Guild Wars 2

By binary I mean that they are like 0 or 1. Either they are laughably bad in what they do (ie. heartseeker spam 24/7 with full zerker gear) or they seem to be borderline overpowered (just about the only class with which when I recognize that player understands well what he is doing and is using his skills well, best thing I can do is to avoid him becouse I will never win 1v1 unless I am full bunker and outlast him long enough for my friends to arrive).

Most of thieves I see in sPvP are “bad-ish”. having 2-3 thieves in a team (while other team gets more bunkers or necros and such) more often than not will make you loose. But sometimes (its rare, I can give you that) there is this one thief who just straight out solo-wins the entire match becouse he plays cat and mouse with 3 people for ages and they still fail to kill him or chase away from an objective.

I have an impression that if I have to fight with a thief, he will either be bad and will explode in few seconds or he will be straight overpowered and will demolish me 50 times on 50 attempts. There seem to be no “in between” situations where I can say it was close/gg/etc. Its either stomp or be stomped. Hard.

So whats up with that? Higher skill ceiling? Is thief bad (most thieves are a hindrance for your team, at least in solo Q) or is thief OP (vs a better player of any other class I can at least win sometimes while a better thief will always own me becouse it feels like he always has a counter move for whatever I use and then some more).

I’m not claiming to be a great thief, or even a good one, but I’m pretty sure I can spot out a good one from a bad one any day of the week.

If you see a player spamming one attack, they’re playing the class wrong. They’re easily predictable and thus counterable, and things like HS spam don’t even do all that much damage anyways.

Does thief have a higher skill ceiling? I think so. I can count the number of good thieves that I know of on one hand, and really, off the top of my head, I can only think of two (one of which retired from the game for a while but has since returned). Playing a thief “well”, as I’ve found, isn’t good enough.

Copying Jumper’s build, running through his guide, and playing the build isn’t going to make you a top thief (now, as for Spirit Rangers…). In fact, copying builds at all tends not to be good; you have to develop your builds yourself in order to truly understand the purpose behind them, in order to fully appreciate every little detail of those builds. And even then, there are extremely few people that are actually good at making builds in the first place. Cruuk is certainly one of the better ones; his build has a strategy and uses some very interesting (although, for me, partially disagreeable, ultimately, though it depends on play style) ideas. For example, he runs Hidden Killer, which, as it so happens, makes his build one of the only times I have ever supported putting points in to Critical Strikes. See, Cruuk’s build is an intelligent build, and it’s a unique one. And, on top of all of that, he built it himself. That’s a build that I actually appreciate, even though it’s one that I ultimately choose not to play.

So yeah, you’re right that most thieves are bad, or “bad-ish”. There are also some mediocre thieves, and there are thieves with unique builds that are really, truly something special. I remember once running in to a thief with a fairly respectable condition build with a Shortbow as his/her primary weapon. I don’t think I’d fall victim to that build again, but it was certainly a tiny spark of hope for me in terms of other thieves’ builds.

There are also hotshots out there who believe that, somehow, they know all about thieves and that they can just go around dismissing the facts because of their “superiority” over other thieves. These players are all idiots, and the fact that some of them are extremely popular makes me fairly angry.

But anyways, that’s my little rant. So yeah, thieves have a high skill ceiling. OP? I don’t think so, but the most skilled players will definitely require you to put in some extra effort. Most thieves aren’t skilled players though.

It’s definitely the high skill ceiling. For example, Caed will always try to headshot your heal after he bursts you while a bad thief will try and HS you down to kill you. Also bad thieves use HS without properly telegraphing it after an enemy dodges. There is just so much room to be bad and so much room to be good. The best thieves are fully aware of their strengths and their weaknesses.

Honestly I used to be a very bad thief until they nerfed Haste. Now I believe I am one of the top 10 D/P on NA. Perhaps that’s just wishful thinking though.

I see good, bad, and mediocre thieves all the time. There is plenty of middle ground, although considering how easy it is to play the class I would expect less of a spread.

Lux.7169:

It’s definitely the high skill ceiling. For example, Caed will always try to headshot your heal after he bursts you while a bad thief will try and HS you down to kill you. Also bad thieves use HS without properly telegraphing it after an enemy dodges. There is just so much room to be bad and so much room to be good. The best thieves are fully aware of their strengths and their weaknesses.

Honestly I used to be a very bad thief until they nerfed Haste. Now I believe I am one of the top 10 D/P on NA. Perhaps that’s just wishful thinking though.

I could believe that actually. But maybe other D/P players just suck. :P

Lol yes most D/P are bad and I have been to lazy to learn S/D

Arganthium.5638:

Too many words to quote.

