Guild Wars 2

So we moved your initiative to healing trait to grandmaster and improved its scalling from a stat you don’t use.

Oxygen.5918:

So we moved your initiative to healing trait to grandmaster and improved its scalling from a stat you don’t use.

And the improved scaling works out to 1 additional health per init spent for each 100 Healing power you have. When you take into account the fact that the absolute lowest health a 30 Acro thief can have is ~13800, the “buff” was mathematically insignificant.

I can’t understand how a mathematically insignificant increase to the contribution of a stat thieves don’t have the luxury of taking if they want to be effective could be considered a buff.

Are there any Acrobatics thieves that don’t have at least some investment in Critical Strikes? Spend a trait slot on the newly-upgraded Practiced Tolerance. I get about ~1400-1500 extra health out of it, depending; not bad for an Adept.

Interceptor.2653:

Are there any Acrobatics thieves that don’t have at least some investment in Critical Strikes? Spend a trait slot on the newly-upgraded Practiced Tolerance. I get about ~1400-1500 extra health out of it, depending; not bad for an Adept.

What does that have to do with OP’s statement?

How good practiced tolerance is has no impact on how ineffective the Assassin’s Reward “buff” was. Since the stated intention of the change to AR was to “improve thief survivability when traited in Acrobatics”, some of us would like it to do so. But you were already aware of this – we had a long conversation about it, recently.

evilapprentice.6379:

What does that have to do with OP’s statement?

It’s a matter of perspective.

If your aim is to complain about AR and HtC, it’s awkward and inconvenient, because most people who spec in Acrobatics are going to have at least 10 points in CS and non-negligible Precision. So in that light, it clearly has nothing to do with the OP, which is mostly about snark and whinging, which I haven’t done.

But if you’re an Acrobatics-spec Thief who is legitimately looking for increased survivability post-patch, I just gave you the solution to your problem, since the 5-7% buff to PT makes it more palatable to sacrifice a little bit of offense at the Adept slot. I swap out Furious Retaliation for this trait situationally now when Acro-specced, whereas before I avoided it entirely.

Oxygen.5918:

from a stat you don’t use.

Maybe you don’t, but I do, and let me say, you are missing out on a lot. You don’t even need a lot, just 2 or so trinkets with healing power and boom couple that with signet of malice and some regen and you are now extremely tanky.

TheAmpca.1753:

Maybe you don’t, but I do, and let me say, you are missing out on a lot. You don’t even need a lot, just 2 or so trinkets with healing power and boom couple that with signet of malice and some regen and you are now extremely tanky.

+1 to this. A couple of ascended Cleric’s rings move SoM from 100 → 110, and AR from 69 → 79, increases of 10/14.5% respectively, not to mention what the +136 Toughness does for you (’bout 6% damage reduction on my build). That stuff adds up quickly over the course of a fight.

Actually sticking assassins reward to gm was a nerf for me…

If you think healing power is good, go do the math. My build heals for more than many other “meta” thief builds, and yet it is still one of the worst stats that my build can take. At least precision, which starts off as being valued below than HealPow, benefits from the amount of power I get and can eventually become a very good stat. Healing pretty much just gets worse unless you’re running a build with tons of toughness and little vitality.

I’m lucky because my 10/0/0/30/30 wasn’t technically hurt by the moving of AR, but the patch was definitely a nerf and swapped a good trait for an absolutely godawful one.

Arganthium.5638:

If you think healing power is good, go do the math.

How in the name of Grenth do you “do the math” for healing power’s value versus power/precision? That’s a completely subjective thing, the analysis of which depends entirely on what you’re doing. Not everyone’s ideal is a wombo-combo ’zerker’s build, y’know.

Interceptor.2653:

Arganthium.5638:

If you think healing power is good, go do the math.

How in the name of Grenth do you “do the math” for healing power’s value versus power/precision? That’s a completely subjective thing, the analysis of which depends entirely on what you’re doing. Not everyone’s ideal is a wombo-combo ’zerker’s build, y’know.

Killing is the ultimate utility.

Oxygen.5918:

Killing is the ultimate utility.

And you cannot deal damage when you are dead. Builds are always a balance between DPS and survival, especially in WvW, where glass Thieves are nothing but rallybots for the other team when they go down.

“When buffing Thiefs we are using a different calculator. Just so you know.”

Interceptor.2653:

Oxygen.5918:

Killing is the ultimate utility.

And you cannot deal damage when you are dead. Builds are always a balance between DPS and survival, especially in WvW, where glass Thieves are nothing but rallybots for the other team when they go down.

