Guild Wars 2

It upsets me that I spent a lot of gold to make sinister ascended gear, I’m not you player who can just make this stuff whenever, and condi thief gets left in the dust with raids and just in the game.

Carrion is a more tanky alternative.

Errm.

I know that thiefs are in a bad spot overall but…

Why did you made a condi Ascended set for PvE?

give it to an engie, I dont raid much but when i do, i just use my alts for it.

No burn, no swiftness, no range damage, weak AA~ makes me sad.

Cond thief is already pretty good on wvw roaming and doable (as far as running thief goes) on spvp.

If were to buff its pve ability buffing venom share build would probabily be the best take to not make every other cond thief mode better and the following huge QQ from comunity leading to nerf-bat spanking.

But I think thiefs problems on pve goes way beyond beeing cond or power.

The real problem is that other classes can do stuff like protecting, buffing, make others better… and well, keep alive… while we don’t.

without burning, thief simply doesn’t stack enough conditions to be that effective. we stack fewer bleeds and poisons combined than a ranger can stack bleeds, and even condition rangers favour burns over bleeds.

basically, we need a chunk more bleed/poison, or access to burning. the latter would be more effective, but it’d be nice to see a viable condi build without burning.

Gray.9041:

without burning, thief simply doesn’t stack enough conditions to be that effective. we stack fewer bleeds and poisons combined than a ranger can stack bleeds, and even condition rangers favour burns over bleeds.

There are plenty of effective condi-thieves in WvW. They lack the versatility of their power based brethren but any class with limited condi removal is fodder. These builds typically revolve around a ridiculous amount of stealth and evasion so they become near impossible to kill. Their downside typically is that certain classes/builds are completely unkillable and their +1 capacity is substantially reduced.

Straegen.2938:

There are plenty of effective condi-thieves in WvW. They lack the versatility of their power based brethren but any class with limited condi removal is fodder. These builds typically revolve around a ridiculous amount of stealth and evasion so they become near impossible to kill. Their downside typically is that certain classes/builds are completely unkillable and their +1 capacity is substantially reduced.

“perma-stealth” trapper thief…. well if you don’t have HoT this is probabily the strongest thief you can have for roamming wvw unless you are a god at d/p.

Edit: If you don’t have HoT you should actually not play at all lol.

Straegen.2938:

There are plenty of effective condi-thieves in WvW. They lack the versatility of their power based brethren but any class with limited condi removal is fodder. These builds typically revolve around a ridiculous amount of stealth and evasion so they become near impossible to kill. Their downside typically is that certain classes/builds are completely unkillable and their +1 capacity is substantially reduced.

I mean, that’s great, but that’s WvW. for PvE and PvP, this means nothing.

New ES would help. Arsonist, with a torch.

Kaliny.8265:

“perma-stealth” trapper thief…. well if you don’t have HoT this is probabily the strongest thief you can have for roamming wvw unless you are a god at d/p.

Edit: If you don’t have HoT you should actually not play at all lol.

This build is non-HoT and very potent in WvW when played well:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVl0MhSnYbTwoJw/EHtElvMujUs/FN6jqDgDYBA-TlyCABOoEEgjAAOq/Q+JAwAzfpoPgiDBwM7PckyvpfAAEC4xaA-w

Kaliny.8265:

Cond thief is already pretty good on wvw roaming and doable (as far as running thief goes) on spvp.

If were to buff its pve ability buffing venom share build would probabily be the best take to not make every other cond thief mode better and the following huge QQ from comunity leading to nerf-bat spanking.

But I think thiefs problems on pve goes way beyond beeing cond or power.

The real problem is that other classes can do stuff like protecting, buffing, make others better… and well, keep alive… while we don’t.

Roaming isn’t actually a useful thing though outside of boosting self confidence and supporting people in big fights is lackluster with how weak range condi is, and other assorted lackluster teef stuffz. Same with doing certain PvE bosses that deny melee. Already a pain having 900 limit and then you have to deal with bad range condi as well~

Don’t need range or swiftness in Spvp so it can do decent there but the fact that Revenant and Elementalist can 100% shut them down completely makes it too risky. Condi dps amulets are too squishy, Condi+HP ones do too little dmg~ not being able to mix stats like you can in WvW really crushes condi Thief as well in Spvp.

Gray.9041:

without burning, thief simply doesn’t stack enough conditions to be that effective. we stack fewer bleeds and poisons combined than a ranger can stack bleeds, and even condition rangers favour burns over bleeds.

basically, we need a chunk more bleed/poison, or access to burning. the latter would be more effective, but it’d be nice to see a viable condi build without burning.

In any constructed setup, condi daredevil has massive amounts of burning access. Every dodge is a whirl finisher. Every deathblossom is also a whirl finisher. If your group is dropping fields, you’re actually outputting a massive amount of burning.

People tend to ignore it, but when you’re in a constructed setup like a raid, constant whirl finishers all proccing cleanses, heals, burns, confusion, etc. actually stack up quite well, and if you’re running venomshare on that build you’ve just given two other party members license to take a cc util off their bar and in stead put in more damage because of your 10s stun on a 40s cooldown.

