Guild Wars 2

EasymodeX.4062:

You happen to be somewhere in the middle therefore you perceive anything beyond your reaction time as OP. When in reality you are just a tad slow.

Human reaction to something they are prepared and waiting for is 0.18-0.3 seconds.

Watching for a Thief CND at 900 range gives you 0.2s of slack time.

Also, this assumes:

1. The player is drawn (lol WvW).
2. You identify the player.
3. You identify the player as a Thief.
4. You identify the player as a Thief with a Dagger offhand (can be assumed after #3).
5. You can discern the CND animation at 900 range (can be assumed with risk after #3 — e.g. wasting dodges just because you see a Thief is kind of silly, but this is where you want to go with your argument, so why not).

The basic model is “dodge by premonition, or die”. At least the CND-Mug-BS combo no longer deals 35,000 damage like it did back with Orbs in WvW.

RTL has a 2.0s travel time (max range) down to 1.0s travel time (midrange).

I’ve been 100-0’d by Ele burst something like twice since release. The animation is rather obvious, you know?

I never said I have a problem with it.

You cite it as dangerous. What is a poor scrub like me to think when a random poster on the forum is citing the biggest joke of a burst damage ability as dangerous?

Unfortunately I’m just a random baddie, so I need big flashy animations like a hugeass ball of lightning hurtling towards me to react properly, and my feelings are hurt when I insta-die from scary Thieves.

No you don’t need to dodge the C&D. You can but that requires some luck and guesswork. I prefer not to randomly use endurance. You have to be able to eat a C&D+Mug both crits then react before the backstab. If you die to C&D+Mug by itself then it’s a build problem. If you die to the backstab after it’s a reaction time issue, especially if you build smart and take an auto defensive cool-down to help protect against these things.

I also don’t understand the people who complain about a Thief coming in and ruining their 1v2 or whatever they are doing. People get killed by a thief when they are fighting two other people at half health and everything on cool-down then come here to complain about their burst. If a Thief killing a softened, distracted, outnumbered target isn’t a legit kill then I don’t know what is.

Stiv.1820:

You have to be able to eat a C&D+Mug both crits then react before the backstab.

0.25 seconds versus 1+.

Best part is the only thing the Thief’s blown is steal, and you’re below half.

That’s exactly it.

The amount of work for a thief to deal this amount of damage is really too low. And combined with stealth it means you get maybe 1-2 sec to kill the thief or he just vanishes and either runs away or proceeds with the fight…totally his decision.

Landing a good backstab is much harder then it appears to be when your fighting an opponent who has played, or been with many experiences with a thief.

The elementalist, it doesn’t matter with his combo, he can knock you out of dodge, knock you back (this counts as a knock down.) and finish you off before you can do anything. (You abilities in a knock down are all qued for 2-3 seconds, you would need a stun breaker to get out of it.)

Meanwhile, for a backstab, you need to find the targets back, if you use your combo too quickly (like I usually do, which is why I don’t play it.) you waste your mug/cloak and dagger/miss the backstab, or hit the target in the front instead of the back.)

It takes more then 0.25 seconds to get behind someone too, it takes about 1.50+ (Pulled this number from my butt, so don’t laugh.) if your very good. (Most thieves try to do there combo when they are behind someone, but really, they don’t see you, and thieves arn’t the fastest class in the game, so its hard to do the combo unless your infront of them, but then you need to get behind them, this is because of the little access of swiftness we have, and steal has a range as well.)

You also have to time your cloak and dagger at the right time and prey it hits your enemy, if your enemy activates a virtue, goes into death shroud, Pops shake it off and starts spinning, you would die instantly.

A lot of times nowadays if I roll full GC backstab thief, I notice a lot more people able to get get out of it by doing several things and just finishing me off. (GC Thieves are the squishiest class in the game, by far.) Most notorious is the “Axe/Axe” and “Greatsword” Warriors, Spin to win! your dead woo!

EasymodeX.4062 knows his stuff, the combo can be done that quickly, but the problem is there is a lot of screw ups that can occur during the combo that just makes it 1-2 seconds instead of 0.25, just because I have to reposition.

The best counter against it, and even I am guilty of this, is using my mouse clicks to turn my toon around very quickly, this pretty much prevents 50% of the damage. (Of course, I’ve been lazy lately, playing a necromancer and just pressing F1 and laughing :P.) If you do do this though, the enemy has to stop and reposition if they are nervous.

The elementalist, it doesn’t matter with his combo, he can knock you out of dodge,

I insist: Eles cannot knock a player out of a dodge.