Actually, Oxygg has the right idea. Builds can be a balance between those two variables, but in order to find the optimal mix, you have to compare the two in terms of amplification. Amplifying your healing might allow you to live 5% longer, but the same amount of power could let you kill 150% faster. Mathematically speaking, situations like this are actually fairly typical; power is virtually always going to be better than HealPow. There’s also something else to consider. You can, theoretically, increase your lifetime indefinitely, and eventually become invincible (not really, but if you could get the stats, that’s what would happen). Yet, what’s the reason to be able to survive an indefinitely or extremely long 1v1, when you could kill faster and still live just as long with a bit less, say, toughness? The net result is that any build can take more defensive stats than necessary, but you can never increase your damage by more than necessary unless you consistently hit for more damage than your opponents have health, which is a much rarer situation.

You could also just as easily argue that glass thieves are good for downing opponents and thereby rallying allies.

When it comes down to it, the game has to favor offense, even if only slightly, because if it didn’t, then games would go on forever and no one would die.

They got rid of dedicated healers for a good reason.

Defense should take as much skill, however, to use as offense.

Passive defense – Toughness, Armor, automatic condition removal (like some signets) are just stat stacking.

Active defenses, like skills that block or reflect, are much more interesting because they require the player’s attention to be effective, and can be countered in the same manner (for example, when someone is blocking, the correct response is to not attack them – a win for the blocking player in a sense, as he’s not getting attacked, although it’s always better for you if your opponent wastes a powerful attack while you’re blocking).

This kind of active defense is the kind I prefer – anyone can whip out a calculator and figure out the optimal amount of passive defense that can make fighting you annoying.

While the game probably has to have some level of passive defense (you need something to mitigate a little damage while you’re attacking, else everyone gets one shotted) – I wish they’d lean more heavily towards active defenses.

In fact, they kinda did, with the entire dodge mechanic.

Now, let’s convince Anet to continue tweaking the game in that direction – let’s open up more options for customizing your dodge roll – let’s go far beyond Vigor (and I guess the occasional “gain back half your endurance” or whatever) and put lots more traits, runes, and sigil effects that make everyone’s dodge work a little differently.

Hell, Shield wielders could have a trait (or a sigil) that turns the Dodge roll into an active Block.

Sword wielders could have the same thing – only it’s a Parry.

There are so many possibilities for making the game more active in defense, but I bet Anet is far too cautious to go this route. They will “play it safe” an go with endless balance patches to tweak numbers like Toughness and Vitality and Healing Power.

Make the game more engaging.

Arganthium.5638:

Actually, Oxygg has the right idea. Builds can be a balance between those two variables, but in order to find the optimal mix, you have to compare the two in terms of amplification. Amplifying your healing might allow you to live 5% longer, but the same amount of power could let you kill 150% faster. Mathematically speaking, situations like this are actually fairly typical; power is virtually always going to be better than HealPow.

Guild Wars does not take place on an Excel spreadsheet. If your measure of a stat’s worth revolves around what happens in a controlled 1v1 duel, I’d advise that you look at what happens in practice, because it’s quite different.

In reality, fights are messy. You may be fighting multiple people at once, getting hit from places you can’t see, ambushed, etc. A perfectly coiffed optimal-DPS build might wreck the golems in the Heart of the Mists, but one mistake or errant stun in WvW turns that into a liability for your realm.

I can take a wombo-combo Mug->Backstab->HS/CnD and live to tell about it, because I’m not glassy and will therefore have time to react. I can walk into an upgraded Supply Camp and flatten the thing by myself, and have full health during the whole fight just in case someone drops in to play. I can pick up a friend and wipe out a Tower, tanking the Lord myself. I can jump on a ram in an emergency and take arrows to the face if someone had to back off under fire. I can run up to a downed enemy in a free-for-all, throw down a Black Powder, and stomp them without worrying about incidental AOE damage taking me down while I’m defenseless.

And all the while, I maintain enough damage to shadowstep over to that ‘zerker caster on the edge of a fight, and blow them away with a bread-n-butter combo. That’s what a balanced build can do in WvW. People who carefully use secondary statistics to eliminate edge cases can handle a lot more situations.

And from a non-Thief perspective, battles of attrition are how smaller forces defeat larger ones. A coordinated group with heals, boons, and synergistic combo fields can hold out against a lot of firepower because of player AOE limits and their innate sustain. Groups like that feed on the glassy ‘zerker targets, because they go down even under limited DPS. Since nobody is rallying easily off of a bunker knot, that means either 1) the glass damage contribution is lost, since they die, or 2) the glass DPS endangers his/her team that’s trying to pick them up.

