Showing Posts For Agnima.3714:
You can play however you want. You don’t have to cave into the perceived mentality that everyone should only use 1 setup. Axe 5 skill is good for tight groups of mobs. Every other warrior ability cleaves up to 3 targets, skill 5 for axe hits up to 5. So when there are more then 3 targets in range it actually starts doing more damage then any other 1 hand ability. Its also good for gaining adrenaline fast.
GS and axe/axe is pretty fun in fights where you don’t have to be range. Since GS gives hundred blades and a few escapes and axe offers crit application with skill 4 and a hard hitting burst skill, its pretty engaging switching it off between the 2 weapon setups.
The only ones really able to get away with full berserker gear and standing in the corner and not getting downed every other special are warriors. I don’t like running full berserker gear in dungeons and I suppose its a blessing for all the other people doing it since after they get downed I am there to bail them out and get them back on their feet. I’ve seen more runs fail from people unable to take the hits then from people being too tanky. Not a single class has infinite dodges available at every moment or no CD heals.
Not saying people need to be rolling wvw tank builds into dungeons, but it really wouldn’t hurt if you put on a few pieces of knights gear, your slightly lower dps would hardly be noticeable in the overall speed of the run. In fact it might speed it up because you weren’t downed by random trash or the occasional boss hit causing your personal dps to drop and at least one other persons to stop completely while they get you back up.
If you are doing it for full on dps you should slowly switch over to condition damage pieces like rampagers for the full effect. S/S benefits more from condition then crit and with the crit damage nerf its very possible you might see an overall boost. You will definitely notice a boost in your bleeds as you switch over and Flurry will actually start feeling like a move that hurts your target then something to immobilize them with
I too also enjoy S/S the best, I also like A/S as well, GS is largly boring after a while, but most of the 1 handed weapon setups offer more options and fun imho. Of course nobody plays this game for fun, its for being the best right. ;P
Liking megaservers and the world boss event changes a lot. World feels more full and with bosses on timers I can hit the majority of them daily which is good for me since I need to gather ecto orbs so I need as many rares as I can get my hands on. No more having to go to major hubs to try and find extra people for the bosses when they come up now you just need to know where to go.
The grouping and guild events are the biggest problem with me. This however could be fixed by adding additional content like a Guild District that players in their guild could warp to from anywhere. Once in the Guild District all the guild events could be triggered from there and then everyone participating could be moved into a living story style map where only your guild is at. Adds the much wanted guild housing and fixes guild mates being separated all over the place when trying to do events.
As far as groups being split up this is probably only really gonna be fixed by working the code a bit to make it so spots are reserved for people in your group even if they aren’t there. Temples kinda need to be fixed a bit since they are defended so often and its impossible now to really tell when you can get in on taking them. Perhaps they need to all be on timers as well and the defense events need to be designed so that when it gets closer to the time to take them they just flat out fail you so people can actually have a time to set for taking the temples instead of hoping nobody defended them.
There are cons but most of them are minor to me in comparison to the pros. Anet just needs to redo how Guild events function first and then work on hammering out how some of the other world events function. These are the 2 biggest ones to me, the rest are mostly personal preference and not all that big really.
(edited by Agnima.3714)
Open world events really should be just zerging. As sad as that may sound its really the only way you can make a fight that everyone can do without having people screwed out of a reward because of harder mechanics being failed by a few people.
Fights requiring strategy and skill to complete SHOULD be instanced since it would be a lot easier to design an encounter for a set number of people that would present a fun challenge then a free for all on a timer. I wouldn’t mind things like instanced guild raids being introduced to provide fights that you and a number of guild mates could work on.
Instanced content is really the only way you could make fair and challenging content that won’t become ignored like Teq or 3 worms are most of the time.
I still like my celestial gear. The crit went down but everything else went up. Divinity and Travelers runes also saw stat buffs in compensation for the inevitable crit nerf which effected anyone wearing gear that had crit damage on it. I never made my Celestial gear for the crit damage, I made it for the hybrid stats.
