Guild Wars 2

Now, all of this is done in heart of the mists vs the light armor practice golem with berserker’s setup and runes of divinity and steady weapons “of force” (having the same damage modifier for runes but increasing the damage gives more exaggerated results which shows differences clearer. Trait setup is 20/30/0/20/0, which is what I normally use but I did not select any major traits so testing would be fair. Critical chance is at 52% with 62% crit damage, condition damage is 60 from divinity runes. The only minor trait that can effect damage in an unbalanced way is the 25 point in critical strikes, so I always waited for initiative to regen before using skills.

First I used a dagger dagger setup:

autoattack chain (including poison from 3rd hit):
nocrits – 36+36+112+112+(90*2) = 476 total
all crits – 78+78+237+237+(90*2) = 810 total

heartseeker:
>50% – 132 noncrit, 279 crit
50-25% – 180 noncrit, 419 crit
<25% – 264 noncrit, 559 crit

death blossom:
nocrits: 26×3*12) = 1698
allcrits: 55×3((45*3)*12) = 1785

dancing dagger:
132 non crit, 279 crit

cloak and dagger:
185 non crit, 393 crit

backstab:
326 non crit, 629 crit

So basically you can see all of the dagger skills with the exception of death blossom (which has its own specialized role in condition builds) deal more burst damage than any hit of the autoattack chain, and I compare them to single hits rather than the whole chain due to time of execution, since they’re all single hit skills. So that means you have 3 skills + your stealth skill that are all really good damage spread across the bar. I’ve said before that dagger/dagger is the one weapon set thief had that would still work if the initiative system was removed and cooldowns put in.

Now lets just compare 4 heartseekers spammed on a full health target vs a more complex rotation that’d be in place if the class were to hypothetically be changed to cooldown base (it’d still require heartseeker to be on a fairly short cooldown) of dancing dagger, heartseeker (to catch up to them), cloak and dagger, backstab, heartseeker (assuming they’re under 25% health to finish), which can be done with the acrobatics initiative trait in 1 initiative bar. For the sake of arguement, we’ll say 2 heartseekers are above 50%, 1 50-25%, and 1 under 25% (not likely to happen, but best possible outcome for heartseeker spam) and 100% crit rate on all skills.

4 heartseekers 279+279+419+559 = 1536
longer rotation 279 + 279 + 393 + 629 + 559 = 2139
so about 25% more damage on the same initiative bar, not even counting the autoattacks in the mix.

Next post: dagger/pistol

Devildoc.6721:

Now, all of this is done in heart of the mists vs the light armor practice golem with berserker’s setup and runes of divinity and steady weapons “of force” (having the same damage modifier for runes but increasing the damage gives more exaggerated results which shows differences clearer. Trait setup is 20/30/0/20/0, which is what I normally use but I did not select any major traits so testing would be fair. Critical chance is at 52% with 62% crit damage, condition damage is 60 from divinity runes. The only minor trait that can effect damage in an unbalanced way is the 25 point in critical strikes, so I always waited for initiative to regen before using skills.

First I used a dagger dagger setup:

autoattack chain (including poison from 3rd hit):
nocrits – 36+36+112+112+(90*2) = 476 total
all crits – 78+78+237+237+(90*2) = 810 total

heartseeker:
>50% – 132 noncrit, 279 crit
50-25% – 180 noncrit, 419 crit
<25% – 264 noncrit, 559 crit

death blossom:
nocrits: 26×3*12) = 1698
allcrits: 55×3((45*3)*12) = 1785

dancing dagger:
132 non crit, 279 crit

cloak and dagger:
185 non crit, 393 crit

backstab:
326 non crit, 629 crit

So basically you can see all of the dagger skills with the exception of death blossom (which has its own specialized role in condition builds) deal more burst damage than any hit of the autoattack chain, and I compare them to single hits rather than the whole chain due to time of execution, since they’re all single hit skills. So that means you have 3 skills + your stealth skill that are all really good damage spread across the bar. I’ve said before that dagger/dagger is the one weapon set thief had that would still work if the initiative system was removed and cooldowns put in.