You could also just as easily argue that glass thieves are good for downing opponents and thereby rallying allies.

Not a solid argument. They aren’t that much better at it than Thieves with a little bit more survivability.

@Interceptor

It all depends upon whether certain thresholds are reached.

For illustrative example, if you have two teams, one well rounded, and one completely glass, it’s possible the glass team will mop the floor with the well rounded team, if they can down the entire team in the first volley/exchange – basically, before the ‘roundedness’ has time to kick in.

This is why ranged glass has always been so hard to deal with in an MMO – by going ranged, you get to strike first, and by going glass you attempt to drop everyone with FF’ing before they can anything.

Every game attempts to do something about this, the question is, how well?

In a 5v5 game, where 5 are 100% ranged glass builds, against 5 who are mixed ranged/melee, DPS/survivability, focus firing might be able to take down the most dangerous members of that team (the one with the most DPS) before the accumulative bonuses of being well rounded have time to manifest.

When this happens, the whole game will gravitate towards those builds (as it appears sometimes to happen here – all I seem to hear about is ’zerker this and ’zerker that).

It all comes down to how those thresholds are reached.

Interceptor.2653:

[snip]

Life doesn’t happen on a piece of paper either, and yet somehow there are certain rules that everything seems to follow. This is no different from GW2, and thus it is possible to make accurate predictions about a variety of subjects.

A 150% damage amplifier in a 1v1 is still, on average, a 150% damage amplifier in a 1v500, as long as you don’t spend lots of time picking out individual targets, or something to that effect.

Your sad little examples are all well and good, but they still fail in two respects: one, that your examples don’t show that “secondary stats” are superior to primary ones of their same type (ie HealPow vs vitality and toughness), and 2) you’re making assumptions that I am, by necessity, suggesting that people only go for zerker stats, for example. A “perfect DPS build” does not mean that you’re going to take only offensive stats, per se; in fact, theoretically speaking, in a perfectly balanced game, the highest damage over time that you are going to do is generally going to require an equally large amount of defensive buildup as offensive buildup. However, my post was an indirect response to your assumption that HealPow cannot be compared to power and precision. And, in this regard, objectively speaking, for the vast majority of builds, nearly every stat with an accurately quantifiable effect (power, prec, crit dam, condi dam, condi due [not always], vitality, toughness, and HealPow) is completely superior to Healing Power.

That was my initial point that you seem to have twisted and turned into my saying that apparently zerker stats are theoretically superior to defensive ones. That is not the case; if you look at some of my earlier theorycrafting, in fact, I was a huge advocate of PVT gear before I took a less dogmatic stance and chose to start comparing between classes rather than comparing the thief to itself.

Oxygg’s point is the one that bridges the gap between defensive stats and offensive ones. Being “well balanced” does not necessarily imply mathematical superiority, especially in the more “modernized” view of mathematical theorycrafting. In fact, for thief, being well balanced as far as stats go, in the current meta, is simply going to make you a less effective warrior. You instead need to utilize initiative and mobility by making fights last shorter periods of time (initiative used more effectively, mobility used to maintain your flexibility while restricting your opponent’s, though you are only able to do so for a limited period of time). That is, however, besides the point.

So whether I’m speaking from the more dogmatic, purely mathematical point of view, or from the cross-profession point of view, the answer is still objectively the same: HealPow is a terrible stat that does very little for you compared to most other stats.

Also, I’m from ET, one of the most underpopulated servers in NA. If that was how we fought, we’d be even worse off than we are right now. As a long-time chess devotee and member of the USCF… We go for the quickest kill and/or the largest advantage.

Healing power’s effectiveness, unlike that of every other stat but power (however, this one is largely done better) is left up to the whim of the first designer to come by and to slap a scalling onto a skill. If healing power provided a % increase to all outgoing healing, then it may be worth considering. But as long as travesties such as a 0.033 scalling on leeching venoms (to state one gross example) exist, it’ll continue to be overshadowed by everything else. Cutting your power by 900 would never be worth 900 healing power in increased “survivability”, even if you ran every healing thing in the book.

ipan.4356:

For illustrative example, if you have two teams, one well rounded, and one completely glass, it’s possible the glass team will mop the floor with the well rounded team, if they can down the entire team in the first volley/exchange – basically, before the ‘roundedness’ has time to kick in.

That’s fair, but the 5v5 example is mostly structured PvP matches, and “well-rounded” is a fairly ambiguous designation. Also, things like Aegis and Protection really complicate matters from the standpoint of “down people on the first exchange”. The spillover point depends on your “threshold”.

