Guild Wars 2

Subj.

I really can’t see a reason someone would use a main hand pistol in current state…

2 attack is like totally useless… i would really like seeing it being remade into some blast finisher, preferably with a knockback or some form of unique condition(cos thief condition builds fail for 1 sole reason, they have only 1 spammable bleed one, which is easily cleansed, making you practically do 0 damage)

3 on dual pistols is… ok i guess? Damage is nothing special + thiefs lack good aoe attacks, so make that bullet barrage into aoe cone for example?

3 on pistol/dagger is AWFUL, it’s absolutely unsynergetic with all attacks… why would you want to press 3 if u can press cloak and dagger in same situation? It’s a friggin melle range skill… Make it into some condition combo with flashy dagger+pistol attacks that leaps TO enemy with each second hit(1 dagger leap, 1 ranged shot, 1 dagger leap) or something like that, just make sure you end up near your target in the end so u can combo into cloak and dagger in the end, or make it into leap finisher.

Oh and pistols need range increase spec badly…

Those changes would make pistol thief fun to play, not just stand still and shoot with 0 team utility like it is now

Pistol/dagger is quite possibly the best overall spec we have atm for WvW. The #3 with that setup just got changed and had Torment added to it. With some good condition damage, you can put out some very solid damage on players, all while maintaining a decent bit of range, can move into melee and hit CnD when needed for some stealth, and just dominate people typically.

Calysto.7469:

Pistol/dagger is quite possibly the best overall spec we have atm for WvW. The #3 with that setup just got changed and had Torment added to it. With some good condition damage, you can put out some very solid damage on players, all while maintaining a decent bit of range, can move into melee and hit CnD when needed for some stealth, and just dominate people typically.

lol what? how do you even land melle 3 in WvW if you have 0 stealth or leap weapon skills, or you just run into enemies hoping they’ll ignore you till you get in melle or waste huge cooldown utilities JUST TO USE 1 ATTACK? Or i guess you just do nothing but spamming bleed auto attack thinking you’re any useful?

and torment is probably weakest debuff in history, damage on it is virtually nothing, especially compared to some things like confusion, not mentioning that if you want to burst someone in pvp, you usually do it with a help of immobilize/stuns, which make that debuff do 0 damage, and it lasts only measly 5 seconds.

Re: Title- Yes. When it’s paired with offhand dagger.

wait…we have to use stealth or a leap to use a melee skill?

I don’t think C/D spam is always the best option. Yeah I think torment is a bit weak… but its an extra condition to be cleansed and I think its a nice addition to the skill. Easy to use when revealed and escape any pressure.

I may just be crazy though.

The torment is very synergenic with the skill. It makes it so you can take a more defensive approach with 3 and 4, of a more offensive approach with 1 and 5. The defensive approach is kind of like Dhalsim in street fighter.

This always happens, someone posts something about how great a build is (or Op’d – depending on whether they play thief). And immediately after, someone is posting about how horrible and underpowered it is. Why don’t you take a look at some of those raving threads, and put the complaining post in there? Or hey, just read them, and see how people are really liking p/d now.

I’ve been playing p/d + d/d condition with carrion gear, and am loving it. My build is 0/0/30/20/20, and I have no issues with initiative, maintaining health, staying stealthed, or gap closing. I also do respectable condition damage. I frequently use 5-1-3 as a combo. 3 is great and easy to land after a CnD, and if you have the initiative (i.e. not min-maxing on damage), makes for a nice cover condition, while you wait for revealed to go away. The only skill I don’t really use is body shot (and I always forget to use dancing dagger – though I should use it more).

I do think body shot needs some work. Not sure how they could really fix it. We’ve already got a snare, a gap-creator, a stealth and a damage skill…What extra utility to we need on mainhand pistol? Maybe reduce the vulnerability but make it aoe and a blast finisher (centered on target)? For P/D, this would give it some group utility, and a bit of aoe damage but not much more…but that’s fine, not much more is needed.

For P/P it would offer a form of stealth as an escape. However the stealth would be a bit tricky to land, since it’s centered on the target. You’d basically have to be in melee range, drop black powder, then immediately body shot at point blank to get stealth. It wouldn’t be overpowered, since it’s expensive and counterplay is simple (back away from the black powder). This also means that P/P could serve as a variant condition build (though it’d be much more initiative heavy), or that it could work as a hybrid build, as you could use sneak attacks occasionally but also unloads.

Odd timing for the OP given they just buffed SS, people are claiming condi spam is now meta and the numerous P/D threads on the board in the last few days.

I think the 3 change is great – allows you to have more defensive play vs melee heavy builds.

2 does suck tho, got that right

animalmom.1062:

Odd timing for the OP given they just buffed SS, people are claiming condi spam is now meta and the numerous P/D threads on the board in the last few days.

I think the 3 change is great – allows you to have more defensive play vs melee heavy builds.

2 does suck tho, got that right

People overrate that useless torment, any good pvp build will have condition remover, and since thief got so few conditions it’s just stupdily easy to counter such build.

