Guild Wars 2

The latest Ready Up episode has the Master Minor Critical Strikes trait, Unrelenting Strikes described thusly:

Unrelenting Strikes – Gain fury for 4 seconds when striking a foe whose health is below 50% health. This effect has a 10 second internal cooldown.

Karl McLain said during this portion of the episode that he believes it’s a typo.

Can we get some sort of confirmation from one of the devs what Unrelenting Strikes actually does if it is indeed a typo? Because as it is listed right now, it seems completely out of place and lacks synergy with the other Critical Strikes traits. Ferocious Strikes, the Grand Master Minor trait, for example, increases critical damage against enemies with health above 50%. It doesn’t make much sense to me that both of these traits, which are mandatory for the line, don’t synergize at all with each other. Instead they pass each other like Ladyhawke. As soon as an enemy drops below 50% health, one turns on and the other turns off. That can’t be right.

They said a few seconds later that he thinks it was 90%.

I’d still like an official confirmation so in the event that it is in this current state then it doesn’t fall through the cracks.

Karl, can we get confirmation on Practiced Tolerance, too? The streams/updated notes say Ferocity, but you said on the stream that it’s been unchanged except bumped up to 10% (as it’s currently 7% Vitality).

I feel like giving crit strikes more damage and not giving it any durability bonuses, while in-line with the design of the trait line, puts thieves in a bad place against conditions and ultimately hurts build diversity and the class as a whole by forcing more players into defensive trait lines due to the crazy low health pool and terrible condition cleansing we have. This trait helps immensely, especially while offsetting the losses to Applied Fortitude in WvW while people run +40% condi food and have inherently higher damage outputs.

Thanks!

So wait, thieves get fury for 4s on a 10s cd for hitting people below 90% hp? (basically everyone), does it shut back off at some point or do they just spam fury on themselves?

Thanks Karl! Your checking into this is much appreciated.

DeceiverX.8361:

Karl, can we get confirmation on Practiced Tolerance, too? The streams/updated notes say Ferocity, but you said on the stream that it’s been unchanged except bumped up to 10% (as it’s currently 7% Vitality).

I feel like giving crit strikes more damage and not giving it any durability bonuses, while in-line with the design of the trait line, puts thieves in a bad place against conditions and ultimately hurts build diversity and the class as a whole by forcing more players into defensive trait lines due to the crazy low health pool and terrible condition cleansing we have. This trait helps immensely, especially while offsetting the losses to Applied Fortitude in WvW while people run +40% condi food and have inherently higher damage outputs.

Thanks!

Uhh please don’t listen to this guy.

We want ferocity based off precision.

DeceiverX.8361:

Karl, can we get confirmation on Practiced Tolerance, too? The streams/updated notes say Ferocity, but you said on the stream that it’s been unchanged except bumped up to 10% (as it’s currently 7% Vitality).

I feel like giving crit strikes more damage and not giving it any durability bonuses, while in-line with the design of the trait line, puts thieves in a bad place against conditions and ultimately hurts build diversity and the class as a whole by forcing more players into defensive trait lines due to the crazy low health pool and terrible condition cleansing we have. This trait helps immensely, especially while offsetting the losses to Applied Fortitude in WvW while people run +40% condi food and have inherently higher damage outputs.

Thanks!

Try to mix it with Invigorating Precision.

T raw.4658:

DeceiverX.8361:

Karl, can we get confirmation on Practiced Tolerance, too? The streams/updated notes say Ferocity, but you said on the stream that it’s been unchanged except bumped up to 10% (as it’s currently 7% Vitality).

I feel like giving crit strikes more damage and not giving it any durability bonuses, while in-line with the design of the trait line, puts thieves in a bad place against conditions and ultimately hurts build diversity and the class as a whole by forcing more players into defensive trait lines due to the crazy low health pool and terrible condition cleansing we have. This trait helps immensely, especially while offsetting the losses to Applied Fortitude in WvW while people run +40% condi food and have inherently higher damage outputs.

Thanks!

Uhh please don’t listen to this guy.

We want ferocity based off precision.

Maybe if you just PvE. I’m one for going full-on damage, but PT’s vitality bonus is a pretty big loss, especially with condi damage buffs incoming and the removal of (EDIT: Applied Fortitude) cutting our hp down by like 4k from what it is now.

DeceiverX.8361:

T raw.4658:

DeceiverX.8361:

Karl, can we get confirmation on Practiced Tolerance, too? The streams/updated notes say Ferocity, but you said on the stream that it’s been unchanged except bumped up to 10% (as it’s currently 7% Vitality).

