over having taken a hit. They think to themselves unconsciously “why am I still taking damage, I’m not getting hit.” Of course, without condition clears they have already lost that health, losing it slowly is just an illusion at that point.

Thieves also have a strong sense of pride in their personal skill with the class. Sometimes it is a shock to people that their build they usually win with was completely destroyed. Going after a thief thinking “easy kill for me” and being surprised they aren’t running a glass direct damage build is one thing. Not being able to adapt after the surprise is the real issue.

godmoney.6025:

How can players complain about other player’s builds if they do not adapt their own builds accordingly? Surely you must expect someone on the other team to have a condi setup.

More often than not, pvpers for Guild Wars 2 seem to have the mentality of:

>Headbutts wall
>Hurts self
>"The wall is too hard"

Azukas.1426:

Thief condi clear is in the toilet and perhaps one of the worst out of all the classes atm. To spec full condi on a thief and only contribute by hunting the other thief can be perceived as you being an kitten .

Personally run what you like since you paid for the game yet you need to understand any verbal backlash you get for doing such a thing is deserved in most cases.

I agree with that, sorry.
Before June I never worried about condis (SA traited) – now I’m dead to condis even with SA – and don’t come me with “but you can spam all tricks you have and trait trickster” – doesn’t work and I’d like to do more than trying to clear condis in a fight.

Azukas.1426:

you need to understand any verbal backlash you get for doing such a thing is deserved in most cases.

I don’t need to understand it. How does anyone deserve to get flamed and cursed at if they are using something that is valid within the terms and rules of the game.?

There are certain builds out there I don’t like to fight against, but that doesn’t give me the right to be a downright awful kitten towards the other player for using it.

So why do you dislike condi builds then? Must have a reason?

Of course I have reasons for disliking condi builds – I like to see big, red numbers when I fight. But what is the point you are trying to make Jana?

My commenting was on the fact that these thieves behave like base animals towards me for beating them, despite them not adjusting their game strategies (i.e. avoid fighting the ‘KITTEN CHEESE CONDI SCRUB L2PNOOB ’ and go cap another point after they figured out I’m running Condi) when facing me on a build they know would give them trouble.

Edit: Spelling

godmoney.6025:

Of course I have reasons for disliking condi builds – I like seen big, red numbers when I fight. But what is the point you are trying to make Jana? My commenting was on the fact that these thieves behave like base animals towards me for beating them.

The point is that you are “outraged” that people behave like kitten although you must’ve known that this would happen. Condis are a no go for at least 2 years now and June/HoT didn’t make things better.
And since you know thief you also know that the condi clears aren’t that good.

ETA: Those who mostly play thief right now are those who don’t know the class but only heard they’re now OP, cause melee AA got buffed. You aren’t new to pvp, are you?

No I am not new to PVP.

Who decided condis are a no-go? Is there some sort of GW2 Court of Righteousness or is it something in our minds that tell us that people who play condi builds are scrubs that should gtfo and l2p?

There was a silent agreement between wvw roamers not to run condi, yes.

ETA: I’ve been a noob when the ferocity patch hit. I ran mostly in zergs back then and was otherwise a rather helpless soldier’s D/P thief (wth a 200 ping). Anyway, there was a guild of around 30-40? around who even before ran condi – they were great. Best guild I had seen so far. They made condi work before the ferocity patch. After the patch all condi builds were completely OP. I couldn’t run in zergs anymore and started roaming – so I can’t really say what changed regarding zerg fights back then.
The June and HoT patches didn’t make things better; condi is still overpowered, not all condis, not every condi build but in general. Not sure about the condi cleanse other classes got in June and HoT but for thief the June Patch was a nerf. Even DrD and T (with trickster) isn’t enough to have a chance against condi builds.
So.. it’s been 2 years and the problems haven’t been adressed – I guess it’s up to the community again to silently agree that condi builds are “cheese”.

