Guild Wars 2

Was looking at the venom share build on metabattle, and noticed in the comments that people were saying that venom share being made baseline reduced the viability of the build. I don’t understand, could someone explain?

I’m somewhat unsure, but I’d say that it reduced viability because the breakbar smashing (Sharing Basi Venom) is now baseline, so there is much less of a reason to invest in Venom Share. Now power thieves (which have a much easier optimal rotation) can just take basi for bar smashing.
I’m pretty sure this is why but, it might be wrong.

they also made the venoms weaker (re: nerfed) in general I believe. (please correct me if i’m wrong)

emkelly.2371:

they also made the venoms weaker (re: nerfed) in general I believe. (please correct me if i’m wrong)

In a way, most other Venoms still function the same, however with the change to Venom Share being baseline, they reverted Basilisk Venom to only give 1 stack, as opposed to the 2 stacks it was buffed to a while back. I believe the actual Radius on the Venom Share was also reduced due to its’ baseline functionality, which means you have to be bunched up and in the split second radius when the Venom was activated to have it given to you.

The effects of the change are as follows:
-No more might gain on venom use (DPS or group PvP viability loss)
-BV down to 1 stack from 2 (Nerf to OH Dagger, PvP use, and Break bar capabilities)
-Devourer Venom to 2 stacks from 3 (PvP/utility nerf)
-Affected-ally radius down by 33% (making it more difficult to affect allies without stacking)

So as a build, venomshare was nerfed massively, since the dependency on leech and CDR is still tied to the SA line, and a huge amount of its utility was just removed with no replacement.

The only thing which benefited from the changes is D/P meta Daredevil.

The main viability reduction imo is in the radius.

For me, the reduction in radius was annoying, but not critical. The baselining of the share aspect was far more important, because I was never going to take venomshare normally when I had such a better option in the form of blind on stealth. Rending Shade, by comparison, is far more competitive and the venomshare baseline increases group combat viability.

So while it was a “nerf” it also buffed the baseline. Overall the change was a buff to viability for those who wouldn’t normally take venomshare (i.e. most thieves) and a nerf to the few venomshare based thieves out there.

The stealth attack ICD and move to 1 stack of BV gored D/D power (and to some extent S/D) into pretty much unplayability. VShare didn’t need a nerf, and baseline builds which benefited from the changes didn’t need a buff, either.

talking about pvp, i wouldnt say the venom changes reduced d/ps viability. he even benefits a bit but then theres the backstab and immob arrow nerf. any kinds of changes to venoms except BV do not effect any kind of thief build because the capabilities to “viability” requires defensive utilties (bandits defense, blinding powder, agility signet, shadowstep) and leave no room for 40cd condis which are instantly removed or end up at pets, crates, clones and minions.

saerni.2584:

So while it was a “nerf” it also buffed the baseline. Overall the change was a buff to viability for those who wouldn’t normally take venomshare (i.e. most thieves) and a nerf to the few venomshare based thieves out there.

Pretty much a perfect and concise summary.

Much of it’s potency was neutered in exchange for PvPers getting baseline Basilisk Venom share and stealth attack boon steal on a GM. It’s most noticeable to the players who used it in PvE with SA now becoming pretty trash, there are simply better specs especially for condi, and it’s simply not worth it just to get the recharge rate of venoms down to a decent level.

As such, and coming from a PvE player who has used the old VS build since release with a small group of friends, there are just vastly superior options now. The recharge without Leeching Venoms and radius reduction of the share is just to big a hit, more than anything else for ease of use and effectiveness.

33% loss of AoE does’nt seem like a lot but it’s pretty noticeable and annoying in game. It’s a pity as I always enjoyed the build but such is life in MMORPG’s. Nerfs happen and builds come and go.

My Venom Share build I’ve ran for ages is greatly weakened to the point that using Shadow Arts isn’t even worth it anymore. (I suggested swapping Leeching Venom with Revealed Training since it makes more sense after this change. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Swap-Revealed-Training-with-Leeching-Venoms/first#post6257237)
I can no longer stack might on myself and allies, and taking SA for Leeching alone isn’t good enough incentive to waste my time in a tree that uses Stealth when I don’t use Stealth skills. So overall I do less damage, less range, less breakbar damage, longer cooldowns and have less team support and use only Spider Venom and Basilisk now and ignore the others.
Yay for people who only used Basilisk and never spec’d for Venoms.. Boo for people like me who used multiple Venoms. Although solo Basilisk Thieves were nerfed.

Yay only for D/P users who never slotted the venom build. The changes hurt D/D power in PvP roughly the same as it did the VShare build itself in PvE.

They honestly need to give thief more meaningful and game changing elites like memser moa is or rev 3 second aoe stun.

They also need to rework allot of thief skills like their signets which are also lack luster. Everyone has retal and retal ticks more than the healing signet lol. At least make it on skill use like ele. and their Thieves Guild is too weak now. Idk why they even have their dagger storm its useless. The best elite right now is the one for downing because it can precast down people.

DeceiverX.8361:

Yay only for D/P users who never slotted the venom build. The changes hurt D/D power in PvP roughly the same as it did the VShare build itself in PvE.

Well since you’re trashing on d/p with your every post I have a suggestion. Why not create a new feed or ask the devs to make a forum entry for you entitled: “d/p thieves are op and need to be nerfed, they always beat me!” and post there something on topic whenever you feel sorrow…

Well thank you for the reminder. I knew about the radius reduction, which was ouchy enough, but the nerfing of the base venoms…. yeah… no bueno…

I may have to rethink one of my future builds…

NuhDah.9812:

DeceiverX.8361:

Yay only for D/P users who never slotted the venom build. The changes hurt D/D power in PvP roughly the same as it did the VShare build itself in PvE.

Well since you’re trashing on d/p with your every post I have a suggestion. Why not create a new feed or ask the devs to make a forum entry for you entitled: “d/p thieves are op and need to be nerfed, they always beat me!” and post there something on topic whenever you feel sorrow…

They don’t always beat me. Quite frankly, only particularly good players using it tend to. The average D/P thief usually finds himself dead on the ground because he tries too hard to use backstab and I usually kill him while he’s in stealth setting up.

And in all seriousness, the quality of thief players since HoT has dropped so massively that I find them as typically being the easiest targets to kill while playing a greatsword reaper.

I hate it because I can play D/P and pretty much straight up not even try, and beat people by pressing 3 (although still not as bad as D/D condi). There’s no incentive to become a better player, fights are often trivial, and this skill is responsible for a huge divide in balance between weapon sets and the general state of the thief, also largely due to Shadow Shot.

D/P Daredevil’s dominance, historically and mathematically attributed to Shadow Shot, is a creeping cancer that’s made most of the best thieves in the game leave due to being pushed to non-viability in D/P’s wake.

DeceiverX.8361:

NuhDah.9812:

DeceiverX.8361:

Yay only for D/P users who never slotted the venom build. The changes hurt D/D power in PvP roughly the same as it did the VShare build itself in PvE.

Well since you’re trashing on d/p with your every post I have a suggestion. Why not create a new feed or ask the devs to make a forum entry for you entitled: “d/p thieves are op and need to be nerfed, they always beat me!” and post there something on topic whenever you feel sorrow…

They don’t always beat me. Quite frankly, only particularly good players using it tend to. The average D/P thief usually finds himself dead on the ground because he tries too hard to use backstab and I usually kill him while he’s in stealth setting up.

And in all seriousness, the quality of thief players since HoT has dropped so massively that I find them as typically being the easiest targets to kill while playing a greatsword reaper.