I feel like giving crit strikes more damage and not giving it any durability bonuses, while in-line with the design of the trait line, puts thieves in a bad place against conditions and ultimately hurts build diversity and the class as a whole by forcing more players into defensive trait lines due to the crazy low health pool and terrible condition cleansing we have. This trait helps immensely, especially while offsetting the losses to Applied Fortitude in WvW while people run +40% condi food and have inherently higher damage outputs.

Thanks!

Uhh please don’t listen to this guy.

We want ferocity based off precision.

Maybe if you just PvE. I’m one for going full-on damage, but PT’s vitality bonus is a pretty big loss, especially with condi damage buffs incoming and the removal of AF cutting our hp down by like 4k from what it is now.

You have to have over 5k precision to get 4k health out of it.

I probably should have written out Applied Fortitude instead of just typing AF.

Better?

DeceiverX.8361:

T raw.4658:

DeceiverX.8361:

Karl, can we get confirmation on Practiced Tolerance, too? The streams/updated notes say Ferocity, but you said on the stream that it’s been unchanged except bumped up to 10% (as it’s currently 7% Vitality).

I feel like giving crit strikes more damage and not giving it any durability bonuses, while in-line with the design of the trait line, puts thieves in a bad place against conditions and ultimately hurts build diversity and the class as a whole by forcing more players into defensive trait lines due to the crazy low health pool and terrible condition cleansing we have. This trait helps immensely, especially while offsetting the losses to Applied Fortitude in WvW while people run +40% condi food and have inherently higher damage outputs.

Thanks!

Uhh please don’t listen to this guy.

We want ferocity based off precision.

Maybe if you just PvE. I’m one for going full-on damage, but PT’s vitality bonus is a pretty big loss, especially with condi damage buffs incoming and the removal of (EDIT: Applied Fortitude) cutting our hp down by like 4k from what it is now.

Again you are thinking in just terms of WvW.

Even in just those terms you can mix/match your gear to make up for the loss in Vit. In PvP the ferocity will be a nice bonus to spike damage and will help thieves in general perform their role much easier. Especially due to losing all our damage modifier traits ^^

Terra Dactyl.2047:

So wait, thieves get fury for 4s on a 10s cd for hitting people below 90% hp? (basically everyone), does it shut back off at some point or do they just spam fury on themselves?

It appears that it’s good as long as the target is under 90%. And that makes me very happy… I won’t be forced into Trickery to get fury for No Quarter. YAY! :-D

Ps. Thank you, Karl!!!

T raw.4658:

Even in just those terms you can mix/match your gear to make up for the loss in Vit.

I know that isn’t the most ideal solution, but fortunately for ascended gear, a dev just posted this regarding stat changes…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-Gear-Anet-please-fix-this/first#post5173842

T raw.4658:

DeceiverX.8361:

T raw.4658:

DeceiverX.8361:

Karl, can we get confirmation on Practiced Tolerance, too? The streams/updated notes say Ferocity, but you said on the stream that it’s been unchanged except bumped up to 10% (as it’s currently 7% Vitality).

I feel like giving crit strikes more damage and not giving it any durability bonuses, while in-line with the design of the trait line, puts thieves in a bad place against conditions and ultimately hurts build diversity and the class as a whole by forcing more players into defensive trait lines due to the crazy low health pool and terrible condition cleansing we have. This trait helps immensely, especially while offsetting the losses to Applied Fortitude in WvW while people run +40% condi food and have inherently higher damage outputs.

Thanks!

Uhh please don’t listen to this guy.

We want ferocity based off precision.

Maybe if you just PvE. I’m one for going full-on damage, but PT’s vitality bonus is a pretty big loss, especially with condi damage buffs incoming and the removal of (EDIT: Applied Fortitude) cutting our hp down by like 4k from what it is now.

Again you are thinking in just terms of WvW.

Even in just those terms you can mix/match your gear to make up for the loss in Vit. In PvP the ferocity will be a nice bonus to spike damage and will help thieves in general perform their role much easier. Especially due to losing all our damage modifier traits ^^

Loss of damage modifier traits? We have better modifiers coming than we have now.
S/D acro/trickery gets 20% more damage from DA and utility from Panic Strike, and PS D/P gets executioner for 20% more damage as a finisher. The traits mentioned here are more important for the benefit of making the thief good at its role in sPvP more than anything in CS, which is +1’ing fights (the enemy is probably already low, and DA is designed as a finishing-blow trait setup) and mobility to cap uncontested points. which no trait line resolves. If the extra burst is really so necessary, then builds can adapt into not using PS and instead using RT since it’s being moved down to the master line, too. +200 power is better than the ferocity benefits in terms of maximum damage on a crit and DPS when accounting for non-crits.