That’s good to know – where do I get all my roaming enemies to sign this agreement?
I constantly run into condi roamers in wvw, they probably didn’t get the memo – or maybe they just don’t care and use the tools that good ANet gave them without worrying about silent agreements or being honorable- to our squishy thieves’ detriment.

Anything to win right?

For the record.: I use a reckless staff zerker build without any stealth. I haven’t jumped on the condi wagon and never will.

Jana.6831:

There was a silent agreement between wvw roamers not to run condi, yes.

Roaming is pretty much dead nowadays, the few solo enemies I’ve met weren’t condi, except for some necros. Since balance is non existent nowadays anyway, I have no idea how things will turn out and whether or not there will be another “silent” agreement.
But to explain this I’d have to go deep into how roamers interacted in general – we might have been enemies but also were friends and thus the silent agreement.

And btw: I don’t care what build you run, I just think that your thread is a non story – no offense.

None taken.

So let’s end this non-story thread and let us agree. Balance is kitten atm. Condi spam, stealth spam, reveal spam, 1-2 shot builds. None of it promotes healthy gameplay, this in turn is promoting unhealthy levels of toxicity within the community.

Yeah, we agree on that.
Things will settle eventually – although some balance would be nice.

Not had much issues with condi users. Sometimes I screw up and get bombed, recover the get bombed again and die, my fault. Most of the time I rely on evading as I am about to get hit with any attack being projectile, a close e or a melee attack vs condi players as escapist absolution will cure a condition, also use shadow step/return. as s/d or staff it’s s bit easier then compared to d/p to fight of conditions.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

as s/d or staff it’s s bit easier then compared to d/p to fight of conditions.

And now compare that to D/D.

I ran a d/d condi thief today. It’s a harsh mistress of a spec. Either I instakill who I’m after or I get obliterated. As far as vs thieves I found whoever attacked first won. Since I was going after whoever sometimes a staff thief would + 1 me and instadown me with a well timed steal + staff 2 and 5. If I attacked first I often only needed to get one good spin in and my poison and bleeds would kill them in about 6 seconds. I could just leave and come back later to stomp them.

It’s a super fun build though and has me interested in my thief again.

It one of the better builds to deal with that Pirate ship in wvw.. At some choke point red circle after circle can have people tenatively firing from range trying to do damage enough to take someone down without stepping in all those circles. The thief very often can not reach to the enemy with his ranged so is stamding there not doing a lot. I like to go for it. Steal in to the center of the mob and do the dodges and DBS. You can get a few off and then try and save a dodge/port to get back out.

You can very often flush the enemy out of the circles. . Due to condi clear on evade/heal on evade vigor on evade swiftness on dodge and with that som now hitting nine targets for a short period of time you can have tremendous sustain while in that group. You will often die. You will down a few and drive them from the circles and help break up the cluster.It reckless but it fun.

I tend to like staff/pp and s/d build I have better but will break this one out time to time for a change of pace. It works good against scrappers too and if your timing right you can in fact go right at a DH in his traps.

I would not really recommend babas approach of doing wvw, tbh.
Most people don’t care whether or not a thief kamikaze dives into their midst. Their boons, heals etc are recovered within seconds. If a bigger group or the whole group of you is pushing with you though this strategy works.

ETA (yeah, I know) : I have transferred a lot lately and on one server there was a staff thief who led us ~10, maybe 15, against a zerg of 25-30. We made it, although it was in front of their keep (boons), but we had to scratch him off the floor every other minute. Still it’s the only guy from that server I miss. He was cool. A bit too impatient, probably, people couldn’t really follow that fast.

Gonna play d/d tonight actually. Not played it in months ;o (power that is)

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Gonna play d/d tonight actually. Not played it in months ;o (power that is)

I had some really nice fights yesterday and today.
Yesterday against a chronomancer and it was even (I just hadn’t had enough sustain to bring it to an end) and he seemed baffled to meet a D/D thief. We parted unkilled
Today vs a S/D – staff DrD. I’m really not happy about the damage in game. He surprised and killed me twice, the third time he hesitated and I won. No time to really counterplay.
Have fun though and try to use dodgebow a bit less I believe in you!

