Guild Wars 2

And we’re only beneath elementalists by a small margin.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4ft01q/qt_dps_benchmarkstests_for_all_classes/

Also, disproving the myth that warriors are such incredibly high damage dealers in PvE. Glad that one is getting to put to rest.

Have you read the disclaimer?

Ofcourse, as always with these tests there are some flaws that we couldn’t avoid while testing, for example according to this chart a Thief does the same DPS as a Dagger/Warhorn Tempest, with “realistic” buffs, which is ofcourse not true because in these tries neither of them had any Alacrity while in a raid you would have some which would benefit the Tempest much more.

Being second DPS while being unable to provide any utility to the party simply means that elementalists will always be picked over a thief. Unless the group is looking for a random dps dealer, or you’re in a raiding guild who doesn’t mind bringing a thief, you’ll never have a spot in a raid group.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Have you read the disclaimer?

Ofcourse, as always with these tests there are some flaws that we couldn’t avoid while testing, for example according to this chart a Thief does the same DPS as a Dagger/Warhorn Tempest, with “realistic” buffs, which is ofcourse not true because in these tries neither of them had any Alacrity while in a raid you would have some which would benefit the Tempest much more.

Yeah, I did and that’s why I’m not claiming we are equal or better, even though we came out ahead by 2k in the realistic tests.

You also cut out that last sentence…

But we feel like these numbers are reasonably accurate and good numbers to aim for if youre trying to improve yourself.

…which is an important sentence and a sentiment I agree with.

Raizen.7981:

Being second DPS while being unable to provide any utility to the party simply means that elementalists will always be picked over a thief. Unless the group is looking for a random dps dealer, or you’re in a raiding guild who doesn’t mind bringing a thief, you’ll never have a spot in a raid group.

Well, one, I don’t raid, so I don’t care.

Two, raids are still only a fraction of the PvE content and don’t offer really anything except the love of challenge; the monetary rewards just aren’t there unless you count Legendary Armor.

Three, even if I did raid, I don’t believe this very negative and absolute statement is true. Keep in mind, I have a 80 elementalist I mained for years and so I am well aware of the differences between the classes. What elementalist doesn’t bring is ways to consistently do damage to break bars, particularly on staff, which thief does due to the physical skills on low CD or low CD basilik venoms with venomshare.

Of course, our break bar damage has always been overshadowed by stuff like Slick Shoes in engineer, which got nerfed, so bringing a thief for break bar contributions is a lot more enticing than what it was before. I am sure time will tell how this plays out with people who care about raids.

Four, wtf? I mean, seriously wtf? We still clock in DPS higher by significant margins than seven other classes in the game, making us very, very desirable in fractals and dungeons and you completely ignore as you focus on the issue of us not being as good as elementalists at the moment? Talk about the glass being half empty.

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Have you read the disclaimer?

Ofcourse, as always with these tests there are some flaws that we couldn’t avoid while testing, for example according to this chart a Thief does the same DPS as a Dagger/Warhorn Tempest, with “realistic” buffs, which is ofcourse not true because in these tries neither of them had any Alacrity while in a raid you would have some which would benefit the Tempest much more.

Yeah, I did and that’s why I’m not claiming we are equal or better, even though we came out ahead by 2k in the realistic tests.

You also cut out that last sentence…

But we feel like these numbers are reasonably accurate and good numbers to aim for if youre trying to improve yourself.

…which is an important sentence and a sentiment I agree with.

Well, with Alacrity, it will also improve both Revenant and Engineer which are close 3rd and 4th, so in that sense, they will surpass the Thief and the Thief probably end up in 5th place.

Thieves in general are in need of more synergetic effects that give them more reasons to be picked over other classes.

Stealth is simply not enough (or better said, not enough anymore due to anet destroying over the last years more and more the unique aspects of the Thief with splittign stealth more to the other classes where in my opinino Anet should remove all stealth effects from all other classes, only Thieves should be able to use stealth to have 1 untouchable unique support mechanics, that only THEY as masters of the shadows can provide and no one else)

Other than this ANet has to improve finally other aspects that are unique to thethief class and improve them to become stronger support gameplay aspects of the class.

Venoms – currently they are since game release absolute garbage and would be much better of a support, if they wouldn#t require of you to take certain traits fists just to give them the ability to be spread.
Venom Spreading to allires needs to become baselined to make venoms much better for group support, without that you need to waste first a specific trait for that to happen. Venoms in general shouldnt be in my opinino Utility Skills, but rather an integrated gameplay mechanic of the Thief under F3 that allows you to put permanently one of the venoms with you with the Venom affectign your Weapon Skills, or even completely changign them out with different skills to give the thief a bit more build diversity based on which venom you are using that is affectign your weapon skills, while it grants your nearby allies some positive effects too.

Boon Stealing/Sharing needs to get improved that whenever a Thief steals something from an enemy, your nearby allies need also to profitate from this action, because due to your stealing you actually weakened the enemy for ALL of them, not only for yourself. Stealing from an enemy, should increase the morale of your allie,s because you weakened the enemy for them by taking your enemy somethign important away (temporarely). Thats an aspect of the thief that needs to get improved as well to give the thief more group support thats based on the theme and style of this class by supporting your allies by takign your foes somethign away

Mobility – this is the biggest part of the whole thief design, they are the kings/queens of mobility, no other class should be more mobile than them, and this aspect of their design should be in my opinion also one of their greatest group support effects, that they should improve the mobility of nearby allies the strongest, or should be the only class that can support that aspect of gameplay by giving other classes the best support in everythign that has to do with mobility – so:

• Dodging (the effectiveness of your Dodge Rolls should get increased when your allied thief is nearby as their presence allows you to perform better dodges than usual, like for example that you get some kind of aditional boons of positive stat effects after a dodge roll, while a thief ally is nearby)
• Endurance Regeneration (allies hsould get somehow increased base Endurance regneneration or more access passively to Vigor, while thiefs are in your near)
• Movement Speed (Super Speed is something that only they and Engineers should be able to prove with Thieves havign the most access to that as Group Support)
• Movement Range (Thief traits should provide somethign, that can positively increase the Movement Ranges of ally’s Movement Skills like for example that you as a Warrior will get increased range for your Dashes if you have a thief with that kind of trait in your near)
• Evading/Blinding (Thief trait or Skil Effects should provide synergetic effects for alliies, that let them more evade incoming atacks or let them somehow cause blindness that they usually wouldnt cause if no thief would be in their near)

just some brainstorming here, but the potential is just there to make the thief alot substantially better in group support.
It is more kind of only, that ANet seems to completely ignore this kind of gameplay aspect for the thief for the last years, because i believe, this simply isn’t the role that the devs want the Thief to se in, but rather seem to want that they are just more or less a pure DPS and Control Class with nearly zero group support except of venoms and stealth mainly

personally I think the thief class could be a much more fun to play class, if they would provide alot more passive group support for allies through their various mobility expertises in which they excell and are clearly superior in at to be some kind of “buffing paragon” for their allies while beign nearby, so that the thief becomes some kind of mobility buff central point for all other allies that fight together with them and i think this kind of gameplay change would give the thief class then a strong point, why someone should take for a raid rather a thief into the group, than an Elementalist, even if the Elementalist does more DPS..

but DPS alone isnt everything, group support effects that do give you some great synergetic effects are same as good, if not even sometimes much better, than just a raw DPS difference, because synergetic effects can help oftenly alot more to make battles for everyone nearby alot more comfortable, while just DPS differences do not have such effects, they can lead only into makign fights endign quicker when you have people that know exactly what they do, while synergetic effects can help you directly, regarldess if your group members are total scrubs, or absolute pro players, everyone directly benefits from synergy effects regardless of their own playing experience.

And as it has been said – people love synergy effects, if you end up in comparign classes with the exact same DPS, people will always take the classes into the group, which adds some extra spice in form of useful synergy effects on top of that and the class, which provides in this the most, will always get the place in the group.

Thats somethign where the thief needs to get greatly improved at, if anet ever wants to make the Thief a raid worthy class and this is also why I personalyl suggested the implementation of class specific RAID MASTERIES, because they would be also a way how anet could ensure, that every class could have their very oown unique aspects for why you would want to take every class with you in a raid, because they all could provide this way somethign specific thats useful for the whole group.

A Raid Mastery for Thieves could specialize for example into maximizign the groups maximum loot and rewards, enable them to use shortcuts that wouldnt otherwise be accessible to the group, because the thief could deactivate some otherwise deadly traps for them that only an expertised professional thief could know that they exist and how they could be deactivated/destroyed without that anyone gets harmed

So much unused potential which i can just hope that Anets comes to realization, how much such things could improve the whole game in so many aspects, not just raids, but PvE/WvW in general as also WvW would benefit greatyl from profession specific WvW masteries to improve the roles for all classes in WvW and give them stronger weaknesses and strengthes in regard of which kind of role you want to perform with your class in WvW.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Well, with Alacrity, it will also improve both Revenant and Engineer which are close 3rd and 4th, so in that sense, they will surpass the Thief and the Thief probably end up in 5th place.

I don’t follow that. They are trailing both in the unbuffed and buffed category by a margin of 4-6k. If one single boon that is able to be cycled more than quickness can not only cover that gap and but surpass it enough to say, beyond the variation, that Thief is 4th place, then Alcarity is the most broken boon in the game, even in it’s nerfed form.

Orpheal.8263:

wall of text that puts my posts to shame

Why does the entire PvE game, all the balance decisions and all the value of the classes now revolve around the addition of optional challenging group content that didn’t even exist for years prior to 6 months ago?

You also left out our ability to break bars, which is our biggest group contribution, in addition to doing high damage.

MadRabbit.3179:

Raizen.7981:

Being second DPS while being unable to provide any utility to the party simply means that elementalists will always be picked over a thief. Unless the group is looking for a random dps dealer, or you’re in a raiding guild who doesn’t mind bringing a thief, you’ll never have a spot in a raid group.

Well, one, I don’t raid, so I don’t care.

Two, raids are still only a fraction of the PvE content and don’t offer really anything except the love of challenge; the monetary rewards just aren’t there unless you count Legendary Armor.

Three, even if I did raid, I don’t believe this very negative and absolute statement is true. Keep in mind, I have a 80 elementalist I mained for years and so I am well aware of the differences between the classes. What elementalist doesn’t bring is ways to consistently do damage to break bars, particularly on staff, which thief does due to the physical skills on low CD or low CD basilik venoms with venomshare.

Of course, our break bar damage has always been overshadowed by stuff like Slick Shoes in engineer, which got nerfed, so bringing a thief for break bar contributions is a lot more enticing than what it was before. I am sure time will tell how this plays out with people who care about raids.

Four, wtf? I mean, seriously wtf? We still clock in DPS higher by significant margins than seven other classes in the game, making us very, very desirable in fractals and dungeons and you completely ignore as you focus on the issue of us not being as good as elementalists at the moment? Talk about the glass being half empty.

1) then your post is invalid, since nobody gives a flying duck about dps parses in fractals or dungeons, which are total facerolls
2)good point
3)everbody brings breakbar skills. The PS war 90% of the time runs headbutt. The fact that we bring a bit more hard CC than other classes is totally irelevant in most raid runs, and even if it does actually mater in some well organized runs, that DPS gap between tempest and thief STILL makes tempest more viable, if we’re being total snobs and counting every drop of dps
4)Every.single.kittening.raid.run is looking for tempests. Nobody says LF DD. Everybody either says “need dps” – mostly bad pugs, or “need tempest” – rest of the world. As somebody who has been raiding for a while, my main dd gets raid spots 10 times less than my support PS or my support herald which i both totally hate playing

Raizen.7981:

MadRabbit.3179:

Raizen.7981:

Being second DPS while being unable to provide any utility to the party simply means that elementalists will always be picked over a thief. Unless the group is looking for a random dps dealer, or you’re in a raiding guild who doesn’t mind bringing a thief, you’ll never have a spot in a raid group.

Well, one, I don’t raid, so I don’t care.