I hate it because I can play D/P and pretty much straight up not even try, and beat people by pressing 3 (although still not as bad as D/D condi). There’s no incentive to become a better player, fights are often trivial, and this skill is responsible for a huge divide in balance between weapon sets and the general state of the thief, also largely due to Shadow Shot.

D/P Daredevil’s dominance, historically and mathematically attributed to Shadow Shot, is a creeping cancer that’s made most of the best thieves in the game leave due to being pushed to non-viability in D/P’s wake.

Well, what you just wrote made me curious what wvw world are you playing on? Cause in most of the cases I meet some other player in wvw just with spamming 3 would never get me anywhere else then a checkpoint to get my kitten res-ed after few seconds in which I’d die miserably from either a mesmer condi burst, a DH trap, warrior knockdown + burst, engi reflect, and I can continue a long list here.

I guess my world is usually against the top US worlds so there might be a different skill level involved, but telling me you can beat anyone with just spamming SS makes me think you’re not playing against the right lot of people. It would also be fascinating to see what sort of low resistance from other player on your group of worlds can make kitten spammer thief look like trouble. Maybe I need to change servers to understand how op can a d/p thief get.

DeceiverX.8361:

Yay only for D/P users who never slotted the venom build. The changes hurt D/D power in PvP roughly the same as it did the VShare build itself in PvE.

Actually i play d/p in pvp and i don’t like the change. I do miss double stack of basi. Yes, you can give basi to team at begin but during the match you rarely get chance to share venoms with teammates.

Also “best” thieves left because of dp? Which would that be? If anything, june patch from last year and introduction of revs contributed to decrease of thieves and build variety/viability, not d/p. Why didn’t i see you spewing txoic bs when s/d was braindead?

Stop hating on d/p and go use that energy for something productive (e.g. getting HoT specs nerfed), ty.

I’ve played almost every server. I’m currently sitting on TC as I went there for T2 fights and high-consistency small-scale about a year ago with my guild when the going was good and blobbing not excessive (and before HoT broke the game). Since I’m no longer interested in paying ANet any money due to poor game handling, and my guild all quit for the most part, I’m sitting there.

Mashing 3 won’t do much against skilled opponents from all the craziness flying around these days to prevent it (and most other skills in general) from working effectively (although it definitely used to), but half-brain-dead gameplay, particularly if I choose a thief of mine with Daredevil unlocked, pressing 3 every second or 2 usually wins me a fight.

Quite frankly, the middle tiers usually have better players. Most high-tier servers win by coverage and blobs over playing well, and we haven’t seen an actually skill-intensive scene in WvW since 2013.

If you run Daredevil you shouldn’t have issues with condi mesmer if you run EA. Clone scepter AA is really slow and often the clones are left up rather than shattered to apply torment. Blind pressure negates almost all of theirs, and SS’s got a 900 range teleport that can keep up with them that the clones can’t unless shattered. PU won’t negate the blind or port on SS, and a BV’ed SS will normally shut the mesmer down. It is to be noted that SS cannot be reflected as it is unblockable. Engineers and eles should thus be easy as well. Dash mid-projectile and carry through the DH traps, triggering them all and taking no damage since the first hit by the guard will be negated from the blind. Rangers you can infinitely pressure from steal and Shadow Shot having enough mobility to pressure GS and Staff movements, and blind their CC’s. Only the bunker build should give trouble due to the pet’s durability, but the bunker build is objectively overpowered from a stat perspective and if played well can only die from substantial lockdown and boon rip typically acquired from having multiple allies. Reapers should be cake unless they run mobility builds (nobody does), but even still they’ll have poor LF regeneration on such builds and suffer from being unable to land scythe due to the blinds. Warriors, and revs might be a “tough” matchup due to the resistance negating blind, but are otherwise fairly easy takedowns if stealth is used and mobility maintained. Other thieves can give you issues just because they’re probably doing something similar and negating your damage as well.

You can typically just sustain through most others’ damage via the blind pressure and a few dodges.

Even a low-function build like signets gets ramped into insanity with it. When you start hitting 8-12k on Shadow Shot (in some cases one-shotting unprepared eles with it), a lot of the details of skilled play really stop mattering. The skill damage coefficient is bonkers, and the quick-and-easy unblockable blind, teleport re-engage, and no stealth attack dependency with faster burst than D/D kind of nullify the purpose of taking anything else while tremendously lowering the level of skill needed to play to a degree where one can start winning.

Cynz.9437:

DeceiverX.8361:

Yay only for D/P users who never slotted the venom build. The changes hurt D/D power in PvP roughly the same as it did the VShare build itself in PvE.

Actually i play d/p in pvp and i don’t like the change. I do miss double stack of basi. Yes, you can give basi to team at begin but during the match you rarely get chance to share venoms with teammates.

Also “best” thieves left because of dp? Which would that be? If anything, june patch from last year and introduction of revs contributed to decrease of thieves and build variety/viability, not d/p. Why didn’t i see you spewing txoic bs when s/d was braindead?

Stop hating on d/p and go use that energy for something productive (e.g. getting HoT specs nerfed), ty.

So much backtalk from what was an off-hand remark about how the reasoning behind the decision had no desirable effect. You’re all taking me way too critically, here.

Anecdotal. Most non-D/P players didn’t make it to be recognizable as pro players because the builds weren’t good enough for the meta (boon bunker). Ask pros about good thieves they’ve dueled, and they should be willing to admit they’ve gotten massively out-played in fights by other non-meta players. If they don’t, they’re either a tiny minority at the pinnacle of skill and always were, or they’re lying.

S/D wasn’t brain-dead easy (okay, it was at launch when it was not a two-part skill, but D/D was by far the most overpowered thing in the game at launch) so much as it directly countered the boon meta in sPvP at the time when it was dominat after getting reworked, and thus made it an excellent +1. Boons were also way less common and spammable, so a thief that simply just jumped in and pre-casted FS for LS + BT would pretty much guarantee a dead enemy. Playing it well in strict combat outside of +1 wasn’t braindead, and Daredevil is way, way worse of a culprit than core Acro even before the nerfs. Even now, I think Acro is stronger and more braindead than it used to be due to massively-buffed passives.

I’ve tried to put forth effort to talk about the state of the game. I was suspended from 0 IP to 6 IP from saying class balance failed in the dedicated feedback thread while explaining the reasoning in a wall of text. There’s no hope in ANet listening or taking such efforts into consideration.

DeceiverX.8361:

When I said reflect on engies I was actually referring to the reflect effects in general like retaliation too, sorry for not being clear and using another term that has specific characteristic in the game for something more general. Anyways, you didn’t have to list all the ways you go about fighting other classes, that wasn’t the point anyways. It’s not anyone could learn much form it just reading the summary you wrote down.

So you’re on Tarnish Coast… I have no idea how it’s the feeling from the other end, but from my perspective when my server was up against TC and Blackgate I can’t say I’ve ever had an easy fight. Now that Dragonbrand got paired against Jade Querry and Maguuma I already feel like the encounters are more relaxed (even though I have no idea why Db got depopulated overnight and it’s like no one’s playing anymore right now). Since I’m in Europe time zone maybe the times we join come with people of different skills, not sure how to explain this. since you’ve gone against my server and say people are easy kills in d/p probably most of Db is bad… I have no idea, never played against Db…

Anyways, your 12k SS I’m pretty sure only comes in groups where you get buffs from everyone and you play signets, and usually your dmg is twice as high as if you’d go solo and probably use bound and full zerker gear. My SS never goes over 5k on crit when I’m soloing around, ad it’s usually at 4k on crits and 2-3k without crit. And this is usually the value of the skill, not the 12k extreme the case scenario. Spamming SS would never get you anywhere unless you maybe want to finish up someone weak. You want to go against a Warrior if you press too much 3 you’ll be fried like a bug since fighting a warrior in melee range with d/p it’s suicide and that’s what SS actually does, put’s you in melee range.

