Guild Wars 2

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t main thief. I’ve never been able to master the finese of perfectly managing my initiative but knowing that I can’t; I admire those who can rock this class even more than any other. As of late, there’s been a fairly significant drop in people on thief, and those who are playing it aren’t contributing as much to their team as they have in the past. “Why is this?” I found myself asking. I, for the most part (there are always exceptions), beat thieves to a pulp in pvp, duels which is a new thing since the change from traits to specialisations. So let’s take a look at some of the reasons I found why thieves got, arguably nerfed.

Thieves didn’t get any traits made baseline during the change. Many of the classes, most notably mesmer, had traits made baseline, giving them an all round buff to the class. Steal was increased in range by 300 and the recharge was reduced but that was it. The change to deadly arts has essentially made it required to take for any thief build. I think mug needs to be made baseline since it increases survive and damage, so there is literally no reason not to have it. Before it required 2 trait points which was fairly minor and many classes had a trait or two that needed one or two trait points but needing the entire line for it so your build options are dropped drastically. Trickery’s minor traits, grandmaster one not with standing, could also be made baseline on the argument that it’s hard to not take for the bonus initiative.

There is no way to remove conditions outside of shadow arts and even then its just damaging ones. First of all, most DPS classes have a way to deal with weakness where thieves don’t. Thieves really need some way to get rid of weakness since its a hard counter and it has been made easy to apply with cleave skills. Secondly, there’s no way to rapidly remove condis. The remove in stealth trait has been reduced to 1condi per 3s and that’s going to do nothing next to nothing for survive. The only skill that really removes condis for thief is shadow step but that won’t help much against, say, a necro or a burn guard. It really weakens thieves to not have a solution for condis, especially when a lot of abilities now don’t require a target to apply them.

There’s little potential for on point fighting. Thieves have always been bad at this but with acrobatics being turned into what is essentially a worse daredevil, there isn’t exactly an option. Sword dagger was annoying but it was on par with d/p or considered worse and its the one that got the nerf. Now there is daredevil which can fight on point but in no where near the same level, as say, a revenant. Also daredevil plays like an offbrand revenant. It has little stealth, about the same to worse dodge potential, equal mobility, and less damage with out any of the survive. You could say rev needs a nerf, which it does, but even if that happens daredevil still won’t get used as much since it lacks survivability.

Lastly, and most notably, is the introduction of reveal. Being able to reveal a thief for 6 or more seconds is more than enough to kill a thief and between engineers and revs, there is a lot of reveal to go around. There was nothing added to the thief to compensate for this, and that hurts them a lot more than anything. It would be like adding a skill that prevented blocking party wide. Better yet imagine if there was a skill that prevented a necro from using death shroud or, don’t, because it exists and its called moa morph (or signet of humility). Now imagine if it could be used on a 40s cool down. That’s basically what thieves have to deal with. Now, I am going to say, I like the addition of reveal but something should have been done to thieves to make up for it, since I can on my herald use glints gaze 2 more times than a theif can use sr.

First time I heard this coming from a non-thief. Thank you for understanding.

Omg!! Even a non thief player realized the issues. Don’t know what happened to our dev

Shogun.7401:

Omg!! Even a non thief player realized the issues. Don’t know what happened to our dev

Yeah, its that bad. I’m a rev, fighting for Mallyx but I can clearly see thief is underpowered. I miss going “kitten A THIEF IS ON MY kitten ” last time that happened it was toker

You make some great points but a few wrong ones as well. A lot of people think we have no condi clear outside of shadow arts and shadow step so I can see why you think that. I’m not even talking about the new condi clear on daredevil. The secret is in the trickery line.

People are obsessed with thrill of the crime and bountiful theft. I ran them myself from launch of vanilla (weird that we have something to call vanilla wow) until the trait patch this year. After this I switched to flanking strikes and trickster. I know I know a lot of people think “ugh that’s so dumb why would you ever”, but seriously…. Trickster alone gives you ACTIVE, instant, and rapid as you put it… Condi clear. This is imo much more reliable than a single condi clear in stealth every 3 seconds.

That alone doesn’t make it so what do we do? That’s right… We run some tricks on the utilities. Well let’s see…. Withdraw(after removing movement impeding condis, shadowstep removes 3, and how about another condi clearing signet of agility to go with all those fancy smansy dodges the daredevil has (works for teammates as well). Look at that! That is a lot of condi clear! And if you also take improvitisation you will for sure get those cooldowns back sooner or later!

Now here is where it gets tricky ( pun intended)… What to do with that last util slot. You could always take Shadow refuge… It’s still a good skill but with all that reveal and knockout ability out there in starting to not want it…. Also your new dodges are NOT SR friendly! 2 damage which reveal you and the other will run your happy butt right out. Honestly I’m still on the fence but I’ve been trying tricks first… Both roll for initiative and haste are fantastic extra stun breaks, And!!! There you go… Another condi clear! You could take a physical skill or maybe blinding powder… Honestly… This is not a bad time for experimentation.

Daredevil has been a ton of fun for me and I’ve been doing really well with a d/p dash build. Play what works for you and sorry about the wall of text!

Have a great day!