Two, raids are still only a fraction of the PvE content and don’t offer really anything except the love of challenge; the monetary rewards just aren’t there unless you count Legendary Armor.

Three, even if I did raid, I don’t believe this very negative and absolute statement is true. Keep in mind, I have a 80 elementalist I mained for years and so I am well aware of the differences between the classes. What elementalist doesn’t bring is ways to consistently do damage to break bars, particularly on staff, which thief does due to the physical skills on low CD or low CD basilik venoms with venomshare.

Of course, our break bar damage has always been overshadowed by stuff like Slick Shoes in engineer, which got nerfed, so bringing a thief for break bar contributions is a lot more enticing than what it was before. I am sure time will tell how this plays out with people who care about raids.

Four, wtf? I mean, seriously wtf? We still clock in DPS higher by significant margins than seven other classes in the game, making us very, very desirable in fractals and dungeons and you completely ignore as you focus on the issue of us not being as good as elementalists at the moment? Talk about the glass being half empty.

1) then your post is invalid, since nobody gives a flying duck about dps parses in fractals or dungeons, which are total facerolls
2)good point
3)everbody brings breakbar skills. The PS war 90% of the time runs headbutt. The fact that we bring a bit more hard CC than other classes is totally irelevant in most raid runs, and even if it does actually mater in some well organized runs, that DPS gap between tempest and thief STILL makes tempest more viable, if we’re being total snobs and counting every drop of dps
4)Every.single.kittening.raid.run is looking for tempests. Nobody says LF DD. Everybody either says “need dps” – mostly bad pugs, or “need tempest” – rest of the world. As somebody who has been raiding for a while, my main dd gets raid spots 10 times less than my support PS or my support herald which i both totally hate playing

Well, then I consider this post to be invalid, as I don’t care about any of it.

But…I’m happy. You aren’t. Good luck with that.

Your scenarios focus so heavily on the negative without taking a step back to consider how non-sensical they are to begin with, I don’t even want to debate with you.

Raizen.7981:

Being second DPS while being unable to provide any utility to the party simply means that elementalists will always be picked over a thief. Unless the group is looking for a random dps dealer, or you’re in a raiding guild who doesn’t mind bringing a thief, you’ll never have a spot in a raid group.

In a world without slick shoes wrecking breakbars, not only is the utility from Impact Strike/Fist Flurry relevant, it’s important.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Have you read the disclaimer?

Ofcourse, as always with these tests there are some flaws that we couldn’t avoid while testing, for example according to this chart a Thief does the same DPS as a Dagger/Warhorn Tempest, with “realistic” buffs, which is ofcourse not true because in these tries neither of them had any Alacrity while in a raid you would have some which would benefit the Tempest much more.

Yeah, I did and that’s why I’m not claiming we are equal or better, even though we came out ahead by 2k in the realistic tests.

You also cut out that last sentence…

But we feel like these numbers are reasonably accurate and good numbers to aim for if youre trying to improve yourself.

…which is an important sentence and a sentiment I agree with.

Well, with Alacrity, it will also improve both Revenant and Engineer which are close 3rd and 4th, so in that sense, they will surpass the Thief and the Thief probably end up in 5th place.

Totally false. Even without alacrity, a thief still easily outDPSes both eng and revenant. Well, an engi can get close with 100% alacrity on a boss that stays perfectly still, but that’s pretty irrelevant.

People need to take a step back here. Thieves can provide some of the most competitive DPS in the game right now while also bringing some great break bar utility. We’re only clearly beat by staff eles on large hit box enemies and considering how much easier it is to keep up 100% dps on moving targets as a thief compared to an ele, we’re going to be top dps in many realistic scenarios.

MadRabbit.3179:

Your scenarios focus so heavily on the negative

So heavily on the negative? Nah, I’m just stating a simple truth. Every class is the best at something. Thieves? In DD, we have 3 dodges and 2 leaps from vault. That makes a good DD the most survivable class in game. By far. I’m the last man standing in 9/10 of my raids. Problem is, our ability is self-focused, so we don’t bring something to the raid in terms of party utility. Since we’re not the top dps, and we don’t bring something to the raid, we’re hardly a first choice for anybody, in terms of dps dealing. Obviously, this doesn’t happen to dungeons, where our stealth is incredibly useful in many scenarios.

MadRabbit.3179:

consider how non-sensical they are
I don’t even want to debate with you

Well, you couldn’t debate with me even if you wanted to. Any person that throws “non-sense” without bringing a single argument, isn’t a person to be reasoned with

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Well, with Alacrity, it will also improve both Revenant and Engineer which are close 3rd and 4th, so in that sense, they will surpass the Thief and the Thief probably end up in 5th place.

I don’t follow that. They are trailing both in the unbuffed and buffed category by a margin of 4-6k. If one single boon that is able to be cycled more than quickness can not only cover that gap and but surpass it enough to say, beyond the variation, that Thief is 4th place, then Alcarity is the most broken boon in the game, even in it’s nerfed form.

With the Chrono’s build, there’s a total of 20s worth of Alacrity. All the wells will be available again by the time the Chrono finishes the first Alacrity rotation. In a sense, there will be almost 100% Alacrity uptime for the Mesmer and roughly 80% uptime for everyone else. Which means that even the Guardian can surpass the Thief seeing how the Thief’s build is simply relying on autoattacks and Fist Flurry rotation. The Guardian with Alacrity can pop more traps for a more DPS burst. The raid might even be better off if they trade the Thief for a second Mesmer to have a 100% Alacrity uptime. I’m sure that the loss of DPS from the Thief is no big deal if every other profession in the raid gets their skills 33% faster.

Raizen.7981:

MadRabbit.3179:

Your scenarios focus so heavily on the negative

So heavily on the negative? Nah, I’m just stating a simple truth. Every class is the best at something. Thieves? In DD, we have 3 dodges and 2 leaps from vault. That makes a good DD the most survivable class in game. By far. I’m the last man standing in 9/10 of my raids. Problem is, our ability is self-focused, so we don’t bring something to the raid in terms of party utility. Since we’re not the top dps, and we don’t bring something to the raid, we’re hardly a first choice for anybody, in terms of dps dealing. Obviously, this doesn’t happen to dungeons, where our stealth is incredibly useful in many scenarios.