It’s even more funny when opponent can TRANSFER conditions. You will basicly get one shotted by a necromancer or mesmer who will use 1 skill for example, he doesn’t need to do anything else, just 1 skill and you’re dead.

dragonkain.3984:

animalmom.1062:

Odd timing for the OP given they just buffed SS, people are claiming condi spam is now meta and the numerous P/D threads on the board in the last few days.

I think the 3 change is great – allows you to have more defensive play vs melee heavy builds.

2 does suck tho, got that right

People overrate that useless torment, any good pvp build will have condition remover, and since thief got so few conditions it’s just stupdily easy to counter such build.

With just p/d, you get vulnerability, cripple, torment and bleeds. With venoms/traps/sigils/utilities, you can add poison / chill / immobilize / blind. It certainly can’t compete with necros or mesmers for variety of conditions – but that’s 7-8 conditions that can all be applied within a 5 second combo. What it does have is superior survivability, good utility, good mobility and easy application of bleeds. Maybe not the best for PvP, since it relies heavily on stealth…still that’s a general thief problem in PvP. For WvW, where survivability is the most important element in a build, it does great.

More importantly though – if you play the build, you’ll see condition clears certainly hurt dps – condition duration reducers hurt more. But either way, you wind up reapplying bleeds constantly. Most builds can’t cleanse bleeds as quickly or frequently as you apply them…so the DPS is still decent, even with good condition clears. You also stealth a lot, so conditions aren’t really a concern – as you have excellent condition removal / hp regeneration. Not at all concerned about a skill with a long cooldown that transfers 6 stacks of bleeds to me. I’m more concerned with being CC’d, which is the bane of most thief builds. At least I have a few stun-breakers in my build.

This is really the thief version of a bunker build, and so offense isn’t as good as other builds, and like other bunkers, there will be duels that the thief can’t win (or can only win after 10 minutes). On the other hand, the opponent usually won’t be able to win either.

bobross.5034:

With just p/d, you get vulnerability, cripple, torment and bleeds.

And if you use those useless low duration cripple/vuln on them u lose ALOT of damage, we’re not a cooldown class, so we cant’ spam every condition we have, otherwise our damage suffers greatly.
Long cooldown conditions are not even worth mentioning, as it’s even easier to cleanse long cd one’s than spammable one’s by timing.

And don’t be silly, if u reapply 1 condition over and over(bleed) it’s EASY to counter it.

And no u can’t reapply torment that easily, it takes a minimum of leap skill to do it vs an opponent with brain, but even then u’d better of pressing cloak and dagger and using sneak attack for 5 bleeds in same situation. GG?

" You will basicly get one shotted by a necromancer or mesmer who will use 1 skill for example, he doesn’t need to do anything else, just 1 skill and you’re dead.’

This never happens to me. Just saying.

Anyway, to answer your question, whereas other builds or classes are better, lots of people use P/D successfully.

I don’t think anyone is arguing it’s OP.

If you are speaking about this for PvP is use P/D and D/D condi – the D/D does more damage generally but it’s nice to have a defensive ranged option.

For WvW P/D + SB is awesome.

Great mobility, great escapability, great ability to clear camps, near unstoppable Yak killing (I have killed Yaks guarded by 4 PCs), Good 1v1 with counters (shout guardian), great trolling ability vs small groups (good for delaying people on gates until help arrives), decent Zerg help with blast finishers and area weakness with SB etc.

It’s a fun build to play.

dragonkain.3984:

lol what? how do you even land melle 3 in WvW if you have 0 stealth or leap weapon skills, or you just run into enemies hoping they’ll ignore you till you get in melle or waste huge cooldown utilities JUST TO USE 1 ATTACK? Or i guess you just do nothing but spamming bleed auto attack thinking you’re any useful?

and torment is probably weakest debuff in history, damage on it is virtually nothing

Troll alert troll alert

I have no issues with P/D. There are some direct counters, but it’s not bad like one poster is saying.

I can:

- Poison every 10 seconds (lasts ~9 seconds), and if it gets cleansed, steal to re-apply it.
- Cripple that lasts 7 seconds (longer if they stand in the uncatchable caltrops field) that
also has a bleed for the same duration.
- Blind on stealth for ~8 seconds.
- Weaken enemies for 7 seconds every 20 seconds just by poisoning them.
- Vulnerability for ~9 seconds on a CnD.
- 2 stacks of Torment for almost 9 seconds.

Stack condition duration, not just bleed duration.

Edit: I have a build where I can inflict chill as well, for ~5 seconds, every 10 seconds, if you want a form of CC instead of poison.

I personally love P/D. Steal poisons and weakens. CnD with spider venom up then stealth attack to stack bleeds. Finish with shadow strike to get a safe distance to finish. Target now has poison, weakness, bleeds, torment and vulnerability. P/D is pretty much all I use. Maybe its not the best but I do ok and its a lot of fun.

Could someone link a good p/d build with gear, traits, etc?

edit: for WvW that is.

