Guild Wars 2

emkelly.2371:

You are partially correct there. While the Gingerbread Man build does get better with more enemies you quickly get diminishing returns. Typically about 4 randoms is where your diminishing returns start kicking in with non random groups causing the diminishing returns to kick in much quicker. of course depending on the classes you are facing you will notice some fluctuations.

Thanks for the correction on that, it’s an important point. I suppose after playing that way after awhile you get that internal gauge for when to bug out but once in awhile I get greedy and find myself at a full stop in hot ground with nothing left to spend. People need to quit calling targets when I’m around, I see that red cross hair and I’m like a cat chasing string.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Apparently core power d/d.

My core build is. Not my daredevil. Did you not read the thread?

I run a handy mixture of weapons on daredevil, depending on what I feel like playing and my needs. Typically it’s D/P + Staff/Shortbow or P/P + Staff.

It generally feels as abusive as loads of other HoT stuff, although I think it frustrates people more because of the constant repetitious evades. I would say putting a cast time on Signet of Agility would be a nice way to offer some window for counterplay. You can use it whilst dodging to get more dodges which was fine in the old days, but a bit bonkers now I will admit. Not as obnoxious as other things though and learning to interrupt Vault helps.

Simonoly.4352:

It generally feels as abusive as loads of other HoT stuff, although I think it frustrates people more because of the constant repetitious evades. I would say putting a cast time on Signet of Agility would be a nice way to offer some window for counterplay. You can use it whilst dodging to get more dodges which was fine in the old days, but a bit bonkers now I will admit. Not as obnoxious as other things though and learning to interrupt Vault helps.

You speak as if other professions has no access to Dodge/Evade/Vigor.

What people who complains about evasion is missing is that, when the Thief evades, they do no damage. Now compare that to professions with Aegis, Invulnerability, Blocks, Resistance, etc. While they avoid damage, they dish out tons of damage back. That’s where these thing gets imbalance and where the Thief is force to chain evades just to survive while doing zero damage at the same time.

babazhook.6805:

A single attack can generate well over 10k in damage with regularity. This need not wait on the next cooldown or next batch of INI to replenish as multiple attacks from varying utilities/skills can generate this sort of damge.

With the low health that is available to the thief , they had better dodge more then one or two or three attakcs in a row or they are dead. Before the complaints about “dodge spam” there were complaints about “blind spam” and complaints about “stealth spam” All of these builds came not because of exploits or because of the OP nature of the same but because the thief was adapting to changing circumstances on the ground to find that balance of survibability and ability to inflict damage. Those dodges/blinds/stealths are how they survive.

By DESIGN these are the things a thiefs survival built around. A warrior can absorb far more damage due to armor, vitality and health regen via adrenal and healing signet. We do not see any of this in game because none of these are active skills. That armor just “happens” . The thief on the other hand has to ACT in order to trigger the greatest portion of his or her defenses. This act can be a dodge or a stealth or a blind.

That is by DESIGN. It an underlying mechanic of the game and one of the attractions of the thief class. We can not rely on armor and health to protect us, or some passive kicking in, we have to actively perfrom an action to avoid damage (In this case dodge)

I do not see even the dodge spam thief dominate at any level, be it WvW , PvE , or the PvP that I am aware of. It does not make them invulnerable and they can still drop quickly if they miss a dodge, are stunned or Immobbed.

I do not see any real issue here. That the technique used to avoid damage appears on the screen as an action results in the appearance of “spam”. Other forms of defense require no action thus giving less perception of “spam” on that classes part.

+1. Absolutely agree on this.

I think the sentiments of the thread, though, are that it would be really nice if we didn’t have to rely on using dodges or evades or active skills and could maybe (just maybe, perhaps even Soon™) receive some kind of baseline durability and sustain improvements in place of “react faster and more often.”

I picked thief because it was the most active class in a game that had shifted away from GW1’s skill rotations and standing about flailing weapons. Unfortunately, it’s also the class that, as you identified, is stuck in a permanent “glass cannon” role no matter what we try to do nowadays.

Blind and Stealth have seen both nerfs and hard counters over the years, leaving us almost exclusively with Daredevil and 1 extra dodge over the competition. Other classes have more condition cleansing and reveals than ever before, so really, all we can do anymore is keep dodging out of the way.

So, like you said: with few other options, all that’s left is to be really obnoxious and avoid damage entirely.

fluffdragon.1523:

I picked thief because it was the most active class in a game

I agree that Thief is an active class, but not the most active due to limited resources (initiatives) and poor selection of skills. Compare the Thief to Elementalist and Engineer, where skills are constantly being rotated, Thief is the most monotonous and boring class and weapon swapping is punishable by death.

babazhook.6805:

A single attack can generate well over 10k in damage with regularity. This need not wait on the next cooldown or next batch of INI to replenish as multiple attacks from varying utilities/skills can generate this sort of damge.

With the low health that is available to the thief , they had better dodge more then one or two or three attakcs in a row or they are dead. Before the complaints about “dodge spam” there were complaints about “blind spam” and complaints about “stealth spam” All of these builds came not because of exploits or because of the OP nature of the same but because the thief was adapting to changing circumstances on the ground to find that balance of survibability and ability to inflict damage. Those dodges/blinds/stealths are how they survive.

By DESIGN these are the things a thiefs survival built around. A warrior can absorb far more damage due to armor, vitality and health regen via adrenal and healing signet. We do not see any of this in game because none of these are active skills. That armor just “happens” . The thief on the other hand has to ACT in order to trigger the greatest portion of his or her defenses. This act can be a dodge or a stealth or a blind.

That is by DESIGN. It an underlying mechanic of the game and one of the attractions of the thief class. We can not rely on armor and health to protect us, or some passive kicking in, we have to actively perfrom an action to avoid damage (In this case dodge)

I do not see even the dodge spam thief dominate at any level, be it WvW , PvE , or the PvP that I am aware of. It does not make them invulnerable and they can still drop quickly if they miss a dodge, are stunned or Immobbed.