This is a common thing people overlook with thieves. Anet designed thives to be at the apex of the combo system, and daredevil furthers that goal. Thieves have always had the most spammable finishers.

The trick is that people tend to look at it from a PuG perspective rather than a constructed group perspective.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t like more love, but if you’re doing raids in a speed run rather than a completion mentality, it just seems you’re doing it wrong. Speed running in content with a week long cooldown doesn’t mean anything. Condi thieves bring more than enough to the table to be worth a spot in raid groups. One VS thief tends to be far more reliable at spiking break bars than coordinating four or five people, who may have been knocked out of position, killed, or otherwise prevented from contributing to the spike. It also allows the group as a whole to increase DPS.

Basically, replacing one engi with a vs condi thief, if everyone around drops the appropriate CC from their bar and takes more DPS or boons in stead, results in very similar total group DPS.

It’s still not fantastic in PvP though.

PopeUrban.2578:

In any constructed setup, condi daredevil has massive amounts of burning access. Every dodge is a whirl finisher. Every deathblossom is also a whirl finisher. If your group is dropping fields, you’re actually outputting a massive amount of burning.

I get your meaning here, but that’s not burning access. that’s whirl finisher access. the burning comes from combo fields that other classes drop. in those cases, any class with a whirl or projectile finisher has access to burn.

plus, we’ve got daredevil, which requires the team to build/play around you so that you can provide burn through their fire fields, versus all the classes who just have burning, and probably have access to several finishers too.

plus, each and every class that has access to a fire field is also a better condition class than thief. so to make a condi thief good, you have to bring something that’s already better – it’s just not a good choice.

PopeUrban.2578:

People tend to ignore it, but when you’re in a constructed setup like a raid, constant whirl finishers all proccing cleanses, heals, burns, confusion, etc. actually stack up quite well, and if you’re running venomshare on that build you’ve just given two other party members license to take a cc util off their bar and in stead put in more damage because of your 10s stun on a 40s cooldown.

again, it’s probably not bad, but I’m gonna go an say that there are classes out there with both finishers and any of the things thief doesn’t bring.

and while basalisk venom’s nice (and not necessarily present. it makes sense, but it’s possible to run the venomshare trait without taking basalisk venom – espescially since some raids might benefit more from certain racial skills) it’s not so great that it makes the build. other classes have better condition builds and also cc access too.

and lastly, though not leastly – whirl finishers are like dagger storm; nice in theory but the random nature makes them a pain (and a mistake) to rely on.

PopeUrban.2578:

The trick is that people tend to look at it from a PuG perspective rather than a constructed group perspective.

even in a constructed group, there’s a lot of things to consider.

in PvP for example, thieves are rarely going to engage in fights – they’re best suited to utilizing their mobility. when they do fight, it’s usually in unfair fights (2v1, etc) which are situation and hard to plan in advance.

also, for a lot of people, the game is played as a pug, and not as an organised group. for these people, most other classes have straight-up better condition builds. that’s bad design, no matter how you look at it.

Basically, replacing one engi with a vs condi thief, if everyone around drops the appropriate CC from their bar and takes more DPS or boons in stead, results in very similar total group DPS.

so, what you’re saying is that if the whole group works around it, a condition thief is almost as good as a condition engineer?

or, stated another way:

condition engineer is slightly better than condition thief, and requires a lot less effort from everyone involved.

once again, not exactly selling it here.

Doggie.3184:

Roaming isn’t actually a useful thing though outside of boosting self confidence

Sorry Doggie you mean is not useful for you commander?

Because thats strange as kitten thing to say… like useful? We are playing a game and the utility of the game is having fun… if I have fun by solo roamming on thief so is as useful as it can get

Boasting self confidence? Like when you get diamond pvp badge, or wings of glory or a dragon finisher, or maybe a Ad Infinitum or any legendary backpack, or a title, or well… almost everything on everygame that makes you fell good? Yes thats totaly trivial stuff man!

So, sorry i don`t get it… (Also sorry my sarcasm cup was full today)

I will just assume you were just trying to say that thief can`t ever (even in wvw) be a valuable component to a bigger strategy or event because of its almost total lack of team support ability or tools to survive huge team battle, than yes i somewhat can agree with this but thats a strange as kitten way of saying it xD

I know thief is in a bad spot now, but i’d rather they not buff condi thief ever. WvW has suffered enough already for changes made for pve. Roaming is pretty much dead now, its all no-skill condi cheese on every single class. Its not fun fighting that OP crap at all. Until theyre smart enough to realize they absolutely need separate balance for pve/wvw/and spvp, condis cant be buffed anymore. Theyre already stupidly OP on every single class when it comes to small scale fights in wvw. They simply outshine power builds in every single way. And theres alot of us that only play this game for wvw and solo roaming. Our game mode is already on life support as is.

Nikkinella.8254:

Theyre already stupidly OP on every single class when it comes to small scale fights in wvw. They simply outshine power builds in every single way. And theres alot of us that only play this game for wvw and solo roaming. Our game mode is already on life support as is.

First of all Revs Hammer 2 says Hi.