Shadow Strike is neither amazing nor worthless. It gives you a second option, and does something almost as good as Sneak Attack. Since people tend not to hold still in pvp, two stacks of torment are about as good as 3 stacks of bleed. You were going to put 5 on them after CnD, so how much did you really lose? It’s a separate stack to be cleansed and can be used while Revealed.

Also, if the only thing you do in melee as a P/D is CnD>SA, then you’re extremely predictable to the point of monotony. The moment you’re in melee range, any half-brained opponent familiar with your spec (and they’re learning it fast with its new-found popularity) will be ready to evade your clearly telegraphed intent and happily relieve you of your 6 initiative.

And while it’s up for discussion, is gap control really an issue for some thieves? I’ve played with a base of 15 Acrobatics and 30 Trickery for most of my thiefy existence, so I guess I’m spoiled, but I’ve been running with the mentality that we own the gap and just rent it out on Sundays.

Pistol/Pistol and Pistol/Dagger are both underwhelming sets. P/D is weak at best and is more of a spec to run if you never want to die. If body shot was made into a burning shot instead P/D might be viable.

Bacon.4918:

Pistol/Pistol and Pistol/Dagger are both underwhelming sets. P/D is weak at best and is more of a spec to run if you never want to die. If body shot was made into a burning shot instead P/D might be viable.

p/d is very viable :P….zerg and 1 v 1 anyway if u need help seeing why msg me in game ! we can test it against all 7 other classes. only 2 of them have a chance. anyway hit me up sometime ill put it on video.

I actually tried your P/D build (and others) and quiet liked it Travlane. I played around with it for a while and was pleasantly surprised; however I still feel like D/P is better for me. Really hate the lack of AOE and uselessness in zergs with P/D. I think if we got a burning shot (which was mentioned on a state of the game stream a while back) the set would be as viable as D/P. Also, make it so Ricochet is 100% to bounce rather than 50% and we would be more useful in zergs.

Ricochet to 100% would be a massive buff for pistols for sure. That would make it better than shortbow or at least competitive for ZvZ. I mean it would do more damage with unload…but less survivability.

@Bacon
@EXCALIBUR

u know i think u 2 are onto something. buff pistol auto attack 50% dmg and riocochet 80% or 100% would be great. it would make us a viable player in zergs! we can range and not have to die in 1 sec great idea!

@ Xavi – I run these two depending on how I feel that day

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|a.1h.h9.8.1h.h1i|5.1h.h5|1h.714.1h.714.1h.712.1h.712.1h.73.1h.73|1h.62.1h.62.1h.62.1h.62.1h.62.3w.d17|5.0.u40b.k29.f5|1b.d|59.5b.5o.5n.5v|e

This one has more dodges and might

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|a.1h.h9.8.1h.h1i|5.1h.h5|1h.714.1h.714.1h.712.1h.712.1h.73.1h.73|1h.62.1h.62.1h.62.1h.62.1h.62.3w.d17|5.0.u40b.k29.f5|1b.d|59.5b.5o.5n.5v|e

This one utilizes the sleight of hand steal reduction – i.e. steal a lot more but no feline grace so you use steal to keep your dodging uptime with vigor.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|a.1h.h9.8.1h.h1i|5.1h.h5|1h.714.1h.714.1h.712.1h.712.1h.73.1h.73|1h.62.1h.62.1h.62.1h.62.1h.62.3w.d17|5.0.u40b.5.u57c|1b.d|59.5b.5o.5n.5v|e

There are plenty of other variations that use more DA for example.

@bacon – in the zerg don’t you just use a shortbow? I love D/P too but I suck at backstabbing.

We already are viable in zergs with D/D + SB condition. P/D #1 needs work but at it’s core it’s a single target weapon set. Gotta adapt a bit.

purgatoryz.6038:

We already are viable in zergs with D/D + SB condition. P/D #1 needs work but at it’s core it’s a single target weapon set. Gotta adapt a bit.

SB is only zerg tool we have unless we main hand pistol and dole out ricochets which does work i will say. caltrops and daggerstorm with ports makes it more worth while too. sb only in a zerk build i dont like it in a condi build. but also if u compare using SB IN the battle itself to any other class…we dont come close to the output/help/support that another class can do. even ranger can do better so :P right now we kinda just blow in zerg style. SB and p/d can atleast get in there and do work…. but if i had to do a 50 v 50 i would only draft 1 thief for my zerg maybe 2 for venom share.

ok to keep it in perspective if i had a 50 v 50 this is how i would set it up. im sure all of you would do differently but as far as a thief fitting in im sure its kinda close

7 Necros (Conditions/marks/fears/high hp from elite etc)
7 Guardians (running Staff/GS/Hammer mixes)
6 Mesmers (obvious builds here)
10 Warriors (6 hammer builds 4 GS builds)
9 Elementalists (4 running heal/cleanse 5 AOE dmg)
4 Engineers(aoe with supply elite)
4 Rangers(Aoe and pets absord dmg nicely so others dont)
3 Thieves(full venom share SB and P/D)

my guild has done 50 v 50’s before. most of which we never have a man downed. or alot of which we never have a man even downed. we have some on video in BP website somewhere among the many.

anyway point being you see where thieves do have a small niche. other classes CAN run other builds but thief is stuck with venom share. if u said….trav change those thieves to a diff build…i would delete them from the lineup and add something else in rather than them. lets put it that way. so thief really does need some zerg buffing abilities. dont have to be as good as others but SB is slow and short ranged…..so kidna limiting….