MadRabbit.3179:

consider how non-sensical they are
I don’t even want to debate with you

Well, you couldn’t debate with me even if you wanted to. Any person that throws “non-sense” without bringing a single argument, isn’t a person to be reasoned with

Because I have a pretty feeling how this is gonna go. I am going to try and give a more balanced and fair perspective and you are going to reject it immediately, because you decided before you even got into this that thief is trash tier.

You dismiss the importance of DPS in high tier fractals, which has importance, just not DPS timer importance.

You dismiss the importance of our break bar abilities, because all classes bring break bar stuff, even the classes that net significantly lower DPS numbers. You don’t consider the gap that the absence of Slick Shoes causes and has to be filled, that it’s just not extra break bar damage, but the fact that we can not only do a lot of break bar damage, but consistently break bars as our skills cycle so fast and that our ability to break bars uses abilities that are part of our DPS rotation, not causing a net DPS loss when used.

And your main argument is that up until this point everybody wants Tempest, even though the patch has only been out for a couple days, which means we’ve only had brief access to the damage meters to showcase just how competitive we actually are publicly and the impact of the class nerfs hasn’t fully been realized.

Even if Tempest still is the most desirable, we will still have a stronger meta build for raids than other classes. Which there is 7 of and 10 slots total in a raid.

So your truth is not hard truth. It’s just a very negative, unbalanced point of view, doesn’t take into account recent changes and still has yet to be proven in the future.

Maybe, I’ll be wrong. Maybe, I’ll be right.

If you want to argue that Tempest might be deserving of a nerfs, because of how much damage it can bring in addition to it’s utility, I won’t argue that. Probably

But that’s not the point of the thread. The point is that we aren’t as bad in PvE anymore as people have thought we were and we have some objective data to showcase it. The days of “gtfo thief” in speedrunning fractals and dungeons are gone, even if we might need some more work in weak areas for raids.

And this is only the power build mind you. It’s hard to do effective tests for the venomshare builds, so it’s still debateable how strong they are.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Well, with Alacrity, it will also improve both Revenant and Engineer which are close 3rd and 4th, so in that sense, they will surpass the Thief and the Thief probably end up in 5th place.

I don’t follow that. They are trailing both in the unbuffed and buffed category by a margin of 4-6k. If one single boon that is able to be cycled more than quickness can not only cover that gap and but surpass it enough to say, beyond the variation, that Thief is 4th place, then Alcarity is the most broken boon in the game, even in it’s nerfed form.

With the Chrono’s build, there’s a total of 20s worth of Alacrity. All the wells will be available again by the time the Chrono finishes the first Alacrity rotation. In a sense, there will be almost 100% Alacrity uptime for the Mesmer and roughly 80% uptime for everyone else. Which means that even the Guardian can surpass the Thief seeing how the Thief’s build is simply relying on autoattacks and Fist Flurry rotation. The Guardian with Alacrity can pop more traps for a more DPS burst. The raid might even be better off if they trade the Thief for a second Mesmer to have a 100% Alacrity uptime. I’m sure that the loss of DPS from the Thief is no big deal if every other profession in the raid gets their skills 33% faster.

You and Dahkneus seem to be in disagreement and I don’t have numbers to prove either way, so I won’t argue against it and I won’t dismiss it as a valid point.

But if it does turn out to be true, then I hope they look at finally giving a more benefit to thieves from Alacrity.

MadRabbit.3179:

because you decided before you even got into this that thief is trash tier.

Did you even read my posts? I’ve said thief is an incredible class, I just keep saying that it is bottom tier in raids.

MadRabbit.3179:

You dismiss the importance of our break bar abilities, because all classes bring break bar stuff, even the classes that net significantly lower DPS numbers. You don’t consider the gap that the absence of Slick Shoes causes and has to be filled, that it’s just not extra break bar damage, but the fact that we can not only do a lot of break bar damage, but consistently break bars as our skills cycle so fast and that our ability to break bars uses abilities that are part of our DPS rotation, not causing a net DPS loss when used.

You’re talking palm strike here. Because impact strike is a 40s cooldown that is waaaay weaker in terms of dps than Thieves Guild. Having 1 breakbar skill that isnt a dps loss is in no way that important that it makes thief desirable in any raid.

MadRabbit.3179:

And your main argument is that up until this point everybody wants Tempest, even though the patch has only been out for a couple days, which means we’ve only had brief access to the damage meters to showcase just how competitive we actually are publicly and the impact of the class nerfs hasn’t fully been realized.

You’ve only had brief access for a couple of days. The raiding community had these numbers figured out since the winter balance patch.

MadRabbit.3179:

Even if Tempest still is the most desirable, we will still have a stronger meta build for raids than other classes. Which there is 7 of and 10 slots total in a raid.

We literally have bottom tier meta. Damage dealer isn’t top damage. That leaves venomshare, who’s strenght, as you mentioned, is unknown, but still, 1 possible raid build is in no way a strong meta build.

MadRabbit.3179:

But that’s not the point of the thread. The point is that we aren’t as bad in PvE anymore as people have thought we were and we have some objective data to showcase it.

Again, everybody who reads patch notes and forums knew that thief was strong in PvE since the winter balance patch. If you only figured this out, and are not actually trolling me, then sorry for bashing you, but you seriously need to read forums more often.

Raizen.7981:

MadRabbit.3179:

because you decided before you even got into this that thief is trash tier.

Did you even read my posts? I’ve said thief is an incredible class, I just keep saying that it is bottom tier in raids.

MadRabbit.3179:

You dismiss the importance of our break bar abilities, because all classes bring break bar stuff, even the classes that net significantly lower DPS numbers. You don’t consider the gap that the absence of Slick Shoes causes and has to be filled, that it’s just not extra break bar damage, but the fact that we can not only do a lot of break bar damage, but consistently break bars as our skills cycle so fast and that our ability to break bars uses abilities that are part of our DPS rotation, not causing a net DPS loss when used.