I like being able to play Jack of all trades/master of none. I have barely noticed a decrease in damage, its there but it doesn’t feel crushing in the least. I’ll still keep it around tyvm.
Is it cost effective, no? Is it convenient to not only have to never switch them out ever again but to not use up bag space on the extra tools you WILL carry with you if you are smart since you continuously run out of charges in the middle of a mining spree, yes. With the copper fed salvage kit and tools I save about 9 or more slots of bag space since I don’t have to carry any extras of those around with me.
Also the newer ones or BoA which means that if you really want you only have to buy 1 of each and then you can transfer them to your favorite character or to a character that you happen to be playing a lot at the moment. If you are poor and can’t cough up the coin to get them then I suppose they aren’t for you.
If you are someone who isn’t afraid or can spend the cash then it is a convenience that will go a long ways. I don’t think they were ever really made to ever yield a return in mind, its just convenient to never have to worry about having enough picks with you or forgetting to get more and running out in mid tap and having to run back to town to get another.
I run a 0/30/0/30/10 healing shouts with full ascended celestial gear in pve. It works, its not the fastest killing spec but its not the squishiest either. The hybrid stats allow me to walk through all the 80 areas and challenge anything or be able to walk away from it. Its plenty fun to and more engaging, feel like I have a use for literally every keybind in every fight.
Berserk GS warriors get old and boring fast. I could literally just keybind thousand blades to every key and smash my face against the keyboard, that is pretty much all you do since the other attacks either move your guy away from your target or hit for just as much as the first skill.
1 hand weapons seem to offer more of a skill set that gets used more often the 2 hander melee ones for warriors. Call it what you will but if I start literally falling asleep from boredom playing what is considered the classes meta by everyone then either I needed to reroll or not play what was considered the only way to play.
I haven’t not once regretted changing from GS to other weapons (I’ve tried all of them for extended times in pve and found them all useful). There is much more to warriors then hitting skill 2 with a GS . Probably why I get compliments on staying alive so much more often the the GS berserk warrior next to me from guild mates. The GS warrior next to me is so bored out of their mind they just don’t pay attention anymore so they have to constantly have their downed kitten picked back up.
Orr is kinda exhausting with it being dead most of the time. Back around release Cursed shore use to have a lot of people roaming but now most people hang around in the lower level areas. Certain classes/setups can solo almost the entire thing for mapping (warriors for example). Softer classes I found it was easier with one more person on the harder to reach areas. Condition damage definitely does better there then direct.
Not only does it bypass their toughness, but you are still damaging them even when you are avoiding hits. Be inventive and play differently then the berserk mentality, its over hyped anyways in many situations
Actually i currently have 72% crit dmg with my ele.
After the patch it’ll be around 50%., That’s a 22% lose in damage. No amount of power/pres/cd/vit/tough could make up for that in pvp terms.
Considering the general rule is max 10% for zerker… it’s far high for celestial user which contains a time BLOCK on crafting.
It’s not a loss of 22% in damage. Unless you literally crit every hit.
I think this is what many people are forgetting, a full celestial geared player will have only a little more then 40% crit without any crit boosts other then traits and only a little more then 50% if they boost with sigils and berserker weapons. That means roughly 50-60% of your attacks on average don’t crit. 6% boost to precision and power also means more crits happen slightly more often and your normal AND crit attacks will hit slightly harder with power. Condition damage will go up so if you are putting out any conditions they will hit slightly harder.
Its also not the ONLY change, 2 hander weapons will get 2 sigil slots, 40 trait point talents, and other changes that haven’t been mentioned yet. Once everything is on the table we might find that everyone including berserker people will be walking away with something new and interesting to play around with. Heck I’m using full celestial on my warrior and while the crit nerf did make me mad a little the 6% boost to everything else actually makes me look forward to it.