Ricochet makes this set acceptable but it would definitely be an improvement if it were 100% chance to ricochet.
Body shot is pretty good considering other professions can only apply 4 stacks of vulnerability with a skill (warrior mace#4 or Axe #2).
Unload is brilliant damage when combined with ricochet giving a chance to do 8k damage and spread some of it to nearby enemies. It’s nowhere near as good as Ranger rapid fire though and suffers from the same retaliation problem as any multi-hit attack.
Shadow Strike is in a much better place since torment was added and is actually quite good for non-condition builds as well. The dagger attack crits for about 3.5k in berserker gear.
Sneak attack also does pretty good damage and stacks a few bleeds up.

I’m currently toying around with a berserker p/p & p/d build which is quite good. Not as bursty as backstab, but I stay at ranged for the most part. When I get engaged in melee I c&d, sneak attack, shadow strike and press on from ranged.

Ahahahah, just saw a podcast featuring best thief players:

http://www.twitch.tv/soacgaming/c/2411446
Skip to 21.50 and listen.

Clowns who defend pistol mainhand should really shut up.

Body shot is good now if that thing just had 1 or 2 seconds longer on duration it be right where it wants to be.

dragonkain.3984:

Ahahahah, just saw a podcast featuring best thief players:

http://www.twitch.tv/soacgaming/c/2411446
Skip to 21.50 and listen.

Clowns who defend pistol mainhand should really shut up.

Pretty much all they talk about is P/P which yes does have problems with synergy. The only thing they really say about P/D is its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true. Way to act like an adult though and insult people who disagree with you.

Lantz.7240:

dragonkain.3984:

Ahahahah, just saw a podcast featuring best thief players:

http://www.twitch.tv/soacgaming/c/2411446
Skip to 21.50 and listen.

Clowns who defend pistol mainhand should really shut up.

Pretty much all they talk about is P/P which yes does have problems with synergy. The only thing they really say about P/D is its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true. Way to act like an adult though and insult people who disagree with you.

Shows that u didn’t listen to it long enough, they’ve moved to P/D topic after P/P.
And yeah, i don’t try to be nice to people on the internet, there’s just no point in it.

Pistol should have the same refire rate as ranger shortbow.

dragonkain.3984:

And yeah, i don’t try to be nice to people on the internet, there’s just no point in it.

This is very useful information to know and will help me to better choose the topics I read and reply to in the future. Thank you.

Lantz.7240:

The only thing they really say about P/D is its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

which isn’t true.

…Care to explain to me how it isn’t true? P/D only has consistent access to bleeds (which is how it “Only has bleeds”), and it’s super boring to play because without 5→1, wait for reveal, 5→1 style gameplay, your DPS will be extremely sub-par.

Shadow strike gaining torment is Ok, but it’s not a DPS powerhouse by any means – it still falls short of CnD→Sneak attack.

evilapprentice.6379:

Lantz.7240:

The only thing they really say about P/D is its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

which isn’t true.

…Care to explain to me how it isn’t true? P/D only has consistent access to bleeds (which is how it “Only has bleeds”), and it’s super boring to play because without 5->1, wait for reveal, 5->1 style gameplay, your DPS will be extremely sub-par.

Shadow strike gaining torment is Ok, but it’s not a DPS powerhouse by any means – it still falls short of CnD->Sneak attack.

As I said before with my P/D setup I can bleed, poison, cripple, weaken and torment. Is it a power house? No but its not ment to be. I have good damage though and decent survivability. As for it being boring it is no more boring than the idiots who spam HS or the same exact 5-1 gameplay they do with daggers. You are not forced to just use 5-1. If you do and are bored then its your fault.

p/p will probably always be useless, it’s such a strange set

Arena net devs don’t reply in Thief forums. Their last reply was like 3 months ago. Meanwhile necros nerfed (and still op as kitten) and they get 100+ Dev replies and asking for suggestions. The quote “We care about all classes equally” is complete and utter bullkittenkitten

Lantz.7240:

evilapprentice.6379:

Lantz.7240:

The only thing they really say about P/D is its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

which isn’t true.

…Care to explain to me how it isn’t true? P/D only has consistent access to bleeds (which is how it “Only has bleeds”), and it’s super boring to play because without 5->1, wait for reveal, 5->1 style gameplay, your DPS will be extremely sub-par.

Shadow strike gaining torment is Ok, but it’s not a DPS powerhouse by any means – it still falls short of CnD->Sneak attack.

As I said before with my P/D setup I can bleed, poison, cripple, weaken and torment. Is it a power house? No but its not ment to be. I have good damage though and decent survivability. As for it being boring it is no more boring than the idiots who spam HS or the same exact 5-1 gameplay they do with daggers. You are not forced to just use 5-1. If you do and are bored then its your fault.