Now lets just compare 4 heartseekers spammed on a full health target vs a more complex rotation that’d be in place if the class were to hypothetically be changed to cooldown base (it’d still require heartseeker to be on a fairly short cooldown) of dancing dagger, heartseeker (to catch up to them), cloak and dagger, backstab, heartseeker (assuming they’re under 25% health to finish), which can be done with the acrobatics initiative trait in 1 initiative bar. For the sake of arguement, we’ll say 2 heartseekers are above 50%, 1 50-25%, and 1 under 25% (not likely to happen, but best possible outcome for heartseeker spam) and 100% crit rate on all skills.

4 heartseekers 279+279+419+559 = 1536
longer rotation 279 + 279 + 393 + 629 + 559 = 2139
so about 25% more damage on the same initiative bar, not even counting the autoattacks in the mix.

Next post: dagger/pistol

Skimmed over it.

So essentially you want them to completely remove, and revamp the initiative system. The system that was specifically made for the thief class to be played the way it’s played. The system that makes them unique compared to the other classes. Essentially make them a terrible class so all the other classes have far more diversity and better play style and experience.

Gotcha!

Dagger/Pistol

just the different skills here

Shadow Shot:
non crit 165, crit 349
something of note, only the dagger stab does damage, this should perhaps be looked at. It should be a pistol shot followed by a dagger stab.

Head Shot:
non crit 34, crit 73

Black Powder:
non crit 34, crit 73
(the actual numbers were 31 and 66 but remember black powder uses up 6 initiative so you lose 10% damage)

See this set you lose a lot of damage potential from dancing dagger and cloak and dagger. You can still use the utility of having an interrupt and the blinds and you can leap through black powder with heartseeker to stealth and backstab.

4 heartseekers vs black powder → heartseeker → backstab → heartseeker

That same 1536 heartseeker damage.. vs 66+279+629+559 = 1533

so you give up some damage potential for some blindness and have an interrupt option. Personally, I think the pistol shots could do more, so that heartseeker spam is outdone by smarter play. Unfortunately, in this case it is not.

next post, sword/pistol

Kurow.6973:

Devildoc.6721:

Now, all of this is done in heart of the mists vs the light armor practice golem with berserker’s setup and runes of divinity and steady weapons “of force” (having the same damage modifier for runes but increasing the damage gives more exaggerated results which shows differences clearer. Trait setup is 20/30/0/20/0, which is what I normally use but I did not select any major traits so testing would be fair. Critical chance is at 52% with 62% crit damage, condition damage is 60 from divinity runes. The only minor trait that can effect damage in an unbalanced way is the 25 point in critical strikes, so I always waited for initiative to regen before using skills.

First I used a dagger dagger setup:

autoattack chain (including poison from 3rd hit):
nocrits – 36+36+112+112+(90*2) = 476 total
all crits – 78+78+237+237+(90*2) = 810 total

heartseeker:
>50% – 132 noncrit, 279 crit
50-25% – 180 noncrit, 419 crit
<25% – 264 noncrit, 559 crit

death blossom:
nocrits: 26×3*12) = 1698
allcrits: 55×3((45*3)*12) = 1785

dancing dagger:
132 non crit, 279 crit

cloak and dagger:
185 non crit, 393 crit

backstab:
326 non crit, 629 crit

So basically you can see all of the dagger skills with the exception of death blossom (which has its own specialized role in condition builds) deal more burst damage than any hit of the autoattack chain, and I compare them to single hits rather than the whole chain due to time of execution, since they’re all single hit skills. So that means you have 3 skills + your stealth skill that are all really good damage spread across the bar. I’ve said before that dagger/dagger is the one weapon set thief had that would still work if the initiative system was removed and cooldowns put in.

Now lets just compare 4 heartseekers spammed on a full health target vs a more complex rotation that’d be in place if the class were to hypothetically be changed to cooldown base (it’d still require heartseeker to be on a fairly short cooldown) of dancing dagger, heartseeker (to catch up to them), cloak and dagger, backstab, heartseeker (assuming they’re under 25% health to finish), which can be done with the acrobatics initiative trait in 1 initiative bar. For the sake of arguement, we’ll say 2 heartseekers are above 50%, 1 50-25%, and 1 under 25% (not likely to happen, but best possible outcome for heartseeker spam) and 100% crit rate on all skills.