I do not see any real issue here. That the technique used to avoid damage appears on the screen as an action results in the appearance of “spam”. Other forms of defense require no action thus giving less perception of “spam” on that classes part.

I completely agree. I was about to write something myself, but you got everything right so I dont need to. +1

I’d also like to point out that Thief can’t do ANY damage while dodging, while Mesmers, Eles, Rangers, etc. can still deal out tons of dmg while being invulnerable Nobody seems to care about that. I understand that those skills have high cooldowns, but people should realize that while Thief is dodging, he cant do anything during that and endurance is very quickly gone, Thief that is dodging a lot is a Thief that is going to die soon, not really anything to complain about.

Alatar.7364:

I’d also like to point out that Thief can’t do ANY damage while dodging, while Mesmers, Eles, Rangers, etc. can still deal out tons of dmg while being invulnerable Nobody seems to care about that.

That’s also been mentioned by me.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

What people who complains about evasion is missing is that, when the Thief evades, they do no damage. Now compare that to professions with Aegis, Invulnerability, Blocks, Resistance, etc. While they avoid damage, they dish out tons of damage back. That’s where these thing gets imbalance and where the Thief is force to chain evades just to survive while doing zero damage at the same time.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

and unhindered combatant does so much damage you can fight 1v13 with it

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Some skills do grant a small window of evasion while doing some damage, but the “tons of damage” comes from skills without evasion and cannot be used while dodging.

this one time Yishis traited DD and the whole map died

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

The OP was talking about staff acro build which absolutely uses bounding dodger. Vault also deals a ton of damage with an evade frame.

Moonsinn.5382:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

The OP was talking about staff acro build which absolutely uses bounding dodger. Vault also deals a ton of damage with an evade frame.

Bound is never a source of complaint, Dash is. With Dash, a Thief can get out of anything that is made to slow it down. With Bound, once you’re CC’d you’re SOL. That’s why the main understanding is that, the Thief can’t do damage while dodging.

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

DeceiverX.8361:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

My vast experience and time spent in sPvP/WvW is my source =D

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

My vast experience and time spent in sPvP/WvW is my source =D

I see a lot of thieves with bounding dodger in WvW. It is preferred for D/P since it is a leap finisher.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Simonoly.4352:

It generally feels as abusive as loads of other HoT stuff, although I think it frustrates people more because of the constant repetitious evades. I would say putting a cast time on Signet of Agility would be a nice way to offer some window for counterplay. You can use it whilst dodging to get more dodges which was fine in the old days, but a bit bonkers now I will admit. Not as obnoxious as other things though and learning to interrupt Vault helps.

You speak as if other professions has no access to Dodge/Evade/Vigor.

What people who complains about evasion is missing is that, when the Thief evades, they do no damage. Now compare that to professions with Aegis, Invulnerability, Blocks, Resistance, etc. While they avoid damage, they dish out tons of damage back. That’s where these thing gets imbalance and where the Thief is force to chain evades just to survive while doing zero damage at the same time.

I acknowledged that other builds are more obnoxious but I was being specific to the Thief build in question which is the topic of the thread.

There are quite a lot skills available to Thief/Daredevil that allow you to evade and do damage. It’s quite an important part of the class.

Cecilia.5179:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

My vast experience and time spent in sPvP/WvW is my source =D

I see a lot of thieves with bounding dodger in WvW. It is preferred for D/P since it is a leap finisher.

I never comprehend why would anyone using D/P waste 50 precious Endurance just to leap finish when Heartseeker is perfect for that role and it’s even more cheaper. Now if Bound is a “blast” finisher, then sure I can see its value, but as “leap” — it is a waste of resources. I also doubt that these Bounding D/P users are any good or at least baby-sat by a Druid because such glass-cannon build don’t last very long in WvW.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cecilia.5179:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

My vast experience and time spent in sPvP/WvW is my source =D

I see a lot of thieves with bounding dodger in WvW. It is preferred for D/P since it is a leap finisher.

I never comprehend why would anyone using D/P waste 50 precious Endurance just to leap finish when Heartseeker is perfect for that role and it’s even more cheaper. Now if Bound is a “blast” finisher, then sure I can see its value, but as “leap” — it is a waste of resources. I also doubt that these Bounding D/P users are any good or at least baby-sat by a Druid because such glass-cannon build don’t last very long in WvW.

I recommend you watch min scherzo then re-evaluate your thoughts on bound. That is all.

Lettuce.2945:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cecilia.5179:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

My vast experience and time spent in sPvP/WvW is my source =D

I see a lot of thieves with bounding dodger in WvW. It is preferred for D/P since it is a leap finisher.

I never comprehend why would anyone using D/P waste 50 precious Endurance just to leap finish when Heartseeker is perfect for that role and it’s even more cheaper. Now if Bound is a “blast” finisher, then sure I can see its value, but as “leap” — it is a waste of resources. I also doubt that these Bounding D/P users are any good or at least baby-sat by a Druid because such glass-cannon build don’t last very long in WvW.

I recommend you watch min scherzo then re-evaluate your thoughts on bound. That is all.

Right, the one who now favors Staff over D/P where Bound actually makes sense because of Vault. Anyone else you want to recommend?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Lettuce.2945:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cecilia.5179:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

My vast experience and time spent in sPvP/WvW is my source =D

I see a lot of thieves with bounding dodger in WvW. It is preferred for D/P since it is a leap finisher.

I never comprehend why would anyone using D/P waste 50 precious Endurance just to leap finish when Heartseeker is perfect for that role and it’s even more cheaper. Now if Bound is a “blast” finisher, then sure I can see its value, but as “leap” — it is a waste of resources. I also doubt that these Bounding D/P users are any good or at least baby-sat by a Druid because such glass-cannon build don’t last very long in WvW.

I recommend you watch min scherzo then re-evaluate your thoughts on bound. That is all.

Right, the one who now favors Staff over D/P where Bound actually makes sense because of Vault. Anyone else you want to recommend?