(You abilities in a knock down are all qued for 2-3 seconds, you would need a stun breaker to get out of it.)

Pretty sure almost any instant ability will work, not merely a stun breaker. According to Stiv, any competent player can escape out of Basilisk within 0.25 seconds on reflex, therefore I don’t see why Updraft should be held to a lower standard.

It takes more then 0.25 seconds to get behind someone too,

More like 0.1 seconds by walking through them.

This game doesn’t have collision detection.

The best part is you autoface the target if you release W for a fraction of a moment.

I mean, if you want to say 0.25 seconds to position during the BS actual animation, that’s fine. But 1s? That’s a complete joke. That reminds me of Mesmers saying it takes 2 seconds to cast iWarden.

Iavra.8510:

Yuujin.1067:

Iavra.8510:

Please read the title of the thread.

I did, more than once to be clear. But if those two classes are capable of executing a combo that damaging in about the same time you also have to consider other factors trying to find the…um…“better” class.

The elementalist in your example would probably suck in fights against more than 1 opponents and if his opponent dodges RtL whereas the thief only loses his steal and a bit of initiative.

You really need to watch the video that was linked. That elementalist was clearly having no trouble running into big groups and taking out multiple targets.

Willfully ignoring the evidence and pretending it doesn’t exist won’t help your argument.

Also, updraft knocks you up, taking away your ability to dodge. So really, no, you’re wrong.

Everytime he charges into a group the current scene ends and he isn’t even shown finishing his target. I guess that’s because the other players ripped him to shreds after he used all 3 utilities, his elite + his escape skill to down a single opponent. Also he mainly targets twinks.

Also….dodge before updraft? It’s not like you wouldn’t notice a huge ball of lightning moving towards you while making loud and easily recognizable noises.

No, he charges into a group of multiple targets, knocks them all down, and begins finishing them off with lightning.

I can use that same logic for thieves. Dodge when you see a thief move into steal range? It’s not hard to anticipate what a thief is going to do. It’s not like we have free roam stealth, though based on this forum you would think it had an infinite duration.

You can remember the video different or make up conclusions about what is happening off screen all you want, but that doesn’t change what the actual video shows.

There is 1, maybe 2 situations where he actually downed more than 1 player. But still, still build is a pure gimmick. He gives up every piece of defense for a single attack. The thief has no need to do this, so those arguments are invalid.

Alrite allow me to summarize everything in one link:

Iavra.8510:

There is 1, maybe 2 situations where he actually downed more than 1 player. But still, still build is a pure gimmick. He gives up every piece of defense for a single attack. The thief has no need to do this, so those arguments are invalid.

You clearly have an anti thief sentiment. You’re going out of your way to make excuses as to why it is okay for every class but a thief to do what it can do. I’m pretty sure no one here is saying elementalist should be nerfed or shatter mesmers should get hit by the nerfstick, but you clearly think that there is something wrong with the thief class.

You’ve misrepresented facts, you’ve misinterpreted a video with actual video evidence, you’re continuing to imply that thieves don’t require utility slots to do the things that they do, so its clear you just want to see the thief nerfed.

I’m sorry for whatever we did to you.

However, since you are not approaching this from a unbaised standpoint, I would recommend you respectfully bow out of this conversation as your bias is causing you to blatantly disregard facts, imaginarycraft situations, and improperly represent your case.

you’re continuing to imply that thieves don’t require utility slots to do the things that they do

Daecollo.9578:

Mug: 504 base damage.
Cloak and Dagger: 504
Backstab: 806 (MUST take time to get behind him.)
Lightning Strike: 403 damage. (about a 40% chance to apply to this combo.)

Seems like i’m not the one who stated this first.

And believe me, i would be very happy to see elementalists nerfed, but in another way:
- shorten duration of fire field + blast finisher combo.
- raise CD on RtL or shorten the range.

Regarding mesmers, i personally think that the burst is okay. Confusion could need a little toning down.

Iavra.8510:

you’re continuing to imply that thieves don’t require utility slots to do the things that they do

Daecollo.9578:

Mug: 504 base damage.
Cloak and Dagger: 504
Backstab: 806 (MUST take time to get behind him.)
Lightning Strike: 403 damage. (about a 40% chance to apply to this combo.)

Seems like i’m not the one who stated this first.

And believe me, i would be very happy to see elementalists nerfed, but in another way:
- shorten duration of fire field + blast finisher combo.
- raise CD on RtL or shorten the range.

Regarding mesmers, i personally think that the burst is okay. Confusion could need a little toning down.