4 heartseekers 279+279+419+559 = 1536
longer rotation 279 + 279 + 393 + 629 + 559 = 2139
so about 25% more damage on the same initiative bar, not even counting the autoattacks in the mix.

Next post: dagger/pistol

Skimmed over it.

So essentially you want them to completely remove, and revamp the initiative system. The system that was specifically made for the thief class to be played the way it’s played. The system that makes them unique compared to the other classes. Essentially make them a terrible class so all the other classes have far more diversity and better play style and experience.

Gotcha!

Not at all, the point was, other people (after being killed by a thief and seeing that they use the same skill a few times in a row in their death log) ask for the initiative system to be removed, I’m saying that without it, most weapon combos would be broken. But really it’s just analyzing the state of thief weapon skills since my favorite combo was smiter’s booned.

Okay, sword/pistol, what used to be my favorite combo.

Autoattack chain:
nocrits: 107+107+174 = 388
all crits: 227+227+370 = 824

Infiltrator’s strike:
100 non crit, 213 crit

Pistol whip:
no crits: 46 + (8×50) = 446
all crits: 99 + (8×106) = 947
interesting thing, results were lower when I did this test a few nights ago, they were under the autoattack chain.
Another interesting thing.. I checked slotting the +5% damage on dual attack skills and it does not affect the sword slashes, only the initial pistol hit. Bug reported it.

So with this set, all the damage is between autoattacks and pistol whip. the autoattacks are barely higher than daggers, and actually lower when no crits are involved because of the poison on the dagger autoattack chain. However the sword does aoe on those 2 skills, but the dagger executes faster for higher dps. So at least the auto attacks are balanced… but what about all the other damage across dagger/dagger’s skills?

Would it be asking too much to make infiltrator’s strike do as much damage as the third hit in the autoattack chain rather than less damage than the third hit?

Would it be asking too much for headshot and black powder to do as much damage as body shot? (which by the way is 72 non crit, 154 crit with the steady weapon setup). Body shot itself needs a reworking, nobody uses it.

I should note that when this bug gets fixed, pistol whip will potentially gain 5% of its damage back, which would help.

Btw:

sword pistol stealth skill:
100 non crit, 213 crit

why does the stealth skill hit less than an autoattack? As it is, sword is very limited in how it can acquire stealth, usually relying on a 30s+ cooldown, or a dagger offhand in one of their weapon sets.

Pistol/Pistol:

autoattack 55 non crit, 117 crit + 49*4 bleed damage (251 total non crit, 313 total crit)

body shot 72 non crit, 154 crit

unload: 41*8 no crits, 88*8 all crits (328 no crits, 704 all crit)

sneak attack: 33*5 no crits, 70*5 all crits, + ((5*46)*4) 1085 no crits, 1270 all crits.

pistol/dagger
shadow strike:
no crits: 41+173=214
both crits: 88+367=455

why does the pistol shot from this skill happen but not on the dagger/pistol skill?
is that a bug?

speaking of bugs, the 5% dual skill damage trait bug also affects pistol/dagger’s dual skill. The trait works as intended for unload, shadow shot, and death blossom (not the bleeds however), but not pistol whip or shadow strike, where it only affects the first hit

Not going to bother with sword/dagger, weapon set’s camera issues on flanking strike gives me a headache.

I’d say swords stealth attack is less than the auto attack because of the stealth attack’s utility, being a 2second daze when hitting them in the back. So the point of the skill is that, not a massive damage hit. You can shut down a target quite well in this build in team fights, while still hitting others with AoE auto attacks.

I’ve been toying with s/d the last couple days and am finding it very enjoyable, and dont ever really use flanking strike due to it being a bit on the buggy side.

Dont discount a weapon set because of 1 skill.

Flanking strike just needs a different animation and camera movement. It should simply shadow step you behind your target and do the damage.

