Basically a perma-cripple condi thief that camps on short bow. Good survivability (for a thief, anyway), good escapability. Surprisingly good at holding points.
Lots of evades. Dagger Storm for reflecting Ranger’s arrows and stacking more bleeds/cripples. Enemies can cleanse the bleeds/cripples, but you reapply the bleeds/cripples immediately.
This build basically should not work in PvP, but it keeps surprising me.
Anyway, if you’re tired of running dagger/X and want to surprise (troll?) enemy players for awhile, give it a shot.
I have a sword, a dagger, and an estimated life span of 2.47 seconds.
This thief is running shortbow shortbow and enjoying it.
Just want to point out the elephant in the forum[?].
Resident Disgruntled, Coffee-drinking Charr.
Zarin Mistcloak(THF) Valkyrie Mistblade(WAR) Kossori Mistwalker(REV) Durendal Mistward(GRD)
I used to think (build op, pls nerf) like you, but then I took a nerf to the knee.
Consider running Runes of the Thorn and focusing on poison instead. You don’t have to make any other changes and you should end up dealing more damage.
Consider running Runes of the Thorn and focusing on poison instead. You don’t have to make any other changes and you should end up dealing more damage.
Thanks, I’ll give it a shot.
I have a sword, a dagger, and an estimated life span of 2.47 seconds.
Consider running Runes of the Thorn and focusing on poison instead. You don’t have to make any other changes and you should end up dealing more damage.
Thanks, I’ll give it a shot.
I’ve been doing this in PvE. I run SB D/D but I camp in SB a lot. Whirl through choking gas with spider venom for maximum fun. I do feel like choking gas should last longer though.
Consider running Runes of the Thorn and focusing on poison instead. You don’t have to make any other changes and you should end up dealing more damage.
Thanks, I’ll give it a shot.
I’ve been doing this in PvE. I run SB D/D but I camp in SB a lot. Whirl through choking gas with spider venom for maximum fun. I do feel like choking gas should last longer though.
Ah yes, I remember when choking gas had five pulses instead of four. And I think the duration of each pulse was a second longer than it is now.
But Anet decided in their infinite wisdom that the extra few seconds of poison was OP
The short bow still has potential though, as you noted. I’m having fun with it, especially with the weapon-swapping sigils equipped. Truth be told, short bow should already have some kind of condition on the auto attack, like 1 second of poison or something. Or at least give us a trait that makes the conditions on short bow longer/better. But there are ways around it with venoms, sigils, etc.
I have a sword, a dagger, and an estimated life span of 2.47 seconds.
Choking Gas was literally melting people. The extra poison duration allowed for much higher stacks. Spamming CG would stack more poison than people could deal with, which is why it’s been reduced to current levels. It still hits hard, but now it’s more difficult to reach unmanageable levels.
Consider running Runes of the Thorn and focusing on poison instead. You don’t have to make any other changes and you should end up dealing more damage.
Thanks, I’ll give it a shot.
I’ve been doing this in PvE. I run SB D/D but I camp in SB a lot. Whirl through choking gas with spider venom for maximum fun. I do feel like choking gas should last longer though.
Ah yes, I remember when choking gas had five pulses instead of four. And I think the duration of each pulse was a second longer than it is now.
But Anet decided in their infinite wisdom that the extra few seconds of poison was OP
The short bow still has potential though, as you noted. I’m having fun with it, especially with the weapon-swapping sigils equipped. Truth be told, short bow should already have some kind of condition on the auto attack, like 1 second of poison or something. Or at least give us a trait that makes the conditions on short bow longer/better. But there are ways around it with venoms, sigils, etc.
Yeah, I feel like I have to work very hard for my dps compared to zerk. It’s both fun and frustrating. Increasing the poison duration on choking gas and dagger training to 3s would be a very nice improvement. Venoms also should have a lower cooldown. 30s seems about right.