But I don’t like talking about such a small part of GW2 in the first place. PvP is very nearly an entirely different game from PvE and WvW.

Arganthium.5638:

Interceptor.2653:

[snip]

Your sad little examples […]

Do you talk like this to people in real life?

Oxygen.5918:

Cutting your power by 900 would never be worth 900 healing power in increased “survivability”, even if you ran every healing thing in the book.

Nobody is making this argument. Who are you refuting? Someone suggested swapping out two trinkets, not changing your whole suit into Cleric’s. A couple hundred healing power does actually make a difference someone would care about, without necessarily adulterating your DPS to “wet noodle” levels.

There is a down side to all this “active defense”. As much as I like active defense, it trivializes passive defense to the point that “go zerk or go home”.

My other problem with active defense is that they don’t have “variables”. A 3 sec block on a bunker has the same effect on a glass. Prot on a class with 2k def does the same on another class with 2k def.

Here’s a thought on active defense. What if active defense was different per build/class or was stat dependent.

Example:
prot: vit increases mitigation by vit x some coefficient
Healing dealt increases by healing power, healing received increases by vit
increase evasion frames by prec x some coefficient secs

This also ties into some of the thief’s problems. Thief defense is mostly (if not all) active defense. And most (if not all) of this active defense is visibility be it invisibility or shadow stepping out of line of sight. These things have nothing when you have to man up and take a knee to the groin (which is why I love shooting thieves on my warrior). This is why people defending stealth say it won’t save your from damage (which is true).

If you go by the word’s definition, mitigate basically means to lessen. The only things that do that really, are def and prot (and thieves don’t have access to prot leaving only armor).

A thief will eventually get hit.

Honestly, I faced a P/D thief on my pu zerker mesmer. The duel lasted hours and I realized I don’t deal enough damage to kill this thief. After a long drawn out duel he interrupted my healing skill by swapping to d/p and killed me. I don’t wan’t to hear about thief sustain. I want more damage and less thief sustain. Shadow of refuge(ing) or stealthing to full hp is getting out of hand.

The changes to Acrobatics honestly did nothing for survival and just made build diversity even lower.

Zelulose.8695:

Honestly, I faced a P/D thief on my pu zerker mesmer. The duel lasted hours and I realized I don’t deal enough damage to kill this thief. After a long drawn out duel he interrupted my healing skill by swapping to d/p and killed me. I don’t wan’t to hear about thief sustain. I want more damage and less thief sustain. Shadow of refuge(ing) or stealthing to full hp is getting out of hand.

He adapted to you, found a weakness and beat you on skill. Now you call for class nerfs. Typical.

frans.8092:

Zelulose.8695:

Honestly, I faced a P/D thief on my pu zerker mesmer. The duel lasted hours and I realized I don’t deal enough damage to kill this thief. After a long drawn out duel he interrupted my healing skill by swapping to d/p and killed me. I don’t wan’t to hear about thief sustain. I want more damage and less thief sustain. Shadow of refuge(ing) or stealthing to full hp is getting out of hand.

He adapted to you, found a weakness and beat you on skill. Now you call for class nerfs. Typical.

I’m calling for a dps buff and CD so thiefs can still kill but they cant spam. And fyi, if a zerker mesmer is being tanked for 10 minutes somethings wrong. I tested many builds and I was left with a choice. (Die or grab a bunker and stale mate.) Even worse. it was the same routine over and over. Blind-terrror-bleed-stealth-bleed (repat) with no CD. When hp reaches 50% stealth till 90% + Id rather lose to a thief after 20 secs or less than have to realize I can’t kill him within 10 minutes and give up.

Believe me I have plenty of complaints for mesmer/necro/ranger because they all use pets to do their work while the actual character is only worried about staying alive for the most part. This thief is just another thing that needs to be addressed in addition.

I’ve played an evasive thief for at least 6 months now. I’ve been doing 30 acro, 30 trickery with s/d and sb. Compare this to the standard 30crit 30stealth and I have subpar damage and subpar surviveability, but I did get alot of swiftness. My irk is that the stealth thief is atm the only good standard build. The evasive thief should be as effective but is very much not. Also, venoms and traps builds are still mostly ineffective comparative to stealth/ instagib. To be honest, I am the only thief I ever see in WvW that is not a stealth instagib type and that is because no other builds even come close.

nalovas.5961:

I’ve played an evasive thief for at least 6 months now. I’ve been doing 30 acro, 30 trickery with s/d and sb. Compare this to the standard 30crit 30stealth and I have subpar damage and subpar surviveability, but I did get alot of swiftness. My irk is that the stealth thief is atm the only good standard build. The evasive thief should be as effective but is very much not. Also, venoms and traps builds are still mostly ineffective comparative to stealth/ instagib. To be honest, I am the only thief I ever see in WvW that is not a stealth instagib type and that is because no other builds even come close.