TehHoBNob: Yes, we have some condi clear in other lines but to have a chance against condi builds trickery alone isn’t enough.
And daredevil sure is nice but it’s more in line of everything that has been brought to us since June and not so much with the vanilla game. So what has happened is that you wait for your opponent to make a mistake otherwise you can’t hit them and I’m not so sure I like that. You still need skill to not make a mistake youself but is that really competitive play?

Edit: Cause in the end if this trend continues and people get better and there’s some tweaks here and there it would be a battle like 2 vanilla D/D cele eles against each other: Endless without win or loss.

I don’t wait. I’m aggressive with my blinds/interrupts and maintain pressure. Dodge frequently. I’m not amazing by any stretch of the imagination but this amount of condi clear gets me by just fine. If the fight is going south that sinet pop and ports away are insane mobility. If that doesn’t work by that time if I’ve played it right I’ve already told my teammates I need a switch out for competitive to reset. Maybe I’m weird but it just works for me personally.

Mfw a non-thief even acknowledges what is wrong

TehHobNob.4687:

I don’t wait. I’m aggressive with my blinds/interrupts and maintain pressure. Dodge frequently. I’m not amazing by any stretch of the imagination but this amount of condi clear gets me by just fine. If the fight is going south that sinet pop and ports away are insane mobility. If that doesn’t work by that time if I’ve played it right I’ve already told my teammates I need a switch out for competitive to reset. Maybe I’m weird but it just works for me personally.

You didn’t get my point.

ETA: One point was: The condi clear without SA is usually not enough against condi builds. (I guess it’s the same in wvw and pvp – I speak from a wvw point of view).
I don’t own hot, so I can only guess about daredevil and well all thieves I see in wvw run DD. They can’t be hit unless they make a mistake – the same goes for most other classes who either have insane heal or near constant blocks/invulnerabilities. When this has settled people will make fewer mistakes so you “being aggressive” only helps you that much.

ETA²: And someone else wrote a great post on the pvp forums: The damage and tankiness is too high in the current meta, all that’s left to do is repeating a waterproof rotation as there’s hardly any time to react – just like vanilla D/D cele ele was for me.

I would agree that base thieves are in a very bad spot in PvP (joined by warriors), but with the introduction of daredevil, i can confidently say that daredevils are very much viable in PvP. People just don’t know how to play it properly yet.

Daredevils mechanics are dodges. 2 of the dodges reveal you. So, why stick to stealth as a daredevil? Yes, you rely on it as a base thief, but not as a daredevil.

Learn to play without stealth, and you will be greatly rewarded. Staff is an underrated weapon, even though it deals generally more damage, more burst, more sustain, has a gap closer, and insane amount of evades etc…. simply because it does not have good access to stealth.

Yes, base thief needs a buff, it has issues, as a thief main since i started playing, i feel the pain of thieves, and the amount of reveals crippling stealth thief. I feel for those without HoT, with no access to daredevil. But in all honesty, daredevil is viable in the current pvp scene.

Jana.6831:

TehHobNob.4687:

I don’t wait. I’m aggressive with my blinds/interrupts and maintain pressure. Dodge frequently. I’m not amazing by any stretch of the imagination but this amount of condi clear gets me by just fine. If the fight is going south that sinet pop and ports away are insane mobility. If that doesn’t work by that time if I’ve played it right I’ve already told my teammates I need a switch out for competitive to reset. Maybe I’m weird but it just works for me personally.

You didn’t get my point.

ETA: One point was: The condi clear without SA is usually not enough against condi builds. (I guess it’s the same in wvw and pvp – I speak from a wvw point of view).
I don’t own hot, so I can only guess about daredevil and well all thieves I see in wvw run DD. They can’t be hit unless they make a mistake – the same goes for most other classes who either have insane heal or near constant blocks/invulnerabilities. When this has settled people will make fewer mistakes so you “being aggressive” only helps you that much.

I see. I have nothing to give to this in regards to D/D because I have not run it since the old yishis days…. But I have run d/p thief with DA/CS/Trick for over a year in mostly Wvw and gvgs. It’s done well on a team basis. It’s a team build, but I still did fine in T1 solo as well. So I think when the dust settles I’ll be okay. I’m just used to this particular playstyle.

That being said I can very much imagine the base game classes having a difficult time. Let’s be honest…. Intended or not the elite specs were power creep, but I think even so new builds and new ideas will still come out. I stand by my opinion that while thief may need some slight tweaks here and there it isn’t in as bad of a spot as many make it out to be. I love the class. I hardly touch anything else if it’s not needed at that moment for my Wvw guild.

I find in WvW traiting up trickster and withdraw along with one sigil that has condition cleanse (on swap on hit on crit) is generally enough unless dealing with multiple players loading conditions on you.

Now i know people love there damage/ferocity but they do little good when you are dead because you do not have adequate condition cleanse. in WvW there also a food that removes one condition on heal meaning withdraw can now take away 5 conditions every 15 seconds.

TehHobNob.4687:

I see. I have nothing to give to this in regards to D/D because I have not run it since the old yishis days…. But I have run d/p thief with DA/CS/Trick for over a year in mostly Wvw and gvgs. It’s done well on a team basis. It’s a team build, but I still did fine in T1 solo as well. So I think when the dust settles I’ll be okay. I’m just used to this particular playstyle.