Choking Gas was literally melting practice golems. The extra poison duration allowed for 3 consistent stacks instead of 2. Spamming CG would make people actually have to condi cleanse if they stood perfectly still in your poison fields, which is why it’s been reduced to current levels. It still hits, but now it’s more difficult to make people even notice that you did anything. You have to run 100% poison duration, potent poison, blow all of you dodges for whirl finishers, and hope enemies stay in the field to make the damage respectable.
Choking Gas was literally melting people. The extra poison duration allowed for much higher stacks. Spamming CG would stack more poison than people could deal with, which is why it’s been reduced to current levels. It still hits hard, but now it’s more difficult to reach unmanageable levels.
The only thing it was melting were training golems. The skill is literarly balanced about fighting static training golems (not the moving one, too harsh opponent). As somebody above wrote, wisdom of balance devs is above frames of our tight minds.
Going to have to agree with Ghotistyx, Poisons can be very pwoerful if you spec a bit for them. IMO, its the fact that we can spam it causing the damage tic’s to stacks while also crippling your opponents ability to heal. Overall I like the build, I use something similar to deal with groups in PVE.
I haven’t fought this combo yet but I feel that if I ran into it… I would wreck the hell out of it. Most decent builds come with enough condi-removal to handle a necro spike condi build so this setup seems like it would just be a tickle. Without perma-stealth or a ridiculous evasion setup, condi thief builds are iffy at best in my experience.
Choking Gas was literally melting people. The extra poison duration allowed for much higher stacks. Spamming CG would stack more poison than people could deal with, which is why it’s been reduced to current levels. It still hits hard, but now it’s more difficult to reach unmanageable levels.
Ehhh…. not really. The problem with CG was that it didn’t proc a reveal so a dodge roll caltrop thief could stack bleed AND poison without a player ever seeing them. A player would be trying to blindly land a hit on a perma-stealth as the bleed stacks piled up then CG would surround them and thief would pile on an immobilize and some cover conditions.
Now a scrapper pops reveal, DH slaps down the traps, Reaper drops a chill bomb, chrono effectively turns off the combos, etc or the enemy simply runs a ridiculous amount of condi-clears/transfers/conversions. Scrubs still get bit by low condi-application builds but good players shake it off and lay down a bunch of power AoE.
Sarcasm For Hire [SFH]
“Youre lips are movin and youre complaining about something thats wingeing.”
Going to have to agree with Ghotistyx, Poisons can be very pwoerful if you spec a bit for them. IMO, its the fact that we can spam it causing the damage tic’s to stacks while also crippling your opponents ability to heal. Overall I like the build, I use something similar to deal with groups in PVE.
As a condi thief, poison is easy to apply, so they will always have -33% healing anyway. As far as damage, CG gives you 2 consistent stacks, or 4 if you run 100% bonus poison duration. That’s if you use it every chance you get (once every 4 seconds), using all of your initiative. Dagger auto can keep up 6 stacks (or roughly 9 if running dagger training) without using any initiative. I’d say a CG buff wouldn’t hurt. Poison is strong. CG is mediocre (but still fun, which is why I use it).
Iirc CG used to have both an extra second duration, and perhaps an extra tick off application. That changes drastically once you add in 100% poison duration.
CG used to not Reveal the Thief that’s true, but that was a separate change (it happened earlier than lowering the duration of CG). The lowering of duration was the exact same patch that poison started stacking. This is where the issues happened. Downed players were CG bait as multiple allies tried to rez and ended getting all of them stuck with 10+ stacks. Even if allies didn’t try for the rez, the downed player would start eating all that poison and was essentially done before they had a chance. This also want just a pvp problem. Multiple SB Thieves (like on wvw) could guarantee players would not be surviving a poison burst, taking them from 100-0 and through downed state. CG became a legitimate damage threat once poison could stack when before it was more anti heal utility. CG still had a lot of potential, but it’s not quite as crazy as it could’ve been.
Iirc CG used to have both an extra second duration, and perhaps an extra tick off application. That changes drastically once you add in 100% poison duration.