Two things. One. He doesn’t spam vault. You actually should NOT use vault often since it can be easily interrupted. So don’t be one of those “staff thief just vaults spam qq’ers”. Please actually watch the videos before commenting. Two. He uses d/p as his second weaponset which again, if you actually watched the videos, he shows you how to use them and juke zergs. And sure, I can recommend other thieves. Havoc and anarchy, Kronos Xnm, reckless…they all have channels. Feel free to watch. My thief is featured in a couple duo videos with min. We use the same build. Sorry you’re just too stubborn?

I use bound with d/p in wvw. More leap finishers=more stealth, plus more damage with evades while in combat.

Lettuce.2945:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Lettuce.2945:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cecilia.5179:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

My vast experience and time spent in sPvP/WvW is my source =D

I see a lot of thieves with bounding dodger in WvW. It is preferred for D/P since it is a leap finisher.

I never comprehend why would anyone using D/P waste 50 precious Endurance just to leap finish when Heartseeker is perfect for that role and it’s even more cheaper. Now if Bound is a “blast” finisher, then sure I can see its value, but as “leap” — it is a waste of resources. I also doubt that these Bounding D/P users are any good or at least baby-sat by a Druid because such glass-cannon build don’t last very long in WvW.

I recommend you watch min scherzo then re-evaluate your thoughts on bound. That is all.

Right, the one who now favors Staff over D/P where Bound actually makes sense because of Vault. Anyone else you want to recommend?

Two things. One. He doesn’t spam vault. You actually should NOT use vault often since it can be easily interrupted. So don’t be one of those “staff thief just vaults spam qq’ers”. Please actually watch the videos before commenting.

lolz, when did I even imply that Vault is being spammed? Please actually read my post before commenting.

Two. He uses d/p as his second weaponset which again, if you actually watched the videos, he shows you how to use them and juke zergs.

Old news. It only look good on paper playing against baddies.

And sure, I can recommend other thieves. Havoc and anarchy, Kronos Xnm, reckless…they all have channels. Feel free to watch. My thief is featured in a couple duo videos with min. We use the same build. Sorry you’re just too stubborn?

No thank you, I’m fine watching Terissimo.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cecilia.5179:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

My vast experience and time spent in sPvP/WvW is my source =D

I see a lot of thieves with bounding dodger in WvW. It is preferred for D/P since it is a leap finisher.

I never comprehend why would anyone using D/P waste 50 precious Endurance just to leap finish when Heartseeker is perfect for that role and it’s even more cheaper. Now if Bound is a “blast” finisher, then sure I can see its value, but as “leap” — it is a waste of resources. I also doubt that these Bounding D/P users are any good or at least baby-sat by a Druid because such glass-cannon build don’t last very long in WvW.

Because OOC stealthing via bound before engaging has a net-zero cost since Endurance Thief will refund the spent initiative anyways?

There are a lot of reasons to take bound, and a lot of absolutely excellent players swear by it (aforementioned, including Terissimo depending on context, Sin when in WvW, etc.). Equally so, do people prefer dash. Neither’s universally better than the other in many cases except for OH dagger builds (then bound is the worst unless running literally-terrible max-damage signet burst), and both work excellently on both D/P and Staff, since D/P gains stealth on Bound and staff negates most of the purpose of Dash since it removes immob with Deb Arc.

DeceiverX.8361:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cecilia.5179:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

My vast experience and time spent in sPvP/WvW is my source =D

I see a lot of thieves with bounding dodger in WvW. It is preferred for D/P since it is a leap finisher.

I never comprehend why would anyone using D/P waste 50 precious Endurance just to leap finish when Heartseeker is perfect for that role and it’s even more cheaper. Now if Bound is a “blast” finisher, then sure I can see its value, but as “leap” — it is a waste of resources. I also doubt that these Bounding D/P users are any good or at least baby-sat by a Druid because such glass-cannon build don’t last very long in WvW.

Because OOC stealthing via bound before engaging has a net-zero cost since Endurance Thief will refund the spent initiative anyways?

That didn’t made any sense. I think you meant; refund the spent “Endurance” anyway.

Assuming that is what you meant, let’s look at how much time it will take to regain those lost resources;

3 initiatives (HS) = 3s
50 Endurance (Bound) = 10s

That’s not a very good investment.

There are a lot of reasons to take bound, and a lot of absolutely excellent players swear by it (aforementioned, including Terissimo depending on context, Sin when in WvW, etc.). Equally so, do people prefer dash. Neither’s universally better than the other in many cases except for OH dagger builds (then bound is the worst unless running literally-terrible max-damage signet burst), and both work excellently on both D/P and Staff, since D/P gains stealth on Bound and staff negates most of the purpose of Dash since it removes immob with Deb Arc.

Teri is one of those Thieves who can get away with using Bound, but time and time again, a Bounder Thief in WvW typically a free loot bag.

Not sure if it’s really worth discussing this, but it’s not necessarily about choosing to use bound instead of HS, you can use both.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

DeceiverX.8361:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cecilia.5179:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

Wat.

I’d like to see your sources on that one lol.

My vast experience and time spent in sPvP/WvW is my source =D

I see a lot of thieves with bounding dodger in WvW. It is preferred for D/P since it is a leap finisher.

I never comprehend why would anyone using D/P waste 50 precious Endurance just to leap finish when Heartseeker is perfect for that role and it’s even more cheaper. Now if Bound is a “blast” finisher, then sure I can see its value, but as “leap” — it is a waste of resources. I also doubt that these Bounding D/P users are any good or at least baby-sat by a Druid because such glass-cannon build don’t last very long in WvW.

Because OOC stealthing via bound before engaging has a net-zero cost since Endurance Thief will refund the spent initiative anyways?

That didn’t made any sense. I think you meant; refund the spent “Endurance” anyway.

Assuming that is what you meant, let’s look at how much time it will take to regain those lost resources;

3 initiatives (HS) = 3s
50 Endurance (Bound) = 10s

That’s not a very good investment.