Poison, cripple and weakness are not DPS conditions. You will never kill a player with those conditions. Your access to Torment is crap – the spec relies entirely on Bleed to do DPS.

You are forced to use 5-1 if you want to even have a chance at killing anything – it is clearly the best DPS for the weaponset, which is why the set is boring. 99% of the time, the question “what going to end this fight the quickest” is answered with CnD, sneak attack – that’s bad. Sure, I could tool around with shadow strike and Dancing dagger and probably still win sometimes, but why am I going to choose inferior options? Why not just design the set so none of the options are obviously vastly superior?

evilapprentice.6379:

Lantz.7240:

evilapprentice.6379:

Lantz.7240:

The only thing they really say about P/D is its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

which isn’t true.

…Care to explain to me how it isn’t true? P/D only has consistent access to bleeds (which is how it “Only has bleeds”), and it’s super boring to play because without 5->1, wait for reveal, 5->1 style gameplay, your DPS will be extremely sub-par.

Shadow strike gaining torment is Ok, but it’s not a DPS powerhouse by any means – it still falls short of CnD->Sneak attack.

As I said before with my P/D setup I can bleed, poison, cripple, weaken and torment. Is it a power house? No but its not ment to be. I have good damage though and decent survivability. As for it being boring it is no more boring than the idiots who spam HS or the same exact 5-1 gameplay they do with daggers. You are not forced to just use 5-1. If you do and are bored then its your fault.

Poison, cripple and weakness are not DPS conditions. You will never kill a player with those conditions. Your access to Torment is crap – the spec relies entirely on Bleed to do DPS.

You are forced to use 5-1 if you want to even have a chance at killing anything – it is clearly the best DPS for the weaponset, which is why the set is boring. 99% of the time, the question “what going to end this fight the quickest” is answered with CnD, sneak attack – that’s bad. Sure, I could tool around with shadow strike and Dancing dagger and probably still win sometimes, but why am I going to choose inferior options? Why not just design the set so none of the options are obviously vastly superior?

well the thing here is that anet thinks if they make ALL the skills as strong as CND or HS then we will be OP. but the fact is they should all be strong to their respective use. we have initiative so it doesnt matter if we go 2 2 2 or 3 3 3 . as long as the init matches the skill then they should ALL be good skills. but some ignorants look at it as wow every wepaonset has 5 strong skills. if u put 5 strong skills on any other class it will be op. but not thief. bc we spam the best skill anyway. u know what i mean? so by makign them all equally awesome wont hurt the game.

1 stack of torment is like 1.5 bleed stacks. So 2 stacks is the damage equivalent of 3 bleed stacks. Autoattacks also apply bleeds, so shadow-strike + autoattack + dodge is also a viable strategy, if you can stay alive while doing it. CnD – wait – sneak attack applies 5 stacks very quickly, but during that time you could be applying 5 stacks of bleed slowly as well. Additionally 5-1 leaves you with 3 seconds of revealed…what are you doing during that time? Well you could be shadow-striking and then autoattackign for more dps…that’s why shadow-strike is nice.

It’s not overpowered by any means, it’s actually nicely balanced with the rest of the set.
If you have a build that gives good initiative generation, then 5-1-3 is a good combo.

If you want to just write it off without even trying it, that’s fine. Enjoy your backstabs. I’m enjoying p/d and finding the play-style and mobility varied and interesting.

Travlane.5948:

well the thing here is that anet thinks if they make ALL the skills as strong as CND or HS then we will be OP. but the fact is they should all be strong to their respective use. we have initiative so it doesnt matter if we go 2 2 2 or 3 3 3 . as long as the init matches the skill then they should ALL be good skills. but some ignorants look at it as wow every wepaonset has 5 strong skills. if u put 5 strong skills on any other class it will be op. but not thief. bc we spam the best skill anyway. u know what i mean? so by makign them all equally awesome wont hurt the game.

The ideal balance for thief is not that any skill can be spammed any time – that’s boring. Ideally every skill is potentially very useful in the right situation (spammed or not), and less useful in others. So when asking if a given skill is worthwhile, the questions need to be:
1 – “Is there a situation(s) where this is the best skill to use?”
2 – “Is that situation relatively common?”

I think the developer goal for every weapon set should be that you can say yes to both questions for all of the skills in the set. Right now I’d say that’s probably the case for d/p and s/d.

In the case of shadow-strike, it is superior to CnD for both offense and defense in a few scenarios.
1 – You are revealed and have initiative to spare – so a little extra dps and a cover condition are useful. – maybe you’ve got a gap-closer up too in case the enemy is about to run.
2 – You are fighting a meleer, who knows how to handle stealth, so your CnD is not protecting you the way you want/need it to.
3 – you are running, and need distance more than you need stealth.
4 – you are in an aoe circle and out of dodges.
5 – you just got immobilized

evilapprentice.6379:

Lantz.7240:

evilapprentice.6379:

Lantz.7240:

The only thing they really say about P/D is its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

its boring and only has bleeds which isn’t true.

which isn’t true.