You by cond roammers outshinning you mean like power does on pve? or like bunkers are keeping every burst class out of spvp?

Yes I agree.

But maybe people on wvw could use more cleanses too.

Kaliny.8265:

Nikkinella.8254:

Theyre already stupidly OP on every single class when it comes to small scale fights in wvw. They simply outshine power builds in every single way. And theres alot of us that only play this game for wvw and solo roaming. Our game mode is already on life support as is.

First of all Revs Hammer 2 says Hi.

You by cond roammers outshinning you mean like power does on pve? or like bunkers are keeping every burst class on spvp?

Yes I agree.

But maybe people on wvw could use more cleanses too.

Thats why i say we absolutely need separate balance for wvw/pve/pvp. Power is better in pve, but condi is god mode in small scale roaming in wvw. And theres no amount of cleanses on ANY class to last against most of the popular condi builds now. even if you take every single cleanse available +lemongrass+hoelbrak runes, you still melt from condi spam. the fact it can be reapplied over and over again on short cooldowns makes it pretty horrible to deal with.

Power builds are easy to kill even if you have paper armor (OP rev being the exception here, they DO need a huge nerf). Rev excluded, most high damaging power attacks are on high cooldowns, have obvious animations, and are easy to avoid. Most high damaging condi attacks have practically no animation on them and are highly spammable. you can only dodge and cleanse so much. I dont understand why they didnt make protection also reduce condi damage since they made vuln also increase condi damage. it would only make sense to do that. wouldnt help much, but its something and would be balanced considering the change to vuln.

I don`t think anet would separate balance for game modes.

That would make too much sense.

Kaliny.8265:

I don`t think anet would separate balance for game modes.

That would make too much sense.

i fear that you’re correct. Anet has this “vision” that they refuse to let go of despite the fact that its ruining alot of fun in all game modes because of it. they were just as stubborn in gw1 before they decided to wise up and have separate balance. You’d think they would learn from past mistakes. common sense would tell you that its impossible to please everyone if everything is the same in all game modes. the game modes dont function the same way, so why would you think everything should be balanced the same way? Maybe in a few years they’ll finally realize how wrong they are and have separate balance like everyone has been asking for since the beginning of the game because we KNEW it wouldnt work, because it didnt work in gw1. Hopefully theyll do it before the game loses even more of its veteran players because of their terrible balancing.

Kaliny.8265:

Doggie.3184:

Roaming isn’t actually a useful thing though outside of boosting self confidence

Sorry Doggie you mean is not useful for you commander?

Because thats strange as kitten thing to say… like useful? We are playing a game and the utility of the game is having fun… if I have fun by solo roamming on thief so is as useful as it can get

Boasting self confidence? Like when you get diamond pvp badge, or wings of glory or a dragon finisher, or maybe a Ad Infinitum or any legendary backpack, or a title, or well… almost everything on everygame that makes you fell good? Yes thats totaly trivial stuff man!

So, sorry i don`t get it… (Also sorry my sarcasm cup was full today)

I will just assume you were just trying to say that thief can`t ever (even in wvw) be a valuable component to a bigger strategy or event because of its almost total lack of team support ability or tools to survive huge team battle, than yes i somewhat can agree with this but thats a strange as kitten way of saying it xD

Most of them aren’t actually doing anything to help their server. Just looking for 1v1 fights.

I’m not making a case for superior here Gray. I’m making a case for viable. For raids specifically.

I don’t really PUG, but viewing the entire game from a PUG lens is detrimental. It’s not a question of the entire team building around the daredevil when you’re talking constructed raid comps, but a case of the group building around the rest of the group. Little things like “Okay, we can cap out at 25 stacks of might, so we don’t need another might source” or “a significant portion of our DPS is thieves and revs, so alacrity is probably doing less than dps shatter” and other such decisions that get made when you’re raiding with the same group of people every time.

Often that has a lot more to do with people wanting to raid in gear they already own, with characters they’ve already leveled.

I mean, there were meta comps for PvE in GW1 as well, and meta comps exist because they’re the apex of what they do in a bubble, people know the group composition, and all the moving parts do their jobs well without too much reliance on each other. Condi engi is hands down amazing with no external support. That’s why he’s the condi meta. You can slot him in any group, no matter how inefficient the rest of the comp is, and he’ll bring DPS. It’s the same reason alacrity is all the rage, despite it being a horrible choice if rev and thief heavy DPS comps. because people come to the table with certain expectations of what they’ll find in a PUG.

Point here is, meta comps are a commonly known and practiced single group composition, but just as in GW1, alternate compositions exist that can get the job done, and this is a little more freeform than putting together group comps in GW1 due to the more hybrid nature of GW2 character systems.

When you git down and go ‘alright, who has what geared how?’ when you’re forming your static raid comp, a lot of people would rather swap around some traits and skills and figure out how to work it with what they got today than spend a week an a bunch of gold rolling something else if it turns out they don’t actually need to do that just to finish a boss once a week. Occasionally you’ll figure out someone actually does need to get new gear, or someone needs to roll a new character, but often in GW2 you also find that with a few free build tweaks to favor the comp you have in front of you you can get the job done.