With no guaranteed chance to crit like a elementalist has. So when the thief doesn’t kill them successfully with this combo he is left with his steal (Mug) on cooldown, his reveal timer up, and six less inits to do something. He can burn what remains of his inits to do another cloak and dagger, or try to finish his opponent off with heartseeker, but he doesn’t have the guaranteed damage that a class that can activate guaranteed crits does.

Utility that increase our crit chance is Signet of Agility. Utility that increase our damage is Assassin’s Signet. We don’t get that guaranteed damage though that you seem to think we get.

Yes, once in a blue moon we get some lucky crits that can let us drop glass cannons in two hits.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve killed stuff in three hits before in the past with a lucky air proc finishing it off. I’d see your concern if I had done it without lucky crits, but it was all lucky crits.

The difference between thieves and the elementalist we’re using as comparison is one can guarantee that kind of damage all the time with the click of one button, which the rest of us have to rely on a random number generator.

That elementalists damage might be high, but as stated multiple times before: It’s a pure gimmick build. After doing his thing he is left without any means to survive.

If you could actually manage to dodge his RtL → Updraft start, he is basically already dead as his build contains no stunbreak, no escape skills and no heal ^^

Let me re-do this.

For getting away as Scepter+Dagger.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blinding_Flash
Switch to fire attunement.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phoenix, while dodging, also cures a condition, after use your heal.
Switch to earth attunement.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Elemental_Harmony
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rock_Barrier (+250 Toughness.)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dust_Devil
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Earthquake
Switch to water attunement.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frost_Aura
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Wave
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Trident
Switch back to Air Attunement.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ride_the_Lightning

I think this is easier then D/D

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shocking_Aura
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning_Speed

No, you are using a scepter in mainhand.

My Elite

…transformes you into a Snow Leopard and you used it to catch the enemy.

RtL also has 15 sec CD. It IS really low, but that ele is a full glascannon while also having one of the lowest healthpool in the game. Even a full bunker char would kill him before he can use it again.

Iavra.8510:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shocking_Aura
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning_Speed

No, you are using a scepter in mainhand.

My Elite

…transformes you into a Snow Leopard and you used it to catch the enemy.

RtL also has 15 sec CD. It IS really low, but that ele is a full glascannon while also having one of the lowest healthpool in the game. Even a full bunker char would kill him before he can use it again.

Protection, Swiftness, lots of Mobility moves that improve ARMOR, you have a much better chance to escape then a thief, thieves can’t really stealth and run away, they have to be in melee range to cloak and dagger, initiative recharges really slow as well.

Thief has Shadow Step, and Short bow, but they don’t have swiftness, after you get rid of that, you pretty much are on foot, less you have the utility to stealth. (But then you wouldn’t beable to perform your one hit combo.)…

With the Dagger Dagger, you could of been rooted, but with Scepter/Dagger, you have a lot more condition removal, access to additional armor, which goes well with protection.

I don’t remember exactly, but i don’t think there was anything regarding swiftness (like on aura apply) in that guys’ build. Don’t know, why we are even arguing. This build is totally gimmick and dies everytime he can’t hit all of his enemies at once (and even then: His hp/armor is low enough to let his enemies kill him in downedstate. That’s why he is almost never shown finishing an enemy).

I’m not saying that scepter/dagger is always a bad build because it’s not. But that particular build is…well, the forum filter would say ‘kitten’.

EasymodeX.4062:

frans.8092:

That is one crit – and requires a grandmaster trait which might have a better use. Same can be said on the sigil. Having one or 5 guaranteed crits is rather different

And the Thief, amazingly enough, has a similar Signet for 15% damage :O. Omgrz! And that’s mathematically stronger than 5 autocrits!

Eh, no it’s not. A crit can hit for 150-250% damage, which is way more the 115% damage

frans.8092:

Eh, no it’s not. A crit can hit for 150-250% damage, which is way more the 115% damage

Too bad autocrits are capped at 100% chance to crit.

Perhaps you should simply review the prior posts rather than making an irrelevant comment.

EasymodeX.4062:

frans.8092:

Eh, no it’s not. A crit can hit for 150-250% damage, which is way more the 115% damage

Too bad autocrits are capped at 100% chance to crit.

Perhaps you should simply review the prior posts rather than making an irrelevant comment.

What? He’s talking about damage, not crit chance.

He’s talking about crit chance related to damage. But he’s talking about too much crit chance for what the ability actually does in comparison.

Same mistake many, many players / novice mathcrafters make. It’s all completely irrelevant though because the numbers were already posted.