While following Jumper’s build won’t make you a “top thief”, the concept behind it is rather simple and effective. It’s well built because you’re paying attention to the aftercast on FS/LS to get as many slices in as possible (the spec is basically unplayable without this against competent players). Practice and knowing when to fight and when to run are pretty key for this build.

Cruuk’s build is solid mechanically, but bullkitten in practice and violates the design of thief in GW2.
A) Thieves in this game weren’t supposed to have 9-12 seconds of stealth whenever they wanted. There’s a reason (IMO) that Shadow Refuge has such an obvious and lingering graphic – it’s to explicitly tell the other players “Everyone in this circle is going to have stealth for 10+ seconds!” as loudly as possible. Hopefully they’ll soon balance smoke fields and leap that leaves Thieves in a solid place, but isn’t taking advantage of Anet’s poor mechanics design and slow response time.
B) It relies on an exploit. The very first sentence of a his “basic gameplay” section tells you to aim your camera so that your HS doesn’t go the full listed difference. I’m fairly sure the developers didn’t intend HS to go the full distance “unless you had your camera at a specific example”, so in my mind, it’s an exploit – It’s just as bad as when guardians where gaining permablock on one of their mace abilities – you’re knowingly taking advantage of an unintended execution of an ability.
C) Cruuk’s build is literally nothing special. 0/30/30/10/0? That’s not an inspired build, it’s practically cookie cutter. He swapped Executioner for Hidden Killer because he found a way to stack might/healing/condition removal via an exploit. Otherwise, it’s a very basic, obvious D/P build.

Point A is just my opinion, but B and C are a fact. The spec isn’t anything special or inspired, and It’s based on taking advantage of an exploit. It’s cheese.

If you’ve “almost never” supported putting points into critical strikes, you haven’t played a thief in sPvP. There really isn’t any simpler way to put it – you can play a condi spec that may or may not perform well in hotjoin but has no place in TPvp, or you can go power/crit which requires points in CS to be effective.

Cruuks build is definitely unique and not an exploit. He focuses on a highly intensive stealth build which is extremely easy to counter.

He wants to pull 2 people to far while he dances around trying to prep his might-stacked BS. The problem being that without his 10-20 might stacks and stealth he is extremely weak.

Easy solution to never die to cruuk as a home-point bunker: whenever you see a black powder on the ground then stand in it. Eat a heart seeker to reveal him. His HS is EXTREMELY weak since he has very weak power and no might stacks on. He does SO much prep and it can all be ruined just by standing on his BP since HS has about a 400 hit radius. Easiest thing to counter in the game sine he never fights to keep the point contested.

I don’t agree with you op, but I think I can see why you believe thief players to be either godlike or terrible. A ‘properly built’ thief will have very heavy damage, yet all his defence relies on an all or nothing system. For example evade – you either evade all of the damage or take all of it. Stealth – if you get hit you take full damage, otherwise you take none. Shadowstep – your reflexes are either fast enough to avoid everything or nothing. Blind is the same.

Thieves are a knife’s edge class. One mistake and you are dead. Flawless play and your opponent is dead. This is the result of heavy damage combined with all or nothing defence. Now, even the best player of any class makes mistakes, but thief, imo, has one of if not the highest skill ceiling of any class allowing thieves to pull of simply amazing stuff…

or die in an instant….

Lux.7169:

Cruuks build is definitely unique and not an exploit. He focuses on a highly intensive stealth build which is extremely easy to counter.

He wants to pull 2 people to far while he dances around trying to prep his might-stacked BS. The problem being that without his 10-20 might stacks and stealth he is extremely weak.

Easy solution to never die to cruuk as a home-point bunker: whenever you see a black powder on the ground then stand in it. Eat a heart seeker to reveal him. His HS is EXTREMELY weak since he has very weak power and no might stacks on. He does SO much prep and it can all be ruined just by standing on his BP since HS has about a 400 hit radius. Easiest thing to counter in the game sine he never fights to keep the point contested.

There’s absolutely nothing unique about a stealth heavy burst thief build with scholar runes. That’s not to say it isn’t effective, but unique? Not even slightly. He plays it “uniquely” because he’s found a way to stack more stealth than the game designers intended, which is of course powerful when in stealth you’re stacking might, healing and dropping conditions.

As for “Not an exploit”, I’ll just paste this here, directly from Cruuk’s Guide.

“To have the best success with this spec you need to learn how to heartseeker 4 times through one black powder which is only achievable by aiming ur camera looking down over your character which makes your heartseekers not go as far allowing you to squeeze in the 4th heartseeker quicker. You have to do this combo nearly perfect for it to work or else you will pay the price of losing initiative. You also have to be aware of your suroundings and not hit something while heartseeking through black powders or else you will be left with barely any initiative and very vulnerable if you do end up messing up pop blinding powder to get back into stealth and reset.”

