Guild Wars 2

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlmgJOkFdfM

At the urging of some friends, I’ve uploaded a sequel to my first weaponless video.

Discussion

Last time, my intent was primarily to entertain, but also to shed some light on just how broken condition thieves are. However, instead of that, the discussion more or less devolved into one big criticism of “your opponents are all bad, so condi teef isn’t OP”.

In an effort to respond to that, I’ve only included clips against players I would consider at least decent, from a variety of WvW tiers. Every one featured in this video is competent, and I’d even go so far as to say that some of them are very good.

Condition thieves (especially dire with perplexity/balthazar/krait) are incredibly powerful in small scale scenarios, with almost no risk attached. The active defenses from acro-trickery allow me to avoid most telegraphed bursts and the passive sustain from full dire lets me straight up tank everything else.

As always, comments, criticisms, suggestions are all welcome.

Addendum

I’d also like to point out a couple of things about last refuge/hard to catch.

1) Last refuge: In a couple of the clips, I would have definitely lost without the last refuge proc. Granted, it’s not as much of an issue for this build because this build doesn’t use weapons, but at higher levels of play, last refuge still saves you more often than it kills you.

2) Hard to catch: It’s actually quite strong in duels. A lot of thieves like to steal + backstab, but hard to catch will automatically shadowstep you away (faster than any human could react), causing the backstab to miss entirely. Similarly, a lot of S/F eles gale —> phoenix mechanically, and hard to catch will move you out of phoenix automatically.

Ive never been one of the people who complain about last ref or hard to catch. sorta stinks they are changing hard to catch but seriously who are these noodles you are beating on with out weapons?? I just feel bad for those guys they really need to learn how to play. Anyone who knows what condi cleanse is shouldnt be loosing to a guy without a weapon.

Bret.6940:

Ive never been one of the people who complain about last ref or hard to catch. sorta stinks they are changing hard to catch but seriously who are these noodles you are beating on with out weapons?? I just feel bad for those guys they really need to learn how to play. Anyone who knows what condi cleanse is shouldnt be loosing to a guy without a weapon.

That’s just the thing, though. I don’t think it’s a L2play issue. Acro and dire give this build tons of sustain, and the nature of perplexity/condition thief makes it so that you can apply tons of condition damage, even without weapons. With weapons, the spec is completely faceroll.

if you think your that good without weapons come try that on BG and JQ in wvw and when you face people that know how to play you will see its a l2p

Meh, a competent Ranger could wreck that setup, or really any class that can kite a bit and keep ranged pressure.

Its no wonder the video was mostly wrecking melee-distance classes, running caltrops kind of does that in a dueling situation.

I’m gonna make a weaponless necro roaming vid. It’ll be great.

Bret.6940:

if you think your that good without weapons come try that on BG and JQ in wvw and when you face people that know how to play you will see its a l2p

I don’t think I’m that good, even with weapons. I think that condition thief is extremely high reward/low risk, making wins possible, even against decent players. That said, I also don’t think BG/JQ have better duelists than do the other tiers, having played in almost every tier. My win/loss ratio would probably be around the same up there as it is down here.

roamzero.9486:

Meh, a competent Ranger could wreck that setup, or really any class that can kite a bit and keep ranged pressure.

Its no wonder the video was mostly wrecking melee-distance classes, running caltrops kind of does that in a dueling situation.

You’re right about the ranged pressure, but kiting can still be difficult with because of the cripple, steal, wire, and needle trap. A number of players in the video were ranged as well.

If only anet would stop trying make Thieves a condition class then it’ll definitely help boost our power builds. Cause then people would stop complaining about how broken we are ==.

Nephrite.6954:

If only anet would stop trying make Thieves a condition class then it’ll definitely help boost our power builds. Cause then people would stop complaining about how broken we are ==.

I don’t have a problem with thieves using conditions. I just have a problem with the risk/reward of condition thieves currently. I think the biggest problem is dire gear, which just minimizes any risk involved in playing the spec. A very good first step would be removing dire gear.

Other big problems include the way that SA or acro synergize with dire, how steal is a one-button-do-all, and how thieves can stick on targets amazingly well while still applying heavy condition pressure (as opposed to, say, PU mesmer).

I think this will only get worse post-patch, with needle trap on heal and torment on interrupt with no ICD. The torment, especially, is going to be a pre-perplexity-nerf level of broken, especially given how easy it is to interrupt with sleight of hand or pistol 4.

win an outnumbered fight against people with real skill and post a video, also upload a video of you fighting an ele thats immune to condi above the certain threshold and tell me condi is “OP” that i would like to see…

Bret.6940:

win an outnumbered fight against people with real skill and post a video, also upload a video of you fighting an ele thats immune to condi above the certain threshold and tell me condi is “OP” that i would like to see…

Why are you so salty bro? Play condi theef alot?
It’s really a easy spec, which he so clearly shows.

@OP: funny videos, guess your opponents feel good about them selves

what im saying is for this person to stop picking on people who dont know what condi cleanse is and fight real specs.

Bret.6940:

win an outnumbered fight against people with real skill and post a video, also upload a video of you fighting an ele thats immune to condi above the certain threshold and tell me condi is “OP” that i would like to see…

If players are actually skilled, it should be nearly impossible to win outnumbered, regardless of build. However, if you’re interested in seeing me do some 1vX, you can check out some of the other videos in my channel.

Just because there are a few specs that hard counter condi builds (like DS ele) doesn’t make condition thief any less OP.

Bret.6940:

what im saying is for this person to stop picking on people who dont know what condi cleanse is and fight real specs.