(edited by Agnima.3714)
Celestial is probably getting the better end of the deal considering everything with crit on it will be getting nerfed. They didn’t say they were boosting anything on berserker or assassins. So in a sense Celestial is actually getting a buff to overall sustained damage and mitigation values.
Besides Celestial is for those who wish to play hybrid, its value to anyone who only wants to play a pure will always be considered inferior, while anyone who likes to think beyond the dps numbers game will see a higher value for it.
From a design pov the lack of build diversity would be a pretty big long term problem. Things needed/need to change class wise and gear wise to jump start people into thinking of other options. Berserker will still have its place for direct damage king but now it will be easier to bring other builds up.
Granted more changes then just a crit nerf are needed, but they won’t have to be quite as drastic at least now. Its win/win really once people realize they can play more then one way. Diversity will never be a bad thing in an MMO, the lack of it will kill it tho since people will get bored pretty quickly and content updates won’t keep them around for long if they don’t love the way they play.
This isn’t the only change I am sure. This could mean they are actually gonna take stance on trying to improve the other weapons to be more equal to GS and perhaps even make conditions a GOOD form of dps if you choose to go that route in nearly all scenarios.
On paper with the current game, yeah its not good, but I doubt with them redesigning traits they will want their hard work to be worthless and a waste of time for them and the players. Perhaps the days of every warrior being GS clones of each other or indeed every class essentially being expected to be clones of each other are drawing closer to an end. Maybe not with just this patch, but perhaps with enough future ones players will be able to open up to a wider range of game play.
The problem isn’t the lack of a trinity but the lack of creativity on Anets part on making pve and different weapon/class setups equally desirable. Almost everything pve wise is poor mechanics and mob scripts which promotes berserker builds that revolve around a single weapon because when a boss just one shots you anyways unless you move behind a pillar or dodge why get toughness or vitality. Even if the boss does steady damage and almost no special mechanics beserker is still considered best because the boss will typically pick only one character and stick to them anyways.
Probably the best solution mentioned here is the one where dungeons scale based on the overall stats of the group and AI mechanics being redone to be more interesting. Classes need a redesign as well tho, just look at the demo videos for classes that Anet advertised and ask yourself how often you see those weapons or skills used or you use them yourself. Condition damage and group support roles need fixing so that they aren’t being shafted in either dungeons or large scale world events. Game play needs to expand beyond its current form or else the trinity is better simply because of the current form of game play being so restrictive and the trinity offering less restrictions.
Of course this all requires work and with the living story model I don’t expect it being fixed anytime soon. The only way I see anything changing is with expansions since drastic promises of change seem to be much easier to accomplish during expansions then with small updates every few weeks. But who knows when that will happen or if it will.
Knights are too much of a gate to Scarlet now
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Agnima.3714
Can they scale these or something now that they capped them? Its difficult to even have a chance get into the rest of the content even at prime time on my server and pretty much impossible during any other time.
If this is how living story is gonna be with all that build up and then heavy gating at the end then I don’t think I will be staying around for much longer. If you want to make large scale challenging content then put in instance raids already and stop making living story feel like a waste of time after the first 2 days assuming of release to anyone still trying to do it.
Berserker doesn’t need fixing its the rest of the setup for most classes that do. Almost every class has one build that is vastly superior with berserker gear with that one weapon that you have to have equip to make it all work (GS for warriors for example). This leaves the other 90% of weapons considered worthless because they were made for other specs and gear setups that are almost never used because they are considered inferior.
The issue isn’t about berserker being powerful or really instances and one shot mechanics, its about how boring it can really be to just play one spec and one weapon setup in pve. A few months back I was playing only a couple hours a week not because I didn’t have time but because GS warrior in berserker gear with spec was so boring. It was pretty much the same for the other classes as well since there is little change in play style once you figure the class out.
Condition needs to be fixed to actually be an acceptable dps spec and gear setup even if there are multiples in the same run. Tanky specs should provide boosts that would actually be considered good in groups in much larger areas. Its kinda sad looking at some of the group benefits they have being only a melee range benefit. If anything all group buffs provided by dps traits should be removed and given to those that sacrifice their personal dps to increase the effectiveness of the group. Maybe toughness and vitality should have secondary effects like high amounts of toughness have a chance give protection to you and people around you when you are hit.