That being said I can very much imagine the base game classes having a difficult time. Let’s be honest…. Intended or not the elite specs were power creep, but I think even so new builds and new ideas will still come out. I stand by my opinion that while thief may need some slight tweaks here and there it isn’t in as bad of a spot as many make it out to be. I love the class. I hardly touch anything else if it’s not needed at that moment for my Wvw guild.

D/P is also a vanilla build and I bet that every thief does better with the daredevil line as that line goes into the direction the game (but not thief) headed since June = immortal. I’m doing pretty good as a +1 myself – but alone?! Not a chance.

babazhook.6805:

I find in WvW traiting up trickster and withdraw along with one sigil that has condition cleanse (on swap on hit on crit) is generally enough unless dealing with multiple players loading conditions on you.

Now i know people love there damage/ferocity but they do little good when you are dead because you do not have adequate condition cleanse. in WvW there also a food that removes one condition on heal meaning withdraw can now take away 5 conditions every 15 seconds.

Not really, it can potentially take away 5 conditions but it really only clears 2 unless you also have immobilize chill and crippeling on you at the same time.

Here’s a story: I used to 1 vs 1 my friend in a pvp arena. I had absolutely no chance against his medi guard. One week our servers were opposing each other and we duelled, again as D/D thief vs medi guard and I killed him. What I didn’t know was that CnD was nerfed in pvp but not wvw and that was what made the difference. So you can get your condi cleanse food and whatnot runes and everything but you sacrifice damage output which might save you. I guess you get my point.

Edit: spelling

@EasyPanda I agree that DD requires a different playstyle and I don’t have an issue with it as much. It allows thieves to play without stealth but stealth is such an integral part of thieves, daredevil included. Both have an advantage of using it, thief obviously more so, but if neither can use it effectively anymore it becomes an issue.

@TehHobNob I agree and have been using the same build when I do try thief on the rare day and it is adequate condi maintanance especially used with daredevil. That being said its even more of a pigeonhole for said role then warrior’s Cleansing Ire and Fast Hands.

Jana.6831:

babazhook.6805:

I find in WvW traiting up trickster and withdraw along with one sigil that has condition cleanse (on swap on hit on crit) is generally enough unless dealing with multiple players loading conditions on you.

Now i know people love there damage/ferocity but they do little good when you are dead because you do not have adequate condition cleanse. in WvW there also a food that removes one condition on heal meaning withdraw can now take away 5 conditions every 15 seconds.

Not really, it can potentially take away 5 conditions but it really only clears 2 unless you also have immobilize chill and crippling on you at the same time.

Here’s a story: I used to 1 vs 1 my friend in a pvp arena. I had absolutely no chance against his medi guard. One week our servers were opposing each other and we duelled, again as D/D thief vs medi guard and I killed him. What I didn’t know was that CnD was nerfed in pvp but not wvw and that was what made the difference. So you can get your condi cleanse food and whatnot runes and everything but you sacrifice damage output which might save you. I guess you get my point.

Edit: spelling

Iv1 is vastly different than is Wvw. It easier to avoid conditions and you need much less in the way of cleanses so can focus on damage. If you only need to focus on one enemy you can better read the tell when he going to load those conditions on you and dodge.

That said in WvW my dagger dagger thief has one condition cleanse and that is escapists absolution traited along with a sigil of purity. That is plenty even in zerg fights. This has changed significantly since the increase in evade time to DB. Prior to that it was not enough. I would add that if you are DD specced via HOT access and use that food in conjunctions with escapists you can get a potential of 3+3 cleanses in 14 seconds just off withdraw , this added to all other evades.

Potentially even with three fixed this better then is Shadowstep for condition clears as that on a MUCH longer cooldown and you might well clear conditions like that chill and cripple over the ones that are killing you.

If you trait up both , and I see no reason why not as you need a heal anyways and trickster does not impact damage a whole lot if traited , you can reserve Shadowstep for the stun breaks and ability to port away to reset.

babazhook.6805:

Iv1 is vastly different than is Wvw.

Sorry, didn’t understand that – what and what is different than WvW?
Probably 1 vs 1 but why is 1 vs 1 different than wvw? Wvw is a game mode without real rules – you’ll often find yourself in a 1 vs 1 situation in wvw.

babazhook.6805:

It easier to avoid conditions and you need much less in the way of cleanses so can focus on damage. If you only need to focus on one enemy you can better read the tell when he going to load those conditions on you and dodge.

Not always possible, even in a 1 vs 1 – and I don’t think that thieves should have to sacrifice everything just so they can survive – that’s my point with you.

babazhook.6805:

That said in WvW my dagger dagger thief has one condition cleanse and that is escapists absolution traited along with a sigil of purity.

Yes, daredevil – I already said what I think of that line.

Didn’t get too much of the last part but your point was:
“You can remove 5 conditions with condi removal food and the trickster line”
Which I said is not true.
It’s great if you’re viable with daredevil again but that was my point: The line itself is nice but has to be nerfed some day in the future if anet wants competitive play – the same with most lines every other class in this game has. But since the game is like this since June it seems unlikely that there will be real changes to this so what we will have a few months from now is endless battles without winners.
Not in zergfights maybe but everywhere else. 1 vs 1 is the core of it all – if that doesn’t work nothing does.

Do condis still cause you such a problem in wvw? Seems like less players run condi builds since HoT.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Do condis still cause you such a problem in wvw? Seems like less players run condi builds since HoT.