I’m not picking on anyone. If anything, you’re the one calling them bad players. Most of the specs I fight against in the video are either meta or not far from meta. Some of them do have pretty good condi cleanse (D/D ele, medi guard, etc.)

This is why I’ll never respect any thief using condi

So your using bleeds and confusion with no weapons, just utility for your bleeds.
anyone one of your oppenents should have spammed laugh because if they stay out of your trap/ caltrops confusion wouldnt do any damage at all.

Bret.6940:

So your using bleeds and confusion with no weapons, just utility for your bleeds.
anyone one of your oppenents should have spammed laugh because if they stay out of your trap/ caltrops confusion wouldnt do any damage at all.

This is right in theory, but is much harder to pull off than you’d expect.

Avoiding needle trap isn’t as easy as it sounds because I can place the trap in stealth, place it in melee underneath them, or wire them into it. Once I get them in needle trap, the immob allows me to stack a fair number of bleeds by comboing it with caltrops. Kiting this build in particular can be difficult because of steal, wire, needle trap, and the near perma-cripple they have.

Only problem I have is this was a duel video…even if it’s wvw they still balance around group play make a video playing weaponless in a 3v3 or 4v4 and so they have a reason to nerf it your video proves nothing much no I am not a perplexity casual PvE noob coward thief.

mango.9267:

Nephrite.6954:

If only anet would stop trying make Thieves a condition class then it’ll definitely help boost our power builds. Cause then people would stop complaining about how broken we are ==.

I don’t have a problem with thieves using conditions. I just have a problem with the risk/reward of condition thieves currently. I think the biggest problem is dire gear, which just minimizes any risk involved in playing the spec. A very good first step would be removing dire gear.

Other big problems include the way that SA or acro synergize with dire, how steal is a one-button-do-all, and how thieves can stick on targets amazingly well while still applying heavy condition pressure (as opposed to, say, PU mesmer).

I think this will only get worse post-patch, with needle trap on heal and torment on interrupt with no ICD. The torment, especially, is going to be a pre-perplexity-nerf level of broken, especially given how easy it is to interrupt with sleight of hand or pistol 4.

Yeah, same goes to the 50% Resilience of Shadows. Then again other classes are getting an increased damage buff as well so I really can’t judge. Guardian’s 20% increased damage while in symbols is a good example and rangers… Ohhh pew pew power ranger, those kitten new opening traits.

mango.9267:

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlmgJOkFdfM

At the urging of some friends, I’ve uploaded a sequel to my first weaponless video.

Discussion

Last time, my intent was primarily to entertain, but also to shed some light on just how broken condition thieves are. However, instead of that, the discussion more or less devolved into one big criticism of “your opponents are all bad, so condi teef isn’t OP”.

In an effort to respond to that, I’ve only included clips against players I would consider at least decent, from a variety of WvW tiers. Every one featured in this video is competent, and I’d even go so far as to say that some of them are very good.

Condition thieves (especially dire with perplexity/balthazar/krait) are incredibly powerful in small scale scenarios, with almost no risk attached. The active defenses from acro-trickery allow me to avoid most telegraphed bursts and the passive sustain from full dire lets me straight up tank everything else.

As always, comments, criticisms, suggestions are all welcome.

Addendum

I’d also like to point out a couple of things about last refuge/hard to catch.

1) Last refuge: In a couple of the clips, I would have definitely lost without the last refuge proc. Granted, it’s not as much of an issue for this build because this build doesn’t use weapons, but at higher levels of play, last refuge still saves you more often than it kills you.

How exactly have you proven that? Almost everything you’re doing is passive – you don’t even have weaponskills that could potentially reveal you when LR procs. All this proves is that you have a very basic misunderstanding of other players issue with LR. Let’s also note that “higher levels of play” and “WvW” don’t really belong in the same sentence in most situations.

2) Hard to catch: It’s actually quite strong in duels. A lot of thieves like to steal + backstab, but hard to catch will automatically shadowstep you away (faster than any human could react), causing the backstab to miss entirely. Similarly, a lot of S/F eles gale —> phoenix mechanically, and hard to catch will move you out of phoenix automatically.

Most peoples complaints concerning hard to catch are in PvP, which revolves around capturing small circles. Being randomly placed somewhere else, the trigger of which is in someone elses control, still suffering from the CC is awful for an “automatic escape” trait in PvP. “In Duels” also isn’t a very good metric for gauging a skills usefulness, since duels are not the primary focus of any PvP mode. The new version is much better.

All you’ve really proven is that Dire is a silly amulet, and that a condi thief using one is OP in the very specific situation where sitting in stealth as long as possible isn’t penalized, in a big, wide open field that allows you to take maximum advantage of your mobility to stall for CD’s, against opponents who wouldn’t just run away from you at that point.

Let’s also note that you considered most of your opponents “decent”, and I saw alot of scorpion wires into trap/trops hit – any experienced player would have seen that coming a mile away. They should have had dodges galore to ensure it missed considering you weren’t using weapons. Seriously, you had 3 other abilities to use once trops were down, and one of them (DS) has an insanely obvious animation. Your opponents could have just spammed dodge any time you were visibly casting an animation and avoided 90% of your trops damage.

mango.9267:

However, instead of that, the discussion more or less devolved into one big criticism of “your opponents are all bad, so condi teef isn’t OP”.

Condition thieves (especially dire with perplexity/balthazar/krait) are incredibly powerful in small scale scenarios, with almost no risk attached.

Bret.6940:

Ive never been one of the people who complain about last ref or hard to catch. sorta stinks they are changing hard to catch but seriously who are these noodles you are beating on with out weapons?? I just feel bad for those guys they really need to learn how to play. Anyone who knows what condi cleanse is shouldnt be loosing to a guy without a weapon.