Otherwise I don’t see world events keeping people playing this game forever. Without variety its just boring. Who honestly wants to be clones of everyone else of the class you play. Its ridiculous that you almost just expect certain classes to be carrying the same weapons and trait setups as the next one.
Dungeons do need to be changed, but not until class setups between traits and weapons/gear are fixed to be equal and desirable to those playing their class and those playing with those people that choose to play how they did. Variety is a good thing and it needs to be more then just having different classes in a group. Other MMO’s have variety working out and not being shunned and it helps people want to stick around since if they get bored then they can just change it up and do something else and still be valuable.
It would be neat if we could change stats on gear with either a vendor charging us gold or say using 2 or 3 bloodstone bars or something. Either that or ascended could be the precursor for the next level which will allow stat changing . Kinda why I am keeping my exotics even if I am crafting out a full set of ascended armor. If I decide I want to play differently for a week or so then I can without having to regather.
Some changes should be done to ascended but I don’t think making it cheaper would be the answer since it would rip off all those people that already worked on their sets. Just add a stat changing vendor that will either take gold or extra ascended mats that just keep building and we would be fine.
Lack of support in more weapons and setups for other classes is 1. This kinda ties into things like supports roles and condition damage being looked down upon because of how it works in pve are 2 and 3 for me. Its really really really boring that every class basically only really has 1 weapon they are suppose to use. Like all warriors are suppose to be using GS and that is it or engineers are only good if they are using nades.
This kinda ties into support and condition since some weapons were obviously intended for those roles but because of how they end up working in pve and with everyone only wanting berserker armor only one weapon typically shines for each class. The answer isn’t to nerf berserker into oblivion but to make support and condition work better and be desirable.
This would require trait, weapon and condition damage changes. Some things that can be done to condition damage to make it more on par with berserk stats is to change the stat itself. Add a modifier that increases the damage you deal to a target with conditions on them Lets say if you have over 1000 condition damage you deal 20% more physical damage to a target with a condition on them. Lower the damage increase to dots so it doesn’t become OP in long fights. Now change certain abilities on the obvious condition weapons to deal increased physical damage to targets with their select condition on it. Say warrior sword ability three final thrust now deals 1% more damage per bleed stack on a target instead of the 50% below damage increase.
Stuff like this would allow conditions to scale well on large scale fights with lots of people churning out conditions. This would also fix problems like conditions overwriting each other and hurting those gearing for condition damage and allow quicker damage that isn’t dependent on a target living over 15 seconds.
Support roles tend to be tanky or healy roles but they deal less damage and so are considered a hindrance to the group in some cases. This might be a little harder to fix for pve since its more of a player perception issue. But maybe we can sweeten the deal with some slightly better group benefits.
I’ll pick warrior again as an example. Lets say in the defense tree we change the 15 trait point adrenal health into something slightly different. Lets remove the adrenaline dependency on it and change it into a group based regn that scales based on the warriors toughness. Lets say it now regns up to 5 players health within 900 by 3% of the warriors total toughness. Also now change the 25 point tier into giving up to 5 players 10% power based on the warriors total toughness within 1200. Can change the names to sound better like inspiring presence or something
Basically you can change it so the 15 pointer for every class offers a group based survival benefit and the 25 pointer offers the group damage boost. This way every support trait class will have something in common and expected but be able to still control their changeable traits into what they want. Something like this would make it beneficial to have at least 1 support in your party providing boosts.
Basically my 3 main points on what needs to be fixed, more variety and support for players wanting to play how they want to play without feeling like outcasts.
They don’t have to change any skills at all. Just put in diminishing returns on all forms of CC (fear, stuns, root, etc) like WOW and all these skills suddenly be more balanced in both pve and pvp. Its dumb that they haven’t done this a while ago honestly. There is honestly no need to nerf any skills for any class, just change the mechanics of the CC itself so it loses duration and eventually allows the player to become immune after 4 hits from the same CC.