I currently have two thieves one power (staff/pp) one Condition (d/d) . I do not have all these issues with Conditions in WvW. The killer is AOE which might include conditions.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Do condis still cause you such a problem in wvw? Seems like less players run condi builds since HoT.

They do, worse than before. But DH traps are the latest craze.

Jana.6831:

babazhook.6805:

Iv1 is vastly different than is Wvw.

Sorry, didn’t understand that – what and what is different than WvW?
Probably 1 vs 1 but why is 1 vs 1 different than wvw? Wvw is a game mode without real rules – you’ll often find yourself in a 1 vs 1 situation in wvw.

babazhook.6805:

It easier to avoid conditions and you need much less in the way of cleanses so can focus on damage. If you only need to focus on one enemy you can better read the tell when he going to load those conditions on you and dodge.

Not always possible, even in a 1 vs 1 – and I don’t think that thieves should have to sacrifice everything just so they can survive – that’s my point with you.

babazhook.6805:

That said in WvW my dagger dagger thief has one condition cleanse and that is escapists absolution traited along with a sigil of purity.

Yes, daredevil – I already said what I think of that line.

Didn’t get too much of the last part but your point was:
“You can remove 5 conditions with condi removal food and the trickster line”
Which I said is not true.
It’s great if you’re viable with daredevil again but that was my point: The line itself is nice but has to be nerfed some day in the future if anet wants competitive play – the same with most lines every other class in this game has. But since the game is like this since June it seems unlikely that there will be real changes to this so what we will have a few months from now is endless battles without winners.
Not in zergfights maybe but everywhere else. 1 vs 1 is the core of it all – if that doesn’t work nothing does.

I am not sure what you do not understand. 1v1 is not the same as WvW because you can make your build to deal with the other persons specific build.

You mentioned fighting that mediguard. Ok you know what he has in his build and you make yours to deal with it. You can not generally do this in wvw because you do not know what sort of build you will encounter.

As example before patch I was dueling with someone down by the windmills. My build was the one I had been using in a small group which is different then the one I usually use to roam on my own. He slaughtered me even though that build was great when in that group. the build relied on others distracting the enemy so i could dish out damage. When there no others to too distract that person only has to focus on me.

I stepped aside and switched out my build and then beat him sebveral times in a row. He tweaked his and so on.

I have found as example.

P/P works better in small groups then 1v1 and while it can work in 1v1 it much more difficult to play as he only has to worry about dodging YOUR unloads. I can not watch someone dodge a warriors hundred blades and then pour that unload into him knowing he just used a dodge.

Diamond skin eles with a few cleanses all but neutralize a Thief condition build in a 1v1 a thief is at a severe disadvantage here if built for conditions. if you got someone on your team that can dish out physical damage then those conditions can start to work.

And so on.

babazhook.6805:

I am not sure what you do not understand. 1v1 is not the same as WvW because you can make your build to deal with the other persons specific build.

So there’s only 1 vs 1 in what game mode? and you can’t chnage your build there?

babazhook.6805:

You mentioned fighting that mediguard. Ok you know what he has in his build and you make yours to deal with it.

No, my build was always the same.

babazhook.6805:

You can not generally do this in wvw because you do not know what sort of build you will encounter.

True, but above you said I can adapt my build in wvw instead of that mystery game mode which is 1 vs 1.

My build has always stayed the same – it was even the same in pve – it was a good build before June

The difference was the more damage I dealt in wvw back then, since my CnD was significantly weaker in pvp – he simply outhealed me.
You can either use damage food which is expected as every roamer does it, or you can use condi food – the latter might help you against some but not all enemies, but you miss out on the extra damage which would equal me in pvp with less damage against someone who’s damage was ~the same in both wvw and pvp.
That’s why soldier’s never worked for me after the introduction of ferocity – I just didn’t do enough damage to outlive my opponents.

ETA: Please do me a favour and don’t read anything into something I’ve said – If I had used different builds, I would’ve said it – I’m not that stupid to base an equation on different builds.

The point is that if you use -condi foods because your class hasn’t got enough condi cleanse, you lose out on damage which might be crucial, not only since everybody else uses food buffs.
(For those who don’t know: without food you’re dead in wvw – it really is that important).

ETA²: We fought without buffs btw.

Wtf is with this “vanilla” talk lol

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Wtf is with this “vanilla” talk lol

Vanilla is everything before/without the expansion.
My D/D thief with his CS, SA, T build is a “vanilla class/build”.
If I’d run either staff and DA, CS, T or D/D with DA, DD, T – I’d be finally HoT.

Sigh lol who comes up with this stuff.

Discussion about condis, nor done any wvw roaming since hot release, but see condi uses a lot in pvp. I have to trait for remove a condition in a successful evade and trickster as staff theif.

Hooglese.4860:

snip

hide spoiler

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t main thief. I’ve never been able to master the finese of perfectly managing my initiative but knowing that I can’t; I admire those who can rock this class even more than any other. As of late, there’s been a fairly significant drop in people on thief, and those who are playing it aren’t contributing as much to their team as they have in the past. “Why is this?” I found myself asking. I, for the most part (there are always exceptions), beat thieves to a pulp in pvp, duels which is a new thing since the change from traits to specialisations. So let’s take a look at some of the reasons I found why thieves got, arguably nerfed.