And that’s why I want to see more damage and less spamming of stealth and initiative skills. This will reward a thief who strategically hits rather than a repeat cycle.

Zelulose.8695:

nalovas.5961:

I’ve played an evasive thief for at least 6 months now. I’ve been doing 30 acro, 30 trickery with s/d and sb. Compare this to the standard 30crit 30stealth and I have subpar damage and subpar surviveability, but I did get alot of swiftness. My irk is that the stealth thief is atm the only good standard build. The evasive thief should be as effective but is very much not. Also, venoms and traps builds are still mostly ineffective comparative to stealth/ instagib. To be honest, I am the only thief I ever see in WvW that is not a stealth instagib type and that is because no other builds even come close.

And that’s why I want to see more damage and less spamming of stealth and initiative skills. This will reward a thief who strategically hits rather than a repeat cycle.

Oh yea, that’s another point I’d forgotten. The new initiative return is great but some skills aren’t spammable so it only really helps certain skills (d/d 2 or offhand d 4). I have been playing s/d and while my squishy body is in melee I hit 3… wait… 3… for larcenous strike. The wait is so slow now that 3 is two different skills. INIT RETURNING QUICKLY DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU CANNOT USE IT WHEN IT’S NEEDED.

Forgive my shortsightedness but does this init buff really mostly buff the d/p 2 spammers?

Zelulose.8695:

Honestly, I faced a P/D thief on my pu zerker mesmer…

Then your problem is not thief but dire gear. P/D is a bleed spec, it sacrificies direct damage for attrition and survival. What is wrong with a char geared for tough/vit surviving longer than a berserker…? With a “normal” crit builded thief the duel would have been quicker.

@ Interceptor:

I can take a wombo-combo Mug→Backstab→HS/CnD

do you really play thief? what you said makes no sense unless you trait for stealth on steal (which is absolutely crap) and do not take other defensive traits which REALLY boost your surv (like blind , rejuvenation and condi remove).

acrobatics above 15 is waste in wvw.

Zelulose.8695:

I’m calling for a dps buff and CD so thiefs can still kill but they cant spam.

Spam? He interrupted your heal, hows that spam? You fought, you made a mistake, you lost the fight. It’s sad that you react like you do.

And fyi, if a zerker mesmer is being tanked for 10 minutes somethings wrong.

You failed to burst him down, that is your failure. A condition build like P/D works slowly and must be build to last long, otherwise it would not be viable at all. Take away it’s tankiness and the thief dies before he can hurt anyone.

I tested many builds and I was left with a choice. (Die or grab a bunker and stale mate.)

No builds exist that have no counters, you choose your build and met your counter, it’s that simple. Maybe a tweaking your build, or changing tactics, can give you a better chance but instead you are asking is that ANet makes it so no build can resist yours.

Even worse. it was the same routine over and over. Blind-terrror-bleed-stealth-bleed (repat) with no CD.

There is a cooldown, revealed prevents stealth after Sneak Attack and the cost of C&D effectivily puts the cycle on a 5-6 second cooldown.
There’s (a) 3 seconds of revealed and (b) it requires C&D to successfully land. Not preventing his C&D to land is your problem. And yes, this is l2p as some players can make it very hard to get a C&D to land on them.

When hp reaches 50% stealth till 90% + Id rather lose to a thief after 20 secs or less than have to realize I can’t kill him within 10 minutes and give up.

That is part of the game. I’ve fought guardians – and mesmers- that I couldn’t hurt, though some of them couldn’t hurt me either.

Believe me I have plenty of complaints for mesmer/necro/ranger because they all use pets to do their work while the actual character is only worried about staying alive for the most part. This thief is just another thing that needs to be addressed in addition.

How is the sorry state of ranger pets a reason to nerf Thieves? That is a rather awkward reasoning from you. I’ve seen some pretty strong uses of Mesmer clones though.

Interceptor.2653:

Oxygen.5918:

Cutting your power by 900 would never be worth 900 healing power in increased “survivability”, even if you ran every healing thing in the book.

Nobody is making this argument. Who are you refuting? Someone suggested swapping out two trinkets, not changing your whole suit into Cleric’s. A couple hundred healing power does actually make a difference someone would care about, without necessarily adulterating your DPS to “wet noodle” levels.