There are a lot of reasons to take bound, and a lot of absolutely excellent players swear by it (aforementioned, including Terissimo depending on context, Sin when in WvW, etc.). Equally so, do people prefer dash. Neither’s universally better than the other in many cases except for OH dagger builds (then bound is the worst unless running literally-terrible max-damage signet burst), and both work excellently on both D/P and Staff, since D/P gains stealth on Bound and staff negates most of the purpose of Dash since it removes immob with Deb Arc.

Teri is one of those Thieves who can get away with using Bound, but time and time again, a Bounder Thief in WvW typically a free loot bag.

I’ll break it down for you since you seem to be failing to understand it.

If you cast HS and then bound, you’ll cap stealth duration. Running ET and Trickery, a subsequent Steal will replenish both the spent initiative AND spent endurance on capped stealth on engage. There is no waiting time because ET fills an entire dodge’s worth of endurance and Kelptomaniac with the cast time on HS an Bound will refund the full initiative spent on leaps. In essence, what would normally cost 11 -> 8 initiative now only costs 8 -> 5 initiative and there are literally zero downsides Given the stealth duration as well, you’re looking to be at close to netting only around 1-2 initiative spent in total versus the 5-6 from double HS.

Quite frankly your argument is weak; real talk, most thieves in general are free lootbags because most thieves, especially these days with how forgiving Daredevil is, are just horrible players. I farmed them on D/D with no stunbreak or control, I farmed them on my ranger before the CDI when RF was still on a 3s cast time and the class was terrible, and I actively chase them on my reaper because they’re the easiest demographic to kill on average despite being a hard-counter to the profession.

At first you say you will never comprehend why anyone would ever run Bound, and then say that a given player is good enough to use it. Is the synergy not enough for you to understand? Or why I said why so many good thieves run it? Terissimo is a good thief, and runs Bound. So many bad players follow what the good players use thinking that emulating them will get them far. Thus, you have a ton of godawful thieves who are free loot bags running Bound because a lot of the best players do, and then the in-betweeners either just being better and following along, or those who came to the conclusion that bound and adjusting their play style respectively is a very good dodge to run as well.

They’re both excellent dodges and both have their uses. As I said Bound only under-performs with OH dagger, but ANet doesn’t balance nor design around OH dagger for the thief.

The bound fanboys are right here. Both are strong and both are used. I think Dash is a bit more popular but not by that much. In the PvP world, everyone uses dash cuz its required but in WvW, they both work. Dash thieves might be much faster but bound thieves can disengage just as well with near uninterruptable smoke leap and near perma stealth. Honestly, on paper, a bound thief should win vs a dash thief but obviously there are many other variables. Bound thieves are a bit weaker to revealed though, at least imo.

This is coming from a pvp player who plays dash and sucks with bound.

Bound has a multitude of advantages other then those stated by deceiver. I speak to WvW here but the reasons to take and use bound over dash or heartseeker include.

When compared to HS.

It AOE damage rather then single target. Significant damage can be applied to multiple enemies clustered at a chokepoint.While the distance of that AOE limited it in essence a large cleave. This works great when attacking an enemy that might be trying to rez another or bound an area into which someone just stealthed.

It boosts ones damage by 10 percent for subsequent attacks. HS does not do this. It does not have damage predicated on health of enemy. Just as much damage can be applied on full health as opposed to near dead enemies and this damage significant.

The Bound is an evade which procs on evade traits. HS will not do this. A Bound can proc vigor , regen , cleanse a condition , give a small heal , add swiftness , and lower steal all for that 50 Endurance cost. A HS only does damage .

If using DD runes bound can ensure the next hit a Crit , HS does not do this. Bound in and do damage which can be significant (while proccing all those traits) THEN use your HS for a guaranteed crit on an enemy no longer at 100 percent health. 10 percent more damage will also be added to this HS. The two can be used in conjunction to make each better.

When comparing that 50 endurance used by bound to the Ini used by HS you have to factor in all of the other things a bound can do over and above an HS.

The advantages of Bound over UC are these. It does damage. It can proc crits, interrupts and on damage effects due to that damage. BASI venom with a bound can generate an interrupt which in turn can proc a Pulmonary impact added to the bound. If you have an on interrupt sigil it can proc an added amount of damage/effects on top of that.

UC is not a finisher.

Now using a combination of HS and UC one can gain many of the same effects of bound along with the added benefits of UC, that being the immob break and added seconds of swiftness , but if one already has other sources of Immob breaks then the benefit of UC becomes much less as compared to bound. It the remove of cripple/chill and a little added distance on a dodge along with that added damage mitigation over more damage for those few seconds on use. Someone taking bound over UC does not lose access to HS so the only “loss” in utility is what unique to UC.

There also other weaponsets then d/x in any case thus they may not have HS.

DeceiverX.8361:

I’ll break it down for you since you seem to be failing to understand it.

If you cast HS and then bound, you’ll cap stealth duration. Running ET and Trickery, a subsequent Steal will replenish both the spent initiative AND spent endurance on capped stealth on engage. There is no waiting time because ET fills an entire dodge’s worth of endurance and Kelptomaniac with the cast time on HS an Bound will refund the full initiative spent on leaps.

In essence, what would normally cost 11 -> 8 initiative now only costs 8 -> 5 initiative and there are literally zero downsides Given the stealth duration as well, you’re looking to be at close to netting only around 1-2 initiative spent in total versus the 5-6 from double HS.

The problem is, that is not always the case since you cannot Steal whenever you want. In the case of Steal in cooldown, the wait time I’ve posted applies.

Quite frankly your argument is weak; real talk, most thieves in general are free lootbags because most thieves, especially these days with how forgiving Daredevil is, are just horrible players. I farmed them on D/D with no stunbreak or control, I farmed them on my ranger before the CDI when RF was still on a 3s cast time and the class was terrible, and I actively chase them on my reaper because they’re the easiest demographic to kill on average despite being a hard-counter to the profession.

The fact is, Bounders are easier target than Dashers, it’s not really up for argument. Dashers are not free lootbags, you have to work really hard to catch them.