Those in the video agreed to fight Second on the terms presented. Most of us knew he was going to be using no weapons, and we knew he was going to be running dire+perplex.

He even said that this showcase was not to ridicule the players, but instead show how ridiculous and frustrating fighting a condi thief can be and how well it works with dire gear + the trait setup, things Second has already stated.

Sagat.3285:

Only problem I have is this was a duel video…even if it’s wvw they still balance around group play make a video playing weaponless in a 3v3 or 4v4 and so they have a reason to nerf it your video proves nothing much no I am not a perplexity casual PvE noob coward thief.

It’s true that skills aren’t balanced around duels, but condition thief is still ridiculously strong in small scale 3v3 – 4v4. My video also isn’t aimed at nerfing weaponless thief, but dire/perplexity (or dire/krait dire/balthazar) P/D thieves that usually run shadow arts or acrobatics. The point is that if I can already beat decent players without weapons, then this spec is just completely faceroll with weapons.

evilapprentice.6379:

How exactly have you proven that? Almost everything you’re doing is passive – you don’t even have weaponskills that could potentially reveal you when LR procs. All this proves is that you have a very basic misunderstanding of other players issue with LR. Let’s also note that “higher levels of play” and “WvW” don’t really belong in the same sentence in most situations.

I wasn’t trying to prove anything about LR. That’s just my opinion about the trait. I understand perfectly well what most thieves complain about: they hit 25% health and try to stealth from, say, a CnD, only to have LR proc in the middle of the CnD animation. I admitted that this was less of a problem for this particular build because it didn’t run weapons. However, I also find that I don’t really have a problem with LR, even when I do run weapons, and I think most of the complaints are L2play issues.

evilapprentice.6379:

Most peoples complaints concerning hard to catch are in PvP, which revolves around capturing small circles. Being randomly placed somewhere else, the trigger of which is in someone elses control, still suffering from the CC is awful for an “automatic escape” trait in PvP. “In Duels” also isn’t a very good metric for gauging a skills usefulness, since duels are not the primary focus of any PvP mode. The new version is much better.

You’re reading too much into what I said about hard to catch. I only said it was strong in duels. I didn’t say it was good in PvP, nor did I say it was better than the new version.

evilapprentice.6379:

All you’ve really proven is that Dire is a silly amulet, and that a condi thief using one is OP in the very specific situation where sitting in stealth as long as possible isn’t penalized, in a big, wide open field that allows you to take maximum advantage of your mobility to stall for CD’s, against opponents who wouldn’t just run away from you at that point.

You’re right about that, but that “very specific situation” describes pretty much all of WvW. Unless you think Anet should neglect WvW entirely when balancing, you should also find the risk/reward of condi thief imbalanced.

evilapprentice.6379:

Let’s also note that you considered most of your opponents “decent”, and I saw alot of scorpion wires into trap/trops hit – any experienced player would have seen that coming a mile away. They should have had dodges galore to ensure it missed considering you weren’t using weapons. Seriously, you had 3 other abilities to use once trops were down, and one of them (DS) has an insanely obvious animation. Your opponents could have just spammed dodge any time you were visibly casting an animation and avoided 90% of your trops damage.

Again, this is all correct in theory, but in practice, it doesn’t work out that way. A lot of opponents try to avoid steal and will blow dodges when they think I’ll steal. Other times, they’ll see me casting caltrops or needle trap and try to dodge to avoid those (note: you can cancel both animations to bait dodges). After they’re out of dodges, it becomes very difficult to avoid scorpion wire, which will force them into the trap/caltrops. Lastly, improvisation will often recharge one of the utilities, making it even more difficult to keep track of what I have.

mango.9267:

I wasn’t trying to prove anything about LR. That’s just my opinion about the trait. I understand perfectly well what most thieves complain about: they hit 25% health and try to stealth from, say, a CnD, only to have LR proc in the middle of the CnD animation. I admitted that this was less of a problem for this particular build because it didn’t run weapons. However, I also find that I don’t really have a problem with LR, even when I do run weapons, and I think most of the complaints are L2play issues.

You weren’t trying to prove anything, but you specifically mentioned you felt that it proved something. I was merely pointing out how you were wrong, like how I’ll point out that your last sentence above is wrong. The problem with LR is it tries to tell you how to play, and penalizes you if you don’t play that way. It’s hilariously bad design, whether or not you jury rig it into working for you or not.

You’re reading too much into what I said about hard to catch. I only said it was strong in duels. I didn’t say it was good in PvP, nor did I say it was better than the new version.

Saying it’s good in duels has no value – there is no place in the pvp sphere where duels really matter, so it’s akin to saying it’s a great trait in PvE – doesn’t matter if its true, you posted a WvW video, so it doesn’t matter.

You’re right about that, but that “very specific situation” describes pretty much all of WvW. Unless you think Anet should neglect WvW entirely when balancing, you should also find the risk/reward of condi thief imbalanced.

WvW is by it’s nature unbalanced. The game’s balance design is explicitly based around 5v5 SPvP. That probably sucks for WvW, but that’s the way it is. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Dire amulet was an awful design choice, but that’s the issue here, not any specific spec that uses it.

Again, this is all correct in theory, but in practice, it doesn’t work out that way. A lot of opponents try to avoid steal and will blow dodges when they think I’ll steal. Other times, they’ll see me casting caltrops or needle trap and try to dodge to avoid those (note: you can cancel both animations to bait dodges). After they’re out of dodges, it becomes very difficult to avoid scorpion wire, which will force them into the trap/caltrops. Lastly, improvisation will often recharge one of the utilities, making it even more difficult to keep track of what I have.