You sacrifice something for this “couple hundred”. At what point do you stop? Did you arbitrarily chose? Did you calculate the average player’s burst, and then conclude that X amount of healing would keep you alive through it, while any less wouldn’t allow you to escape, survive, or reset the fight? No? Then your point is rather invalid, now isn’kitten

If you want survival and support you spec into Shadow Arts and Trickery.

Oxygen.5918:

You sacrifice something for this “couple hundred”. At what point do you stop?

It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. A couple hundred on a build with SoM and AR is going to have a lot of staying power; you can stop there (or earlier) if it fills your needs. I can usually get by without since I have ~2400 Armor generally, but I do carry food with Healing Power on it, for those times when I am in a long engagement where there won’t be a lot of opportunities to disengage or heal fully.

I mean, for kitten’s sake, anyone here who has 30 SA has 300 Healing Power in their build. True story.

Domey.9804:

do you really play thief? what you said makes no sense unless you trait for stealth on steal (which is absolutely crap) and do not take other defensive traits which REALLY boost your surv (like blind , rejuvenation and condi remove).

Why are you lecturing me about someone else’s build? Those thieves exist in WvW, and they sacrifice survival to get the OHKO. They can’t kill me with it, because I am not glass. They will feast on someone who has cruddy health and Armor, though.

Anyway, you don’t need stealth on steal to get off a backstab. You can just stealth beforehand. A simple Black Powder + Heartseeker combo will do it; you don’t even need to use a utility slot for it.

acrobatics above 15 is waste in wvw.

Nonsense. Pain Response is really good for WvW, and the bonus damage from Fluid Strikes at 25 points is also pretty useful.

oh i know that nobody needs stealth on steal trait. just that “strange” combo confused me a little.
pain response is more like “ok”.the only viable choice for master as its the only condi cleanse in acro. evry traitline has bonus dmg on 25…all are good. acrobatics offers nothing for defense SA couldnt do better , except dodges (acro 15).

Domey.9804:

pain response is more like “ok”.the only viable choice for master as its the only condi cleanse in acro. evry traitline has bonus dmg on 25…all are good. acrobatics offers nothing for defense SA couldnt do better , except dodges (acro 15).

Yeah, but Feline Grace is more than just a throwaway investment: it’s a really good skill. And once you are already 15 points invested in Acrobatics, it only costs 10 points to get to Fluid Strikes, and you might as well take Pain Response on the way. Shadow Arts does not have a 10% damage boost skill, and 2 stacks of Might on stealth does not begin to come close to replacing that.

Interceptor.2653:

Domey.9804:

pain response is more like “ok”.the only viable choice for master as its the only condi cleanse in acro. evry traitline has bonus dmg on 25…all are good. acrobatics offers nothing for defense SA couldnt do better , except dodges (acro 15).

Yeah, but Feline Grace is more than just a throwaway investment: it’s a really good skill. And once you are already 15 points invested in Acrobatics, it only costs 10 points to get to Fluid Strikes, and you might as well take Pain Response on the way. Shadow Arts does not have a 10% damage boost skill, and 2 stacks of Might on stealth does not begin to come close to replacing that.

Actually for about 2k power, 6 stacks of might is a 10% increase. If you’re in and out of stealth it’s pretty easy to maintain that, but it really depends on your playstyle.

Maugetarr.6823:

Actually for about 2k power, 6 stacks of might is a 10% increase. If you’re in and out of stealth it’s pretty easy to maintain that, but it really depends on your playstyle.

As you implied, it’s not really the same thing. Stealthed windows are also time when you aren’t doing power-based damage. Another complication is that Fluid Strikes is literally set up by Power of Inertia, if you’re running it, which is half the Might but for longer (because of boon duration).

Interceptor.2653:

Maugetarr.6823:

Actually for about 2k power, 6 stacks of might is a 10% increase. If you’re in and out of stealth it’s pretty easy to maintain that, but it really depends on your playstyle.

As you implied, it’s not really the same thing. Stealthed windows are also time when you aren’t doing power-based damage. Another complication is that Fluid Strikes is literally set up by Power of Inertia, if you’re running it, which is half the Might but for longer (because of boon duration).

Well after the nerf to VR I’ve been using PoI in addition to HA along with FG and travelers runes so I have +25% boon duration. With the 3 combined I’ve stacked anywhere from 8-11 stacks. If acro had more dependable condi clear I probably would go 0/30/15/25/0 instead of 0/30/25/15/0. It really comes down to playstyle in the end.