Probably the thing that brings me down the most is how physical damage is considered the best because of how conditions stack up and there is only one golden gear setup for either pve or wvw at least in most peoples minds. This sorta mentality has made many people basically copy pastes of each other since there is only one best spec and one best gear setup. Its boring playing a warrior and expected to carry around a GS and basically key bind hundred blades to every key and smash my face on my keyboard.
Kinda why after a while I just started equipping different weapons and running different specs on my characters that are probably considered bad. Without variety it just gets stale after a while. Specs and gear setup needs to be streamlined better and conditions completely reworked to be desirable in pve. Right now the game kinda feels like vanilla WOW where classes and mechanics don’t stack up very well forcing people to adopt and one way or gtfo mentality.
At that low pretty much any physical dps will down him even without conditions. Eng gotta have their perks, mine with traits and gearing for high amounts of vitality will only just barely pass my warrior in health with just his base health pool.
Assuming you were still in pretty good shape yourself he would have gone down with just long bow damage or a few melee swings unless he got away.
This would be a very squishy warrior. He is obviously traited/geared for the highest amount of power and crit damage possible. He would die to anyone in seconds.
I use to see these kinds of people back in my WOW days in pvp. They would be talented for the max possible damage in full pve damage gear. Vs me in pvp gear they stood no chance and after they were recognized they were immediately locked down on sight and didn’t get another kill the entire duration of the BG.
Possibly OP but remember its fairly easy to avoid as long as you have sight of the warrior and you can lock him down and kill him fairly easily considering his build and gear will leave no extra room for toughness or vitality.
Hard to say if the nerf to HS is really a nerf. Depends on how much more the healing use is increased honestly. HS all on its own is fairly weak honestly anyways, its only decent when paired with the healing regn buff, healing sigils or adrenal health. Without any support from outside sources its a fairly weak passive and heal and you are better off using Healing Surge or Mending.
Coupled with outside sources or bending your gear and traits to support it its powerful, but its not nearly what everyone likes to make it out to be. Gets tiring hearing everyone make it out like the warrior is regning 2000hps all because they see HS on his buff bar. 8% regn nerf for an active buff, bring it on, sounds like a buff to me if its fairly decent.
Just change the mob AI for trash and bosses from aggroing those with toughness or sticking to one player for the majority of an encounter to actually targeting other players often and people will build in more survivability. Biggest thing I see in dungeons or out around champ trains is the mobs will pick only 1 or 2 players to target and ignore the other 20+ players. I run with a berserker/knights mix gear for most things and mobs tend to target me over anyone else in dungeons. If not me then its the toughness built guardian.
If damage was more spread around evenly instead of singled out then people would probably run more defensively. But honestly who the hell wants damage to be nerfed down to near nothing for everyone? The longer it takes to kill trash and bosses the more boring the game would be. If damage was to be nerfed then mob health would need to be as well and all those traits and sigils/runes that are reliant on crits would need to be changed into on hit chance procs.
Nobody wants to take an eternity killing trash and 5 man bosses which is why so many people run with gear that boosts damage instead of survivability. If they just nerfed damage into the ground without fixing anything else they would lose a lot of players since it would break the game in many ways.
30/25/15/0/0/0 GS build with berserker armor and knight jewelry and healing signet is pretty sweet for a instance build for starting warriors or warriors that pug often. Plenty of health regn, toughness and dps for any group. While the pure berserker geared people are sucking the dirt off the ground either downed or dead you are still kicking with enough tricks to either help them get back up or not get downed yourself at least easily.
Full berserker builds are for people with great comps and connections that don’t lag and have played every path in instances several times to know what every mob does and what every boss is going to do so they can time their dodges; basically lots of experience. For 90% of players in pugs it just doesn’t work, they are constantly downed next to you while you have 90% health unless you got unlucky.