Trying to blindly predict-dodge steal is silly, and bad play. Considering how most of your DPS was wrapped into Trops and Needle trap, dodging scorpion wire is the obvious priority – the fact that no one figured that out shows that they didn’t really understand what your spec was doing.
Improv has a 20% chance to recharge those abilities. 20% <> often. You wouldn’t consider a 20% chance to win a fight good, and losing 4 out of 5 fights wouldn’t be considered “Often” winning.
I’m not saying your opponents are terrible players, but they clearly have no idea how thief works. Also, from what I saw, you never did bait dodges by cast-cancelling – they just failed to dodge scorpion wire.

All I’m saying is this video doesn’t really offer anything worth discussing. You displayed a bunch of fights where almost every variable was in your favor, and came to a conclusion everyone who has a basic understanding of the games mechanics came to – the Dire statline is silly.

evilapprentice.6379:

You weren’t trying to prove anything, but you specifically mentioned you felt that it proved something. I was merely pointing out how you were wrong, like how I’ll point out that your last sentence above is wrong. The problem with LR is it tries to tell you how to play, and penalizes you if you don’t play that way. It’s hilariously bad design, whether or not you jury rig it into working for you or not.

In some sense, every trait tells you how to play, so that’s a pretty vacuous statement. The problem with LR is that it’s mandatory in SA, not that it’s necessarily a bad trait.

evilapprentice.6379:

Saying it’s good in duels has no value – there is no place in the pvp sphere where duels really matter, so it’s akin to saying it’s a great trait in PvE – doesn’t matter if its true, you posted a WvW video, so it doesn’t matter.

It does have value to people who enjoy dueling or to people who don’t PvP. Value isn’t determined entirely by what Anet balances around. I was just trying to point out a scenario where people might find it useful in the same way I have.

evilapprentice.6379:

WvW is by it’s nature unbalanced. The game’s balance design is explicitly based around 5v5 SPvP. That probably sucks for WvW, but that’s the way it is. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Dire amulet was an awful design choice, but that’s the issue here, not any specific spec that uses it.

WvW is unbalanced as a game mode, but that doesn’t mean Anet should ignore it in balancing decisions. I agree that dire is the biggest problem, but I don’t think it’s the only problem.

evilapprentice.6379:

Trying to blindly predict-dodge steal is silly, and bad play. Considering how most of your DPS was wrapped into Trops and Needle trap, dodging scorpion wire is the obvious priority – the fact that no one figured that out shows that they didn’t really understand what your spec was doing.

To be fair, it’s not exactly a common spec. But yes, the trick is to avoid scorpion wire, not steal. And yes, a lot of players do try to predict-dodge steal, and some of them are quite good at it too.

evilapprentice.6379:

All I’m saying is this video doesn’t really offer anything worth discussing. You displayed a bunch of fights where almost every variable was in your favor, and came to a conclusion everyone who has a basic understanding of the games mechanics came to – the Dire statline is silly.

I don’t see how every variable was in my favor. If anything, I think I’m at a significant disadvantage starting without weapons, but compensate by running full dire/perplexity.

Bret.6940:

if you think your that good without weapons come try that on BG and JQ in wvw and when you face people that know how to play you will see its a l2p

the ppl the op fought in the video are competent, being in T1 does not mean you are more skilled.

@mango dying from confusion vs a weaponless thief is pathetic, even if they are competent they were stupid in strategy most of my WvW specs wouldn’t lose against you for the simple fact that I’m not viciously hunting you for you loot. The greatest nerf WvW needs is + & – condition food maybe it’s because I main a trapper rune thief in WvW but I’m not one to lose to perplexity tricks.

Edit: They are nerfing SA and Feline Grace in traits changes also.

Sagat.3285:

@mango dying from confusion vs a weaponless thief is pathetic, even if they are competent they were stupid in strategy most of my WvW specs wouldn’t lose against you for the simple fact that I’m not viciously hunting you for you loot. The greatest nerf WvW needs is + & – condition food maybe it’s because I main a trapper rune thief in WvW but I’m not one to lose to perplexity tricks.

Edit: They are nerfing SA and Feline Grace in traits changes also.

Well, if this were just open world WvW, they might be able to run away. However, in a duel, they have to attack me to win. And they aren’t really nerfing SA. X/D is losing cloaked, but gaining resilience, which makes dire condi thief even stronger.

It’ a really nice video. I like the idea and how you are able to pull that off.

Regarding the discussion I really don’t understand what’s the problem is. Dire/perplexity and condi thief in general is a spec to carry bad players.
But this isn’t a problem a all, because it’s not worth the trade off.
The spec has no place in pvp, pve and zerg fights. You can troll other bad ppl with it and that’s it. It’s really good to solo a keep, so what?

I like to do this in PvP for fun, literally just drop my caltrops, needle trap, and watch them all die slowly on point to how op my conditions are.

And I don’t even have perplex/dire in PvP. Lol. It’s insanely easy.

mango.9267:

In some sense, every trait tells you how to play, so that’s a pretty vacuous statement. The problem with LR is that it’s mandatory in SA, not that it’s necessarily a bad trait.

You missed the key phrase there. Here, I’ll add it in bold. and penalizes you if you don’t play that way. It’s fine for a trait to encourage you to play a certain way, it is not fine for that trait to penalize you for not playing that way. For example, if I went 3 points into acro, took Power of Inertia, and never once dodged, that would be fine (Poor play, but fine), because while I never took advantage of my acro traits once, I wasn’t penalized by the traits for not doing so.
LR has the potential to actively penalize you with revealed for playing offensively when you’re low on health. That makes it a bad trait.