At first you say you will never comprehend why anyone would ever run Bound, and then say that a given player is good enough to use it. Is the synergy not enough for you to understand? Or why I said why so many good thieves run it? Terissimo is a good thief, and runs Bound.

What I said is, why would anyone spend 50 endurance to go in stealth when you can easily accomplish the same thing with a single HS. Even watching Terissimo makes no sense to use Bound to go in stealth. It’s unnecessary sacrifice for nothing but just to gain stealth. Often time I watch Teri waiting for endurance to refill when his Initiative bar is barely used and could have used HS for practically the same result.

So many bad players follow what the good players use thinking that emulating them will get them far. Thus, you have a ton of godawful thieves who are free loot bags running Bound because a lot of the best players do, and then the in-betweeners either just being better and following along, or those who came to the conclusion that bound and adjusting their play style respectively is a very good dodge to run as well.

They’re both excellent dodges and both have their uses. As I said Bound only under-performs with OH dagger, but ANet doesn’t balance nor design around OH dagger for the thief.

You pretty much summed up my stance. Just because good players uses Bound doesn’t necessarily means it is the best dodge nor it make sense, even them has to deal with the consequences of that choice and it is quite obvious in their videos. Yes you can stack stealth quickly using Bound and HS, but it’s only worth it if you have Steal available and not trying to run away. If you don’t use Steal to replenish your resources, you’re stuck there waiting for them to regen.

babazhook.6805:

Bound has a multitude of advantages other then those stated by deceiver. I speak to WvW here but the reasons to take and use bound over dash or heartseeker include.

When compared to HS.

It AOE damage rather then single target. Significant damage can be applied to multiple enemies clustered at a chokepoint.While the distance of that AOE limited it in essence a large cleave. This works great when attacking an enemy that might be trying to rez another or bound an area into which someone just stealthed.

It boosts ones damage by 10 percent for subsequent attacks. HS does not do this. It does not have damage predicated on health of enemy. Just as much damage can be applied on full health as opposed to near dead enemies and this damage significant.

The Bound is an evade which procs on evade traits. HS will not do this. A Bound can proc vigor , regen , cleanse a condition , give a small heal , add swiftness , and lower steal all for that 50 Endurance cost. A HS only does damage .

If using DD runes bound can ensure the next hit a Crit , HS does not do this. Bound in and do damage which can be significant (while proccing all those traits) THEN use your HS for a guaranteed crit on an enemy no longer at 100 percent health. 10 percent more damage will also be added to this HS. The two can be used in conjunction to make each better.

When comparing that 50 endurance used by bound to the Ini used by HS you have to factor in all of the other things a bound can do over and above an HS.

The advantages of Bound over UC are these. It does damage. It can proc crits, interrupts and on damage effects due to that damage. BASI venom with a bound can generate an interrupt which in turn can proc a Pulmonary impact added to the bound. If you have an on interrupt sigil it can proc an added amount of damage/effects on top of that.

UC is not a finisher.

Now using a combination of HS and UC one can gain many of the same effects of bound along with the added benefits of UC, that being the immob break and added seconds of swiftness , but if one already has other sources of Immob breaks then the benefit of UC becomes much less as compared to bound. It the remove of cripple/chill and a little added distance on a dodge along with that added damage mitigation over more damage for those few seconds on use. Someone taking bound over UC does not lose access to HS so the only “loss” in utility is what unique to UC.

There also other weaponsets then d/x in any case thus they may not have HS.

I’m well aware of the benefits of Bound, I’ve abused it extensively, however the meta have adopted and evolved that Bound’s benefits becomes moot. Weakness and Chill are the killers of that +10% damage boost and endurance regen — those conditions are everywhere now. In many of the videos, the other players are constantly auto-attacking even though the Thief already have multiple conditions — which are obviously bad players not realizing that they are giving the Thief access to cleanse whenever they attack the Thief. That’s why it’s easy to see from those videos if the player is against good or bad players. Bad players doesn’t know or understand the basics of Thief, that’s why Bound looks so good against those kind of players where it can crit for 3500.

That’s why Bound is nothing but an expensive leap finisher that grants stealth, because against good players, Bounding around is not going to work.

I’ll just reiterate what I responded to to begin with:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

I then broke down why the resources are not a big concern and why people think the tradeoff is good. Even if people personally do not like to use Bound, it has purpose, god players make use of it, and it’s not as resource-hungry kitten many people may initially expect when using good play techniques.

Vin, what you’re not factoring in in respects to extra dodges for stealth is the use of things which grant endurance.

Endurance Thief + CV + Signet of Agility + Sigil of Endurace puts that extra dodge “cooldown” at much lower than 10s, not to mention the increased likelihood of people running BD or Impact further increasing endurance regen. On-demand endurance is easy to come by. On-demand initiative is limited to (equally) steal, RFI which is +1 init/10s and Infil Signet also at +1 init/10s. While no perfect substitute for HS, it comes very close in its effective cooldown, and enables more initiative use for offensive or defensive ability use spread throughout a given fight.

I still stand by my original claim in that people in fact do use both and for good reason: Both dodges are excellent and roughly equally strong assuming OH pistol is played.

Play D/P thief, problem solved.

Exciton.8942:

Play D/P thief, problem solved.

…and how is this pertinent to the thread?

DeceiverX.8361:

I’ll just reiterate what I responded to to begin with:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

I then broke down why the resources are not a big concern and why people think the tradeoff is good. Even if people personally do not like to use Bound, it has purpose, god players make use of it, and it’s not as resource-hungry kitten many people may initially expect when using good play techniques.

Vin, what you’re not factoring in in respects to extra dodges for stealth is the use of things which grant endurance.

Endurance Thief + CV + Signet of Agility + Sigil of Endurace puts that extra dodge “cooldown” at much lower than 10s, not to mention the increased likelihood of people running BD or Impact further increasing endurance regen. On-demand endurance is easy to come by. On-demand initiative is limited to (equally) steal, RFI which is +1 init/10s and Infil Signet also at +1 init/10s. While no perfect substitute for HS, it comes very close in its effective cooldown, and enables more initiative use for offensive or defensive ability use spread throughout a given fight.