Word’s are Cruuk’s, emphasis mine. To use the spec to it’s fullest potential, you have to exploit HS’s inability to go its full listed distance by using a weird camera angle.

Just to clarify, I’m not claiming Cruuk’s spec is easy (I’ve messed around with it in the mists, it certainly isn’t), or that it’s ineffective (how could 9-12s of stealth on demand NOT be effective?). It’s just cheese – it’s pretty obvious (IMO, of course) that thieves were not designed to have 6-9s of stealth on demand. It’s even worse when you’re using an exploit to regularly get 9-12s of stealth on demand.

Back on topic, I agree with Sarrow’s post. Nail on the head.

To answer to the op, it’s pretty simple: Initiative makes the thief binary. In a nutshell, missing some of your more important skills, such as cloak and dagger or black powder (which is a “miss” if you get nothing out of it) will set all of your other skills back. What if, for whatever reason, you fail to heartseeker through BP? You’re down 9 initiative out of 12. No other class suffers as much from missing two skills. Notably, but not limited to, the fact that most thief survival traits rely on offensive skill effects that must land true.

Sarrow.2785:

Thieves are a knife’s edge class.

That’s why I hold the end that isn’t pointy.

@OP: Not really sure the point of this thread. It really applies to any of the classes at this point. Thieves as a class are average. You have some really bad thieves who are horrible at what they do and could be the worst player on the map. On the other hand, you have some really pro thief players who can dominate a game. It all comes down to the player.

evilapprentice.6379:

snip

Okay.

First of all, Jumper’s build does not revolve around this idea that you speak of. Any S/D build can fit in just as many Slices; this doesn’t make those other S/D builds unique, per se. The real idea behind his build is essentially to spam 3 while throwing in a Slice when possible, in spite of the fact that he knows just as well as I do that the casts and aftercasts on each of these attacks leaves you entirely vulnerable to attack, and frankly a single Slice isn’t going to be worth throwing in when you’re taking 5k damage in the meantime. Jumper knows just as well as I do that the aftercast on FS leaves you wide open to attack whether or not you’re planning on evading with a Slice thrown in. His build is a big gimmick which even he has been forced to change; he stated himself that he was trying to change his secondary S/D to a SB, and, in order to do so, he thought it a good idea to change his build to 0/30/0/25/15 which is quite possibly one of the most godawful ideas for a S/D build ever, and yet one he’s addicted to because he can’t find any creative ways to support an SB in his build. Honestly, if his build against top players relies on a single exploitable weakness that anybody can see pretty clearly, I’m not sure that I want to play it.

And as for Cruuk, why either of your first two points even be considered? They’re purely opinion-based and don’t rely on any specific statements or facts to back them up. “I’m fairly sure”? I’m fairly sure that ANet is perfectly okay with the camera-angle tactic, but just saying that doesn’t make me correct.

And as for your third point, Hidden Killer is almost always superior to Executioner simply because Executioner doesn’t increase your damage by all that much while Hidden Killer potentially increases your damage by 80%, or even more.

Finally, I’m fairly insulted that you don’t think that I have ever played thief in competitive sPvP. I don’t think you understand that 100 power only does ~1.6% less damage than 300 precision and 30% critical damage, simply because you haven’t had the creativity or even the slightest thought to figure it out yourself. I don’t think you realize how your bias towards big red numbers makes you ignore the fact of the matter, being that Precision is the worst main stat (P, V, T, Pr, and CritDam) in the entire game, that 1 point of power is equivalent, at base levels, to what is literally more than 4 points of precision. Even if I haven’t played tPvP in my entire life (and I do a lot of tPvP), I think that your lack of creativity, your little box of thought entirely removes any credibility you may have otherwise had in this matter.

The binary aspect is relative. Many peeps don’t have the interest to develop their own builds, they pick whatever is mainstream be it S/D variants or D/P ones, watch the build on youtube and try to imitate without actually learning to play the build to it’s powers or understand the core mechanics that make the build work in it’s specific way.

It’s sort of a similar attitude to WoW gladiators giving trends in specs, and players en-mass trying to copy said build expecting to become a top player over night. It ain’t happening.

So it only makes sense to run into a majority of bad players using popular specs (which will also give the impression to an un-experienced player which will win against those builds, that the builds are not really good at all).

It’s like saying you can’t win a p/s triple kit engineer on a thief. If he’s teldo or koroshi, then yes most likely you won’t pull it off, but regarding rest of engineers? Sure you will win more or less depending on their skill level.

You can’t base your conclusion about a spec or a class from random spvp or wvw encounters. Regarding the skill ceiling – is all up to player and the spec they use to make best of it in a given situation.