CG used to not Reveal the Thief that’s true, but that was a separate change (it happened earlier than lowering the duration of CG). The lowering of duration was the exact same patch that poison started stacking. This is where the issues happened. Downed players were CG bait as multiple allies tried to rez and ended getting all of them stuck with 10+ stacks. Even if allies didn’t try for the rez, the downed player would start eating all that poison and was essentially done before they had a chance. This also want just a pvp problem. Multiple SB Thieves (like on wvw) could guarantee players would not be surviving a poison burst, taking them from 100-0 and through downed state. CG became a legitimate damage threat once poison could stack when before it was more anti heal utility. CG still had a lot of potential, but it’s not quite as crazy as it could’ve been.
100% duration allows you to get 4 stacks consistently. If it wasn’t nerfed on June 23rd, it would have been 6 stacks consistently. Dagger auto can already do that and more at no initiative cost, and saying that it’s a problem because downed players have to eat it is like saying any DPS in the game is a problem because you can cleave downed players to death. Nobody was going around “melting” people post June 23rd with CG. It’s just used to prevent ressing, which is independent of how many stacks are on the player. Even with 3s per stack and 5s field duration, it would still barely compete with other options.
CG got its change the exact same update that allowed conditions to stack. It went from 3s stacking duration straight to 2s stacking intensity. The public didn’t have the chance to play with it in-between iterations. Keep in mind the effect to cost ratio.
CG got its change the exact same update that allowed conditions to stack. It went from 3s stacking duration straight to 2s stacking intensity. The public didn’t have the chance to play with it in-between iterations. Keep in mind the effect to cost ratio.
Correct, and when that happened, this forum rolled their eyes because the reason for the nerf was that it was apparently melting practice golems. We don’t need to play with that iteration to know how it would perform. 6 consistent stacks instead of 4 would not melt anything, but it would at least help it be a more viable damage option.
I did some testing, and with FULL might stacks, 100% poison duration, 33% bonus from potent poison, bursting sigil, and carrion ammy, it took 18 seconds to kill a golem spamming CG. It took 13 without any might on dagger autos using rabid (to avoid power). It took me 20s with no might pistol autos on rabid gear! That means blowing all of your initiative on CG with max might and crazy poison buffs is comparable to just using a pistol auto with no power gear, and worse than dagger autos…there’s your effect to cost ratio for you.
I feel like I camp in SB because I HAVE to, at least in HoT PvE I’d much rather be backstabbin foo’s. But it’s turned into that unsuspecting towel slap :<
Choking Gas was literally melting people. The extra poison duration allowed for much higher stacks. Spamming CG would stack more poison than people could deal with, which is why it’s been reduced to current levels. It still hits hard, but now it’s more difficult to reach unmanageable levels.
Scaring story.
Poison stacking and CG nerf were implemented with the same patch. I’d really like to know where you got this information about “melting people”. Btw, CG is close to useless atm.
Scaring story.
Poison stacking and CG nerf were implemented with the same patch. I’d really like to know where you got this information about “melting people”. Btw, CG is close to useless atm.
The " melting people " quote was directly from Anet when they were talking about the change. Someone else had inferred spamming CG on downed foes being revived as being too much band for your buck.
Also in Chinese wvw meta, you actually had a frontline of SB Thieves to drop poison on the enemy zerg. When it was only duration it was used to counter healing, but once it stacked intensity damage potential went a little crazy. That being said, Potent Poison, Thorn runes, and CG all mix together very well.
You know there’s something wrong with your class when camping shortbow is now considered a valid strategy.
I don’t think valid is the word I would use there… maybe invalid. I am sure this can work but not against a decent player. Thief is already fairly gimpy but the shortbow is probably the weakest DPS condi or power of the theif weapon sets. If it didn’t have a travel component nobody that optimizes a build would ever use it.
Sarcasm For Hire [SFH]
“Youre lips are movin and youre complaining about something thats wingeing.”
I’d much rather be backstabbin foo’s. But it’s turned into that unsuspecting towel slap :<