I still stand by my original claim in that people in fact do use both and for good reason: Both dodges are excellent and roughly equally strong assuming OH pistol is played.

Do not forget that the AA on d/X provides +10 endurance per chain. Added to this a person with Staff mastery using staff can generate a whole lot of extra endurance for those bounds each and everytime they use INI.

DeceiverX.8361:

I’ll just reiterate what I responded to to begin with:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

I then broke down why the resources are not a big concern and why people think the tradeoff is good. Even if people personally do not like to use Bound, it has purpose, god players make use of it, and it’s not as resource-hungry kitten many people may initially expect when using good play techniques.

Vin, what you’re not factoring in in respects to extra dodges for stealth is the use of things which grant endurance.

Endurance Thief + CV + Signet of Agility + Sigil of Endurace puts that extra dodge “cooldown” at much lower than 10s, not to mention the increased likelihood of people running BD or Impact further increasing endurance regen. On-demand endurance is easy to come by. On-demand initiative is limited to (equally) steal, RFI which is +1 init/10s and Infil Signet also at +1 init/10s. While no perfect substitute for HS, it comes very close in its effective cooldown, and enables more initiative use for offensive or defensive ability use spread throughout a given fight.

I still stand by my original claim in that people in fact do use both and for good reason: Both dodges are excellent and roughly equally strong assuming OH pistol is played.

Even with all those things factored in while watching someone who uses them, I still see the wastefulness of it when Bound in used to go in stealth when using HS makes more sense and D/P has always been effective even without Bound. The Endurance regen doesn’t really explains the pick of Bound over Dash. The only real difference is that Bound grants 10% dmg (and maybe deal damage when lucky) while Dash prevents 10% damage (besides the fact that it’s hard to CC).

The videos surely shows that Bound look good, but you can also see in those videos that those who they are fighting doesn’t really know how to fight against a Thief. They dump conditions on the Thief and allow the Thief to cleanse them by auto-attacking. The Bounding Thief relies on players like this to survive, but against good players, they will watch the Thief DoT to death by completely denying the Thief of cleanse and covering their conditions with weaker ones.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

DeceiverX.8361:

I’ll just reiterate what I responded to to begin with:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

I then broke down why the resources are not a big concern and why people think the tradeoff is good. Even if people personally do not like to use Bound, it has purpose, god players make use of it, and it’s not as resource-hungry kitten many people may initially expect when using good play techniques.

Vin, what you’re not factoring in in respects to extra dodges for stealth is the use of things which grant endurance.

Endurance Thief + CV + Signet of Agility + Sigil of Endurace puts that extra dodge “cooldown” at much lower than 10s, not to mention the increased likelihood of people running BD or Impact further increasing endurance regen. On-demand endurance is easy to come by. On-demand initiative is limited to (equally) steal, RFI which is +1 init/10s and Infil Signet also at +1 init/10s. While no perfect substitute for HS, it comes very close in its effective cooldown, and enables more initiative use for offensive or defensive ability use spread throughout a given fight.

I still stand by my original claim in that people in fact do use both and for good reason: Both dodges are excellent and roughly equally strong assuming OH pistol is played.

Even with all those things factored in while watching someone who uses them, I still see the wastefulness of it when Bound in used to go in stealth when using HS makes more sense and D/P has always been effective even without Bound. The Endurance regen doesn’t really explains the pick of Bound over Dash. The only real difference is that Bound grants 10% dmg (and maybe deal damage when lucky) while Dash prevents 10% damage (besides the fact that it’s hard to CC).

The videos surely shows that Bound look good, but you can also see in those videos that those who they are fighting doesn’t really know how to fight against a Thief. They dump conditions on the Thief and allow the Thief to cleanse them by auto-attacking. The Bounding Thief relies on players like this to survive, but against good players, they will watch the Thief DoT to death by completely denying the Thief of cleanse and covering their conditions with weaker ones.

You forget the major benefits of bound here I think.
Bound lets you go into stealth safe without the possibility to get interrupted, what is huge. In combination with that you can outstealth for example other thieves extremely easy except when they use SA, even then it can be a draw. I manage to get 5 leaps through black powder by using bound and hs. Having the option between both is valuable and maybe let you get another shadowshot/headshot/more stealth etc.
Together with the damage at the end and damage buff (10% is a lot on thief cause we have many other damage coefficients, scales the damage much higher) bound has a lot to offer.
Sizer used lotus strike mostly for the kiting improvement. People use stuff for less than bound offers.

I still prefer dash most of the time, but sometimes have a lot of fun with bound.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

DeceiverX.8361:

I’ll just reiterate what I responded to to begin with:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

I then broke down why the resources are not a big concern and why people think the tradeoff is good. Even if people personally do not like to use Bound, it has purpose, god players make use of it, and it’s not as resource-hungry kitten many people may initially expect when using good play techniques.

Vin, what you’re not factoring in in respects to extra dodges for stealth is the use of things which grant endurance.

Endurance Thief + CV + Signet of Agility + Sigil of Endurace puts that extra dodge “cooldown” at much lower than 10s, not to mention the increased likelihood of people running BD or Impact further increasing endurance regen. On-demand endurance is easy to come by. On-demand initiative is limited to (equally) steal, RFI which is +1 init/10s and Infil Signet also at +1 init/10s. While no perfect substitute for HS, it comes very close in its effective cooldown, and enables more initiative use for offensive or defensive ability use spread throughout a given fight.

I still stand by my original claim in that people in fact do use both and for good reason: Both dodges are excellent and roughly equally strong assuming OH pistol is played.

Even with all those things factored in while watching someone who uses them, I still see the wastefulness of it when Bound in used to go in stealth when using HS makes more sense and D/P has always been effective even without Bound. The Endurance regen doesn’t really explains the pick of Bound over Dash. The only real difference is that Bound grants 10% dmg (and maybe deal damage when lucky) while Dash prevents 10% damage (besides the fact that it’s hard to CC).