That’s why I only use SS as a gap closer or block dmg filler if the planets align right and the enemy doesn’t have any other defenses over the block. For me it’s a utility skill, not as much as a dmg dealer since any other time aa does more dmg. heck if the enemy is under 50%-25% HP even Heartseaker does more dmg.

And yeah, I was talking about going up against skilled/decent players not the brain-deads. You mash 3 too much you’re dead against those ones. Why would I care how efficient SS is against players who are dead meat?

Anyways, I still don’t get why you have to trash d/p in every single post you write. Is this the only way you have to vent off your frustration of the general thief situation in the game? Do you hold a grudge against someone who uses d/p and always beats you on your favorite set?

NuhDah.9812:

DeceiverX.8361:

…

Anyways, I still don’t get why you have to trash d/p in every single post you write. Is this the only way you have to vent off your frustration of the general thief situation in the game? Do you hold a grudge against someone who uses d/p and always beats you on your favorite set?

No, it’s just this is what is ultimately holding the profession as a whole back. You can’t balance thief when D/P is left as it is, and Shadow Shot provides a massively disproportionate amount of damage and utility for its initiative cost, allowing strictly worse players to achieve more than those excelling in other sets.

As far as fights go, it’s not DB or any specific server. There are going to be really skilled people on every server, regardless of tier. I’ve just found that typically speaking, the more bandwagon-heavy a given server is (something Db just went through) it typically attracts worse players looking for the ktrain blob. Admittedly, I haven’t personally witnessed the lower tiers in action since before HoT, and I understand the expansion made a ton of small-scale players leave, which typically housed all the skirmishing skill (GvG/ZvZ and skirmish approach combat in much different ways). It could be my expectations are still too far in the past.

Even without signet casts, my Shadow Shot hovers close to 6-7k on average. You’re probably not playing for that much damage is why. Nonetheless, the skill itself is grossly imbalanced, and it’s not uncommon to find thieves who play in small groups which indeed do just spam 3, and the efficacy of the skill itself is enough to really prevent any proper retaliation efforts to the point where if they played almost anything else except D/D condi, they’d be in a lot worse shape. It upsets me that the weapon is effectively universally good at everything, and ANet can’t really make some significant changes anywhere to help other builds while it remains so dominant.

I will admit, I do find a lot of D/P players overly-smug. A lot of people claim they’re a lot better than they are, and that so many claim the pinnacle of play when even in their best of moments nuances are often missed and misplays are made, often covered up by the weapon set. It upsets me the clearly-and-obviously best weapon set is the benchmark used to judge thief as a profession for the developers, rather than looking at design decisions of the class in general or realizing just how astronomically better it is than the rest in most instances.

DeceiverX.8361:

NuhDah.9812:

DeceiverX.8361:

…

Anyways, I still don’t get why you have to trash d/p in every single post you write. Is this the only way you have to vent off your frustration of the general thief situation in the game? Do you hold a grudge against someone who uses d/p and always beats you on your favorite set?

No, it’s just this is what is ultimately holding the profession as a whole back. You can’t balance thief when D/P is left as it is, and Shadow Shot provides a massively disproportionate amount of damage and utility for its initiative cost, allowing strictly worse players to achieve more than those excelling in other sets.

Actually your way of comparing things is wrong in the first place. D/p might be better at killing squishy things then the other sets cause it’s a burst set – but this applies only against other squishy classes. You go against a bunker class, or a condi sustain class, or outnumbered, or in pack with other players, you’ll find other sets preform better then d/p. And frankly it’s not the set’s fault it performs better against things that go down fast, the actual logic behind the mechanic of a burst class it’s this way so this is where a burst class performs better then other styles. And again SS does not do massive dmg in an every day’s encounter or encounters that actually matter. I mean it’s not like I haven’t fought against all sorts of other players and I know very well the limitations and the fact that d/p also lacks in many areas against a lot of other classes builds and even some of the thief’s builds.

DeceiverX.8361:

Even without signet casts, my Shadow Shot hovers close to 6-7k on average. You’re probably not playing for that much damage is why. Nonetheless, the skill itself is grossly imbalanced, and it’s not uncommon to find thieves who play in small groups which indeed do just spam 3, and the efficacy of the skill itself is enough to really prevent any proper retaliation efforts to the point where if they played almost anything else except D/D condi, they’d be in a lot worse shape. It upsets me that the weapon is effectively universally good at everything, and ANet can’t really make some significant changes anywhere to help other builds while it remains so dominant.

I’m actually playing pretty close to the meta Marauder ascended armor, Zerker ascended accessories, marauder ascended dagger and exotic zerker pisol (my only exotic piece left is the pistol that is the one that does the SS dmg lol), with air&fire sigils, and pack runes (with scholar I might have gotten an dmg increase too, but I didn’t get them yet). Using DA, Tr, DrD with dash and improv, but I’ve played executioner for a long time before switching to improv. No sigils in my utility line-up if I’m not pve-ing. So there you have it. i can’t say for sore if the dmg will get that good after I pick up an ascended pistol, but still it won’t probably do that amount on heavy armor professions, or tanky builds which is usually what you see in WvW anyways.

DeceiverX.8361:

I will admit, I do find a lot of D/P players overly-smug. A lot of people claim they’re a lot better than they are, and that so many claim the pinnacle of play when even in their best of moments nuances are often missed and misplays are made, often covered up by the weapon set. It upsets me the clearly-and-obviously best weapon set is the benchmark used to judge thief as a profession for the developers, rather than looking at design decisions of the class in general or realizing just how astronomically better it is than the rest in most instances.

On a final note I’d urge you to read my first paragraph and rethink how you view this, cause saying d/p is the best set it’s again, just a generalization from a very subjective point of view. I don’t care how smug other players are, if 15 it’s the only age they can have is their problem. I didn’t get into arguments with kids, though I would understand if you say these things happen more often in TC since that’s rp server or so I’ve heard. People just might be more “emotional” there. And I’m also sure the devs don’t take only one set and balance a whole profession around it. I don’t feel they are going the right way with the balance either, or at least not yet… But when I think of the balance i think of the way thief plays in the larger picture of the game, not only like in internal weapon set based turf.

P.S. so your anger really comes from people who just overpower you with a set that counters yours, and most of them are too smug for their actual skill… just leave them be, if you still play your favorite set I’m sure you also have some cool encounters that you managed to and they could never pull off, otherwise you wouldn’t be playing it. Savor those instead and stop getting frustrated over what kids do.

DeceiverX.8361:

Cynz.9437:

DeceiverX.8361:

Yay only for D/P users who never slotted the venom build. The changes hurt D/D power in PvP roughly the same as it did the VShare build itself in PvE.

Actually i play d/p in pvp and i don’t like the change. I do miss double stack of basi. Yes, you can give basi to team at begin but during the match you rarely get chance to share venoms with teammates.

Also “best” thieves left because of dp? Which would that be? If anything, june patch from last year and introduction of revs contributed to decrease of thieves and build variety/viability, not d/p. Why didn’t i see you spewing txoic bs when s/d was braindead?

Stop hating on d/p and go use that energy for something productive (e.g. getting HoT specs nerfed), ty.

So much backtalk from what was an off-hand remark about how the reasoning behind the decision had no desirable effect. You’re all taking me way too critically, here.