To be fair, it’s not exactly a common spec. But yes, the trick is to avoid scorpion wire, not steal. And yes, a lot of players do try to predict-dodge steal, and some of them are quite good at it too.

Again, missing a word. Trying to blindly predict-dodge steal is silly. Other players success in predict-dodging steal is fine, we’re talking about how in your spec, it was obvious that dodging scorpion wire was vastly more important than dodging steal.

I don’t see how every variable was in my favor. If anything, I think I’m at a significant disadvantage starting without weapons, but compensate by running full dire/perplexity.

Every variable was in your favor to get away with claiming that your spec won without using weapons. You picked Thief (which gets most of its condi pressure from traits and utilities). You set up unrealistic fights where players would have just escaped from you every time you ran to heal instead of waiting conveniently in range for you to get back. You ran a spec that your opponents were unfamiliar with, allowing 1 easily dodged skill to do most of your DPS, and you did it all while running a statline most already agree is poorly balanced (you would have lost most of your fights without both the toughness and vitality on Dire).

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun video to watch. You clearly know/play thief well, and most cases better than your opponents know their classes. It’s just not a video that proves or tells us anything usefull. You set up a duel (which has no bearing on PvP or WvW), fought some people who didn’t quite know what to expect, then claimed condi thief was OP. It’s a silly waste of time.

mango.9267:

Sagat.3285:

@mango dying from confusion vs a weaponless thief is pathetic, even if they are competent they were stupid in strategy most of my WvW specs wouldn’t lose against you for the simple fact that I’m not viciously hunting you for you loot. The greatest nerf WvW needs is + & – condition food maybe it’s because I main a trapper rune thief in WvW but I’m not one to lose to perplexity tricks.

Edit: They are nerfing SA and Feline Grace in traits changes also.

Well, if this were just open world WvW, they might be able to run away. However, in a duel, they have to attack me to win. And they aren’t really nerfing SA. X/D is losing cloaked, but gaining resilience, which makes dire condi thief even stronger.

No damage is better than reduced one, SA will lose 300 toughness and healing in and out of stealth you don’t get hit much in stealth anyway people need to stop saying it got buffed they shaved it and miraculously not to the ground.

This will most likely be my last post, i pulled this from reddit. “Keep in mind I didn’t include my losses (for obvious reasons), and even good players mess up eventually.” Sure i can agree with that but what i made out is your trying to say dire perplex is op so the fact you lost some duels means you choose not to put (skilled, or good) people in your video. Instead you gave these guys a heads up and they still lost, so i have to make the assumption they arent the best or you asked them for the sake of the video for you to just flat out loose to you. The mesmer shoulda have moaed, eles should have brought Diamond Skin.

Not sure where all the salt is coming from. The players he fought are probably on par with half the people posting in the forum. I only watched a few of the fights, but in the first one the ele wasn’t killing himself on confusion. He procced it a few times when going through the water rotation in order to cleanse all his other condis (which would have ticked for more). He didn’t have enough cleanses to strip the confusion, so he kited until it wore off.

I’m guessing the players caught on to the needle trap after the first duel. It was setting up most of the damage in the build, and it’s not something you run into often, so these guys were probably caught off-guard (although they should have figured it out midfight).

I think the main point of the video is to just show how survivable the dire stat makes condi thief. Especially in combination w/ perplexity (which punishes people for attacking you).

mango.9267:

Nephrite.6954:

If only anet would stop trying make Thieves a condition class then it’ll definitely help boost our power builds. Cause then people would stop complaining about how broken we are ==.

I don’t have a problem with thieves using conditions. I just have a problem with the risk/reward of condition thieves currently. I think the biggest problem is dire gear, which just minimizes any risk involved in playing the spec. A very good first step would be removing dire gear.

Other big problems include the way that SA or acro synergize with dire, how steal is a one-button-do-all, and how thieves can stick on targets amazingly well while still applying heavy condition pressure (as opposed to, say, PU mesmer).

I think this will only get worse post-patch, with needle trap on heal and torment on interrupt with no ICD. The torment, especially, is going to be a pre-perplexity-nerf level of broken, especially given how easy it is to interrupt with sleight of hand or pistol 4.

I tend to agree with the OP on this, and this is coming from a one time dire thief fan boy. Dire gear is very strong as it stands, not just for thieves but for all professions.

Frankly, I too have been getting a little sick of seeing dire perplexity thieves in wvw trying to come off as having some sort of playing skill only to be ridiculed by the rest of the duel/roaming wvw community for factually being carried by a broken build synergy.

This is what we call “needs nerf”.

Also, this video contains Crate Thief. My sides.

+1 mango, very entertaining!
When the specializations launch, maybe you can do a “offhand pistol only” vid, seeing as we’ll be getting a “torment on interrupt” trait, combined with perplexity and 5stackconfusion steal

evilapprentice.6379:

I don’t see how every variable was in my favor. If anything, I think I’m at a significant disadvantage starting without weapons, but compensate by running full dire/perplexity.

Every variable was in your favor to get away with claiming that your spec won without using weapons. You picked Thief (which gets most of its condi pressure from traits and utilities). You set up unrealistic fights where players would have just escaped from you every time you ran to heal instead of waiting conveniently in range for you to get back. You ran a spec that your opponents were unfamiliar with, allowing 1 easily dodged skill to do most of your DPS, and you did it all while running a statline most already agree is poorly balanced (you would have lost most of your fights without both the toughness and vitality on Dire).