You’re talking palm strike here. Because impact strike is a 40s cooldown that is waaaay weaker in terms of dps than Thieves Guild. Having 1 breakbar skill that isnt a dps loss is in no way that important that it makes thief desirable in any raid.

MadRabbit.3179:

And your main argument is that up until this point everybody wants Tempest, even though the patch has only been out for a couple days, which means we’ve only had brief access to the damage meters to showcase just how competitive we actually are publicly and the impact of the class nerfs hasn’t fully been realized.

You’ve only had brief access for a couple of days. The raiding community had these numbers figured out since the winter balance patch.

MadRabbit.3179:

Even if Tempest still is the most desirable, we will still have a stronger meta build for raids than other classes. Which there is 7 of and 10 slots total in a raid.

We literally have bottom tier meta. Damage dealer isn’t top damage. That leaves venomshare, who’s strenght, as you mentioned, is unknown, but still, 1 possible raid build is in no way a strong meta build.

MadRabbit.3179:

But that’s not the point of the thread. The point is that we aren’t as bad in PvE anymore as people have thought we were and we have some objective data to showcase it.

Again, everybody who reads patch notes and forums knew that thief was strong in PvE since the winter balance patch. If you only figured this out, and are not actually trolling me, then sorry for bashing you, but you seriously need to read forums more often.

Well, thank you for letting me know what everybody was thinking. I was unclear that you were speaking for everyone and not just projecting your own opinions.

But this response is pretty much what I expected. You’ve highlighted the negative and ignored the points that were inconvenient to you. A lot of them actually you just rolled over, which is why I am finding this back and forth to be less and less entertaining.

I get it. You think that thieves will never ever find a spot in raid, but there is a lot of other written materials besides your forum posts that suggest otherwise.

I’m not going to start raiding in a game where I don’t enjoy raiding to prove it, but most of my friends who do run in dedicated raid groups roll a thief in one of the DPS slots in their compositions.

Can we use some more improvements? I would agree with that, but this very doom and gloom perspective doesn’t match what I see.

But I appreciate you taking the time to try and kitten all over my enjoyment at thief’s clocking in such high numbers in the new DPS meters like I always figured they could with off topic discussion that had nothing to do with anything in my OP. Always happy to enable other people’s soapboxes.

Do I have to pay you to read my posts before answering me? Oh boy, here we go again

I get it. You think that thieves will never ever find a spot in raid, but there is a lot of other written materials besides your forum posts that suggest otherwise.

No, you don’t get it. I’ve specifically said that you won’t join a raid, unless you’re really really lucky, or have a dedicated group

but most of my friends who do run in dedicated raid groups roll a thief in one of the DPS slots in their compositions.

They have DEDICATED groups, which is EXACTLY the exception I’ve mentio- ah screw it. You won’t read this one anyway

MadRabbit.3179:

Can we use some more improvements? I would agree with that, but this very doom and gloom perspective doesn’t match what I see.

Your perspective matches mine in terms of 90%, except raiding, where it doesn’t, since you don’t raid

But I appreciate you taking the time to try and kitten all over my enjoyment at thief’s clocking in such high numbers in the new DPS meters like I always figured they could with off topic discussion that had nothing to do with anything in my OP. Always happy to enable other people’s soapboxes.

The numbers, again, for the 3rd time, were there, since the winter patch. Also, since we’re talking PvE, and raids are pure PvE, how am I offtopic?

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Well, with Alacrity, it will also improve both Revenant and Engineer which are close 3rd and 4th, so in that sense, they will surpass the Thief and the Thief probably end up in 5th place.

I don’t follow that. They are trailing both in the unbuffed and buffed category by a margin of 4-6k. If one single boon that is able to be cycled more than quickness can not only cover that gap and but surpass it enough to say, beyond the variation, that Thief is 4th place, then Alcarity is the most broken boon in the game, even in it’s nerfed form.

With the Chrono’s build, there’s a total of 20s worth of Alacrity. All the wells will be available again by the time the Chrono finishes the first Alacrity rotation. In a sense, there will be almost 100% Alacrity uptime for the Mesmer and roughly 80% uptime for everyone else. Which means that even the Guardian can surpass the Thief seeing how the Thief’s build is simply relying on autoattacks and Fist Flurry rotation. The Guardian with Alacrity can pop more traps for a more DPS burst. The raid might even be better off if they trade the Thief for a second Mesmer to have a 100% Alacrity uptime. I’m sure that the loss of DPS from the Thief is no big deal if every other profession in the raid gets their skills 33% faster.

You and Dahkneus seem to be in disagreement and I don’t have numbers to prove either way, so I won’t argue against it and I won’t dismiss it as a valid point.

But if it does turn out to be true, then I hope they look at finally giving a more benefit to thieves from Alacrity.

Numbers and proof!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4fnnfo/dps_comparison/
You can follow the engi links here back to a video of the 30k DPS (or, direct link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibRCp1vQpqc&index=1&list=PLMdLyt-5r_24ISvEQ2wmrk8b0Cpspa_WN), which is pulled off with 100% alacrity (which will never happen in a real raid unless you’re stacking mesmers for some reason).

Revenant isn’t even close.

Thieves don’t need alacrity for big damage (aside from venom share) and honestly that’s more of a benefit since we don’t need to rely on it for big dps like other classes do.

Honestly, this guy made thief viable. If it weren’t for his awesome rotation that you can barely believe was made with a human hand, thief could not haven placed 2nd among all the classes.
Also shoutouts to Arenanet for making it rewarding to be a truly good thief player.

Kicker.8203:

Honestly, this guy made thief viable. If it weren’t for his awesome rotation that you can barely believe was made with a human hand, thief could not haven placed 2nd among all the classes.
Also shoutouts to Arenanet for making it rewarding to be a truly good thief player.