The videos surely shows that Bound look good, but you can also see in those videos that those who they are fighting doesn’t really know how to fight against a Thief. They dump conditions on the Thief and allow the Thief to cleanse them by auto-attacking. The Bounding Thief relies on players like this to survive, but against good players, they will watch the Thief DoT to death by completely denying the Thief of cleanse and covering their conditions with weaker ones.

Do you even thief bruh?

Bound provides a faster uninterruptable method for stealth. The steal, bound, BS combo also out damages the steal, HS, BS combo damage wise as well.

I mean I don’t thief but how do I consistently know more about your so called main??

Sir Vincent III.1286:

DeceiverX.8361:

I’ll just reiterate what I responded to to begin with:

Alatar.7364:

DeceiverX.8361:

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what’s being said here, but the Daredevil can do a ton of damage while dodging via Lotus and Bound.

Nobody uses Bounding Dodger unless he is out of mind. Lotus is the only exception, used only by Condi builds. Unhindered combatant is the only one for 90% of Dardevils

I then broke down why the resources are not a big concern and why people think the tradeoff is good. Even if people personally do not like to use Bound, it has purpose, god players make use of it, and it’s not as resource-hungry kitten many people may initially expect when using good play techniques.

Vin, what you’re not factoring in in respects to extra dodges for stealth is the use of things which grant endurance.

Endurance Thief + CV + Signet of Agility + Sigil of Endurace puts that extra dodge “cooldown” at much lower than 10s, not to mention the increased likelihood of people running BD or Impact further increasing endurance regen. On-demand endurance is easy to come by. On-demand initiative is limited to (equally) steal, RFI which is +1 init/10s and Infil Signet also at +1 init/10s. While no perfect substitute for HS, it comes very close in its effective cooldown, and enables more initiative use for offensive or defensive ability use spread throughout a given fight.

I still stand by my original claim in that people in fact do use both and for good reason: Both dodges are excellent and roughly equally strong assuming OH pistol is played.

Even with all those things factored in while watching someone who uses them, I still see the wastefulness of it when Bound in used to go in stealth when using HS makes more sense and D/P has always been effective even without Bound. The Endurance regen doesn’t really explains the pick of Bound over Dash. The only real difference is that Bound grants 10% dmg (and maybe deal damage when lucky) while Dash prevents 10% damage (besides the fact that it’s hard to CC).

The videos surely shows that Bound look good, but you can also see in those videos that those who they are fighting doesn’t really know how to fight against a Thief. They dump conditions on the Thief and allow the Thief to cleanse them by auto-attacking. The Bounding Thief relies on players like this to survive, but against good players, they will watch the Thief DoT to death by completely denying the Thief of cleanse and covering their conditions with weaker ones.

There’s no convincing you that multiple HS casts don’t make more sense.

Your original argument was based around wasting endurance – the 10s cooldown claim – versus initiative, which are arguably equally-accessible in terms of their effective cooldowns.

Bound doesn’t just look good, though; it works effectively for what it’s designed to do, and it allows for things which simply cannot happen on the core thief, like letting S/P and P/P get sustained stealth access and bump already-high damage. Dash in essence is the old Acro build in a nutshell, while Bound is half-SA half-DA. I think you’re stuck on trying to find the better trait of the two when in all reality it’s heavily matchup and play dependent. You’ll see inherently more Dash players in sPvP due to the mobility bonus it has, while you’ll see a very even split if not favoring Bound these days in WvW where said mobility often doesn’t really matter.

Denying a thief its EA cleansing isn’t unique to bound, either. Frankly, playing to deny EA cleansing is even more significant when against Dash players since cover conditions like Cripple/Chill will be cleansed allowing EA to proc more DoT effects, while Bound players can still be overwhelmed with relative ease.

>>The videos surely shows that Bound look good, but you can also see in those videos that those who they are fighting doesn’t really know how to fight against a Thief. They dump conditions on the Thief and allow the Thief to cleanse them by auto-attacking.

You are referring to a specific build. There are other ways of traiting Condition cleanses outside of EA and in fact a number of DD users take PI over EA in any case and are not “shut down” cleansing wise.

Many take the acro line. Here one can gain swiftness on dodge, trait to remove poison bleeding burning and torment while gaining regen , take GI if they wished for a targetted removal of any of slow , vuln. confusion and weakness , and take extra immob removal with Dont stop which also lessons the effects of cripple and chill.

If I have that build and someone loads conditions on me, I will welcome him standing aside so as to cleanse them even as i do damage to him.

In such a build UC adds little . Staff already has Immob breaks so that on UC does not help a lot. Acro gives swiftness so more is redundant . Even not using staff there the immob break on dont stop that costs neither Ini or endurance so all one is gaining on the UC is cripple and chill removal along with that 10 percent damage mitigation.

I use both purity /generoisty sigils on my staff in a staff p/p build as it allows condition removal even as I attack. In theory you can add these sigils to a weaponset and remove two conditions every 10 seconds with a bound on d/p.

DeceiverX.8361:

kash.9213:

Some people like particle effects, some people like animations. It’s a build like any other, would you rather play lazer tag all day?

Like real-life legitimate Laser tag? Hell yea I would. It’s too cost-prohibitive to do that, though.

Yeah the cost of alcohol beverages really add up….

Zero Day.2594:

DeceiverX.8361:

kash.9213:

Some people like particle effects, some people like animations. It’s a build like any other, would you rather play lazer tag all day?

Like real-life legitimate Laser tag? Hell yea I would. It’s too cost-prohibitive to do that, though.

Yeah the cost of alcohol beverages really add up….

Wouldn’t know; I don’t drink.

The Laser tag place nearby charges like $20 a match, though.

DeceiverX.8361:

Zero Day.2594:

DeceiverX.8361:

kash.9213:

Some people like particle effects, some people like animations. It’s a build like any other, would you rather play lazer tag all day?

Like real-life legitimate Laser tag? Hell yea I would. It’s too cost-prohibitive to do that, though.