I stated earlier that in open WvW, players might have been able to run, but since these are duels, they have to attack to try to win. However, even in open WvW, this build has pretty good chasing power, so it’s unclear opponents would have been able to escape anyway. You’re right about scorpion wire and dire, but, again, dodging scorpion wire is often easier said than done. I’d disagree about condi pressure from traits/utilities, since the 20606 P/D build oftens runs triple deception on utilities and still outputs strong condi pressure.

Bret.6940:

This will most likely be my last post, i pulled this from reddit. “Keep in mind I didn’t include my losses (for obvious reasons), and even good players mess up eventually.” Sure i can agree with that but what i made out is your trying to say dire perplex is op so the fact you lost some duels means you choose not to put (skilled, or good) people in your video. Instead you gave these guys a heads up and they still lost, so i have to make the assumption they arent the best or you asked them for the sake of the video for you to just flat out loose to you. The mesmer shoulda have moaed, eles should have brought Diamond Skin.

You misinterpret what I wrote on reddit. What I meant was that some of the players in the video won duels against this build, but the fights they won weren’t included because this is a montage. Yes, they could have swapped builds to hard counter me at any point, but that defeats the purpose of dueling: to have fun or to practice the spec you normally run. No, none of these fights were staged.

Verilan.2963:

+1 mango, very entertaining!
When the specializations launch, maybe you can do a “offhand pistol only” vid, seeing as we’ll be getting a “torment on interrupt” trait, combined with perplexity and 5stackconfusion steal

Frankly, I think sleight of hand alone will be enough with the new torment trait. With pistol 4, it’s just going to be ridiculous. I’m confident Anet will put an ICD on it eventually, as they did with perplexity.

ResJudicator.7916:

Not sure where all the salt is coming from. The players he fought are probably on par with half the people posting in the forum. I only watched a few of the fights, but in the first one the ele wasn’t killing himself on confusion. He procced it a few times when going through the water rotation in order to cleanse all his other condis (which would have ticked for more). He didn’t have enough cleanses to strip the confusion, so he kited until it wore off.

I’m guessing the players caught on to the needle trap after the first duel. It was setting up most of the damage in the build, and it’s not something you run into often, so these guys were probably caught off-guard (although they should have figured it out midfight).

I think the main point of the video is to just show how survivable the dire stat makes condi thief. Especially in combination w/ perplexity (which punishes people for attacking you).

I have to agree. It was a showcase video detailing what’s possible under specific circumstances, and to point out the things which might need balancing with condi-thieves during a time when devs might be looking at changing things(beta for HoT).

I don’t think it was meant at all to be a bragging or shaming vid.

This video basically sums up how OP perplex condition thief is :P

I once fought a thief who just spam bleed trap (on dodge trait proc I think), stacking 20 stacks of bleed in seconds, and spam confusion poison and such to kill people. He’s some of the toughest opponents I fought in WvW so far because he spam traps while in stealth, and can get away easily with stealth, while being very durable with dire gears.

Thought I’d weigh in here. I’ve dueled mango before when he was using this build so I hope I can provide some insight here.

I believe the point being made here is the fact that a build with no weapons can actually be successful against competent players (and make no mistake, these are competent players, I recognize quite a few of them from my own duels) is absurd when you consider how much emphasis is put on weapon choice in this game (as shown by a long list of traits that shorten cooldowns, increase damage and stats when wielding certain weapons). If a no-weapon build can succeed against decent players without even the benefit of the insanely strong shadow arts trait line, it’s pretty obvious that the same build with the added benefits of the P/D weaponset (easy access to stealth giving access to the massive benefits of the Shadow Arts traitline, quick torment application with a port away, and a powerful out of stealth condi burst) is easily capable of a lot more.

I’m not sure what kind of person could look at this and think that nothing is wrong with it, there’s really no reason having no weapons should be effective on any level close to that showed in the video.

Nephrite.6954:

If only anet would stop trying make Thieves a condition class then it’ll definitely help boost our power builds. Cause then people would stop complaining about how broken we are ==.

+1 this. Thief shouldn’t be able to have access to easy confusion, bleeds and torment. Their specialty should be poison and raw damage. I rather most thieves go direct damage in WvW than abusing the condition specs . They shouldn’t be able to tick so much damage while stealthing /evading/ teleporting none stop.

Sad thing is Anet is going to make Thief’s condition spec even stronger in HoT… lol
Gonna enjoy thieves taking down the whole lord room in Stronghold by spamming bleed trap procs while stealthing and evading

Toxsa.2701:

Nephrite.6954:

If only anet would stop trying make Thieves a condition class then it’ll definitely help boost our power builds. Cause then people would stop complaining about how broken we are ==.

+1 this. Thief shouldn’t be able to have access to easy confusion, bleeds and torment. Their specialty should be poison and raw damage. I rather most thieves go direct damage in WvW than abusing the condition specs . They shouldn’t be able to tick so much damage while stealthing /evading/ teleporting none stop.

Sad thing is Anet is going to make Thief’s condition spec even stronger in HoT… lol
Gonna enjoy thieves taking down the whole lord room in Stronghold by spamming bleed trap procs while stealthing and evading

It’s pretty obvious anything I say is going to fall on deaf ears, so here’s a challenge.

Take this spec into some ranked que, play it for a week, then come back here and tell me how ridiculously OP condi thief was and how every one of your fights was an absolute breeze.

Hell, you can even equip weapons if you like – that should make the entire thing a cakewalk! But you’ve got to keep the traits, utilities, heal and elite as is.