Jana.6831:

I would not really recommend babas approach of doing wvw, tbh.
Most people don’t care whether or not a thief kamikaze dives into their midst. Their boons, heals etc are recovered within seconds. If a bigger group or the whole group of you is pushing with you though this strategy works.

ETA (yeah, I know) : I have transferred a lot lately and on one server there was a staff thief who led us~10, maybe 15 against a zerg of 25-30. We made it, although it was in front of their keep (boons), but we had to scratch him off the floor every other minute. Still it’s the only guy from that server I miss. He was cool. A bit too impatient, probably, people couldn’t really follow that fast.

Of course you are not going in alone. That other group standing on the fringes tends to follow. Works for me. and no I m not always scraped off the floor. That does tend to happen if the group behind moves in too slowly.

A condition build is not as affected by boons on an enemy

Protection/stability/swiftness/regen/ do little against conditions and in particular a thief using poison in a build. Due to multiple attacks per evade Aegis is stripped away on one DB and you do have outs if you conserve a dodge or use your shadowstep.

With heal in my build each db can generate 3500+ in heals per.(this with CD that tends to run around 1900) Your friend likely went straight up damage with dire. It does not work as well as survival wise.

If they burn their heals they burn their heals. Less for the rest of the crew to deal with .

The big enemy is CC. Once locked down in place unable to dodge or to db you in trouble.

Jana.6831:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Gonna play d/d tonight actually. Not played it in months ;o (power that is)

I had some really nice fights yesterday and today.
Yesterday against a chronomancer and it was even (I just hadn’t had enough sustain to bring it to an end) and he seemed baffled to meet a D/D thief. We parted unkilled
Today vs a S/D – staff DrD. I’m really not happy about the damage in game. He surprised and killed me twice, the third time he hesitated and I won. No time to really counterplay.
Have fun though and try to use dodgebow a bit less I believe in you!

Most staff thives open with steal+weakening charge. Stupid bug makes you stay on a sport so all 3 hits land easily. Staff aa is pretty strong too.

I will thanks going to rob the other dagger of ele so I can have a d/d skin and keep my s/d skin set. Thinking of double razer of the sunless skins.

Hyper-aggressive deep-dive works on power D/D but you need to be fast to Shadow Return/Infil Return out as soon as you get the stab off. It’s a solid way to force an engage or force your enemies to panic before an engage, often blowing cooldowns and dropping unnecessary AoE’s, while sniping a commander or forcing his heal.

DeceiverX.8361:

Hyper-aggressive deep-dive works on power D/D but you need to be fast to Shadow Return/Infil Return out as soon as you get the stab off. It’s a solid way to force an engage or force your enemies to panic before an engage, often blowing cooldowns and dropping unnecessary AoE’s, while sniping a commander or forcing his heal.

I never had as much success with power due to wells traps that tend to be stacked around the group.(let alone people firing ACS on top of the defenders) You would really have to get in and out fast.

I’m using daggerstorm and steal to catch fleeing melee groups – works really well with commanders who know me, and then go for that group = with commanders who think alike (can’t really explain that).
Otherwise daggerstorm is great but works best with groups = waterfields, all other fields, running after fleeing enemies etc.
I also initiated fights by daggerstorming through the enemies while my guys hadn’t had a clue what the hell I was doing (I hadn’t either, I came from behind the enemies and thought it would be a good idea) – I survived, my zerg died.

ETA: I think I started with shadowstep and daggerstorm and shadowreturn. But swapped shadowstep with blinding powder once I started to solo roam and ditched zergs for a while. I started to run with zergs again ~4 months afterwards but I was still a roamer at heart, so I never swapped the utility. Usually daggerstorm, withdraw, blinding powder is a good bet (when things get ugly) as there’s likely (hopefully) a waterfield around I can blast.