Thieves didn’t get any traits made baseline during the change. Many of the classes, most notably mesmer, had traits made baseline, giving them an all round buff to the class. Steal was increased in range by 300 and the recharge was reduced but that was it. The change to deadly arts has essentially made it required to take for any thief build. I think mug needs to be made baseline since it increases survive and damage, so there is literally no reason not to have it. Before it required 2 trait points which was fairly minor and many classes had a trait or two that needed one or two trait points but needing the entire line for it so your build options are dropped drastically. Trickery’s minor traits, grandmaster one not with standing, could also be made baseline on the argument that it’s hard to not take for the bonus initiative.

There is no way to remove conditions outside of shadow arts and even then its just damaging ones. First of all, most DPS classes have a way to deal with weakness where thieves don’t. Thieves really need some way to get rid of weakness since its a hard counter and it has been made easy to apply with cleave skills. Secondly, there’s no way to rapidly remove condis. The remove in stealth trait has been reduced to 1condi per 3s and that’s going to do nothing next to nothing for survive. The only skill that really removes condis for thief is shadow step but that won’t help much against, say, a necro or a burn guard. It really weakens thieves to not have a solution for condis, especially when a lot of abilities now don’t require a target to apply them.

There’s little potential for on point fighting. Thieves have always been bad at this but with acrobatics being turned into what is essentially a worse daredevil, there isn’t exactly an option. Sword dagger was annoying but it was on par with d/p or considered worse and its the one that got the nerf. Now there is daredevil which can fight on point but in no where near the same level, as say, a revenant. Also daredevil plays like an offbrand revenant. It has little stealth, about the same to worse dodge potential, equal mobility, and less damage with out any of the survive. You could say rev needs a nerf, which it does, but even if that happens daredevil still won’t get used as much since it lacks survivability.

Lastly, and most notably, is the introduction of reveal. Being able to reveal a thief for 6 or more seconds is more than enough to kill a thief and between engineers and revs, there is a lot of reveal to go around. There was nothing added to the thief to compensate for this, and that hurts them a lot more than anything. It would be like adding a skill that prevented blocking party wide. Better yet imagine if there was a skill that prevented a necro from using death shroud or, don’t, because it exists and its called moa morph (or signet of humility). Now imagine if it could be used on a 40s cool down. That’s basically what thieves have to deal with. Now, I am going to say, I like the addition of reveal but something should have been done to thieves to make up for it, since I can on my herald use glints gaze 2 more times than a theif can use sr.

If only Karl could have this epiphany.

Jana.6831:

babazhook.6805:

I am not sure what you do not understand. 1v1 is not the same as WvW because you can make your build to deal with the other persons specific build.

So there’s only 1 vs 1 in what game mode? and you can’t chnage your build there?

babazhook.6805:

You mentioned fighting that mediguard. Ok you know what he has in his build and you make yours to deal with it.

No, my build was always the same.

babazhook.6805:

You can not generally do this in wvw because you do not know what sort of build you will encounter.

True, but above you said I can adapt my build in wvw instead of that mystery game mode which is 1 vs 1.

My build has always stayed the same – it was even the same in pve – it was a good build before June

The difference was the more damage I dealt in wvw back then, since my CnD was significantly weaker in pvp – he simply outhealed me.
You can either use damage food which is expected as every roamer does it, or you can use condi food – the latter might help you against some but not all enemies, but you miss out on the extra damage which would equal me in pvp with less damage against someone who’s damage was ~the same in both wvw and pvp.
That’s why soldier’s never worked for me after the introduction of ferocity – I just didn’t do enough damage to outlive my opponents.

ETA: Please do me a favour and don’t read anything into something I’ve said – If I had used different builds, I would’ve said it – I’m not that stupid to base an equation on different builds.

The point is that if you use -condi foods because your class hasn’t got enough condi cleanse, you lose out on damage which might be crucial, not only since everybody else uses food buffs.
(For those who don’t know: without food you’re dead in wvw – it really is that important).

ETA²: We fought without buffs btw.

Excuse me I play the same game you do. You do not sacrifice a a whole lot if you eat a food other then power food. 100 less power and 70 less ferocity is not going to break a build. Thieves do not have issues inflicting damage. They have issues surviving.

“Every roamer” does not take power food. It is not expected. I met roamers with all manner of foods and used a wide variety myself.

Thieves lost both power and vitality in the loss of Guard stacks from wvw. Without hesitation I will state that the loss of the Vitality “hurt” my thief moreso than the loss of power and that power was more then we get off foods.

I used to meet a lot more zerker builds pre patch. They tended to die real quick outside a small handful of really good players. Since patch there are few zerkers and more in valkyrie or marauders. The “loss in power” is greater than that garnered from foods. They do not have issues inflicting damage.

Condition on heal foods are an option for a person wanting to deal with conditions just as sigils of purity or cleansing are. My one power thief prefers a purity sigil over a force or air sigil simply because he has no issues inflicting damage. The one extra condition cleansed every 10 seconds does him more good than an extra damage every three+ seconds. That the damage output less due to that hardly breaks the build.

The differnce between using a sigil of force as example (5 percent more damage) over a sigil of purity or energy is far greater using a non power food over those that grant more power yet roamers will do it.

Finally one more time as to why trickster as I exampled with withdraw even with “only two extra cleanses” is superior as a condition clean mechansim to Shadowstep.