Anecdotal. Most non-D/P players didn’t make it to be recognizable as pro players because the builds weren’t good enough for the meta (boon bunker). Ask pros about good thieves they’ve dueled, and they should be willing to admit they’ve gotten massively out-played in fights by other non-meta players. If they don’t, they’re either a tiny minority at the pinnacle of skill and always were, or they’re lying.

S/D wasn’t brain-dead easy (okay, it was at launch when it was not a two-part skill, but D/D was by far the most overpowered thing in the game at launch) so much as it directly countered the boon meta in sPvP at the time when it was dominat after getting reworked, and thus made it an excellent +1. Boons were also way less common and spammable, so a thief that simply just jumped in and pre-casted FS for LS + BT would pretty much guarantee a dead enemy. Playing it well in strict combat outside of +1 wasn’t braindead, and Daredevil is way, way worse of a culprit than core Acro even before the nerfs. Even now, I think Acro is stronger and more braindead than it used to be due to massively-buffed passives.

I’ve tried to put forth effort to talk about the state of the game. I was suspended from 0 IP to 6 IP from saying class balance failed in the dedicated feedback thread while explaining the reasoning in a wall of text. There’s no hope in ANet listening or taking such efforts into consideration.

I still see no names. You just keep claiming things w/o back up.

SD was brain dead back then, especially given the state the game was.

Yes, HoT specs made everything easy, i totally agree with it (if it was up to me, i would deleted HoT from pvp all together).

Once again, sole reason why d/p (despite it actually not being the best 1v1 set) is so popular in pvp is because of it’s versatility.

What bothers me really is how thieves are hating on thieves when the class is already in crappy state. Thief atm is about weakest class in pvp and yet we are here screaming “oh noes d/p is OP”, oh noes nerf d/p – which is barely keeping us in pvp. Sry, i don’t have Jana’s syndrome “If i can’t enjoy my build then whole class should be deleted and nobody else shall have fun” so it really bothers me when someone keeps bringing up d/p as some kind of source of evil.

There is plenty of noobs QQing about thieves on other threads – you don’t have to contribute to it, ty.

Cynz.9437:

Lol “Jana’s syndrome”…

NuhDah.9812:

(cut for length and because triply-nested quotes is messy and I don’t feel like dealing with it)

I’m not sure how you could surmise D/P’s advantages come from killing only squishy targets. The main reason why D/P is played in sPvP is because this statement simply isn’t true. That’s only applicable to S/P and D/D power.

D/P is on the better end at killing tankier targets than other sets also because of Shadow Shot, actually. High coefficient, gap closes to maintain pressure, and soft CC to prevent the few meaningful counter-attacks, and a better net throughput in damage in most cases than most other sets since the AA is so hard-hitting. I’d argue S/D is probably the best tank-killer only because of Larcenous Strike being able to apply boon ripping that often constitutes most of the effective sustained damage mitigation in the game currently. D/D, P/P, and S/P’s only existing possible gains over D/P are squishy targets, since neither set has the sustain to justify use in the existing meta, since they’re so burst-focused, and even Bound can offset a portion of this from just having OH pistol for S/P and P/P, and P/P’s plight is great in PvP environments only due to rampant projectile hate.

You’re not running a build with actual damage, and Shadow Shot for you is hitting harder than options available to other professions/builds that invest all of their traits and gear into full glass damage. A 4k 900-range gap-close crit with no might on a high-armor target coming from a utility-defensive build is considered to be huge. That’s the kind of damage I get on my full-berserker, full-damage-built-traits 25-might + 25 bloodlust third Reaper Shroud AA on my reaper when against a warrior.

You’re playing a relatively-power-geared build under the standard utility Daredevil D/P build with DPS-oriented gear (not DPH, mind you), and aren’t actually building for damage in your traits. If you use Shadow Shot primarily as a gap closer, anyways, I don’t understand why you’d be upset with its coefficient dropping. As it is, Shadow Shot is better than backstab when taking into account the stealth attack ICD, intiative costs of gaining stealth and the damage from backstab, casting times of these abilities, misc effects, and the overall damage dealt when factoring in post-Shadow Shot AA’s.

(Continued below)

I don’t argue much with people in-game, and I’m not really sure why you’d assume I argue with my own server members regularly, or what the RP sub-community has anything to do with it. Typically exchanges in-game come from either enemies who jump on corpses in ganks (enemy or ally, I think it’s rude and brings a disrespect to the community I’m in/format I’m playing, and almost everyone who gloats to their enemies is typically playing FoTM) or win via cheese FoTM builds and aren’t willing to fight with anything but. I like to let them know they’re running cheese when they are, even if I win, and that to get better as a player, you need to deviate from crutches. Most of my debates are made here, because all too often people come here to complain the thief isn’t strong enough and needs huge and sweeping baseline buffs that strictly speaking are unnecessary and excessive. The same people who make these absurd requests and claim to be good players are often unaware of where the real problems in the profession lie, and why their suggestions make no sense, and if and when they do try another build that doesn’t revolve around the meta, find themselves grounded when consistently losing and playing under-performing sets which cannot be rightfully buffed without over-buffing D/P. This is especially apparent when playing against other thieves. In non-meta matchups, they usually lose promptly by being out-played, and against another meta build, they really recognize the weakness of the core of the thief and its unused other flavors.

Shadow Shot is the core of the problem from design and implementation backgrounds.
It prevents logical balancing of MH Dagger and OH pistol, which are under-performers respectively on the core thief when not combined. S/P and P/P were and are considered poor kits when not using Daredevil. A kit should not be made-or-broken by an elite spec’s GM trait. MH dagger’s DPS buffs were unwarranted to D/P because then the skill floor in respects to class efficacy was lowered and backstabs punished. I made the claim thieves would largely stop using stealth attacks when ANet buffed MH dagger AA, especially on D/P, since already Shadow Shot out-performed a frontal use of backstab, and the quicker recovery animations would yield that SS -> AA would deal better burst than a well-set-up SS -> backstab. I made this claim because of the math behind it. And look where we are. Most claim stealth attacks aren’t worth it, for the exact reasons I mentioned above, even without the stealth attack ICD. If Shadow Shot got nerfed, it’d stop being the go-to ability for damage while just providing free gap closes and soft CC increasing the relative safety in play. On the mathematical and design levels, the thief can’t see changes it needs because the efficacy of Shadow Shot dominates the weapon set and the weapon set dominates the thief.

I’d like to mention I’m not mad, or speaking from the perspective of entirely a D/D thief. I’ve played pretty much every thief build out there. At one point, I ran a Cleric’s Dwayna’s healing power build in sPvP and went undefeated in duels in that environment, because I did out the math as to how such a build would be overpowered in sPvP. And it absolutely was. Of course, this is due largely to the sPvP stats while massively weak in WvW. That was cheese that went under the radar. I’m speaking the results of my objective analysis of the mathematics and systems behind the game and what underlies the thief. I’m not calling D/P itself cheesy. I’m saying Shadow Shot is breaking the profession’s ability to grow and be fixed, and that what could be qualified as excessive or cheesy use has disproportionately little impact on how well the profession performs when compared to other sets; it consistently performs better because of this single ability, almost regardless of the skill of the player or even how it’s used.

As far as uniqueness to what I ran… not really, no. Because I played so massively away from the meta and as a result didn’t even run shortbow, the things that I did on the thief overall aren’t compatible with a comparison to just D/P. If you were to analyze the combinations of weapons I ran individually, there was objectively nothing advantageous about them except for the cleanse on IR on MH sword when compared to D/P. Every play I could make on any given weapon I used, I would have been able to either duplicate or have done functionally better with the same result while using D/P.