…Care to explain to me how it isn’t true? P/D only has consistent access to bleeds (which is how it “Only has bleeds”), and it’s super boring to play because without 5->1, wait for reveal, 5->1 style gameplay, your DPS will be extremely sub-par.

Shadow strike gaining torment is Ok, but it’s not a DPS powerhouse by any means – it still falls short of CnD->Sneak attack.

As I said before with my P/D setup I can bleed, poison, cripple, weaken and torment. Is it a power house? No but its not ment to be. I have good damage though and decent survivability. As for it being boring it is no more boring than the idiots who spam HS or the same exact 5-1 gameplay they do with daggers. You are not forced to just use 5-1. If you do and are bored then its your fault.

Poison, cripple and weakness are not DPS conditions. You will never kill a player with those conditions. Your access to Torment is crap – the spec relies entirely on Bleed to do DPS.

Never said they were dps conditions. Just said they were conditions and having several on a target is better than just having bleeds. As for torment its not amazing but its easy to work into a rotations and is a nice little bonus.

bobross.5034:

Travlane.5948:

well the thing here is that anet thinks if they make ALL the skills as strong as CND or HS then we will be OP. but the fact is they should all be strong to their respective use. we have initiative so it doesnt matter if we go 2 2 2 or 3 3 3 . as long as the init matches the skill then they should ALL be good skills. but some ignorants look at it as wow every wepaonset has 5 strong skills. if u put 5 strong skills on any other class it will be op. but not thief. bc we spam the best skill anyway. u know what i mean? so by makign them all equally awesome wont hurt the game.

The ideal balance for thief is not that any skill can be spammed any time – that’s boring. Ideally every skill is potentially very useful in the right situation (spammed or not), and less useful in others. So when asking if a given skill is worthwhile, the questions need to be:
1 – “Is there a situation(s) where this is the best skill to use?”
2 – “Is that situation relatively common?”

I think the developer goal for every weapon set should be that you can say yes to both questions for all of the skills in the set. Right now I’d say that’s probably the case for d/p and s/d.

In the case of shadow-strike, it is superior to CnD for both offense and defense in a few scenarios.
1 – You are revealed and have initiative to spare – so a little extra dps and a cover condition are useful. – maybe you’ve got a gap-closer up too in case the enemy is about to run.
2 – You are fighting a meleer, who knows how to handle stealth, so your CnD is not protecting you the way you want/need it to.
3 – you are running, and need distance more than you need stealth.
4 – you are in an aoe circle and out of dodges.
5 – you just got immobilized

its circumstantially better. you mean depending on traits. CND is always going to be better on p/d than shadow strike. lets compare considering that we always ALWAYS ALWAYS lol have 30 in SA

CND for 6 initiative

1100 damage or so
3 vulnerability
AOE blind on hit
2 condi removal
1400 heal ish
Bonus: Sets you up for sneak attack (1200 dmg 6 bleeds at range)

Shadow Strike for 4 initiative

220 +730 dmg or so
2 stacks of torment
Bonus: Creates 700ish range gap.

now its obvious which is better. am i sayin SS doesnt fit in? heck no. i said before i loooove to use it on warriors…guardians….some rangers and other thieves…even engineers sometimes if the occaisson is right. its a nice lil add in.

i understand what developers want. but at this point what WE want is a nerf. and not directly. but what SHOULD be happening is ALL our skills should be as useful as HS or CND or Cluster bomb or Head Shot. why? bc we still have initiative pool and there is no difference in spamming 4 4 4 4 or 2 2 2 2 if they are both balanced in initiative costs to skill power. but that means that all 5 of our skill sets have to be equally awesome. so whats going to happen if they make that? a bunch of QQers saying look at their 1-5 and they have all of them awesome and usable. what about poor ol warrior and poor ol guardian? why cant all 5 of ours be awesome. well the short answer is they can spam 5 skills in a row then switch and do 5 more. thats 10 total. the most we can spam is 3-4 skills on the heavy end. there is the bigg difference even tho most people cant wrap their heads around that.

problem: low skill lvl of players that spam skills. how can we fix this?

solution: make all 5 skills on every thief weapon set equally awesome so we can no go 131414155322 rather than 3 3 3 3 or 2 2 2 2 or 5 1 5 1 5 1 or 5 2 2 1 etc.

there really is not difference as long as the power/initiative ratio is balanced correctly.
you will see QQers no matter what tho

It doesn’t change the fact that you can’t just spam 5+1 due to the revealed debuff, so there will always be a few seconds where you have to stay alive without stealth after a sneak attack. Shadow-strike is potentially useful in those windows, either for added dps or defense. The fact that it achieves either/both is great.

I tend to run builds that have a bit of initiative to spare, so i can use both CnD and shadow-step fairly frequently (I vary it a bit, but usually 0/0/30/20/20).