It has a lower cooldown. It cleanses 3 conditions that are not doing damage before cleansing those extra two meaning it more likely you clear off damaging conditions than using shadowstep. Any that dismiss this trait as they complain about an inability to clean conditions are ignoring a very useful condition cleanse. If one is in trickery anyways (as many thieves are) the loss of bountiful theft will not break a build.

If you take neither a food or spec for DD , withdraw with trickster will still clear conditiosn more effieicently then shadowstep. You do not like the trait because it scarifices damge? Fine than do not take it. Good luck with the conditions.

I responded to this:

" in WvW there also a food that removes one condition on heal meaning withdraw can now take away 5 conditions every 15 seconds."

Which is wrong.
I have no idea what you think I was talking about. You seem to think we had a completely different topic and again assumed I wouldn’t use trickster although I never said anything like that – and in fact I’m using trickster.

So, it’s great that you play the same game as me (??) but our discussion made no sense at all.

Edit: Changed quite a bit.

Nemaides.6873:

Hooglese.4860:

snip

hide spoiler

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t main thief. I’ve never been able to master the finese of perfectly managing my initiative but knowing that I can’t; I admire those who can rock this class even more than any other. As of late, there’s been a fairly significant drop in people on thief, and those who are playing it aren’t contributing as much to their team as they have in the past. “Why is this?” I found myself asking. I, for the most part (there are always exceptions), beat thieves to a pulp in pvp, duels which is a new thing since the change from traits to specialisations. So let’s take a look at some of the reasons I found why thieves got, arguably nerfed.

Thieves didn’t get any traits made baseline during the change. Many of the classes, most notably mesmer, had traits made baseline, giving them an all round buff to the class. Steal was increased in range by 300 and the recharge was reduced but that was it. The change to deadly arts has essentially made it required to take for any thief build. I think mug needs to be made baseline since it increases survive and damage, so there is literally no reason not to have it. Before it required 2 trait points which was fairly minor and many classes had a trait or two that needed one or two trait points but needing the entire line for it so your build options are dropped drastically. Trickery’s minor traits, grandmaster one not with standing, could also be made baseline on the argument that it’s hard to not take for the bonus initiative.

There is no way to remove conditions outside of shadow arts and even then its just damaging ones. First of all, most DPS classes have a way to deal with weakness where thieves don’t. Thieves really need some way to get rid of weakness since its a hard counter and it has been made easy to apply with cleave skills. Secondly, there’s no way to rapidly remove condis. The remove in stealth trait has been reduced to 1condi per 3s and that’s going to do nothing next to nothing for survive. The only skill that really removes condis for thief is shadow step but that won’t help much against, say, a necro or a burn guard. It really weakens thieves to not have a solution for condis, especially when a lot of abilities now don’t require a target to apply them.

There’s little potential for on point fighting. Thieves have always been bad at this but with acrobatics being turned into what is essentially a worse daredevil, there isn’t exactly an option. Sword dagger was annoying but it was on par with d/p or considered worse and its the one that got the nerf. Now there is daredevil which can fight on point but in no where near the same level, as say, a revenant. Also daredevil plays like an offbrand revenant. It has little stealth, about the same to worse dodge potential, equal mobility, and less damage with out any of the survive. You could say rev needs a nerf, which it does, but even if that happens daredevil still won’t get used as much since it lacks survivability.

Lastly, and most notably, is the introduction of reveal. Being able to reveal a thief for 6 or more seconds is more than enough to kill a thief and between engineers and revs, there is a lot of reveal to go around. There was nothing added to the thief to compensate for this, and that hurts them a lot more than anything. It would be like adding a skill that prevented blocking party wide. Better yet imagine if there was a skill that prevented a necro from using death shroud or, don’t, because it exists and its called moa morph (or signet of humility). Now imagine if it could be used on a 40s cool down. That’s basically what thieves have to deal with. Now, I am going to say, I like the addition of reveal but something should have been done to thieves to make up for it, since I can on my herald use glints gaze 2 more times than a theif can use sr.

If only Karl could have this epiphany.

Ya… but they’d have to bother reading it first.. and GL on any reply ever (source: thief forums)

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Wtf is with this “vanilla” talk lol

I frown @ “Vanilla” comments as well. We need a more “pre-Searing” like moniker for Pre-HoT content.

Liquicity.3621:

Nemaides.6873:

Hooglese.4860:

snip

hide spoiler

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t main thief. I’ve never been able to master the finese of perfectly managing my initiative but knowing that I can’t; I admire those who can rock this class even more than any other. As of late, there’s been a fairly significant drop in people on thief, and those who are playing it aren’t contributing as much to their team as they have in the past. “Why is this?” I found myself asking. I, for the most part (there are always exceptions), beat thieves to a pulp in pvp, duels which is a new thing since the change from traits to specialisations. So let’s take a look at some of the reasons I found why thieves got, arguably nerfed.

Thieves didn’t get any traits made baseline during the change. Many of the classes, most notably mesmer, had traits made baseline, giving them an all round buff to the class. Steal was increased in range by 300 and the recharge was reduced but that was it. The change to deadly arts has essentially made it required to take for any thief build. I think mug needs to be made baseline since it increases survive and damage, so there is literally no reason not to have it. Before it required 2 trait points which was fairly minor and many classes had a trait or two that needed one or two trait points but needing the entire line for it so your build options are dropped drastically. Trickery’s minor traits, grandmaster one not with standing, could also be made baseline on the argument that it’s hard to not take for the bonus initiative.