DeceiverX.8361:

NuhDah.9812:

(cut for length and because triply-nested quotes is messy and I don’t feel like dealing with it)

You’re playing a relatively-power-geared build under the standard utility Daredevil D/P build with DPS-oriented gear (not DPH, mind you), and aren’t actually building for damage in your traits. If you use Shadow Shot primarily as a gap closer, anyways, I don’t understand why you’d be upset with its coefficient dropping. As it is, Shadow Shot is better than backstab when taking into account the stealth attack ICD, intiative costs of gaining stealth and the damage from backstab, casting times of these abilities, misc effects, and the overall damage dealt when factoring in post-Shadow Shot AA’s.

(Continued below)

Well I did say in another thread that toning down SS dmg wouldn’t be a tragedy in my opinion, so that’s not a problem for me. But since I know as an overall thief under performs and already know SS it’s not a deal breaker against most of the the well built other specs and professions I don’t see any reason for thief being nerfed any further down the line. That is unless they deal with the other op kittene power creep and passives in the game first, cause right now SS against most of what you can get out there it’s nowhere near being op. I don’t see any reason to nerf SS without getting buffed in other areas d/p and thief in general lacks compared to everything that’s out there which should be looked at anyways even without SS change. And your point of SS being better than backstab it’s not valid either, since backstab is one the worst thief abilities right now (even more after the 1s cd was added) so most abilities are better then BSs.

I think the fundamental difference in opinion comes from the notion that you believe the other specs are well-built. I don’t. I quite honestly believe the integrity of the game hinges on nerfing that power creep, including Daredevil.

Look to pre-HoT build viability in WvW; pretty much anything could be run on a thief with at worst moderate success. Even if the class demanded more skill than others to get that success with, that’s totally fine for what it was in general capable of. Aside from massive condi bomb dire builds, I never really felt pressed against anything, and if I played well – and at times I didn’t, for nobody’s perfect – I found myself being able to beat pretty much whatever I attacked, generally speaking. The lack of viability in sPvP stems from the amulet system and stat gains not jiving well with damage multipliers which are the primary way to achieve damage on the thief rather than anything inherent with class design, skill coefficients, etc.

The problem I see with Shadow Shot is that it’s one of those poorly-designed mechanics which prevents the rest of the class and its builds from getting much love. Because it’s such a problem child and is already overly-rewarding for its use, I see no reason to cut its damage and turn it into primarily a utility ability.

And I wasn’t even in this thread or forum (for quite a while)..

Can you play anything else than D/P and D/D condi spam in pvp? Would it make sense to play anything else in wvw?

No? then why?

I could tell you, because I’m playing against D/P and I know how ridiculously strong they are. But not only SS is strong, also BP which with prepardness lets D/P thieves stealth for a very long time. And since they are free to chose any traits they want to because their set doesn’t need traits, they can have the best of all of it.
So when people are complaining about “perma stealth thieves” thieves as a whole get punished while D/P still has at least twice the amount of stealth duration at hand.

And honestly: There’s one thing I really hate and that’s stupidity. You can’t claim that I was complaining without explaining why and I (and others) did that in detail, so

Cynz.9437:

Sry, i don’t have Jana’s syndrome “If i can’t enjoy my build then whole class should be deleted and nobody else shall have fun” so it really bothers me when someone keeps bringing up d/p as some kind of source of evil.

Is kind of insulting because you obviously didn’t read any of what I wrote.
But instead did the very thing you accuse me of: don’t use any logic but just plainly defend your set.

ETA: And if you report me for this again, I’ll report your previous post as it was completely unneccessary to call me out. I know how this works.

Jana.6831:

And I wasn’t even in this thread or forum (for quite a while)..

Can you play anything else than D/P and D/D condi spam in pvp? Would it make sense to play anything else in wvw?

No? then why?

I could tell you, because I’m playing against D/P and I know how ridiculously strong they are. But not only SS is strong, also BP which with prepardness lets D/P thieves stealth for a very long time. And since they are free to chose any traits they want to because their set doesn’t need traits, they can have the best of all of it.
So when people are complaining about “perma stealth thieves” thieves as a whole get punished while D/P still has at least twice the amount of stealth duration at hand.

And honestly: There’s one thing I really hate and that’s stupidity. You can’t claim that I was complaining without explaining why and I (and others) did that in detail, so

Cynz.9437:

Sry, i don’t have Jana’s syndrome “If i can’t enjoy my build then whole class should be deleted and nobody else shall have fun” so it really bothers me when someone keeps bringing up d/p as some kind of source of evil.

Is kind of insulting because you obviously didn’t read any of what I wrote.
But instead did the very thing you accuse me of: don’t use any logic but just plainly defend your set.

ETA: And if you report me for this again, I’ll report your previous post as it was completely unneccessary to call me out. I know how this works.

Actually I saw some S/D (probably combined with D/P) and some Staff/Sb plays that were pretty good in both WvW and PvP. Also some variations on P/P with another set pretty viable and did their job if used the right way. So it’s not only D/P and D/D condi. most of the sets are pretty much used.

NuhDah.9812:

Actually I saw some S/D (probably combined with D/P) and some Staff/Sb plays that were pretty good in both WvW and PvP. Also some variations on P/P with another set pretty viable and did their job if used the right way. So it’s not only D/P and D/D condi. most of the sets are pretty much used.

I saw someone with only D mainhand once.

One day you might get the point, don’t use my name in any of your posts until then, ok?

DeceiverX.8361:

I think the fundamental difference in opinion comes from the notion that you believe the other specs are well-built. I don’t. I quite honestly believe the integrity of the game hinges on nerfing that power creep, including Daredevil.

Look to pre-HoT build viability in WvW; pretty much anything could be run on a thief with at worst moderate success. Even if the class demanded more skill than others to get that success with, that’s totally fine for what it was in general capable of. Aside from massive condi bomb dire builds, I never really felt pressed against anything, and if I played well – and at times I didn’t, for nobody’s perfect – I found myself being able to beat pretty much whatever I attacked, generally speaking. The lack of viability in sPvP stems from the amulet system and stat gains not jiving well with damage multipliers which are the primary way to achieve damage on the thief rather than anything inherent with class design, skill coefficients, etc.

The problem I see with Shadow Shot is that it’s one of those poorly-designed mechanics which prevents the rest of the class and its builds from getting much love. Because it’s such a problem child and is already overly-rewarding for its use, I see no reason to cut its damage and turn it into primarily a utility ability.

I actually read what you wrote in another thread about the boons in pvp and how to scale up and thought it was cool how you detailed the issue. I also think the power creep is a big issue, but in a way I’m not sure if that’s the whole issue.

I’m not sure, and maybe you can explain to me what is this this power creep to you and how it affects the game in your eyes. For me if I want to translate this I’d say power creep affected the game in 3 major ways:

1. Since it was added on the elite specs the core builds became more or less obsolete, hence the diversity of the builds that were performing well was reduced the profession becoming sort of dependent on the elite specs. So less diversity is bad, less options and forsaking old styles that people were used to before are inconvenient. This also made balance more tedious since people had new unexplored horizons in sight and balancing something unexplored and restricted is hard.

2. Lower ttk. Well that means they went so far that in some cases you can literally inst-kill someone before they can react or defend themselves with some burst specs. On the other hand you get lazy condi plays in which you can pretty much doom anyone who gets themselves hit only once or twice by your condi attack and with sufficent mobility and/or control you stay safely from harms way while the health of your opponent drops to 0. Not that I’m a fan of long ttk (which is why I like gw2 combat for it’s build and skill based ttk extendability instead of long boring fight or overpowered healing which invite stalemates), but literally not letting someone even get the chance to counter might arguably be too much. Saying arguably since when it comes to high level skill and play no one is going to die in an instant.