I really really really hope this is trolling.
“this guy made thief viable” Nike posted the exact same guide and video over 3 months ago
“making it rewarding to be a truly good thief player” so autoattacking while using a skill every 30 seconds + dodging every 10 seconds is called skill nowadays? Alright

Raizen.7981:

Do I have to pay you to read my posts before answering me? Oh boy, here we go again

I get it. You think that thieves will never ever find a spot in raid, but there is a lot of other written materials besides your forum posts that suggest otherwise.

No, you don’t get it. I’ve specifically said that you won’t join a raid, unless you’re really really lucky, or have a dedicated group

but most of my friends who do run in dedicated raid groups roll a thief in one of the DPS slots in their compositions.

They have DEDICATED groups, which is EXACTLY the exception I’ve mentio- ah screw it. You won’t read this one anyway

MadRabbit.3179:

Can we use some more improvements? I would agree with that, but this very doom and gloom perspective doesn’t match what I see.

Your perspective matches mine in terms of 90%, except raiding, where it doesn’t, since you don’t raid

But I appreciate you taking the time to try and kitten all over my enjoyment at thief’s clocking in such high numbers in the new DPS meters like I always figured they could with off topic discussion that had nothing to do with anything in my OP. Always happy to enable other people’s soapboxes.

The numbers, again, for the 3rd time, were there, since the winter patch. Also, since we’re talking PvE, and raids are pure PvE, how am I offtopic?

You are offtopic, beause I made a post stating that thieves are the second highest damage dealer at the moment. This is proven and uncontested. You aren’t contesting it, but rather negating it, because it doesn’t matter and you still have a hard time finding groups (which I am sure is true, but not discounting your lovely personality being a factor in that). I never made a post saying we’re best thing since sliced bread in raids now. You are using as an oppurtunity to crawl on your raid’s soap boxes, which I have been divulging in.

I do read your posts. I read what is there and I also read what is not there, which is why I am I getting tired of replying directly them and arguing with you. You are either ignoring details, omitting information or bringing up stuff that’s not contextually relevant to the issue at hand.

I know when I am debating someone who is focused on being right at all costs and not trying to come a fair and balanced perspective of where thief’s are at. You are trying to make your arguments stronger than they are, because if even if we come to some consensus they are bottom tier, we are talking about margins that are so low that they are still competitive for a raid slot.

Look at your break bar arguments, for example. One, you bring up Thieves Guild doing higher DPS than Impact Strike (something I don’t believe is mathematically accurate, but not prepared to argue that point, because I haven’t done testing). Contextually irrelevant, because Thieve’s Guild isn’t being used in the damage rotation above to achieve maximum DPS. Therefore, whether or not you have Thieve’s Guild or Impact Strike on your bar is irrelevant.

Second, you mention Impact Strike is on a 40 second cycle, but it’s a collective 432 points of break bar damage on a 40 second cycle. Now, throw in Fists of Flurry for 200 damage on a 20 second CD that’s part of our damage rotation.

Now, throw in Steal on Goresaval. The monster type is weighted to give you Blinding Tuft to activate the Knockdown in Staff or Head Crack, both of which do an additional 200-250 break damage (can’t remember the actual numbers).

So all together, a Thief can burst a break bar for 832-882 without having to alter their composition to drop abilities that would otherwise boost their DPS. That’s what makes their break bar damage competitive. That’s what makes them competitive for a raid slot, because they have that and high DPS. That’s why my friends take them. And in a world without Slick Shoes, that kind of break bar damage is relevant.

The short cooldown cycles are relevant, because they can split the rotation on Steal and Impact Strike to burst a bar every 20 seconds for 400-600. I don’t know the regen cycles on raid monsters, but on standard champions and legendaries, 20 seconds is enough to contribute high break bar damage to every break bar as soon as it regens to full.

How do you not know all this? I don’t even raid and I know the math on this. You are the expert here, right? That’s where all this condescension is coming from. Why are you leaving this out as factors in assessing what a Thief can bring to the table?

Dahkeus.8243:

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Well, with Alacrity, it will also improve both Revenant and Engineer which are close 3rd and 4th, so in that sense, they will surpass the Thief and the Thief probably end up in 5th place.

I don’t follow that. They are trailing both in the unbuffed and buffed category by a margin of 4-6k. If one single boon that is able to be cycled more than quickness can not only cover that gap and but surpass it enough to say, beyond the variation, that Thief is 4th place, then Alcarity is the most broken boon in the game, even in it’s nerfed form.

With the Chrono’s build, there’s a total of 20s worth of Alacrity. All the wells will be available again by the time the Chrono finishes the first Alacrity rotation. In a sense, there will be almost 100% Alacrity uptime for the Mesmer and roughly 80% uptime for everyone else. Which means that even the Guardian can surpass the Thief seeing how the Thief’s build is simply relying on autoattacks and Fist Flurry rotation. The Guardian with Alacrity can pop more traps for a more DPS burst. The raid might even be better off if they trade the Thief for a second Mesmer to have a 100% Alacrity uptime. I’m sure that the loss of DPS from the Thief is no big deal if every other profession in the raid gets their skills 33% faster.

You and Dahkneus seem to be in disagreement and I don’t have numbers to prove either way, so I won’t argue against it and I won’t dismiss it as a valid point.

But if it does turn out to be true, then I hope they look at finally giving a more benefit to thieves from Alacrity.

Numbers and proof!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4fnnfo/dps_comparison/
You can follow the engi links here back to a video of the 30k DPS (or, direct link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibRCp1vQpqc&index=1&list=PLMdLyt-5r_24ISvEQ2wmrk8b0Cpspa_WN), which is pulled off with 100% alacrity (which will never happen in a real raid unless you’re stacking mesmers for some reason).

Revenant isn’t even close.

Thieves don’t need alacrity for big damage (aside from venom share) and honestly that’s more of a benefit since we don’t need to rely on it for big dps like other classes do.

I was surprised at the numbers for condi, but the linked post seems to imply he did the test solo, which doesn’t factor in venom share.

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Well, with Alacrity, it will also improve both Revenant and Engineer which are close 3rd and 4th, so in that sense, they will surpass the Thief and the Thief probably end up in 5th place.