Nobody ever mentions Quick Pockets… it’s only an effective +30% init regen, I suppose, and they nerfed the only other decent init regen traits into worthless POS, forget-about-it.

It couldn’t possibly be that good… then the never-go→15 Acro dogma would be false, and those preaching it noobs. No way.

Docherty.8372:

Nobody ever mentions Quick Pockets… it’s only an effective +30% init regen, I suppose, and they nerfed the only other decent init regen traits into worthless POS, forget-about-it.

It couldn’t possibly be that good… then the never-go->15 Acro dogma would be false, and those preaching it noobs. No way.

Quick Pockets is only good when you’re using the same or very nearly the same (ie D/D and D/P) weapon sets as your primary and secondary. Otherwise, there’s a large incentive conflict where you either have to swap to an inferior weapon set for a given situation or you’ll waste at least 5 trait points that you spent to get a GM major trait. That’s why QP is good for Jumper’s build, but not for Lady Nag Nag’s or my own.

I do, however, have to agree that this widespread and extremely dogmatic belief about how far you can go into Acro in WvW is, quite honestly, ridiculous…

Arganthium.5638:

Quick Pockets is only good when you’re using the same or very nearly the same (ie D/D and D/P) weapon sets as your primary and secondary. Otherwise, there’s a large incentive conflict where you either have to swap to an inferior weapon set for a given situation or you’ll waste at least 5 trait points that you spent to get a GM major trait. That’s why QP is good for Jumper’s build, but not for Lady Nag Nag’s or my own.

Good point. Without being argumentative about it (I dunno about these builds you mention), I’d suggest it’s very very strong, good enough Thieves everywhere should think carefully about whether they could gain from putting that shortbow into the backpack and manually switching it back in when it might become useful again – like tower defense, or dungeons.

The synergy with on-swap Sigils is delicious, particularly Sigils of Battle – did you guys know, that for a 30 Acro with 95% boon duration (with runes+food), the Might stacks last 39 seconds? Three every ten seconds (+3 init), with Power of Inertia (29 seconds) you can cap stacks and sustain them… if you got perma-Vigor by going deep into Trickery, gravy.

Just food for thought, since people were talking about Might stacks.

On second thought – let’s go back to ignoring Quick Pockets, before I get nerfed again.

nobody said you cant go deeper than 15 into acro. i just said you dont get much more defense above 15 and SA does it better, at least in wvw where you can stealth as much as you want.

Docherty.8372:

Without being argumentative about it (I dunno about these builds you mention), I’d suggest it’s very very strong, good enough Thieves everywhere should think carefully about whether they could gain from putting that shortbow into the backpack and manually switching it back in when it might become useful again – like tower defense, or dungeons.

The synergy with on-swap Sigils is delicious, particularly Sigils of Battle – did you guys know, that for a 30 Acro with 95% boon duration (with runes+food), the Might stacks last 39 seconds? Three every ten seconds (+3 init), with Power of Inertia (29 seconds) you can cap stacks and sustain them… if you got perma-Vigor by going deep into Trickery, gravy.

I’d love to do something like this, but running S/P means that I need my shortbow for actual combat. Right now I run 25 Acro and put the extra 5 points towards 15 Trickery, so that I can more easily use the +10% damage bonus from 25 CS. Sustain in long engagements is becoming difficult without AR, though.

Deep Acro/Trickery for perma Might/Vigor sounds nice, but I don’t know what weaponset would be able to leverage both sides of it. D/D? It’d be a very slippery build, but you’d have to work hard to get damage out it.

Interceptor.2653:

Arganthium.5638:

Interceptor.2653:

[snip]

Your sad little examples […]

Do you talk like this to people in real life?

This was a real question.

Interceptor.2653:

I’d love to do something like this, but running S/P means that I need my shortbow for actual combat.

As a fellow S/P devotee, may I ask why? I can understand it is useful sometimes (towers, zergs etc), but in a duel I’d consider it totally useless (with the exception of Rangers, whose pets assure that they eat double damage from the AA bounce).

If I felt I really had to have a ranged option I use P/D – which has some useful transition combos, such as P2/swap/S2 – which immobs long enough to connect a meaty P/W, makes vulnerable, gap-closes; just swapping from sword in melee and hitting 3 makes for a very fast escape (they added this Torment thingy to it while I was gone, it seems ok?). You get to leverage that condition damage from Trickery effectively too.

I use S/P, S/D – since I love sword so much. They may have nerfed IR into the ground since release (I feel partly to blame), but IS is still amazingly good.