Lofat.2406:

Probably won’t always crit, but I’m sure he was running a GC build with high crit. Glad you got your answers. Most people come on here and qq about the op thief that just stomped them and how it’s totally unfair they can’t just push the win button against thieves. You had an honest question about it.

What a strange thing to say. I play all 8 classes. The thief is so incredibly OP in WvW/PvP it’s a joke and anybody can run one and think he’s the King of PvP/WvW because of it.

It’s the same problem WoW had with the Rogues. Made it too easy to come in for the big DPS strike then evade/hide without consequences because there is NO EFFECTIVE COUNTER. Between abilities and culling, thieves are pretty much super-high DPS + perma-stealth.

I watched one of our thieves take on five guys at a supply depot and keep them pinned down for a good four or five minutes. And these weren’t scrubs, these guys were pretty decent fighters who make themselves look as unique as they can so you can recognize them. They WANT you to recognize them. They have ego in being known. They want you to who killed you.

I’d been fighting them on-and-off for hours in harassment squad actions. Sometimes winning. Sometimes losing. Finally got caught and ganked when I tried to solo a quick supply run. Such is WvW.

But this thief who came in just after I died joined the fray. *They couldn’t even hit him. They throw down AoE hoping to hit. They’d swing their weapons around. They’d fan out. They’d cluster up.

It didn’t matter. * One thief with this stupid perma-stealth build just kept doing his thing. Then the rest of squad showed up and it was over in just a few seconds since he could do his thing without any consequences at all.

And pretending that’s it’s a bunch of whiners… Whatever…

What I, and other people want, is either an end to perma-stealth, or effective counters to make these twink-builds suffer the consequences.

You think you’re hidden Mr. Thief? My engineer has the De-Cloaking Field. My Ranger can take the “Blood Trails” ability so I can follow you. My Elementalist has the Ether-Sight ability so I can see your etheric signature. Heck, my thief has the “Mole” trait skill which allows me to ‘spot’ hidden thiefs.

Now we have counters. Now we can make viable choices.

But as of now. Anyone can make a perma-stealth thief and act like he’s the king of WvW/PvP when it’s just ANet messed up.

And for people who don’t trait for thief taking. Let them suffer. It won’t make it impossible. Not everyone will do what it takes to be a thief taker. They have other roles/abilities/interests.

But, please, let’s not pretend the mechanic isn’t one of the most abused PvP/WvW game mechanics and it’s all skill. ANYONE can play a thief and be successful. Anyone.

EasymodeX.4062:

He’s talking about crit chance related to damage. But he’s talking about too much crit chance for what the ability actually does in comparison.

Same mistake many, many players / novice mathcrafters make. It’s all completely irrelevant though because the numbers were already posted.

Pretty sure he’s talking about just crit damage here, comparing the 15% increase in damage to the base 50% increase in damage from a crit without any additional crit damage(from traits/gear). For their outputs to be (almost) equal, the thief would have to have a little more than 60% crit chance in combination with the signet to equal the guaranteed damage output of having 5 crits.

Maugetarr.6823:

Pretty sure he’s talking about just crit damage here, comparing the 15% increase in damage to the base 50% increase in damage from a crit without any additional crit damage(from traits/gear). For their outputs to be (almost) equal, the thief would have to have a little more than 60% crit chance in combination with the signet to equal the guaranteed damage output of having 5 crits.

Pretty sure this thread has just seen a half dozen posts on the same topic of X poster comparing the value of a guaranteed crit to a non-crit with 15% damage bonus in a context where guaranteed non-crits don’t exist.

At first I rolled my eyes and made a jocular and facetious post to indirectly point out the folly. However, at this point it’s more like a trainwreck as new posters keep chiming in with the same track of irrelevant tangents.

EasymodeX.4062:

Pretty sure this thread has just seen a half dozen posts on the same topic of X poster comparing the value of a guaranteed crit to a non-crit with 15% damage bonus in a context where guaranteed non-crits don’t exist.

At first I rolled my eyes and made a jocular and facetious post to indirectly point out the folly. However, at this point it’s more like a trainwreck as new posters keep chiming in with the same track of irrelevant tangents.

Guaranteed crits outside of the ele ability don’t exist either. Roughly speaking (not entirely accurate or encompassing, but decent for bracketing) there is a 1% that a thief with a 60% crit chance will not crit any of those hits while there is a 7.7% chance to land all crits during that. For large sample sizes, the estimate should hold.

As to making a one liner and not expecting a response on the internet?

…….

Maugetarr.6823:

EasymodeX.4062:

Pretty sure this thread has just seen a half dozen posts on the same topic of X poster comparing the value of a guaranteed crit to a non-crit with 15% damage bonus in a context where guaranteed non-crits don’t exist.