If you play a build with no initiative regen that makes you always hungry for initiative, and needing to save it all for CnD, that’s your choice. I’m sure it can work well, but I’m sure it’s also less forgiving (which is fine, I know my limits, so I like builds with some cushion for error). If that build requires a precise CnD and then a well timed sneak attack, well there’s some skill in that, but I’m sure it also gets boring, as you say. That doesn’t mean that P/D can’t be made more interesting – with say a few points in acrobatics. It’s not really worth debating whether one build is better/worse than another – taking points in deadly arts has obvious advantages, as do trickery and shadow arts, so it’s hard to strike a balance with P/D.

Still, initiative regen from acrobatics works well with P/D, and when you’ve got initiative to spare, you no longer have to worry about whether you need to save that initiative for a CnD…so you use them both. Then instead of debating shadow-strike vs CnD (because you can only ever use one skill), you wind up debating the merits of extra dodges/swiftness/caltrops/speed while stealthed/shadow-strikes(due to more initiative), vs mug/poison/weakness/daze on steal, etc.

So speaking of traits – I’m sure someone could make a D/P build that’s like 30/30/0/0/10. And I’m sure it could hit like a truck. But it would also have initiative problems, making there only be room on that build for stealthing. So that person could then come on here and complain that headshot is underpowered, because you have to choose between stealth and interrupts. All I’m pointing out is that it’s a false choice. You don’t have to choose if you build for both…

Travlane.5948:

bobross.5034:

Travlane.5948:

well the thing here is that anet thinks if they make ALL the skills as strong as CND or HS then we will be OP. but the fact is they should all be strong to their respective use. we have initiative so it doesnt matter if we go 2 2 2 or 3 3 3 . as long as the init matches the skill then they should ALL be good skills. but some ignorants look at it as wow every wepaonset has 5 strong skills. if u put 5 strong skills on any other class it will be op. but not thief. bc we spam the best skill anyway. u know what i mean? so by makign them all equally awesome wont hurt the game.

The ideal balance for thief is not that any skill can be spammed any time – that’s boring. Ideally every skill is potentially very useful in the right situation (spammed or not), and less useful in others. So when asking if a given skill is worthwhile, the questions need to be:
1 – “Is there a situation(s) where this is the best skill to use?”
2 – “Is that situation relatively common?”

I think the developer goal for every weapon set should be that you can say yes to both questions for all of the skills in the set. Right now I’d say that’s probably the case for d/p and s/d.

In the case of shadow-strike, it is superior to CnD for both offense and defense in a few scenarios.
1 – You are revealed and have initiative to spare – so a little extra dps and a cover condition are useful. – maybe you’ve got a gap-closer up too in case the enemy is about to run.
2 – You are fighting a meleer, who knows how to handle stealth, so your CnD is not protecting you the way you want/need it to.
3 – you are running, and need distance more than you need stealth.
4 – you are in an aoe circle and out of dodges.
5 – you just got immobilized

its circumstantially better. you mean depending on traits. CND is always going to be better on p/d than shadow strike. lets compare considering that we always ALWAYS ALWAYS lol have 30 in SA

CND for 6 initiative

1100 damage or so
3 vulnerability
AOE blind on hit
2 condi removal
1400 heal ish
Bonus: Sets you up for sneak attack (1200 dmg 6 bleeds at range)

Shadow Strike for 4 initiative

220 +730 dmg or so
2 stacks of torment
Bonus: Creates 700ish range gap.

now its obvious which is better. am i sayin SS doesnt fit in? heck no. i said before i loooove to use it on warriors…guardians….some rangers and other thieves…even engineers sometimes if the occaisson is right. its a nice lil add in.

i understand what developers want. but at this point what WE want is a nerf. and not directly. but what SHOULD be happening is ALL our skills should be as useful as HS or CND or Cluster bomb or Head Shot. why? bc we still have initiative pool and there is no difference in spamming 4 4 4 4 or 2 2 2 2 if they are both balanced in initiative costs to skill power. but that means that all 5 of our skill sets have to be equally awesome. so whats going to happen if they make that? a bunch of QQers saying look at their 1-5 and they have all of them awesome and usable. what about poor ol warrior and poor ol guardian? why cant all 5 of ours be awesome. well the short answer is they can spam 5 skills in a row then switch and do 5 more. thats 10 total. the most we can spam is 3-4 skills on the heavy end. there is the bigg difference even tho most people cant wrap their heads around that.

problem: low skill lvl of players that spam skills. how can we fix this?

solution: make all 5 skills on every thief weapon set equally awesome so we can no go 131414155322 rather than 3 3 3 3 or 2 2 2 2 or 5 1 5 1 5 1 or 5 2 2 1 etc.

there really is not difference as long as the power/initiative ratio is balanced correctly.
you will see QQers no matter what tho

What developers want? What do you understand? Don’t make me laugh.

I’m not sure what you are on about. I’m playing my own 10/0/30/5/25 P/D condition build and it’s more fun and equally good, if not better than most other builds I’ve tried. With all the direct damage zerkers running around in dungeons, I rarely have to worry about stack limits even.