Yeah the cost of alcohol beverages really add up….

Wouldn’t know; I don’t drink.

The Laser tag place nearby charges like $20 a match, though.

Yeah that’s pricey on it’s own.

So, I don’t really play PvP/WvW. Help me out here. Isn’t a staff thief’s big thing vault/bound spam? I mean, these moves do a lot of damage and the window you have to land a hit is very small due to all of the evades. But they are also telegraphed moves that are much harder to land against targets that aren’t rushing in, right?

I feel like there’s an opportunity there, but again I don’t PvP so maybe I’m missing something.

A thief’s thing is supposed to be:

WVW
*Roaming,

• Steal camps,
• Take out Roamers
• Take out Scouts
• In a Zerg their roll is to make the Zerg Stealthy.
• This has been taken away from them over the years. little by little

PVP

• Steal Objectives
• Kill quickly and then get out.
• Decap
• Kill Lords
• This has also been taken away form Them. (I main a warrior so i wont say “us”)

DeceiverX.8361:

There’s no convincing you that multiple HS casts don’t make more sense.

Your original argument was based around wasting endurance – the 10s cooldown claim – versus initiative, which are arguably equally-accessible in terms of their effective cooldowns.

Bound doesn’t just look good, though; it works effectively for what it’s designed to do, and it allows for things which simply cannot happen on the core thief, like letting S/P and P/P get sustained stealth access and bump already-high damage. Dash in essence is the old Acro build in a nutshell, while Bound is half-SA half-DA. I think you’re stuck on trying to find the better trait of the two when in all reality it’s heavily matchup and play dependent. You’ll see inherently more Dash players in sPvP due to the mobility bonus it has, while you’ll see a very even split if not favoring Bound these days in WvW where said mobility often doesn’t really matter.

S/P and P/P is not the topic here, it’d D/P using Bound. As I’ve already mentioned, Bound only look good against bad players who don’t know to fight against a Bounding Thief. Condition damage and CC kills Bounding Thieves really easy since if they cannot evade an attack, they cannot cleanse, which forcing them to use a long CD cleanse — after that they die.

Denying a thief its EA cleansing isn’t unique to bound, either. Frankly, playing to deny EA cleansing is even more significant when against Dash players since cover conditions like Cripple/Chill will be cleansed allowing EA to proc more DoT effects, while Bound players can still be overwhelmed with relative ease.

The real difference is, if a Bounder is immobilized, they are sitting duck while they are loaded with conditions. A Dasher can dodge out of immob and evade whatever other attacks coming in after that and any conditions already on the Dasher will be resisted dealing 10% less damage, while the Bounder will take full damage.

The bottom line is that D/P doesn’t need Bound to be effective, it just makes D/P more gimmicky.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

DeceiverX.8361:

There’s no convincing you that multiple HS casts don’t make more sense.

Your original argument was based around wasting endurance – the 10s cooldown claim – versus initiative, which are arguably equally-accessible in terms of their effective cooldowns.

Bound doesn’t just look good, though; it works effectively for what it’s designed to do, and it allows for things which simply cannot happen on the core thief, like letting S/P and P/P get sustained stealth access and bump already-high damage. Dash in essence is the old Acro build in a nutshell, while Bound is half-SA half-DA. I think you’re stuck on trying to find the better trait of the two when in all reality it’s heavily matchup and play dependent. You’ll see inherently more Dash players in sPvP due to the mobility bonus it has, while you’ll see a very even split if not favoring Bound these days in WvW where said mobility often doesn’t really matter.

S/P and P/P is not the topic here, it’d D/P using Bound. As I’ve already mentioned, Bound only look good against bad players who don’t know to fight against a Bounding Thief. Condition damage and CC kills Bounding Thieves really easy since if they cannot evade an attack, they cannot cleanse, which forcing them to use a long CD cleanse — after that they die.

Denying a thief its EA cleansing isn’t unique to bound, either. Frankly, playing to deny EA cleansing is even more significant when against Dash players since cover conditions like Cripple/Chill will be cleansed allowing EA to proc more DoT effects, while Bound players can still be overwhelmed with relative ease.

The real difference is, if a Bounder is immobilized, they are sitting duck while they are loaded with conditions. A Dasher can dodge out of immob and evade whatever other attacks coming in after that and any conditions already on the Dasher will be resisted dealing 10% less damage, while the Bounder will take full damage.

The bottom line is that D/P doesn’t need Bound to be effective, it just makes D/P more gimmicky.

I don’t really disagree with anything you said, but i should point out that the thread topic is actually the dodge spam meta. (this includes both bound and Lotus span regardless of what the initial post says. Neither are really meta however.

emkelly.2371:

I don’t really disagree with anything you said, but i should point out that the thread topic is actually the dodge spam meta. (this includes both bound and Lotus span regardless of what the initial post says. Neither are really meta however.

The topic is about nerfing the dodge spam meta blaming Acro for it. The discussion is now about whether it is actually Acro to blame or is it DD? Sure you can dodge spam any of the 3 DD dodges, but which of these dodges is the source of the frustration. I argue that the source of frustration is Dash since it has a very effective counter-vs-counter ability. While Lotus and Bound can be immob and CC’d, which makes them balance in their own sense (IMO, Lotus and Bound is even underpowered compared to Dash). So there will be a nerfed, will it be Dash or the other two, or would it be Acro?

IMO, I want to make a lot of changes, as you can read here, but there should not be any nerf, in fact, both Bound and Lotus should grant +15% damage boost just to keep it even with Dash’s damage reduction. My reason is, a P/P using Bound attacking a Dasher, the Dasher will reduce both damage (physical and condition) effectively a 20% damage reduction while Bound only grants 10%. For the same cost, Dash is more efficient than Bound, that is why it doesn’t make sense to me to waste endurance using Bound for leap finish.

In a sense, this discussion just invalidated the premise of the topic. Thief doesn’t need to be nerfed, it actually need a buff so that using Bound (or Lotus) will make sense even if it used just for a leap finish. So now you see the point I’m getting at.