There is no way to remove conditions outside of shadow arts and even then its just damaging ones. First of all, most DPS classes have a way to deal with weakness where thieves don’t. Thieves really need some way to get rid of weakness since its a hard counter and it has been made easy to apply with cleave skills. Secondly, there’s no way to rapidly remove condis. The remove in stealth trait has been reduced to 1condi per 3s and that’s going to do nothing next to nothing for survive. The only skill that really removes condis for thief is shadow step but that won’t help much against, say, a necro or a burn guard. It really weakens thieves to not have a solution for condis, especially when a lot of abilities now don’t require a target to apply them.

There’s little potential for on point fighting. Thieves have always been bad at this but with acrobatics being turned into what is essentially a worse daredevil, there isn’t exactly an option. Sword dagger was annoying but it was on par with d/p or considered worse and its the one that got the nerf. Now there is daredevil which can fight on point but in no where near the same level, as say, a revenant. Also daredevil plays like an offbrand revenant. It has little stealth, about the same to worse dodge potential, equal mobility, and less damage with out any of the survive. You could say rev needs a nerf, which it does, but even if that happens daredevil still won’t get used as much since it lacks survivability.

Lastly, and most notably, is the introduction of reveal. Being able to reveal a thief for 6 or more seconds is more than enough to kill a thief and between engineers and revs, there is a lot of reveal to go around. There was nothing added to the thief to compensate for this, and that hurts them a lot more than anything. It would be like adding a skill that prevented blocking party wide. Better yet imagine if there was a skill that prevented a necro from using death shroud or, don’t, because it exists and its called moa morph (or signet of humility). Now imagine if it could be used on a 40s cool down. That’s basically what thieves have to deal with. Now, I am going to say, I like the addition of reveal but something should have been done to thieves to make up for it, since I can on my herald use glints gaze 2 more times than a theif can use sr.

If only Karl could have this epiphany.

Ya… but they’d have to bother reading it first.. and GL on any reply ever (source: thief forums)

You just have to believe! Then again, I remember the last balance update where they said “be happy thieves we are bringing in buffs” then just upped pistol damage

Cuz pistols need damage rolls eyes. Totally not related to cost/gain or range. Nope, just damage…

Serious Thought.5394:

Cuz pistols need damage rolls eyes. Totally not related to cost/gain or range. Nope, just damage…

to be fair, pistols do pull off sexy numbers now

Finally, i like pistols!

Hooglese.4860:

Liquicity.3621:

Nemaides.6873:

Hooglese.4860:

snip

hide spoiler

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t main thief. I’ve never been able to master the finese of perfectly managing my initiative but knowing that I can’t; I admire those who can rock this class even more than any other. As of late, there’s been a fairly significant drop in people on thief, and those who are playing it aren’t contributing as much to their team as they have in the past. “Why is this?” I found myself asking. I, for the most part (there are always exceptions), beat thieves to a pulp in pvp, duels which is a new thing since the change from traits to specialisations. So let’s take a look at some of the reasons I found why thieves got, arguably nerfed.

Thieves didn’t get any traits made baseline during the change. Many of the classes, most notably mesmer, had traits made baseline, giving them an all round buff to the class. Steal was increased in range by 300 and the recharge was reduced but that was it. The change to deadly arts has essentially made it required to take for any thief build. I think mug needs to be made baseline since it increases survive and damage, so there is literally no reason not to have it. Before it required 2 trait points which was fairly minor and many classes had a trait or two that needed one or two trait points but needing the entire line for it so your build options are dropped drastically. Trickery’s minor traits, grandmaster one not with standing, could also be made baseline on the argument that it’s hard to not take for the bonus initiative.

There is no way to remove conditions outside of shadow arts and even then its just damaging ones. First of all, most DPS classes have a way to deal with weakness where thieves don’t. Thieves really need some way to get rid of weakness since its a hard counter and it has been made easy to apply with cleave skills. Secondly, there’s no way to rapidly remove condis. The remove in stealth trait has been reduced to 1condi per 3s and that’s going to do nothing next to nothing for survive. The only skill that really removes condis for thief is shadow step but that won’t help much against, say, a necro or a burn guard. It really weakens thieves to not have a solution for condis, especially when a lot of abilities now don’t require a target to apply them.

There’s little potential for on point fighting. Thieves have always been bad at this but with acrobatics being turned into what is essentially a worse daredevil, there isn’t exactly an option. Sword dagger was annoying but it was on par with d/p or considered worse and its the one that got the nerf. Now there is daredevil which can fight on point but in no where near the same level, as say, a revenant. Also daredevil plays like an offbrand revenant. It has little stealth, about the same to worse dodge potential, equal mobility, and less damage with out any of the survive. You could say rev needs a nerf, which it does, but even if that happens daredevil still won’t get used as much since it lacks survivability.

Lastly, and most notably, is the introduction of reveal. Being able to reveal a thief for 6 or more seconds is more than enough to kill a thief and between engineers and revs, there is a lot of reveal to go around. There was nothing added to the thief to compensate for this, and that hurts them a lot more than anything. It would be like adding a skill that prevented blocking party wide. Better yet imagine if there was a skill that prevented a necro from using death shroud or, don’t, because it exists and its called moa morph (or signet of humility). Now imagine if it could be used on a 40s cool down. That’s basically what thieves have to deal with. Now, I am going to say, I like the addition of reveal but something should have been done to thieves to make up for it, since I can on my herald use glints gaze 2 more times than a theif can use sr.