Maybe if it did a lot more damage it would be fitting for it to be the melee version of a skill shot.. but not as it is currently. It’s damage is less than that of pistol whip, roughly the same as unload, it does at least get affected by the 5% damage trait.

It just bugs me that the best dps on a weapon set for a burst damage class is the autoattack.

Perhaps listing thief simply as a burst damage class is the wrong first step since every class has the ability for burst damage, and as well as every class has the ability to go tank sustain or CC/Support or conditions.

S/D just doesnt seem to have been designed to be a burst damage weapon set as much as D/D. It feels much more CC/Support oriented, in which case it kinda makes sense for the AA to be the main damage dealer as you need initiative for support abilities.

However it’s a shame that flanking is so unreliable, it’d be nice to have.

Well, the entire class is built around burst damage. That is what initiative is for, so that we can use the same skill multiple times in a row for a burst.

Well, allow you to use the same skill quickly in succession. Doesnt have to be a burst damage skill.

Examples: Infiltrators arrow, Infiltrators strike, Backwards SB cripple jump (name escapes me), Dancing dagger, death blossom, both pistol offhand abilities.

In fact, arguably the best burst damage skill we have (backstab) requires no initiative to use and cannot be spammed.

Edit: Let me also say that this is in the context of PvP.

Paranoid.9542:

Well, allow you to use the same skill quickly in succession. Doesnt have to be a burst damage skill.

Examples: Infiltrators arrow, Infiltrators strike, Backwards SB cripple jump (name escapes me), Dancing dagger, death blossom, both pistol offhand abilities.

In fact, arguably the best burst damage skill we have (backstab) requires no initiative to use and cannot be spammed.

Edit: Let me also say that this is in the context of PvP.

Well, according to dev diaries with Jon Peters that’s what it was for, was originally for burst damage.

Devildoc.6721:

Well, according to dev diaries with Jon Peters that’s what it was for, was originally for burst damage.

Then I dont know what to tell ya, if you believe the thief to be only a burst damage class then you’re massively short-changing it.

Paranoid is right. What the initiative system does is allow you to spam a particular skill so you can specialize at whatever that particular skill does, whereas most professions have to rotate between several of their skills and use traits/utilities/gear to push that entire rotation towards the role they’re pursuing. Lots of people pick their high damage skill and spam that for high damage. This is a legitimate use of the concept, but if it is the only one you consider valid you’re going to miss out on the vast majority of malleability the thief offers.

That said, if you wanted this to be a controlled environment you should’ve done 0 invested trait points and 0 gear pieces. The values would be much less real-world, but wouldn’t be skewed by specific build philosophies.

You’re also vastly undervaluing AE-capable abilities by only including single-target damage. You don’t even need a large group of enemies for some abilities to get huge boosts. Dancing Dagger and Shortbow main attack, for instance, get 400 % and 300 % stronger, respectively, against only 2 opponents. You can’t really do cross-valuation of different weapon skills if you ignore the situations those weapon skills are meant for.

Some interesting and useful data would be if someone could establish a baseline damage-per-initiative value for comparison’s sake. There are obviously some shared values. Dancing Dagger and >50 % Heartseeker for instance.

Well mostly what I see as results here is that I’d like for there to be more damage on some of the other skills, like headshot, black powder, and infiltrator’s strike. I see in most classes and dagger spec thief, that the skills, regardless of any type of utility that they may or may not have, outdo autoattacks, while in Sword/Pistol, autoattack does more damage than anything but pistol whip, and just barely at that. I think thieves would go for more complex rotations instead of just depending heavily on 1 skill when damage is their need if there was damage on the other skills.

That’s the main reason why people who play other classes come in asking for nerfs. They get killed by a thief, see their damage log with 1 skill doing 90% of the damage and think OP, nerf plz, class requires no skill, only use 1 skill over and over.

Because they don’t understand how the class works

Guess what.. they’re getting results.

Maybe if all the damage wasn’t on one skill, it would be a different story. But as they see it, we keep killing them using 1 ability, and so they keep asking for, and getting, nerfs to the thief class every new build.