Arganthium.5638:

snip

You’ve run S/D before, correct? Thanks to the reduced aftercast of LS and FS, you’re not “taking a risk” by landing slice, it practically happens automatically. Try it yourself in the mists – target a dummy, hit FS, and que a Dodge roll right as the FS lands – you’ll land a slice then dodge. The basis of the spec is to squeeze those slices in between your dodge rolls and FS’s, otherwise you don’t do enough damage to kill anyone. The judgement part comes when you try to fake your opponent out (continuing with the AA chain instead of dodging, throwing an LS in at odd times, etc etc etc), but you’re not doing kitten for damage with just 3 spam.

The conceded the first point was opinion. The second point however is a fact. Under Range, HS does not say “450 (unless you angle the camera all weird)”, it says “450” and then nothing more – anything that makes HS not go the full range (outside of game mechanics that are specifically designed to do so, which “The angle of your camera” does not fall under) is either a bug, or an exploit. It’s a bug that Cruuk has managed to parley into an exploit – most players wouldn’t want their HS going a shorter distance, but Cruuk has found a way to take advantage of that. Kudos to his ingenuity, but it’s still an exploit.

My third point has nothing to do with whether or not executioner is better than hidden killer – that’s entirely based on the spec, your amulet, your runes, etc… My point was 0/30/30/10/0 isn’t some inspired build – Oh look, someone took a bunch of traits that focus around being in stealth and are running it with a stealth stacking weapon set. What exactly do you see in that that’s so revolutionary?

If CS is so bad, where are all the 30/0/X/X/X thieves? With Panic Strikes ICD halved, I’d think 30 DA would be dominating the meta, right? Why are thieves anywhere putting any points into CS? Is it possible that Anet designed thieves to be big burst/poor sustainability, and CS helps with burst? You’re just spouting numbers and ignoring practical application.

evilapprentice.6379:

HS does not say “450 (unless you angle the camera all weird)”, it says “450” and then nothing more – anything that makes HS not go the full range (outside of game mechanics that are specifically designed to do so, which “The angle of your camera” does not fall under) is either a bug, or an exploit.

How do you you feel about using HS in front of a wall to stay in the BP and stack stealth?
This falls into that category based on the above statement, however I don’t think of it as either. This may be alluded to though when you mentioned “outside of game mechanics.” Just wondering

Arganthium.5638:

And as for your third point, Hidden Killer is almost always superior to Executioner simply because Executioner doesn’t increase your damage by all that much while Hidden Killer potentially increases your damage by 80%, or even more..

Agreed with most besides this point
Hidden killer is very reliable on stealthing and using dagger mainhand. Sword stealth attack isn’t that very strong and for any builds that plays with minimum stealth hidden killer will be a loss of damage. But for Caed’s build, yeah true :P

OIIIIIO.7825:

evilapprentice.6379:

HS does not say “450 (unless you angle the camera all weird)”, it says “450” and then nothing more – anything that makes HS not go the full range (outside of game mechanics that are specifically designed to do so, which “The angle of your camera” does not fall under) is either a bug, or an exploit.

How do you you feel about using HS in front of a wall to stay in the BP and stack stealth?
This falls into that category based on the above statement, however I don’t think of it as either. This may be alluded to though when you mentioned “outside of game mechanics.” Just wondering

How are walls outside of “Game mechanics specifically designed to do so?” Walls aren’t passable. HS doesn’t make walls passable. That’s consistent.

Just wondering if you considered stealth stacking by wall humping an exploit.
Thanks for the clarification.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Arganthium.5638:

And as for your third point, Hidden Killer is almost always superior to Executioner simply because Executioner doesn’t increase your damage by all that much while Hidden Killer potentially increases your damage by 80%, or even more..

Agreed with most besides this point
Hidden killer is very reliable on stealthing and using dagger mainhand. Sword stealth attack isn’t that very strong and for any builds that plays with minimum stealth hidden killer will be a loss of damage. But for Caed’s build, yeah true :P

This is true, of course. I would only use HK with a Dagger MH build, it’s just worthless without Backstab.

HK has always been an interesting trait to me, in that it can potentially significantly boost your damage potential on the one hand, significantly decrease it on the other, or boost some of your damage potential while severely crippling other pieces of it- y’know, that kind of stuff.

evilapprentice.6379:

I’ve gone into the mists and tested out the casts myself. I have made videos of this for me to go over later on, where I slow down the video to the point where I’m actually moving through at a rate of a tenth of a second per second. I know that the last quarter of the FS animation is pretty much spent just standing in midair, unable to do anything, because I’ve done the tests and I’ve seen it happen. I know that you can’t just slice at will while dodging; you have to allow a certain amount of the cast to occur before you’re able to evade, otherwise the cast is interrupted and you’re just wasting your time. I run an S/D, SB build myself which I have honed over the past few months and continued theorycrafting on, even when I thought there was little else left to learn.