My gear isn’t built for that sort of thing. It’s more built around staff and s/d sustain fights. When the trait lites all merged was the real last time I play d/d and that was da/sa/tri. This is what I run now.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVl0MhSnY3Tw8Jw/EFjFgfEOA-TFDEABMp8pNNM7v/AAHIADOBCPcEBkSJEBPiA/VvIRVUAUJo76D2MMAcMigIiYmZmpTEZmSBExWL-w

Don’t know whether or not it’s experience, maybe it is. I started on a (back then) really good server and the guys taught me a lot.

Pic: Come on, you can’t deny zerg fights are fun, right?

If you are wrecking thieves with a condi thief build, they suck. Thief condi application is far below several other classes that run in sPvP. If a thief cannot handle another thief condi, they have no prayer of handling the other heavier condi applicators.

The first decent power thief that runs Escapists should annihilate most condi based thief builds given equal skill levels.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

My gear isn’t built for that sort of thing. It’s more built around staff and s/d sustain fights. When the trait lites all merged was the real last time I play d/d and that was da/sa/tri. This is what I run now.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVl0MhSnY3Tw8Jw/EFjFgfEOA-TFDEABMp8pNNM7v/AAHIADOBCPcEBkSJEBPiA/VvIRVUAUJo76D2MMAcMigIiYmZmpTEZmSBExWL-w

Where’s your second sigil of bloodlust? Or just forgot to put it into that sheet?
Tell me how it works with D/D – I’d say you have to little power to pull D/D off, but maybe I’m wrong – so I’m curious.

@baba: As far as deep diving on power goes, you do have to be fast. You shouldn’t be taking more than one tick between the CnD and stab, if anything, as wells will not be dropped if you engage first, seeing as they have a limited duration, and putting them up preemptively is a waste due to their cooldowns.

Straegen.2938:

If you are wrecking thieves with a condi thief build, they suck. Thief condi application is far below several other classes that run in sPvP. If a thief cannot handle another thief condi, they have no prayer of handling the other heavier condi applicators.

The first decent power thief that runs Escapists should annihilate most condi based thief builds given equal skill levels.

For WvW, P/P perplex interruption is actually quite good. Most things were dire can just out-sustain a thief, anyways.

I don’t use it it pvp so I decided not to take it in wvw, doing ok for s/d and staff for about 5 months (well not staff). Not many enemys on bl so gonna have dinner then try eb.

Straegen.2938:

If you are wrecking thieves with a condi thief build, they suck. Thief condi application is far below several other classes that run in sPvP. If a thief cannot handle another thief condi, they have no prayer of handling the other heavier condi applicators.

The first decent power thief that runs Escapists should annihilate most condi based thief builds given equal skill levels.

A lot of thief condition clear requires dodge and/or hitting/being hit. For this reason a well applied attack + stealth/evade will seriously hurt them. I’ve run conditions using pistol/dagger for a long time. Some classes require different strategies to fight when it comes to how they clear/avoid conditions and knowing thief should be the easiest part of main-ing one.

Also, I think you are mistaken about our condition application’s potential. Combine a poison field, lotus training, and venoms and see how much damage you can put out.

The cheesiness of a condi-build is not because their target has no cleanse, rather the fact that their build is so tanky while dealing a lot of armor ignoring damage.

A power-build has to trade survivability for damage and their damage is mitigated by armor — this is not the case for condi-builds, that’s why it’s cheesy.

godmoney.6025:

Azukas.1426:

you need to understand any verbal backlash you get for doing such a thing is deserved in most cases.

I don’t need to understand it. How does anyone deserve to get flamed and cursed at if they are using something that is valid within the terms and rules of the game.?

There are certain builds out there I don’t like to fight against, but that doesn’t give me the right to be a downright awful kitten towards the other player for using it.

You know what ya did and to further explain it is pointless.

As for condi builds….I personally think they are cancerous to skillfull gameplay.