I’m personally playing a 0/25/15/0/0/30 build right now with axe/sword with a berserker/knights mix, did it at first for kicks and giggles, but its pretty fun really and has a nice mix of burst and survivability with some tricks. I guess you can call it a pretend to dps build, I know its not zomg top dps but its still pretty fun to me. Everyone plays GS and it honestly gets boring after a while, but its still good to start off with or if you really need that top dps.
I stopped using most kits about a month ago for the majority of my play time on my Eng and switched to a pistol/rifle build. Got tired of most combat kits in general, the only ones I keep on run with are the med pack and tool kit and those 2 are mostly for the tool belt functions.
Takes a bit to get use to when you aren’t trying to rely on kits as a main damage source but it can be rather fun. Kits in general become rather boring after a while and can be down right frustrating since they all seem to have been designed to be useful in certain situations but you can only trait into making at most 2 function decently.
It also allows me to enjoy the cosmetic visual of my weapons and back piece free of obstructions. Maybe kits in general are too reliant for this class and should be adjusted further to not feel necessary. Perhaps allow Eng to wield a melee weapon without a kit and further tune up turrets and gadgets
At least then people would feel like they have equal options instead of forced into nades or FT as a main source of damage.
I think it would be neat if every tree had a special kit they specifically buffed or added a unique twist. Like Alchemy could have a kit twist for Elixir gun and Tools could do something for Tool kit.
I like FT better then grenades anyways. I build for FT but tend to run with Elixir gun as well and I change frequently in instances between them. FT could use a buff/changes and turrets could use some fixes sure; really all the kits could use some fixes and engineers overall dps across the board could use a boost. It would be wonderful if I didn’t feel like we need to stack huge amounts of might to reach the amount of dps other classes do with zero stacks.
I wouldn’t mind if they nerfed our might stacking into the ground and gave us a 25% dps buff across the board. But that is neither here nor there. I still have more fun with FT and EG then nades and I play this game to enjoy myself. I let being competitive die with my previous MMO and now just play to more or less relax.
Just play how you want and if nades makes you feel better then go for it. If you don’t like kits then don’t use them, if FT is what you enjoyed so far and the others aren’t cutting it then don’t let this silly topic stop you from enjoying yourself.
Change the tool belt function for healing turret into a 25 second CD self heal with a small healing regen attached and remove the instant heal from healing turret. That would allow it to function better in groups and be beneficial for the engineer. Combine all the med packs into one ability slot and give it a longer CD and have them space out around when deployed so they aren’t stacked on top of each other.
That would free up 2 slots, tho honestly I am not certain what could be put there that wouldn’t possibly make the med kit just as undesirable as it is now since it is built around the engineer not doing damage while using it. Could maybe have one slot mimic healing turrets healing mist so you could switch back to dpsing and only going into med kit to refresh HoT on the group.
Possibly the only real thing you could add to it without making it too good all things considered. Med kit in its current form is one of the best things in the healing slot for solo play with its low CD condition removal and speed/crit boost abilities. It could use some work maybe for group play but its current form isn’t bad.
(edited by Agnima.3714)
Patch hit my P/D condition build fairly hard. Hard enough getting around the stigma of everyone thinking its weird seeing a thief that isn’t D/D and showing that I could bring more utility and staying power then most pure D/D dps builds. Now the build generates less dps then before and has lost some of the staying power in close range.
I was able to get use to the 4 second wait within an hour roughly of playing but it still felt clunky and more exposed in melee. I would have been ok with revealed coming up if stealth expired without you attacking vs the 1 second increase to it. I was one that almost always chose to stay and fight rather then run in pve and WvW.
But this change seems to strike me as pushing thieves to abuse the whole stealth and let it expire and do it again repeatedly rather then staying in the fight. Guess I might get around to leveling alts and changing my thief to S/P and using him just for the daily now.