You go and do that for a week, then we can talk about how broken condi this is. Until then, we can keep pinning the blame on Dire/Perplexity.

evilapprentice.6379:

Toxsa.2701:

Nephrite.6954:

If only anet would stop trying make Thieves a condition class then it’ll definitely help boost our power builds. Cause then people would stop complaining about how broken we are ==.

+1 this. Thief shouldn’t be able to have access to easy confusion, bleeds and torment. Their specialty should be poison and raw damage. I rather most thieves go direct damage in WvW than abusing the condition specs . They shouldn’t be able to tick so much damage while stealthing /evading/ teleporting none stop.

Sad thing is Anet is going to make Thief’s condition spec even stronger in HoT… lol
Gonna enjoy thieves taking down the whole lord room in Stronghold by spamming bleed trap procs while stealthing and evading

It’s pretty obvious anything I say is going to fall on deaf ears, so here’s a challenge.

Take this spec into some ranked que, play it for a week, then come back here and tell me how ridiculously OP condi thief was and how every one of your fights was an absolute breeze.

Hell, you can even equip weapons if you like – that should make the entire thing a cakewalk! But you’ve got to keep the traits, utilities, heal and elite as is.

You go and do that for a week, then we can talk about how broken condi this is. Until then, we can keep pinning the blame on Dire/Perplexity.

Anddd when we mention about WvW and potentially Stronghold which involves no conquest, people always derail the point to ranked qued to justify this spec, even though this video is CLEARLY taking place in WvW.

Thieves always use this as an excuse to defend their condition spec and Shadow Art. It’s not an issue currently because of conquest and celestial uber cleanse, but we’ll see how it goes when Stronghold comes out.

Toxsa.2701:

evilapprentice.6379:

Toxsa.2701:

Nephrite.6954:

If only anet would stop trying make Thieves a condition class then it’ll definitely help boost our power builds. Cause then people would stop complaining about how broken we are ==.

+1 this. Thief shouldn’t be able to have access to easy confusion, bleeds and torment. Their specialty should be poison and raw damage. I rather most thieves go direct damage in WvW than abusing the condition specs . They shouldn’t be able to tick so much damage while stealthing /evading/ teleporting none stop.

Sad thing is Anet is going to make Thief’s condition spec even stronger in HoT… lol
Gonna enjoy thieves taking down the whole lord room in Stronghold by spamming bleed trap procs while stealthing and evading

It’s pretty obvious anything I say is going to fall on deaf ears, so here’s a challenge.

Take this spec into some ranked que, play it for a week, then come back here and tell me how ridiculously OP condi thief was and how every one of your fights was an absolute breeze.

Hell, you can even equip weapons if you like – that should make the entire thing a cakewalk! But you’ve got to keep the traits, utilities, heal and elite as is.

You go and do that for a week, then we can talk about how broken condi this is. Until then, we can keep pinning the blame on Dire/Perplexity.

Anddd when we mention about WvW and potentially Stronghold which involves no conquest, people always derail the point to ranked qued to justify this spec, even though this video is CLEARLY taking place in WvW.

Thieves always use this as an excuse to defend their condition spec and Shadow Art. It’s not an issue currently because of conquest and celestial uber cleanse, but we’ll see how it goes when Stronghold comes out.

Well first of all there is no dire amulet in spvp (thank god)

Also no +40% condi duration food… not that riddicolous amount of condition damage either… all in all condi thief will still suck in spvp even without nodes to hold.

Im gonna lean a bit out of the window and predict that no one in high tier will use a condi build but maybe we get some uber awesome elite condi spec who knows… maybe with that torment interrupt thingy

You don’t seem to get the point though… WvW is not supposed to be balanced. I mean it should be quite obvious by now considering how much riddicolously broken stuff there is in WvW… and it’s not just dire thieves.

Toxsa.2701:

evilapprentice.6379:

Toxsa.2701:

Nephrite.6954:

If only anet would stop trying make Thieves a condition class then it’ll definitely help boost our power builds. Cause then people would stop complaining about how broken we are ==.

+1 this. Thief shouldn’t be able to have access to easy confusion, bleeds and torment. Their specialty should be poison and raw damage. I rather most thieves go direct damage in WvW than abusing the condition specs . They shouldn’t be able to tick so much damage while stealthing /evading/ teleporting none stop.

Sad thing is Anet is going to make Thief’s condition spec even stronger in HoT… lol
Gonna enjoy thieves taking down the whole lord room in Stronghold by spamming bleed trap procs while stealthing and evading

It’s pretty obvious anything I say is going to fall on deaf ears, so here’s a challenge.

Take this spec into some ranked que, play it for a week, then come back here and tell me how ridiculously OP condi thief was and how every one of your fights was an absolute breeze.

Hell, you can even equip weapons if you like – that should make the entire thing a cakewalk! But you’ve got to keep the traits, utilities, heal and elite as is.

You go and do that for a week, then we can talk about how broken condi this is. Until then, we can keep pinning the blame on Dire/Perplexity.

Anddd when we mention about WvW and potentially Stronghold which involves no conquest, people always derail the point to ranked qued to justify this spec, even though this video is CLEARLY taking place in WvW.

Thieves always use this as an excuse to defend their condition spec and Shadow Art. It’s not an issue currently because of conquest and celestial uber cleanse, but we’ll see how it goes when Stronghold comes out.

All I’m trying to do is encourage a little critical thinking on your part.

The Dev’s have clearly expressed that the games balance is based around 5v5 PvP maps. How well a spec Duels in WvW (which is a metric that means nothing, since you can’t win any game mode by dueling) has absolutely no bearing on whether or not a class is OP. Concerning Stronghold, let’s wait and see how that plays out.