I don’t follow that. They are trailing both in the unbuffed and buffed category by a margin of 4-6k. If one single boon that is able to be cycled more than quickness can not only cover that gap and but surpass it enough to say, beyond the variation, that Thief is 4th place, then Alcarity is the most broken boon in the game, even in it’s nerfed form.

With the Chrono’s build, there’s a total of 20s worth of Alacrity. All the wells will be available again by the time the Chrono finishes the first Alacrity rotation. In a sense, there will be almost 100% Alacrity uptime for the Mesmer and roughly 80% uptime for everyone else. Which means that even the Guardian can surpass the Thief seeing how the Thief’s build is simply relying on autoattacks and Fist Flurry rotation. The Guardian with Alacrity can pop more traps for a more DPS burst. The raid might even be better off if they trade the Thief for a second Mesmer to have a 100% Alacrity uptime. I’m sure that the loss of DPS from the Thief is no big deal if every other profession in the raid gets their skills 33% faster.

You and Dahkneus seem to be in disagreement and I don’t have numbers to prove either way, so I won’t argue against it and I won’t dismiss it as a valid point.

That’s not really a surprise since we tend to look at the same thing from the opposite angles. I really do wish that they went ahead and put up some number with Alacrity on. But I really think that they are overlooking the value of Alacrity just because it was nerfed.

But if it does turn out to be true, then I hope they look at finally giving a more benefit to thieves from Alacrity.

IMO, Alacrity should affect Initiative regen and only then I’ll be fully convinced and I’m positive that the Thief will even take top DPS.

MadRabbit.3179:

Dahkeus.8243:

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

MadRabbit.3179:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Well, with Alacrity, it will also improve both Revenant and Engineer which are close 3rd and 4th, so in that sense, they will surpass the Thief and the Thief probably end up in 5th place.

I don’t follow that. They are trailing both in the unbuffed and buffed category by a margin of 4-6k. If one single boon that is able to be cycled more than quickness can not only cover that gap and but surpass it enough to say, beyond the variation, that Thief is 4th place, then Alcarity is the most broken boon in the game, even in it’s nerfed form.

With the Chrono’s build, there’s a total of 20s worth of Alacrity. All the wells will be available again by the time the Chrono finishes the first Alacrity rotation. In a sense, there will be almost 100% Alacrity uptime for the Mesmer and roughly 80% uptime for everyone else. Which means that even the Guardian can surpass the Thief seeing how the Thief’s build is simply relying on autoattacks and Fist Flurry rotation. The Guardian with Alacrity can pop more traps for a more DPS burst. The raid might even be better off if they trade the Thief for a second Mesmer to have a 100% Alacrity uptime. I’m sure that the loss of DPS from the Thief is no big deal if every other profession in the raid gets their skills 33% faster.

You and Dahkneus seem to be in disagreement and I don’t have numbers to prove either way, so I won’t argue against it and I won’t dismiss it as a valid point.

But if it does turn out to be true, then I hope they look at finally giving a more benefit to thieves from Alacrity.

Numbers and proof!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4fnnfo/dps_comparison/
You can follow the engi links here back to a video of the 30k DPS (or, direct link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibRCp1vQpqc&index=1&list=PLMdLyt-5r_24ISvEQ2wmrk8b0Cpspa_WN), which is pulled off with 100% alacrity (which will never happen in a real raid unless you’re stacking mesmers for some reason).

Revenant isn’t even close.

Thieves don’t need alacrity for big damage (aside from venom share) and honestly that’s more of a benefit since we don’t need to rely on it for big dps like other classes do.

I was surprised at the numbers for condi, but the linked post seems to imply he did the test solo, which doesn’t factor in venom share.

Yea, I haven’t seen any good numbers for a venom share test with the shared venoms included, but there’s nothing to indicate that it would be anything substantial. At best, it may barely beat out a PS war, lol.

lol wtf at people saying that alacrity puts thieves lower on the dps ranking
not sure if trolling or just didn’t read the post at all

The first chart is with 100% alacrity

MadRabbit.3179:

Raizen.7981:

Do I have to pay you to read my posts before answering me? Oh boy, here we go again

I get it. You think that thieves will never ever find a spot in raid, but there is a lot of other written materials besides your forum posts that suggest otherwise.

No, you don’t get it. I’ve specifically said that you won’t join a raid, unless you’re really really lucky, or have a dedicated group

but most of my friends who do run in dedicated raid groups roll a thief in one of the DPS slots in their compositions.

They have DEDICATED groups, which is EXACTLY the exception I’ve mentio- ah screw it. You won’t read this one anyway

MadRabbit.3179:

Can we use some more improvements? I would agree with that, but this very doom and gloom perspective doesn’t match what I see.

Your perspective matches mine in terms of 90%, except raiding, where it doesn’t, since you don’t raid

But I appreciate you taking the time to try and kitten all over my enjoyment at thief’s clocking in such high numbers in the new DPS meters like I always figured they could with off topic discussion that had nothing to do with anything in my OP. Always happy to enable other people’s soapboxes.

The numbers, again, for the 3rd time, were there, since the winter patch. Also, since we’re talking PvE, and raids are pure PvE, how am I offtopic?

You are offtopic, beause I made a post stating that thieves are the second highest damage dealer at the moment. This is proven and uncontested. You aren’t contesting it, but rather negating it, because it doesn’t matter and you still have a hard time finding groups (which I am sure is true, but not discounting your lovely personality being a factor in that). I never made a post saying we’re best thing since sliced bread in raids now. You are using as an oppurtunity to crawl on your raid’s soap boxes, which I have been divulging in.

I do read your posts. I read what is there and I also read what is not there, which is why I am I getting tired of replying directly them and arguing with you. You are either ignoring details, omitting information or bringing up stuff that’s not contextually relevant to the issue at hand.

I know when I am debating someone who is focused on being right at all costs and not trying to come a fair and balanced perspective of where thief’s are at. You are trying to make your arguments stronger than they are, because if even if we come to some consensus they are bottom tier, we are talking about margins that are so low that they are still competitive for a raid slot.