At first I rolled my eyes and made a jocular and facetious post to indirectly point out the folly. However, at this point it’s more like a trainwreck as new posters keep chiming in with the same track of irrelevant tangents.

Guaranteed crits outside of the ele ability don’t exist either. Roughly speaking (not entirely accurate or encompassing, but decent for bracketing) there is a 1% that a thief with a 60% crit chance will not crit any of those hits while there is a 7.7% chance to land all crits during that. For large sample sizes, the estimate should hold.

As to making a one liner and not expecting a response on the internet?

…….

I’ll point out that Hidden Killer is 100% Crit Chance in stealth, before he makes a snarky/smarmy comment to you about it.

Maugetarr.6823:

Guaranteed crits outside of the ele ability don’t exist either. Roughly speaking (not entirely accurate or encompassing, but decent for bracketing) there is a 1% that a thief with a 60% crit chance will not crit any of those hits while there is a 7.7% chance to land all crits during that. For large sample sizes, the estimate should hold.

Still waiting for the point of that statement.

I can point out that the sky is blue or that it’s chilly outside, but that doesn’t have any relevant impact on the discussion.

EasymodeX.4062:

He’s talking about crit chance related to damage. But he’s talking about too much crit chance for what the ability actually does in comparison.

Same mistake many, many players / novice mathcrafters make. It’s all completely irrelevant though because the numbers were already posted.

I feel inclined to report your post for the insult, novice mathcrafter? Just for suggesting that I would ever think, let alone write, of any chance >100% you should get you a ban, possible a permanent ban.

No I am not talking about critical chance, but damage, critical hits can do 150-250% damage. The word chance wasn’t in my post.
A guaranteed critical adds hits quite a bit more then the +15% from Assassin’s Signet you are referring to in your statement: “And the Thief, amazingly enough, has a similar Signet for 15% damage :O. Omgrz! And that’s mathematically stronger than 5 autocrits!.”

Anyway

Expected damage = Base damage * ((0.50 + (Critical Damage / 100)) * (Critical Chance / 100) + 1)

With no +crit damage on gear:
De = Db (0.5Pc + 1)

For autocrit:
De = Db * 1.5

For 60% Pc wit AS:
De = Db * 1.15 * (0.5*0.6 + 1) = Db * 1.15*1.3 = Db * 1.495

With 100% crit damage on gear
De = Db (1.5Pc + 1)

For autocrit:
De = Db * 2.5

For 60% Pc wit AS:
De = Db*1.15*(1.5*0.6 + 1) = Db * 1.15*1.9 = Db * 2.185

So, no, the +15% signet is not mathematically stronger then the 5 autocrit utility.

^

Good point; I was too hasty with my original comment and neglected the huge PvE crit multipliers. Still, it seems completely irrelevant when you basically overlook / ignore the prior post that already included both scenarios. Good job baiting me.

I have a question about this combo. If you have the trait that makes you cloak when using steal and the 100% chance to crit from stealth trait, will this make both Mug and C&D crit? Or is Mug calculated before you stealth?

EasymodeX.4062:

Still waiting for the point of that statement.

I can point out that the sky is blue or that it’s chilly outside, but that doesn’t have any relevant impact on the discussion.

I was pointing out that while possible, it is very unlikely that all the attacks would crit upon using the signet, dismissing your conjecture that there are no guaranteed non-crits. Occasionally with a 60% crit chance you might hit more than 3/5 attacks as crits, but you will also hit fewer than that too. In the long run, you should average about 60%.

Maugetarr.6823:

Occasionally with a 60% crit chance you might hit more than 3/5 attacks as crits, but you will also hit fewer than that too. In the long run, you should average about 60%.

And 60% is not 0%, thank you.

EasymodeX.4062:

Maugetarr.6823:

Occasionally with a 60% crit chance you might hit more than 3/5 attacks as crits, but you will also hit fewer than that too. In the long run, you should average about 60%.

And 60% is not 0%, thank you.

Yeah, but you have a chance of not critting any attack, or critting all of them.

EasymodeX.4062:

Maugetarr.6823:

Occasionally with a 60% crit chance you might hit more than 3/5 attacks as crits, but you will also hit fewer than that too. In the long run, you should average about 60%.

And 60% is not 0%, thank you.

Correct, it is actually a 40% chance to not crit.

I’m glad we’ve wasted all these posts getting back to the fact that we’re correct (in addition to me being correct in 100% of comments directly relevant to the topic, and incorrect in 1 tangent started by frans trolling me).