Interceptor.2653:

Deep Acro/Trickery for perma Might/Vigor sounds nice, but I don’t know what weaponset would be able to leverage both sides of it. D/D? It’d be a very slippery build, but you’d have to work hard to get damage out it.

Don’t forget Fury and Swiftness – players are reluctant to give up their CS traits, but tend to not perceive that ultimately the boon-stacker is not surrendering DPS at all, and indeed has higher potential the longer they sustain combat – this is the kicker though – you’re more a slow-burner, it can take 20-30 seconds to build the Might stacks needed to breach the toughest opponents – I think you can choose any weapons, so long as you have an off-hand pistol to interrupt channeled heals/hurty-stuff.

I like: D/P+P/D (arguably bestest, but I like sword better than dagger, or pistol), S/P+S/D, S/P+D/D, S/P+P/D – these are sets which I feel offer really good swap-combos, sustainable combat utility, and enough variety to keep your opponent guessing – for instance: when you roll D/P+P/D, when you go into stealth the opponent will not know whether you will Backstab or Sneak Attack – he can offer a defense against one or the other, but not both. For a swap-combo something like P/D 2 (vuln, immob), swap, D/P 3 (gap-closer, blind), (5, 2, 1 for truckloads of damage which is hard to avoid/counter with the blinds and high-class gap-closers – your higher init pool and burst regen with Quick Pockets enables this high expenditure [sometimes!]).

Being predictable is bad, people have had a long time to figure Thieves out – IMO, if you’re carrying a weapon which you’re reluctant to switch-to in combat you should re-think why it is you’re carrying it around anyway, if it’s such a liability.

Finally, I feel after the nerfs to Quickness and Opportunist (the biggest worst nerf of all, they gutted it like a fish) I can’t find any interest in Critical Strikes, the traits are no good for dueling anymore, and in WvW we build for the traits, not the stats – however much I’d like the extra crit damage.

Interceptor.2653:

Interceptor.2653:

Arganthium.5638:

Interceptor.2653:

[snip]

Your sad little examples […]

Do you talk like this to people in real life?

This was a real question.

Okay, I’ll bite. Yes, I do, as a matter of fact, although I usually prefer the word “pathetic” to make my sentence easier to lather in disgust.

Here’s a question for you- do you try to avoid any sort of remotely sound logic in real life, too? Because after having written out a well thought-out response to your already ridiculous post, the fact that this was your only “counterargument” was simply quite… Pathetic.

Docherty.8372:

As a fellow S/P devotee, may I ask why? I can understand it is useful sometimes (towers, zergs etc), but in a duel I’d consider it totally useless (with the exception of Rangers, whose pets assure that they eat double damage from the AA bounce).

It’s hard to keep someone in range when they don’t want to be there. PW is better post-patch, and IS is good, but other than that a Sword build is vulnerable to being kited. I can compete at range with a Shortbow if it’s necessary, and it sometimes can be.

It’s also useful when I’m in a fight where I have a significant disadvantage; Shortbow #3 allows me to punch above my weight class, if I either need to chip away at someone or wait for a utility skill to come off cooldown. To say nothing of the mobility that #5 offers for travel/escape/chasedown, or access to Poison that’s otherwise absent (I don’t spec DA or use venoms).

I don’t like P/D as an option, here, as fun as Shadow Strike can be.

Don’t forget Fury and Swiftness – players are reluctant to give up their CS traits, but tend to not perceive that ultimately the boon-stacker is not surrendering DPS at all […]

Precision from CS is the Robin in that combination; I can get 14% crit chance from a lot of other places. The bigger punch to the gut is the loss of 30 crit damage, which is harder to replace. Power-based damage on thief really relies on triple-threat of Power/CritChance/CritDmg. Fury and Might only give you two legs of the tripod.

Finally, I feel after the nerfs to Quickness and Opportunist (the biggest worst nerf of all, they gutted it like a fish) I can’t find any interest in Critical Strikes, the traits are no good for dueling anymore, and in WvW we build for the traits, not the stats – however much I’d like the extra crit damage.

I’m intrigued enough to think about finding a way to make it work, but on the surface I’m skeptical that I could make up for the damage loss.

Arganthium.5638:

Yes, I do, as a matter of fact, although I usually prefer the word “pathetic” to make my sentence easier to lather in disgust.

I’m surprised… not that you actually do (which I believe), but that people put up with it. Admittedly this is an assumption on my part. Maybe they don’t!

[…]the fact that this was your only “counterargument” […]

It’s the only one that I posted, at least. I didn’t want to continue unless and until I ascertained whether it was worth it. And it’s not, so that’s the end of that.