3. Well this one is pretty much the answer Anet had to the power creep, which is filling the gameplay with passives, over reliance on boons that reduce dmg income, etc.

This is my overview on power creep. But I’m sure I might have missed some things (if I didn’t, gz me) and want to hear your angle on this one.

And no I’ll right some little comments and my opinion on these 3 points I wrote above.

1st. Anet had to add something new to make people change the old stuff, for different reasons, one would be of course to be an incentive for the people to buy the expansion. But on the other hand something that gave the players new reasons to explore and try new styles, different things and to grow as an overall came with it too, so in this sense at least it provided something good too.

2nd. I already said this but i’m not a fan of boring stalemates. I believe pvp is about showing skill and dominance over other people by killing them as opposed to getting into stalemates and boring fights. GW2 does well on how better builds and player skill makes the difference between instantly dying and a good fight. unfortunatly the balance is not the best and you have classes that can play risk reward only on low skill level, and other situations like this.

3rd. Well I can’t find much positive on this one. It’s just a way to make some lazy plays a reason for countering power creep. Not that I haven’t seen this sort of metality (countering over-powered attacks with overpowered defenses, or in other games countering cc creep with escape mechanics creep), it’s bad for balance, and pretty shaky design, but it somehow stands.

Jana.6831:

NuhDah.9812:

Actually I saw some S/D (probably combined with D/P) and some Staff/Sb plays that were pretty good in both WvW and PvP. Also some variations on P/P with another set pretty viable and did their job if used the right way. So it’s not only D/P and D/D condi. most of the sets are pretty much used.

I saw someone with only D mainhand once.

One day you might get the point, don’t use my name in any of your posts until then, ok?

I haven’t I swear… just thought someone’s wording was amusing. Forgive me for intruding.

NuhDah.9812:

(Trimmed for post length)

I’m glad you enjoyed the content of some of my other postings. Do realize that I heavily steep my arguments in mathematical analysis and conceptual breakdowns of processes of game design. I don’t come here to scream OP because I lost to something. I come here to objectively and definitively say after analysis why something is either generally overpowered, underpowered, or poorly-designed. Whether or not I supply evidence is pretty dependent on how new the discovery is; I’ve re-iterated the same points so many times in the past that I get sick of re-typing and often the people who know it, know it, and the people who don’t dont. Of course, reasoning with someone willing to listen makes me much more willing to discuss my findings at-length.

That said, I do want to distinguish myself from the PvE-optimization-overlords and theorycrafters from guilds like those in DnT; I pay little heed to PvE and typically do very little math on optimal rotations, silly synergies, etc. which define that meta. It’s not particularly easy or more importantly, fun, for me to optimize those figures, and I’m not knowledgeable enough of the nuances of PvE like boss attack intervals/timers/etc. to formerly declare I’ve found optima in that, and the analysis behind what makes great DPS versus a fun and fair matchup in PvP are very different, anyways.

I do agree with what you said for the most part, although the TTK argument is kind of situational depending on matchups. Specifically, the TTK for other classes against the thief has drastically fallen down due to the absolutely crazy-high damage coefficients that many HoT abilities received. Professions like the DH got skills with half the cooldown and double the coefficients of others on their core kits.

I question the lens and perspective you’re looking through to an extent, though.
I disagree that the reduced TTK mentioned is universal, particularly when looking at other classes. Since durability also went up correspondingly, in many cases, quick and aggressive matchups have turned into particularly long ones, such as fighting a mesmer, which historically had access to only a little bit of sustained defense from BF and Distortion. CS effectively doubled the sustain resistance on top of providing an additional sustained block and heavy CC on the shield. DH’s aegis trap is similarly potent in terms of massive blocks. Druid has very high healing and mobility, and a sustain-built reaper will be much more durable than what was just the BM/DM/SR necro. Scrapper is just immensely durable for really no apparent reason. Adrenal health supercharges healing and sustain for the berserker over the warrior, Daredevil is at absolute minimum able to negate substantially more damage than core thief just on the extra dodge alone, and then you realize the benefits of CV + SoA + EA + DF shove the thief into having better sustain than most of SA and Acro combined, and even tempests got pretty big defensive bonuses from sheer percentage damage mitigation increases, and we won’t even talk about the revenant being able to reach 100% damage reduction.

Then factor in durability runes, Marauder-style gear that just gives extra stats and sustain for no good reason, 10% damage mitigation food, etc. etc., and you end up with situations where the absurd damage coefficients which could one-shot people without HoT builds are offset with so much damage mitigation that the fights against two HoT specializations take just as long, if not even longer, than before, with double the amount of cheese and less than half the number of viable builds.

The fact we’re seeing the thief – a profession praised for having little to no passive effects – one which even demanded that its one built-in passive be made optional because it messed up active play – get passive invulnerability after-the-fact of HoT is clearly a demonstration of how screwed up the defenses are in the game right now.

(Continued below when post interval expires)

(Continued from above)

And that’s also why I don’t suggest simply buffing the thief or saying it’s okay to let poorly-designed skills be; letting poorly-designed skills be is why we’re here to begin with and why HoT and its content was such a failure. Massive design flaws and oversights went without response or seemingly any care about how much they would impact the game. If people are really going to try and make suggestions in hopes ANet will read them and take them seriously (which I doubt), it shouldn’t be of making claims that “we need answers to x new OP mechanic!” but should instead be focused on concession and looking into the deep details of design as to why specifically some facet of something is conceptually and mathematically unjustified and how to properly fix it in alignment with the rest of the core game.

At the end of the day, I want to play what I want to and want to win a fight against any given opponent knowing that I deserved to win because I played better than them. Not that my build hard-countered theirs. Not that my build is just really strong. Not that I got lucky. I want my opponent to have the same or similar chances of innately beating me as I do them, and to have them have the win if they out-play me.

That’s why I dislike the elite specs (aside from reaper, it’s very well-done and fills necro’s weak spots while necro fills the reaper’s weak spots perfectly), but also why I dislike Shadow Shot, Death Blossom’s changes, etc. They promote play that doesn’t really reward a lot of skill and makes distinguishing better players much more ambiguous because the kits themselves are just so dominant that when up against anything else it’s really hard to even tell who should have deserved a win in a fight.

^Aside from the bit about Reaper, i agree with you.
+1

emkelly.2371:

^Aside from the bit about Reaper, i agree with you.
+1

Really since the nerfs to reaper’s chill damage and mitigation on the minions, I think the spec is quite balanced. I main reaper now since quitting thief, and can fairly certainly say that the spec performs just as it should as a counterpart to necro. Condition necro/reaper might still be very strong for its durability, but that’s more of an issue with condition builds/stat combinations providing so much defense than the reaper’s design and skills itself. Even still, many esteemed necromancers are moving back to core necro since it does the job similarly well with better defenses and LF maintenance.

I’m not sure why I always felt like necro (at least the core one since I didn’t try reaper myself yet) had something what I’d call a more of a lazy play style, I guess I’m feeling this way since to me it feels more like a rotational, slower passed combat, with sort of a limited array of things you can do at a time. It’s powerful if played right, but the way it plays seems more like on the strategical side (like you bait your opponent, control his movement, kite around, get behind your minions, while loading them with condis etc.) then on the active performance side (with fast passed decision and movement). Reaper seems more on the active, but it still doesn’t feel as engaging as other classes… Not that I don’t like that sort of play style once in a while, especially if I feel like taking a break from thief and going on the totally opposite.