The new DA line gives competitive builds way more benefit than CS, and CS is only really useful on D/D, which is only half decent in WvW and PvE.

All I see this positively changing is S/D’s damage if they decide to instead do CS over DA (silly move) and D/P’s damage for spamming 1, HS and SS. The first I don’t think will happen much since there is no advantage to using CS over DA in this scenario, and no S/D will sacrifice acro since Vigor is being nerfed by half, and D/P honestly doesn’t need more of a reward for spamming/facerolling the keyboard yet still is getting damage benefits baseline.

So yea, I have WvW goggles on because PT is pretty much an absolute essential for WvW due to the potency of conditions there, and that this trait as a vit bonus creates more build options and creates more viable play for crit/stab builds seeing as we’re going to already be pushed into struggling to survive since such a massive chunk of our health will be removed from the removal of guard stacks.

DeceiverX.8361:

I probably should have written out Applied Fortitude instead of just typing AF.

Better?

Yep, sorry. It totally went over my head that you were including that when not seeing the name. I play sPvP and PvE a lot more than WvW now so stacks usually don’t get counted into builds for me.

Again, apologies.

Maugetarr.6823:

DeceiverX.8361:

I probably should have written out Applied Fortitude instead of just typing AF.

Better?

Yep, sorry. It totally went over my head that you were including that when not seeing the name. I play sPvP and PvE a lot more than WvW now so stacks usually don’t get counted into builds for me.

Again, apologies.

All cool. I should have been more explicit. I think I wrote it out while making the post, but made a grammar mistake in the sentence, deleted it, and then just wrote the acronym neglecting to consider I hadn’t referenced the importance of guard stacks earlier in my post to make it clear.

It’s a huge cut, though. These put the thief to mid-tier HP on berserker crit builds, meaning the % gains relative to baseline HP were much larger and thus more important with our terrible cleansing than most other classes. While warriors could benefit like 12% of their base hp as additions without changing gear to better combat conditions, these bonuses would provide over a 40% gain – and yet the class is still weak against conditions.

What’s funny is that come the changes, I think a berserker warrior with a hammer will be able to one-hit-kill a thief in WvW that doesn’t build vitality, and if PT is removed, we’re looking at no way to deal with any real burst aside from building soldier’s, as even Valkyrie’s bonuses are not enough to combat what should be just a single mesmer shatter as well.

DeceiverX.8361:

Maugetarr.6823:

DeceiverX.8361:

I probably should have written out Applied Fortitude instead of just typing AF.

Better?

Yep, sorry. It totally went over my head that you were including that when not seeing the name. I play sPvP and PvE a lot more than WvW now so stacks usually don’t get counted into builds for me.

Again, apologies.

All cool. I should have been more explicit. I think I wrote it out while making the post, but made a grammar mistake in the sentence, deleted it, and then just wrote the acronym neglecting to consider I hadn’t referenced the importance of guard stacks earlier in my post to make it clear.

It’s a huge cut, though. These put the thief to mid-tier HP on berserker crit builds, meaning the % gains relative to baseline HP were much larger and thus more important with our terrible cleansing than most other classes. While warriors could benefit like 12% of their base hp as additions without changing gear to better combat conditions, these bonuses would provide over a 40% gain – and yet the class is still weak against conditions.

What’s funny is that come the changes, I think a berserker warrior with a hammer will be able to one-hit-kill a thief in WvW that doesn’t build vitality, and if PT is removed, we’re looking at no way to deal with any real burst aside from building soldier’s, as even Valkyrie’s bonuses are not enough to combat what should be just a single mesmer shatter as well.

Yeah, i think I’m going more burst or die again. Protracted fights aren’t going to favor us. 11001 will be the first thing I give a whirl. Acro is still decent for sword builds with weapon evades, but i was using 50036 to support D/X. If I can just push out damage now, invigorating precision could make up for the loss of vitality from traits/trait lines. For example, a 7 k crit from backstab is about 1k health returned. Bouncing autos from shortbow could keep you alive in group fights. Maybe we’ll see a Thief version of a (55) monk in assassin’s gear.

Lol the forum censoring on “kitten monk”