Now, as others mentioned in this thread, if you’re using HS at a wall and don’t go 450 distance, is that an exploit? You said it wasn’t, but aren’t camera angles just as much a feature of the game as are walls? Why shouldn’t camera angles not work similarly? Heck, if I’m facing a wall and I turn 180 degrees, when I use HS I’ll suddenly go the full 450 distance. If I turn my camera 60 degrees to the right, then I’ll go in a direction 60 degrees to the right. Is that an exploit? Both of those change distances, effects- whatever, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem to you. So, if I use HS towards the floor (which is essentially a wall), wouldn’t it make sense for me not to go as far as I otherwise would? Or is that still an exploit?

Now, for the traits, what I see is “revolutionary” is the fact that somebody realizes that Hidden Killer is potentially much, much stronger than Executioner. I see somebody that runs SoM in a stealth build, or that can keep up high levels of stealth while bothering the heck out of opponents. I wouldn’t call it so much “revolutionary”, as you seem to think I’m saying, but rather, “evolutionary”; another small step in the right direction.

As for 30/0/X/X/X thieves, I’ve tried them and they don’t work. Most of the traits in the CS tree are fairly useless and crappy, but, beyond your first 10 points in, every trait in DA is absolutely meaningless, and worse than the traits in CS. Furthermore, DA has absolutely zero initiative regeneration, whereas, to its credit, CS has a slight amount of more initiative regeneration. Since I can take tons of power from amulets and runes anyways, there’s not much point in me wasting traits on power, since I can’t get initiative regeneration and the like from amulets or anything.

If you think that thieves must be big burst, poor sustain, you’re just downright wrong in every manner imaginable. Just attach a soldier’s amulet to a good S/D build and you’ll instantly be a fairly effective tank.

And finally, in what manner does “practical application” show that 30 CS is more useful than, for example, 10 DA? I’ve played tons of tPvP, discussed with a lot of people, and yet that seems to be one of the last things that anybody would try to claim. It’s simply just untrue.

All classes are like this.

There are just Thief players who learned to abuse the game and permadodge and those who didn’t. It’s learning curve and some people get there earlier than others. There are also those who refuse to abuse the system, because it’s so cheesy and feels like exploiting, plus requires no actual skill.

YuiRS.8129:

All classes are like this.

There are just Thief players who learned to abuse the game and permadodge and those who didn’t. It’s learning curve and some people get there earlier than others. There are also those who refuse to abuse the system, because it’s so cheesy and feels like exploiting, plus requires no actual skill.

Yeah… no, they aren’t.

The warrior I rolled for funsies last week is literally nothing like this. It’s CC/Attrition build that outlasts other builds, and works well against condi’s. It’s defenses aren’t anything like “all or nothing”, so take the crybaby thief whining elsewhere.

Arganthium.5638:

Now, as others mentioned in this thread, if you’re using HS at a wall and don’t go 450 distance, is that an exploit? You said it wasn’t, but aren’t camera angles just as much a feature of the game as are walls? Why shouldn’t camera angles not work similarly? Heck, if I’m facing a wall and I turn 180 degrees, when I use HS I’ll suddenly go the full 450 distance. If I turn my camera 60 degrees to the right, then I’ll go in a direction 60 degrees to the right. Is that an exploit? Both of those change distances, effects- whatever, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem to you. So, if I use HS towards the floor (which is essentially a wall), wouldn’t it make sense for me not to go as far as I otherwise would? Or is that still an exploit?

I answered the walls question, which is grasping at straws if you’re looking to use it as an example here. You can’t walk through/HS through walls – that’s a well established “Game rule” of how the games physics engine works. “How isn’t it an exploit if you HS into a solid object to stack stealth” is a silly point when we’re talking about finding a way to trick HS into not going the full distance over open terrain.

How would turning the camera angle 60 degrees to the right change the distance HS goes? Since when does HS (or any leap for that matter auto-turns for that matter) take into account what direction your camera is facing when calculating distance? Why would it?

If your argument is that “hs is aimed toward the floor”, there’s a number of problems with that. Why does an untargeted HS go directly in the direction your character is facing regardless of camera orientation? By your argument, you’re using the camera to aim the skill, but HS still travels straight in the direction your character is facing. Furthermore, I would expect every single one of your attacks should miss when the camera is overhead (doubly so if your camera isn’t aligned directly behind your character), since you’re “aiming” at the ground directly in front of you (where you’re aiming you HS, Right?) Since your other abilities ranges are consistent regardless how you face the camera, HS should follow the same rules.