Don’t mind my probably incomplete description on necro play style I’m sure they have their secrets I have yet to discover and probably my view over them is a bit narrow. All in due time…

And now to go back on track… about the “low ttk” I mentioned above. I surely know you can extend the time to kill in endless fights, I’ve seen those kinds of 1v1s where no one dies for a long time if ever… but what i’ve been comparing it to were some of the previous games I played they had by default a high enough hp pool & inherent defenses that if you were to spec top dps on your class you would still need some amount of time to kill someone with the same gear level as you but also glass without them doing anything. I mean it was something on the order on under 10 seconds, but compared to GW2 where afk glass get’s down in less then a second… And to that longer ttk add specialized healers and tanks (as there is in the holy trinity games) and you get people that don’t go down even if you pit 5 people against them. And also the mentality that healers need to be privileged and unable to be killed by another dps if they both try hard, because they usually are the first targets in the match -. this is one step that invites imbalance in that type of games. I won’t go on any longer, I guess you got the point.

In GW2 your survival is very dependent on your performance, foresight, and knowledge of the game and your opponent. That’s why I like it cause you can’t afford to go to sleep if you don’t want to get downed in a flash. And this is also what the passives mess up in the game, but whatever. I hope I answered your question about my perspective on ttk.

One the one hand you say necro has to be strategical and has to have foresight which you don’t think belongs in this game, later on you say this is what is important in GW2 combat

My necro buddy is a tank, I met him while we were enemies and he soloed one of our towers (I just came from soloing one of theirs). I later on transfered to his server and we duoloed everything. We’re exact opposites from our play, but achieve the same thing.

NuhDah.9812:

I’m not sure why I always felt like necro (at least the core one since I didn’t try reaper myself yet) had something what I’d call a more of a lazy play style, I guess I’m feeling this way since to me it feels more like a rotational, slower passed combat, with sort of a limited array of things you can do at a time. It’s powerful if played right, but the way it plays seems more like on the strategical side (like you bait your opponent, control his movement, kite around, get behind your minions, while loading them with condis etc.) then on the active performance side (with fast passed decision and movement). Reaper seems more on the active, but it still doesn’t feel as engaging as other classes… Not that I don’t like that sort of play style once in a while, especially if I feel like taking a break from thief and going on the totally opposite.

Don’t mind my probably incomplete description on necro play style I’m sure they have their secrets I have yet to discover and probably my view over them is a bit narrow. All in due time…

And now to go back on track… about the “low ttk” I mentioned above. I surely know you can extend the time to kill in endless fights, I’ve seen those kinds of 1v1s where no one dies for a long time if ever… but what i’ve been comparing it to were some of the previous games I played they had by default a high enough hp pool & inherent defenses that if you were to spec top dps on your class you would still need some amount of time to kill someone with the same gear level as you but also glass without them doing anything. I mean it was something on the order on under 10 seconds, but compared to GW2 where afk glass get’s down in less then a second… And to that longer ttk add specialized healers and tanks (as there is in the holy trinity games) and you get people that don’t go down even if you pit 5 people against them. And also the mentality that healers need to be privileged and unable to be killed by another dps if they both try hard, because they usually are the first targets in the match -. this is one step that invites imbalance in that type of games. I won’t go on any longer, I guess you got the point.

In GW2 your survival is very dependent on your performance, foresight, and knowledge of the game and your opponent. That’s why I like it cause you can’t afford to go to sleep if you don’t want to get downed in a flash. And this is also what the passives mess up in the game, but whatever. I hope I answered your question about my perspective on ttk.

I play necromancer very aggressively contrary to how most of the builds and styles suggest, and for that reason I probably am also not as good as I could be. I’m still getting the hang of the nuances, although there aren’t too many to grasp since I don’t run conditions, corrupts, or minions. There could be more in there to keep it a bit more explosive, particularly core necro, but I dislike warrior since it depends on its passives which I find uninteresting and I’m a horrible guard.

Different experiences I suppose. In the game I came from prior, if you didn’t even go as far as being in the exact correct location at the right time on some builds, you got one-shotted by pretty much anything, or literally infinitely chain-CC’ed if your timing was half a second off. Core GW2 slowed the ridiculous down a bit, but kept up the philosophy of fast-paced action and skill-oriented play.

NuhDah.9812:

DeceiverX.8361:

Yay only for D/P users who never slotted the venom build. The changes hurt D/D power in PvP roughly the same as it did the VShare build itself in PvE.

Well since you’re trashing on d/p with your every post I have a suggestion. Why not create a new feed or ask the devs to make a forum entry for you entitled: “d/p thieves are op and need to be nerfed, they always beat me!” and post there something on topic whenever you feel sorrow…

You miss the point of much of the aggravation against the current state of the Thief class, build structure and what changes like this mean to the larger Thief main community.

It’s not that d/p needs nerfing or is OP hence people are QQing purely because of it as opposed to the seemingly endless cycle of the classes skill updates over the last couple of years creating less and less options for other alternate and equally viable build types or variations, not to mention the ripple effect such change has outside the PvP game types.

This is vastly more forgiving in general PvE as most of the content, especially open world, has a low difficulty ceiling and predictable mechanics so one can sacrifice effectiveness, meta builds, and build potency for a build or play style variation they may personally enjoy more and still have fun and/or contribute if they team with others. The VS build was a perfect example of this.

In PvP it’s not so simple. Sure other builds may be viable but at the end of the day your still gimping yourself, d/p is that strong.

This is a large reason after playing pretty much PvP exclusively for the first 2-3 years I seldom touch the game type now. Admittedly this is also in large part due to simply burning out on a game type that hasn’t changed much in the last 4 years and has little variation after so long but more so it’s due to the increasing restrictiveness of build and play style options my main class has while repeatedly having build variations and play styles I enjoy get nerfed to the point they are no longer viable in a competitive environment without disadvantaging myself or placing myself on the back foot comparative to the restrictive and forced funneling towards the d/p meta.

It just gets more and more cookie cutter and “one build to rule them all” meta while updates seem to only either strengthen d/p or nerf alternate options and at the end of the day if one build is stronger and more effective than every other build, by a huge margin no less, that is the build I am forced to play as I’ll never knowingly choose to be less competitive in a competitive PvP game type, especially in a format where I am part of a team.

That’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

If I don’t enjoy the play style of said meta build….I just won’t bother at all. As such Moba scratches my PvP itch now days, mainly due to the variation of play styles it offers.

Outside that cookie cutter PvP that highly restricts viable and equally effective build variation, choice and options is just bad PvP imho, arguably better and easier to balance PvP no doubt, but still bad.

The recent update and inclusion of “default build” selection just reinforces this is the way Anet wants to go.

fireflyry.7023:

snip

You’re comparing D/P (in pvp) against other classes in pvp.
Deceiver (and I) compares D/P with other thief sets in general.
D/P is holding the class/profession back because compared to all other thief sets it’s OP.

No I’m not.

I may have not made myself clear enough or you maybe miss-read or interpreted my post. I am only comparing d/p to other Thief build options, or lack thereof, pretty much word for word.

Edit: Also my response was directed at NuhDah, as quoted in context, just to avoid any more confusion.

You’re right, I misread or read clumsy.
But I don’t think balance will work without finally nerfing D/P (and DrD and buffing all other sets and some traitlines while other need shaving).

Also: pvp is an entirely different mode than the rest of the game right now – it’s getting confusing when speaking about what needs buff and nerfs – but well, at least the pvp team tried to do something.