I have 50% bleeding duration, 1300+ cond damage and loads of survivability. In dungeons on single target fights I usually do this :

1. Caltrops
2. CnD
3. auto
4. shadowstrike away
5. use utility stealth
6. auto
7. either use steal to go back in range or run while doing body shot
8. repeat

I can also switch to sb for clusterbombs and combo field spam. Anyways, works great for me and I rarely die. My other gear set is d/d and I don’t feel like I was doing THAT much more damage. More bursty and somewhat higher yes, but that’s it. I was also a lot more squishy.

EDIT: P/D is also pretty great for PvP
EDIT2: P/P is also not too bad in PvE. It’s safe single target damage.

You can burst 11+ stacks of torment… so there’s that

DrYamak.9364:

Travlane.5948:

bobross.5034:

Travlane.5948:

well the thing here is that anet thinks if they make ALL the skills as strong as CND or HS then we will be OP. but the fact is they should all be strong to their respective use. we have initiative so it doesnt matter if we go 2 2 2 or 3 3 3 . as long as the init matches the skill then they should ALL be good skills. but some ignorants look at it as wow every wepaonset has 5 strong skills. if u put 5 strong skills on any other class it will be op. but not thief. bc we spam the best skill anyway. u know what i mean? so by makign them all equally awesome wont hurt the game.

The ideal balance for thief is not that any skill can be spammed any time – that’s boring. Ideally every skill is potentially very useful in the right situation (spammed or not), and less useful in others. So when asking if a given skill is worthwhile, the questions need to be:
1 – “Is there a situation(s) where this is the best skill to use?”
2 – “Is that situation relatively common?”

I think the developer goal for every weapon set should be that you can say yes to both questions for all of the skills in the set. Right now I’d say that’s probably the case for d/p and s/d.

In the case of shadow-strike, it is superior to CnD for both offense and defense in a few scenarios.
1 – You are revealed and have initiative to spare – so a little extra dps and a cover condition are useful. – maybe you’ve got a gap-closer up too in case the enemy is about to run.
2 – You are fighting a meleer, who knows how to handle stealth, so your CnD is not protecting you the way you want/need it to.
3 – you are running, and need distance more than you need stealth.
4 – you are in an aoe circle and out of dodges.
5 – you just got immobilized

its circumstantially better. you mean depending on traits. CND is always going to be better on p/d than shadow strike. lets compare considering that we always ALWAYS ALWAYS lol have 30 in SA

CND for 6 initiative

1100 damage or so
3 vulnerability
AOE blind on hit
2 condi removal
1400 heal ish
Bonus: Sets you up for sneak attack (1200 dmg 6 bleeds at range)

Shadow Strike for 4 initiative

220 +730 dmg or so
2 stacks of torment
Bonus: Creates 700ish range gap.

now its obvious which is better. am i sayin SS doesnt fit in? heck no. i said before i loooove to use it on warriors…guardians….some rangers and other thieves…even engineers sometimes if the occaisson is right. its a nice lil add in.

i understand what developers want. but at this point what WE want is a nerf. and not directly. but what SHOULD be happening is ALL our skills should be as useful as HS or CND or Cluster bomb or Head Shot. why? bc we still have initiative pool and there is no difference in spamming 4 4 4 4 or 2 2 2 2 if they are both balanced in initiative costs to skill power. but that means that all 5 of our skill sets have to be equally awesome. so whats going to happen if they make that? a bunch of QQers saying look at their 1-5 and they have all of them awesome and usable. what about poor ol warrior and poor ol guardian? why cant all 5 of ours be awesome. well the short answer is they can spam 5 skills in a row then switch and do 5 more. thats 10 total. the most we can spam is 3-4 skills on the heavy end. there is the bigg difference even tho most people cant wrap their heads around that.

problem: low skill lvl of players that spam skills. how can we fix this?

solution: make all 5 skills on every thief weapon set equally awesome so we can no go 131414155322 rather than 3 3 3 3 or 2 2 2 2 or 5 1 5 1 5 1 or 5 2 2 1 etc.

there really is not difference as long as the power/initiative ratio is balanced correctly.
you will see QQers no matter what tho

What developers want? What do you understand? Don’t make me laugh.

you never fail to stop following me. im not into guys…..or whatever YOU are. just stop posting ONLY in response to me. its getting really creepy/stalkerish. wierdo .

yes and what developers want? thats pretty simple and has no need to be stated but since you dont understand ill explain it in one word for you: REVENUE!

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAWW

travln, i dont chase you, this is you chase me. And what about your last post here? As always no sense in it. You one word – revenue, doesn’t explain you words about understanding in context of that post:
i understand what developers want. but at this point what WE want is a nerf. and not directly. but what SHOULD be happening is ALL our skills should be as useful as HS or CND or Cluster bomb or Head Shot. why? bc we still have initiative pool and there is no difference in and blah blah blah.
This is your words, and haw your one word – revenue, explained that post? I can answer – you as always wright bullkitten, in pathetic attempt to appear as smart person, and failed again, as always.