There’s also a question of consistency. If this is the way HS was designed to interact with camera angles, it should work that way every time. It doesn’t. The trick seems to be to angle your camera overhead and hold the S key. Go ahead and try it – angle your camera, hold S, and hammer that 2. The results are inconsistent. You’ll perform some combination of short-jumps and full length HS’s. You’ll have a slightly higher success rate if you Hold onto your camera and “jiggle” it in between every HS, but that’s not foolproof either – at times you’ll go the full distance. I’ve had similar results from Savage Leap and Monarch’s leap. I’ve also tried all 3 skills just angling my camera, letting go of my mouse, and hitting 2 on my keypad – I receive similarly inconsistent travel distances.

I don’t think you understand that 100 power only does ~1.6% less damage than 300 precision and 30% critical damage

Only if you’re assuming a character that’s running about 1000 power.

Bovinity.8610:

I don’t think you understand that 100 power only does ~1.6% less damage than 300 precision and 30% critical damage

Only if you’re assuming a character that’s running about 1000 power.

We could go through a wide variety of calculations for every stat combination possible. The truth of the matter is that I’m comparing these relative to base stats, and, when you look at base stats, 300 precision and critical damage mean virtually nothing. This is the point where builds start to vary. Realistically speaking, it’s extremely rare for one point of power to equal any less than ~2.4 points of precision, and that’s assuming you invest fully into critical damage (aside from runes, where you can add a couple extra percentage points, but that’s often a very difficult choice to have to make).

30 CS also drops a lot of trait options and is thus non-optimal for any S/D build that runs a secondary SB.

Bovinity.8610:

The truth of the matter is that I’m comparing these relative to base stats, and, when you look at base stats, 300 precision and critical damage mean virtually nothing.

Yeah, and no one cares about “relative to base stats”. Sure, relative to the base of 914 power (or whatever it is) any amount of power is awesome.

Edit: Dammit, ate the other half of my post. Will fix in a bit.

Realistically speaking, it’s extremely rare for one point of power to equal any less than ~2.4 points of precision, and that’s assuming you invest fully into critical damage

Depends heavily on your crit . At 50 crit damage, the breakpoint where Power and Precision end up equal is 2500 or so. At 75% (which isn’t even that hard to get) it’s just over 2100.

That’s not to say that precision is amazing, but to say that 1 power = 2.4 precision seems like you’re cherry picking data from one point on the graph somewhere.

In any case, it’s mostly moot since there’s really only one opportunity to actively pick between the two, and the difference between them isn’t huge. Should just come down to which traits you want.

If we didn’t compare relative to base, we’d have to get rid of a large number of builds, because our assumptions would be based on a given set of initial base stats that exist outside of the usual base P, V, T, Pr, CritD, A/etc, and that requires us to assume that we start by taking, for example, perhaps a zerker jewel, or a certain set of runes- whatever. I wouldn’t take a bunker guard and say that he/she should add more power on top of the build he/she is already running, because that 1) defeats the purpose of a bunker and 2) can’t be done anyways because every possible stat slot is already filled (assuming the player didn’t forget to add runes, sigils, etc).

And this is sPvP, as stated in the title. If we were talking about WvW, I might say that you can get really crazy levels of critical damage, but in PvP you can only get it from three sources:

- Traits
- Amulets/Jewels
- Runes

If you max out your critical damage in those first two areas, you end up with 50% critical damage. You can still add about 8% or so critical damage on top of that, but that typically requires rune changes that not many people are willing to make. But since you’re so smart, tell me how you’ve managed to get 75% critical damage. I’m all ears.

I’d be careful before I accused somebody of cherrypicking the data that they’ve been a pioneer in and understand much more about than the majority (or even the entirety) of the GW2 community.

I’m still waiting for your take on my last post Mister Pioneer.

I’m more than open to the fact that I might be wrong, I’d like to hear your take on why you think HS not going the full distance isn’t an exploit in light of the points I made earlier.

And this is sPvP, as stated in the title.

It says that in the title? Where? The OP talks about sPvP, but the title doesn’t specify.

If you max out your critical damage in those first two areas, you end up with 50% critical damage. You can still add about 8% or so critical damage on top of that, but that typically requires rune changes that not many people are willing to make. But since you’re so smart, tell me how you’ve managed to get 75% critical damage. I’m all ears.

Still doesn’t matter, even with 50% you don’t come anywhere near this 2.4 Precision = 1 Power thing.

I’d be careful before I accused somebody of cherrypicking the data that they’ve been a pioneer in and understand much more about than the majority (or even the entirety) of the GW2 community.

Yeah. This quote shows what you’re really most known for.

It says that in the title? Where? The OP talks about sPvP, but the title doesn’t specify.

…

Why is thief such a “binary” class in PvP?

Yeah okay.

Still doesn’t matter, even with 50% you don’t come anywhere near this 2.4 Precision = 1 Power thing.