If only Karl could have this epiphany.

Ya… but they’d have to bother reading it first.. and GL on any reply ever (source: thief forums)

You just have to believe! Then again, I remember the last balance update where they said “be happy thieves we are bringing in buffs” then just upped pistol damage

well considering there are consistently offensive threads about devs here and they stay here for days w/o getting attention untill some worried citizen reports them to mods, you kind of get the idea how much interest is there for any feedback from this forum section~

Cynz.9437:

Hooglese.4860:

Liquicity.3621:

Nemaides.6873:

Hooglese.4860:

snip

hide spoiler

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t main thief. I’ve never been able to master the finese of perfectly managing my initiative but knowing that I can’t; I admire those who can rock this class even more than any other. As of late, there’s been a fairly significant drop in people on thief, and those who are playing it aren’t contributing as much to their team as they have in the past. “Why is this?” I found myself asking. I, for the most part (there are always exceptions), beat thieves to a pulp in pvp, duels which is a new thing since the change from traits to specialisations. So let’s take a look at some of the reasons I found why thieves got, arguably nerfed.

Thieves didn’t get any traits made baseline during the change. Many of the classes, most notably mesmer, had traits made baseline, giving them an all round buff to the class. Steal was increased in range by 300 and the recharge was reduced but that was it. The change to deadly arts has essentially made it required to take for any thief build. I think mug needs to be made baseline since it increases survive and damage, so there is literally no reason not to have it. Before it required 2 trait points which was fairly minor and many classes had a trait or two that needed one or two trait points but needing the entire line for it so your build options are dropped drastically. Trickery’s minor traits, grandmaster one not with standing, could also be made baseline on the argument that it’s hard to not take for the bonus initiative.

There is no way to remove conditions outside of shadow arts and even then its just damaging ones. First of all, most DPS classes have a way to deal with weakness where thieves don’t. Thieves really need some way to get rid of weakness since its a hard counter and it has been made easy to apply with cleave skills. Secondly, there’s no way to rapidly remove condis. The remove in stealth trait has been reduced to 1condi per 3s and that’s going to do nothing next to nothing for survive. The only skill that really removes condis for thief is shadow step but that won’t help much against, say, a necro or a burn guard. It really weakens thieves to not have a solution for condis, especially when a lot of abilities now don’t require a target to apply them.

There’s little potential for on point fighting. Thieves have always been bad at this but with acrobatics being turned into what is essentially a worse daredevil, there isn’t exactly an option. Sword dagger was annoying but it was on par with d/p or considered worse and its the one that got the nerf. Now there is daredevil which can fight on point but in no where near the same level, as say, a revenant. Also daredevil plays like an offbrand revenant. It has little stealth, about the same to worse dodge potential, equal mobility, and less damage with out any of the survive. You could say rev needs a nerf, which it does, but even if that happens daredevil still won’t get used as much since it lacks survivability.

Lastly, and most notably, is the introduction of reveal. Being able to reveal a thief for 6 or more seconds is more than enough to kill a thief and between engineers and revs, there is a lot of reveal to go around. There was nothing added to the thief to compensate for this, and that hurts them a lot more than anything. It would be like adding a skill that prevented blocking party wide. Better yet imagine if there was a skill that prevented a necro from using death shroud or, don’t, because it exists and its called moa morph (or signet of humility). Now imagine if it could be used on a 40s cool down. That’s basically what thieves have to deal with. Now, I am going to say, I like the addition of reveal but something should have been done to thieves to make up for it, since I can on my herald use glints gaze 2 more times than a theif can use sr.

If only Karl could have this epiphany.

Ya… but they’d have to bother reading it first.. and GL on any reply ever (source: thief forums)

You just have to believe! Then again, I remember the last balance update where they said “be happy thieves we are bringing in buffs” then just upped pistol damage

well considering there are consistently offensive threads about devs here and they stay here for days w/o getting attention untill some worried citizen reports them to mods, you kind of get the idea how much interest is there for any feedback from this forum section~

Grr, kitten ed trolls ruin everything. I don’t blame them if that’s the case, then again people doing that stuff need to get warnings/forum bans.

Jana.6831:

I responded to this:

" in WvW there also a food that removes one condition on heal meaning withdraw can now take away 5 conditions every 15 seconds."

Which is wrong.
I have no idea what you think I was talking about. You seem to think we had a completely different topic and again assumed I wouldn’t use trickster although I never said anything like that – and in fact I’m using trickster.

So, it’s great that you play the same game as me (??) but our discussion made no sense at all.

Edit: Changed quite a bit.

No the statement I made is NOT wrong. It is accurate. Can is not the same as will.

If I say escapists resolution can remove one condition every second it immaterial whether or not I have a condition. It CAN remove one condition per second.

If I say Shadowstep can remove two stuns inside of 60 seconds you can not say it not accurate because a person might not be stunned in that period of time.

As to the rest of the debate it over whether are not power foods needed in wvw so as to allow a thief to inflict enough damage. I am stating this not the case through my own experience.