No incentive for me to play my thief for instance runs now, it just doesn’t feel fluid anymore. They might as well remove stealth from our rotation and just rebuild majority of rotations to not use stealth anymore at this rate.
They could just leave stealth as an option with utility skills and change how attacks use to function around it. Cloak and dagger could give 1 charge of protection on use instead of stealth and the special from the first skill could be a trigger that happens when you use an ability that requires initiative. Give it a 3 second window between triggers and change some of the stealth traits up to support less use of stealth and give a increase to base health and thieves would function better and be visible like everyone wants.
Otherwise at this rate thieves will end up like WOW rogues after BC and be the forgotten class that nobody wants.
Well with the caltrops and 1 second increase to revealed my condition bleed build felt pretty awkward to play so now I am playing around with sword/pistol instead of pistol/dagger. The changes honestly doesn’t look like it will hinder a pvp burst thief at all and is almost entirely pve. Thieves will still be able to just stealth continuously as long as they don’t break stealth by attacking and if they do it will most likely be because an opportunity showed itself and it was worth it.
Condition bleed builds however seem to have taken the brunt of these 2 changes at least and they didn’t do more damage then straight up dagger to begin with so I don’t see why they needed to be hit. But I will just change traits for a while to something else I guess.
So does anyone know a decently fun sword/pistol build for mostly farming and occasional pve stuff?
If I am understanding the nerf correctly I don’t think it will change my play style at all. I always attacked from stealth and rarely tried to chain stealth while running away. The only thing that would disappoint me really is if they were to take away initiative and make thieves into a CD class like every other class.
Its the main reason I play and enjoy thief over all the other classes. I like having more control over what abilities I can use and when instead of watching my CD timers while auto attacking.
I know other classes are more wanted and excel in WvW and PVE easier. But I still like the extra control over my abilities, it just feels better. I could care less if they took away stealth and redesigned the class as long as they leave thieves as a resource class I would be fine with it.
In fact it might be better if they did. Then people could stop complaining about stealth all the time and real issues could be solved.
Sorry if there is a topic related to this already, I didn’t see anything titled that looked related on the first 4 pages. I have noticed a bug related to this talent involving a gun in the main hand. For some odd reason when you steal you stealth and then immediately break it by starting to shoot but not gaining the stealth bonus combat ability from the first combat ability.
I have tested this both in and out of combat by not pressing any button but steal and the result is always the same and you end up shooting just as you stealth. With dagger or sword in the main hand you gain stealth and don’t initiated combat unless you hit another button. With a gun however you immediately start shooting and you don’t gain the extra stealth combat ability benefit from the first combat ability.
I haven’t tested this with underwater weapons or short bow, so I don’t know if it carries over to any of those.
There is a bug with the trait hidden thief with guns I have noticed. With daggers or swords if you steal you gain stealth without breaking. With guns however for whatever reason with this trait when you steal you stealth and then immediately shoot once and break it. I tested it both in and out of combat with it and it happens every time.
Maybe there is a bug with range weapons causing you to break stealth on targets you have selected if you have a range weapon in use. I would test it with other stealth abilities but I am too tired right now, maybe someone else can test it out.
I’ve been trying out the 00/00/30/20/20 build with the appropriate sigils and runes mentioned here and carrion gear. So far I am finding the build/gear setup to be rather flexible in both WvW and instances. With a few trait swaps I am ready to play in WvW without need to change my gear. In instances the extra vitality allows for more breathing room and a few trait swaps gives fairly decent coverage in assisting the group.
The damage is pretty decent as well and all the condition damage and bleed duration buffs you wouldn’t have in a typical dagger build makes cluster bomb deal some very good aoe damage. This is an overall good build that is more flexible then dagger builds and I think I will be playing around with this for a while.
The only problem I have with the stealth currently is name plates not coming back after the thief comes out of stealth for several seconds. Its the only real problem I have with stealth. Its more abusive and apparent in thick fights, I can deal massive damage to large groups of players without them realizing I am there lot of the time. Some thieves have taken to dressing up as the thieves in thieves guild to trick people because its almost impossible to tell which one is the real thieve until they get a good 2 or 3 hits in.