Look at your break bar arguments, for example. One, you bring up Thieves Guild doing higher DPS than Impact Strike (something I don’t believe is mathematically accurate, but not prepared to argue that point, because I haven’t done testing). Contextually irrelevant, because Thieve’s Guild isn’t being used in the damage rotation above to achieve maximum DPS. Therefore, whether or not you have Thieve’s Guild or Impact Strike on your bar is irrelevant.

Second, you mention Impact Strike is on a 40 second cycle, but it’s a collective 432 points of break bar damage on a 40 second cycle. Now, throw in Fists of Flurry for 200 damage on a 20 second CD that’s part of our damage rotation.

Now, throw in Steal on Goresaval. The monster type is weighted to give you Blinding Tuft to activate the Knockdown in Staff or Head Crack, both of which do an additional 200-250 break damage (can’t remember the actual numbers).

So all together, a Thief can burst a break bar for 832-882 without having to alter their composition to drop abilities that would otherwise boost their DPS. That’s what makes their break bar damage competitive. That’s what makes them competitive for a raid slot, because they have that and high DPS. That’s why my friends take them. And in a world without Slick Shoes, that kind of break bar damage is relevant.

The short cooldown cycles are relevant, because they can split the rotation on Steal and Impact Strike to burst a bar every 20 seconds for 400-600. I don’t know the regen cycles on raid monsters, but on standard champions and legendaries, 20 seconds is enough to contribute high break bar damage to every break bar as soon as it regens to full.

How do you not know all this? I don’t even raid and I know the math on this. You are the expert here, right? That’s where all this condescension is coming from. Why are you leaving this out as factors in assessing what a Thief can bring to the table?

Throwing Gorseval where tempest is 5000% taken over thief because of orb cleansing and incredible soul control made me realize you got no kittening idea what you’re talking about.
And cut the crap with “im reading your posts”. I’ve proved it over 3 times that you clearly didn’t read what I’ve said. I’ll stop reasoning because reasoning implies the other person has a clue about what they’re talking. Please don’t bother replying, I’m leaving your way-off-math thread alone.

you can bring 10 people to a raid
obviously you take both thieves and eles to gorseval for ideal results. They have different jobs.

Also, venomshare can apparently do in excess of 30k dps, while providing the best burst bar breaking now available, and sustain support stronger than wash the pain away

reikken.4961:

lol wtf at people saying that alacrity puts thieves lower on the dps ranking
not sure if trolling or just didn’t read the post at all

The first chart is with 100% alacrity

Perhaps you’re looking at the wrong post because they specifically stated;

“We didnt use Alacrity in the “Realistic” tries because you cannot keep it up permanently on 10 people."

that’s the second chart

just look at any of the videos for confirmation

reikken.4961:

that’s the second chart

just look at any of the videos for confirmation

Well, that’s what we’re talking about… :/

then why is anyone talking about alacrity?
first chart: full alacrity: no one is even close to thief (barring ele, obv)
second chart: no alacrity: no one is even close to thief (barring ele, obv)
where is the issue?

So, here’s the bottom line.

On most fights, an ele will probably top dps. However, a thief will probably edge ahead on fights where the boss moves around more, especially if it doesn’t have a large hitbox. You’ll also get a lot of breakbar utility out of a thief, which is especially valuable in a post-slick shoes nerf world.

Condi thief is even showing some potential and may be a strong choice for certain fights, even if the dps isn’t as great (group healing + better instant break bar).

So, there’s a lot of value in bringing a thief and that value is a lot more visible than before the patch.

Overall, this is great news for people who want to raid on thief.

reikken.4961:

then why is anyone talking about alacrity?
first chart: full alacrity: no one is even close to thief (barring ele, obv)
second chart: no alacrity: no one is even close to thief (barring ele, obv)
where is the issue?

There are several really;
1) Compare to Guardian, whose DPS mainly coming from traps, Thief will lose a lot of DPS when they opt to remove break bars. That is something that the chart never acknowledge in the “reality” list.

2) When the Thief is using Staff or D/D, it obviously cannot contribute to removing break bar. Again, compare to Guardian for example, while they choose to remove the break bar, they don’t lose in DPS because…yeah traps. They can DPS and remove break bar just by dropping a trap.

3) Now compare to Condi Engi, same thing, once the conditions are set, it continues to do damage.

In a sense, the Thief is trapped in its own rotation while other professions can take advantage of the boost from Alacrity. As soon as the Thief diverts from the fixed rotation, they’ll drop in DPS quite rapidly. I don’t see any build where the Thief can DPS and contribute in removing break bars.

Dude, what planet are you living on?!?

Fist Flurry and Impact Strike both chew through break bars and Impact Strike is the only one that technically lowers DPS (but not even by a noticeable amount). Fist Flurry is actually a dps increase to use and is only a loss when you need to wait to use it for the break bar to come up.

And it doesn’t matter what weapon set you use since the only hard CC we have on weapons is from tiny stuns that hardly make a dent anyways.

And if you’re condi, then the second it takes to cast basi makes no difference to dps, considering that it’s the biggest instant break in the game.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Guardian, whose DPS mainly coming from traps,

This is wrong. like extremely wrong

Condi Engi, same thing, once the conditions are set, it continues to do damage.

And this is misguided. Yes, your conditions will keep ticking, but if you don’t keep reapplying them, your dps goes down. The only way you can stop attacking without losing dps is if all of your skills are on cooldown.

besides, the amount of time spent using breaks is so small that it doesn’t impact dps by a notable amount
EXCEPT if you have to swap weapons to do it, locking you out of your dps (like warrior), or if your cc for some reason takes a long time to cast. (like ice bow)

It’s the guy that thinks Acro is needed for PvE…go figure.

On thief support:

Due to initiative, thieves are especially good at exploiting combo fields, and many of our abilities have significantly more resource efficient finishers attached to them. What if this were turned up to eleven? The common reason people give for not choosing thieves is lack of synergy with the people around them.

Thieves, however, are the only class that can see a combo field and instantly chuck a long string of finishers at it. This could be extremely powerful group synergy if we had traits designed around it, and still ring true for the class as a largely self-enabling, opportunistic playstyle.