The breakpoints that you provided earlier doesn’t affect the level at which Pr = P. That’s just a measure of the decreasing marginal benefit of an additional point of power, relative to the benefit provided by other stats. I might take 1 slice of pizza for two sodas up until the point where I have 10 slices of pizza, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll take 1 slice of pizza only for 10 sodas or fewer. That’s just basic economics.

Yeah. This quote shows what you’re really most known for.

Yeah alright. Okay. Whatever.

evilapprentice.6379:

I’m still waiting for your take on my last post Mister Pioneer.

I’m more than open to the fact that I might be wrong, I’d like to hear your take on why you think HS not going the full distance isn’t an exploit in light of the points I made earlier.

I really, truly, honestly don’t care about this HS debate any more. If you think that changing a game mechanic (camera angle) through a fully legitimate way to change another game mechanic (distance) is an exploit (a method of changing game mechanics using illegitimate methods, ie not game mechanics), then I really don’t think that discussion with you is worth anything whatsoever any more.

Arganthium.5638:

evilapprentice.6379:

I’m still waiting for your take on my last post Mister Pioneer.

I’m more than open to the fact that I might be wrong, I’d like to hear your take on why you think HS not going the full distance isn’t an exploit in light of the points I made earlier.

I really, truly, honestly don’t care about this HS debate any more. If you think that changing a game mechanic (camera angle) through a fully legitimate way to change another game mechanic (distance) is an exploit (a method of changing game mechanics using illegitimate methods, ie not game mechanics), then I really don’t think that discussion with you is worth anything whatsoever any more.

OK, I’ll bite Daniel Boon.

Let’s pretend that camera angle is considered a “game mechanic”. I’m willing to pretend that the angle you are viewing your character at somehow affects the games physics engine, as you claim.

Why is it HS is the only skill we see this interaction with? The rest of your skills ranges are unaffected, regardless how you’ve aimed your camera. That seems really odd for a “game mechanic”.

Once your done with that one (an easy task for someone of your vast knowledge, I’m sure), feel free to educate me on why this game mechanic would be so inconsistent? I mean, I can aim my camera, Get a short jump HS, not touch my camera at all, and go the full distance on my very next HS. I’m not sure how that could happen to such a basic game mechanic. I mean, HS (and other leaps) are the only skills that are effected by this camera angle “game mechanic” distance variation, can’t they even apply it consistently?

Same concept as the warrior: Low skill floor so there are a lot of bad players, but a high skill ceiling to where a skilled one will be borderline invincible.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Same concept as the warrior: Low skill floor so there are a lot of bad players, but a high skill ceiling to where a skilled one will be borderline invincible.

except the bad warriors are usually not nearly as bad as bad thieves imho. Simply because they get better base stats. I mean a GC warrior will still have way more HP and armor than a GC thief, which means more survivability. As long as more snares/stuns etc.

I think the point is that a thief, if played badly is gonna suck on the big stick way harder

All this still assuming both chars are properly/almost properly geared.
I think that the thief class itself just punishes you harder for mistakes, while maybe giving you bigger damage to take down unaware casuals easier.

Thanks for that post Delta Blues.8507 I agree. This is why I enjoy the thief class the most because it forces you to play well or be punished. With some other classes you don’t always see that your doing poorly while with the Thief it will be obvious, especially if you watch other thieves and compare effectiveness.

Delta Blues.8507:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Same concept as the warrior: Low skill floor so there are a lot of bad players, but a high skill ceiling to where a skilled one will be borderline invincible.

except the bad warriors are usually not nearly as bad as bad thieves imho. Simply because they get better base stats. I mean a GC warrior will still have way more HP and armor than a GC thief, which means more survivability. As long as more snares/stuns etc.

I think the point is that a thief, if played badly is gonna suck on the big stick way harder

All this still assuming both chars are properly/almost properly geared.
I think that the thief class itself just punishes you harder for mistakes, while maybe giving you bigger damage to take down unaware casuals easier.

As someone else pointed out, most thief defenses are “all or nothing”. They rely on dodge and stealth – eat an attack you should have dodged, you’re taking the full damage. Eat an attack in stealth, you’re taking full damage.

While the above is true for any class, it affects thieves more due to dodge and stealth being their only real defensive mechanics. They do not have utilities/elites that grant invulnerability/psuedo Invuln. They have no blocks. They have no access to protection/stability/aegis. They have no traits that automatically fire one of the above abilities at a certain % of health. Their non-stealth condition cleansing is lackluster, and not everyone wants to put at least 10 points in SA and rely on stealth so heavily.