But let’s ignore those 2 points for now.

Now, the point of mentioning ranked que was not to derail the thread, but to have you sit down and think for a moment. Thief with Spec A and Gearset A (Dire/perplexity/food buffs) is considered “OP”, while Thief with Spec A and Gearset B (PvP ammy/runes/no food buffs) is not considered OP. What’s the difference between those 2 specs?

Don’t worry, I’ll just tell you. It’s the gear. You couldn’t possibly come to any other conclusion without being disingenuous (special caveat below).

It is important to note that SA is usually a special factor here – in PvP, thieves can’t use SA because you cant contest/flip a point while in stealth, while in WvW you can sit in stealth as long as you like. Luckily, Mango’s posted video shows us that his spec doesn’t use stealth for access to damaging conditions or need to sit in it for sustain, so that isn’t a factor in this conversation! His spec should be just as powerful in PvP because it doesn’t rely on sitting in stealth for its survivability/damage! It might be even more powerful, since in PvP people are forced to fight over small circles, while in WvW they could just walk away from you.

So please, explain to me, why is it you feel that the class itself is the problem when the build goes from “OP Broken can’t win against it it should be nerfed” in WvW to “Almost completely worthless” in PvP, the only real difference in the 2 specs being their gear/rune/food buff choices?

^ are you in the video? Dude is mad salty for no reason

Entertaining video did not disappoint 10/10

I’ve Yolo queued on condi spec.

Very viable due to the nature of the game. I held far for the entire game with it. Granted this was a while ago and it wasn’t vs anyone organized

evilapprentice.6379:

So please, explain to me, why is it you feel that the class itself is the problem when the build goes from “OP Broken can’t win against it it should be nerfed” in WvW to “Almost completely worthless” in PvP, the only real difference in the 2 specs being their gear/rune/food buff choices?

I specified earlier that I think the biggest problem is dire, but that’s not the only problem.

To be completely fair, I believe someone posted a video earlier that ran the exact same traits (yes, even hard to catch) in PvP and had some success with it. Granted, he took refuge and shadowstep over needle trap and wire, but the general 4/0/0/4/6 caltrops idea is very similar.

mango.9267:

evilapprentice.6379:

So please, explain to me, why is it you feel that the class itself is the problem when the build goes from “OP Broken can’t win against it it should be nerfed” in WvW to “Almost completely worthless” in PvP, the only real difference in the 2 specs being their gear/rune/food buff choices?

I specified earlier that I think the biggest problem is dire, but that’s not the only problem.

When it comes down to it, nobody running dire is going to like a nerf on dire stats. However, it may very well come to it down the road into the expansion (i.e. potential of the OP dire revenant, theif, ele, warrior, mesmer, etc), almost in the same manner they nerfed %crit dmg into ferocity for the sake of pve reasons. Unless, anet is hell bent on making condition dmg the new meta for pve purposes post expansion, then we will just have to simply adapt and put up with it.

Xtinct.7031:

When it comes down to it, nobody running dire is going to like a nerf on dire stats. However, it may very well come to it down the road into the expansion (i.e. potential of the OP dire revenant, theif, ele, warrior, mesmer, etc), almost in the same manner they nerfed %crit dmg into ferocity for the sake of pve reasons. Unless, anet is hell bent on making condition dmg the new meta for pve purposes post expansion, then we will just have to simply adapt and put up with it.

Well, I think dire has been allowed to stay because Anet balances around PvP and PvE before WvW. WvW is in an interesting place because many of the strong condi specs in WvW don’t exist in PvP, and Anet desperately wants to promote condi builds in PvE without addressing the fundamental problem with boss encounters that discourage condi in the first place.

To some extent, I can understand that they want to balance around organized 5v5. But on the other hand, if you’re not running a proper comp or not running 15 people in a ball, even a mediocre dire thief will do well against you just because of how ridiculous the risk/reward is.

mango.9267:

evilapprentice.6379:

So please, explain to me, why is it you feel that the class itself is the problem when the build goes from “OP Broken can’t win against it it should be nerfed” in WvW to “Almost completely worthless” in PvP, the only real difference in the 2 specs being their gear/rune/food buff choices?

I specified earlier that I think the biggest problem is dire, but that’s not the only problem.

And I keep specifying that I believe you’re wrong in that assessment.

To be completely fair, I believe someone posted a video earlier that ran the exact same traits (yes, even hard to catch) in PvP and had some success with it. Granted, he took refuge and shadowstep over needle trap and wire, but the general 4/0/0/4/6 caltrops idea is very similar.

So that’s your criteria for “Op enough to be nerfed”? Someone’s PvP highlight reel showing “some success”? You realize how silly that sounds, right?

I saw that video when it was originally posted. I even tried the spec out. It’s fun, it’s different, and you’re right that it’s not completely useless. It is however no where near good enough to be considered a meta build, and not deserving of nerfs. At least part of its effectiveness (50%, imo) stems from the fact that your opponents don’t know what to expect. Players see you rocking S/D and don’t expect dodge trops/caltrops/condition pressure. If it became popular enough to be run by multiple players, it’d quickly fall into the “Good enough for Hot join/Yoloq fun but not much else” categeory, and nothing in that category is strong enough to deserve nerfs.

It’s also worth noting he’s running SR and SS over Needle trap and Scorp wire because in PvP, those 2 are essential. SR brings team support (the best team support in Thief’s shallow repertoire, in fact) and SS is a necessary stunbreaker because he can’t rely on Dire stats to keep him alive if he eats CC.