The most successful thieves I have seen so far are human thieves of medium to small size since if you dress up closely to your thieves in thieves guild you will fool a lot of people often. If name plates popped up right when you came out of stealth then there would be less confusion.
Thieves are annoying and downright hard to kill if played right and I like that. But the name plate issue I have is definitely making human thieves the better choice for confusing players.
L2P really. The only people I have ever seen die easily to backstab in WvW are low levels being buffed to 80 status. Actual 80s in decent gear with some knowledge don’t die instantly to this unless they are below half health and already under fire from other players.
People dieing to this are pure glass cannon builds themselves. Most successful Thieves I see are ones that have a semi pvp set (some toughness and extra hp) and they tend to distract groups by being difficult kittens to kill. Really the more successful players I see are the ones that survive long enough for help to come to them while the ones geared, utility skills and traited out to be glass cannons are pulling their hair out being unable to kill them while dieing to any amount of damage coming their way.
I think a Thief’s true strength lies in being difficult to near impossible to kill and able to provide excellent support in focusing damage where needed rather then trying to blow up other glass cannons. I am working on my own set of survival gear for pvp right now after seeing what a real Thief can do in WvW. Glass cannons are overrated in comparison to being able to annoy the kitten out of 4 or more players and being able to get away at any time.
Well guess I stand corrected then, it just never felt like I gained ground on anyone in pvp or in pve to make it noticeable when running so I just figured the boost shut off during combat.
No matter what your build you can still select different utility skills for different encounters or situations. Running 3 signets for solo play is perfectly fine, I do that myself, it allows for faster killing and moving between places.
Signet of Shadows is a passive 25% movement speed increase that is on anytime you are NOT in combat, people saying that its made specifically for pvp to chase people down are wrong because if you are in combat and getting hit you are not moving 25% faster until you go out of combat again. Its also a free blind on demand which for solo play is great at reducing your incoming damage (edit: 25% stays in effect in combat just aren’t moving as fast as out of combat)
Signet of Agility if a 5% crit increase at level 80 and it cures a condition on yourself and everyone around you as well as refilling your endurance. Very helpful for yourself and not half bad in a group situation.
Assassins Signet is a damage boost and for soloing or pvp is great for killing faster but can be replaced with more group tools. Not a bad signet, but if you are in a group you can replace it at a reduction in personal damage.
Infiltrators Signet gives you 1 initiative every 10 seconds and a shadowstep on a CD. Personally its one I don’t use often and it is clearly another one that is more self serving then helpful.
So out of all those the Signet of Agility is the best one to keep in a group for its short CD condition removal with a survivability increase for yourself. You can easily replace the other 2 with Shadow Refuge and have the last one as a floater depending on the encounter.
Smoke Screen is good, but there have been situations where something Scorpion Wire has been helpful pulling a lone target to the group that was too close to another group. So I like to have 1 Utility skill as a floater that I change depending on what the group needs or if the group is balanced enough to not need anything then it can go back to self damage increase.
Utility skills are kinda like weapons, Sometimes you need to switch them depending on the situation. But there isn’t really a wrong weapon, Just a wrong time or place for it.
(edited by Agnima.3714)
I carry both with me. Solo play I use P/P and D/D. Open with pistols and then swap to daggers and pretty much everything dies with me getting hit only once at most. Instances and group events I tend to favor bow and swap pistols out for that. Allows for some nice variety in playing and its fun switching it up.
Bandit Cutpurses seem to be spamming their specials as well, caster types spam electrocute and burning, mace types spam knockback every time they melee you, dagger ones spam bleeds/poison so fast that you can have a stack of 15 bleeds in practically 5 seconds so even if you kill them you die seconds later from the bleed stacks if you don’t have a skill to remove 3 debuffs at once.
Making it very difficult to fight in bandit areas so I think I will just be avoiding that npc type until this is addressed.