“The full damage” (from paragraph 1) is usually devastating for a thief as well as they gain the least out of any class by specing defensively. You can’t hold a capture point while in stealth. Its hard to stay on point while you’re trying to dodge all the big swings coming at you and the AoE raining down all around you. Your access to regen is poor (Out of all of our regen traits, Pain Response is the only one that isn’t automatically inferior to other traits in the line). It’s hard to have a sustainable build without access to at least protection OR stability. The defensive boon we have the best access to is vigor, which is for dodging.

There’s also the lowest base health pool, and average heals. The Effects on thief heals are pretty awesome, but the overall healing is rather mediocre. SoM is in a tough spot because our high hit volume weapon sets (P/P, S/P, P/D to some extent) currently have problems ranging from “Niche Effectiveness” to “Universally useless”.

Thief requires experience. Even if you land your skills properly you need to learn how to be aware of whats around you or coming up from behind you while your in combat and getting out of harms way.

Good thieves will either juke or stealth you around the map even if you come in from behind them.

That takes lots of practice imo. I play d/p burst in spvp and I can stay alive a long time even vs. multiple opponents with no shadow arts simply because I use my skills properly and before I start to take damage rather than after.

Personally I think Thief is pretty kitten hard to learn how to play well. I’m not going to sit and say that I’m amazing and all that jazz, but normally I like to think I’m pretty decent in PvP in other MMO’s. Gw2 on the other hand.. I’m trying to play Thief in SPvP at the moment and I just cannot get my head round it, sure the damage is good but PvP isn’t as simple (or it’s atleast very boring) if you’re in the mindset of just pumping out damage, taking a death and repeating.

Not sure if I answered your question, or in fact made any sense at all. but hey, just giving my 2c

No Stability, no protection.

Lux.7169:

Cruuks build is definitely unique and not an exploit. He focuses on a highly intensive stealth build which is extremely easy to counter.

He wants to pull 2 people to far while he dances around trying to prep his might-stacked BS. The problem being that without his 10-20 might stacks and stealth he is extremely weak.

Easy solution to never die to cruuk as a home-point bunker: whenever you see a black powder on the ground then stand in it. Eat a heart seeker to reveal him. His HS is EXTREMELY weak since he has very weak power and no might stacks on. He does SO much prep and it can all be ruined just by standing on his BP since HS has about a 400 hit radius. Easiest thing to counter in the game sine he never fights to keep the point contested.

thing is heartseeker doesnt have a cast time of 5 seconds so unless you are at melee range with the enemy thief intercepting to do what you said is near impossible

Zach.3264:

Personally I think Thief is pretty kitten hard to learn how to play well. I’m not going to sit and say that I’m amazing and all that jazz, but normally I like to think I’m pretty decent in PvP in other MMO’s

I agree with this post. I’m not a top PvP-player but I’d dare to say I’m at least above the average. I’m rank 42 in PvP so I’ve played quite a bit of sPvP and some tPvP on most classes (except warrior), with various builds, everything from glass to bunkers and conditions builds. Up to date I find thief to be the most challenging (I’ve experimented with various builds).

It’s very easy to spam skills and hope that you will burst down the enemy, but it’s much harder to play thief well. It depends a little bit on the weapon set up/traits of course. I personally always play with 20-30 points in Shadow Art, no matter build/weapon set duo to the sustain I get from it. So stealth is a major part of the sustain when I play thief (regen, condition removal, ini gain, plus the fact that it lets you get away). That means I usually run S/D or D/D. Therefore, landing C’n’D is crucial, as well as using the initiativs wisely, which can mean life or death. Timing and positioning is so important, as well as knowing when to retreat and how long you need to “sit out” before you can go in again. Especially when you are going against several players by yourself. The reveal-buff also makes it much more challenging, so overall I feel there’s much more to keep track of as a thief and much less room for errors than most other classes.

the answer to OP’s question is simply that thief’s skill ceiling is too small wich means even unskilled players can dominate other classes without putting much work wich is why they end up being a disaster when they face skilled players that know how to counter thiefs

Rezzet.3614:

the answer to OP’s question is simply that thief’s skill ceiling is too small wich means even unskilled players can dominate other classes without putting much work wich is why they end up being a disaster when they face skilled players that know how to counter thiefs

I think you don’t like thieves/have a “forum” knowledge of them. That’s the only justification I can think of for such a silly, inaccurate opinion.

Rezzet.3614:

the answer to OP’s question is simply that thief’s skill ceiling is too small wich means even unskilled players can dominate other classes without putting much work wich is why they end up being a disaster when they face skilled players that know how to counter thiefs

I’m pretty positive that you mean “skill floor”, which is indeed low. It’s also low with warriors in PvE. A skill floor is the minimum amount of knowledge about the class required to perform well with it. The skill ceiling is when you as a player can no longer outperform others because you’ve reached a point where the class itself cannot perform past your skill level. I don’t think the latter is a thief issue.