Jana.6831:

You’re right, I misread or read clumsy.
But I don’t think balance will work without finally nerfing D/P (and DrD and buffing all other sets and some traitlines while other need shaving).

Also: pvp is an entirely different mode than the rest of the game right now – it’s getting confusing when speaking about what needs buff and nerfs – but well, at least the pvp team tried to do something.

NP.

The game will never be balanced.

Imo this is exactly why Anet have slowly but surely killed off build variation and experimentation (outside cheese novelty builds made for teh lolz) in favor of a select few “meta default build” selections that dictate set play style, especially for the Thief class which has pretty much one top dog build, as perfectly illustrated by the recent update option “that allows players to select from a list of preconfigured builds.”. They have given up the option for embracing varied build and play styles in the hope cookie cutter PvP will equate to better balance.

What are the two “default builds” for the Thief class? d/p

Many will argue the new feature is for QoL or ease of use but I don’t buy it. Just add build templates like GW1 if that’s the case.

Ideally it would seem preferable to Anet for every class to have and use one, maybe two at most, PvP builds. Easy to balance and tweak, great for “Esports!!!” but talk about make for some kittening boring and predictable PvP that gets stale fast, at least for me….not looking to rain on anyone elses enjoyment if they dig it.

Personally I just don’t get it and for me at least it’s killed my enjoyment and enthusiasm to play the game type compared to release state as it’s not evolving, it’s actually regressing.

As for the the confusion over buffs and nerfs all I can say is this game needed a skill/trait/spec/build split between PvP and PvE two years ago, if not at release. They have snuck in a few recharge time splits lately so I’m a little bit hopeful but imo this is the true answer to making the game more varied, well balanced and enjoyable for all game types.

Jana.6831:

…

Cynz.9437:

Sry, i don’t have Jana’s syndrome “If i can’t enjoy my build then whole class should be deleted and nobody else shall have fun” so it really bothers me when someone keeps bringing up d/p as some kind of source of evil.

Is kind of insulting because you obviously didn’t read any of what I wrote.
But instead did the very thing you accuse me of: don’t use any logic but just plainly defend your set.

ETA: And if you report me for this again, I’ll report your previous post as it was completely unneccessary to call me out. I know how this works.

If you feel like you are being addressed here then you must be guilty of it. I did read what you wrote. There was post after post that can be summed into: “please nerf all viable thief sets (d/p especially) so thief is so crappy that Anet one day might buff my beloved d/d. I couldn’t care less that thieves had abyssal experience for seasons in pvp and that my request would doom them to even worse experience”.

Yes, i will defend the only set that keeps us barely viable in high tier pvp. It is not broken just because you hate it and just because your beloved d/d is suffering from devs poor choices.

Also how odd: my forum box got spammed with mod messages around that time. “Someone” went on rampage and reported about every post i made back then, how odd indeed, i wonder who it was~

Cynz.9437:

Jana.6831:

…

Cynz.9437:

Sry, i don’t have Jana’s syndrome “If i can’t enjoy my build then whole class should be deleted and nobody else shall have fun” so it really bothers me when someone keeps bringing up d/p as some kind of source of evil.

Is kind of insulting because you obviously didn’t read any of what I wrote.
But instead did the very thing you accuse me of: don’t use any logic but just plainly defend your set.

ETA: And if you report me for this again, I’ll report your previous post as it was completely unneccessary to call me out. I know how this works.

If you feel like you are being addressed here then you must be guilty of it. I did read what you wrote. There was post after post that can be summed into: “please nerf all viable thief sets (d/p especially) so thief is so crappy that Anet one day might buff my beloved d/d. I couldn’t care less that thieves had abyssal experience for seasons in pvp and that my request would doom them to even worse experience”.

Yes, i will defend the only set that keeps us barely viable in high tier pvp. It is not broken just because you hate it and just because your beloved d/d is suffering from devs poor choices.

Also how odd: my forum box got spammed with mod messages around that time. “Someone” went on rampage and reported about every post i made back then, how odd indeed, i wonder who it was~

Not me, I report people for a reason, unlike you.
Also you adressed me – why else would you write my name if I’m not even in this thread yet.
And you didn’t get the point/problem with D/P and never will.
So have a nice day and please try not to adress or mention me any further as it leads to nothing. thanks.

fireflyry.7023:

NP.

The game will never be balanced.

Imo this is exactly why Anet have slowly but surely killed off build variation and experimentation (outside cheese novelty builds made for teh lolz) in favor of a select few “meta default build” selections that dictate set play style, especially for the Thief class which has pretty much one top dog build, as perfectly illustrated by the recent update option “that allows players to select from a list of preconfigured builds.”. They have given up the option for embracing varied build and play styles in the hope cookie cutter PvP will equate to better balance.

The game was nearly balanced before June last year which was rather coincidence as well as the ferocity patch might have “saved” them (I was a noob before so I can’t compare pre and post). They didn’t care about condis afterwards though. So this game has never really been balanced since april 15th 2014.
They didn’t give up on anything, they just had no clue. If you look at the traitmerge: they didn’t work together, every dev just decided what his class should have and that was implemented. Same with Elites although elites might have been balanced in regards on the oh so tough PvE raids.

I have no idea what builds one can chose in PvP but I do know that the PvP team is rather unhappy with balance as well, at least it seems so.
I’m no pvp player, wvw player, I just know that the pvp team tried to balance pvp, that’s all I can say to that game mode.

And we’ve had the discussion: a balance pve,pvp and wvw would work if anet would finally balance anything at all. You can always nerf the pve mobs – that should be the least of the problems.

Cynz.9437:

Yes, i will defend the only set that keeps us barely viable in high tier pvp.

Heck yeah. I would too if I still played it, without it your pretty much benched.

I think where some people go wrong is demanding nerfs of the d/p build which is counter-productive to the point at which you might as well hang the class in regards to high tier PvP, I really don’t get why anyone would suggest that in the current meta. It’s not going to make other builds better or less crap.

What really grinds my gears is the constant nerfs to other builds, seemingly and more than likely underhandedly, for little else than pushing and slowly forcing Thieves into one build and, of more import to me personally, play style.

Why is debatable: balance?, mechanics?, pressure from the meta? Esports? Who knows really.

What I think every main of the class can agree on is the trend of these nerfs and the effect it has had on our available options. The last big wack to S/P and S/D and the acrobatics line, memory is a bit off….maybe 12-18 months ago? Could be longer….., was the last straw for me. The build(s) wasn’t even meta, but was close and most importantly great fun to play and was something different to perma-stealth BS builds You could also roll it seriously without getting “wtf…go d/p nub.get gud.”. It’s just refreshing and motivating to have a few options.

As it stands, outside self-gimping in the name of “fun” or forcing variation for the sake of it, there is only one and if you don’t like it? kthxbye.

That’s terribad MMORPG PvP design.

So, you didn’t get it after all, firefly – I’m honestly confused what your point is. Even S/D was UP in comparison to D/P back in the day, before the traitmerge which only indirectly buffed D/P. Every other nerf since has hurt D/P the least.

Let all thieves be dead so anet will finally be forced to do something. As long as D/P is as strong as it is there is no hope for any other set.

Don’t believe me? face a D/P thief while not being one yourself.

And actually you guys should look at other sets and what their build options would be and then at D/P and what traits they are able to take and still have a working set.
Ever complained about vanilla SRej? Now they can take Srej, DF and also stealth longer as prepardness is easily availlable to them, which formerly was a problem. Other thieves don’t really need that much initative (except D/D condi spam) – it’s nice to have, really it is, just that especially D/P can get the most of their prolonged stealth duration – which no other thief has access to.