Showing Posts For Benevolence.8019:
I play fresh air burst and dunk most people with it.
But it’s a very high skill-capacity build to master. The damage is unparalleled though. I get top damage or kills most games.
Imo it’s just as good as thief at being the roamed (and it kittens on thieves).
Ele is fine. Just learn to adapt and don’t suck.
I would pick whichever system is competitive. Which sure as kitten ain’t today’s.
Competitive systems by their very nature mean the majority “loses out”. But that’s why u have unranked. What’s the point of ranked if any pleb can achieve the same thing by spamming games or getting carried by a group while matched vs randoms?
i use assassins gear with zerk trinkets.
with the CS line and food/wvw buffs i roll 3k power 83% base crit (7 from side behind + 5 from when im above 90% hp), and 240% crit dmg.
truffle steak. power + precision.
Sharpening stones for util. More power.
more damage plox, kitten the heals they wont save you. They really wont. ur not sitting there tanking sustained dps, you deal with burst dmg that can insta pop you. go dmg food and Kill before you are killed
the trait is currently bugged where the trickster trait gives it 40% cd reduction instead of 20%
Even without that, its VERY strong. I dunno what ur complaining about. Haste + shortbow is insane. it WRECKS people.
I do feel you though on how thief in general is burst, then leave and wait for cd’s. The onyl way around this right now is to sit and sb between melee bursts. and SB is insanely strong imo, but it doesnt FEEL like a thief/rogue class archetype. its not my preferred style of play, but im forced into spamming a lot of shortbow from necessity. and it DOES work amazingly well.
spec for less crit? kitten that after i saw the crit strikes tree i went half assassins half zerk from full zerk.
with fury and full wvw + food buffs im at 95% crit, 3k power, 242% crit dmg. the dps is insane.
I used to be D/D thru and thru.
Dropped it after 2 weeks of pain post-patch.
Can it be done? Sure. U can do anything. Can it be done effectively? Sure, if you massively outskill your opponent. Is it optimal against equally skilled opponents or fighting outnumbered? HELL NO. For me DD is dead. The burst is gimmicky, and not all that unique anymore. Most classes can drop similar burst.
What i use now is sword dagger. Sword has absolutely obsene dps. the autos crit for 4k 4k 6k in the chain on a squishy (thats conservative, its usually higher). and because i run a quickness build this happens in less than a second.
Heres the build:
Deadly arts (mug, panic strike, executioner), Crit strikes(side strike, practiced tolerance, no quarter) , Trickery(flanking strikes, trickster, sleight of hand).
Withdraw for heal. Haste, roll for initiative, Shadowstep for utils. Basi for elite.
Sword/dagger with fire/air. Shortbow with bloodlust/strength.
Assasins armor. zerk trinkets. Rune of the pack. Buffs: truffle steal and sharpening stone
My base crit is around 63% with food buff. + side strike + the passive 5% when im above 90% (which im actually above fairly often) + fury means 95% crit. With fury i also get 250 ferocity exttra kicking my to just over 240% dmg on crits. When i have full stacks going i get just under 3k power. Basically the damage is insane. The fury is permanent.
The way u play this is shortbow spam in a group fight. u just auto and #2 on occasion. Throw in # 3 if ur geting pushed to evade back. Your shortbow will WRECK people. It bounces and hots 3 times total. For 2-3k every time. Thats 6-9k dmg on an auto. At the start of the fight you’ll likely proc haste. this will melt people. Transition to swapping sword/dagger to go for a kill on an out of position target. use cloak and dagger + steal. Hit from stealth for the blind or if behind daze from your sword and go to town with haste. U can drop 15-20k dmg in 1-1.5s with haste + sword autos. its legit insane dps. nothing short of a necro/war/guard will survive, even from full hp. zerg warriors get wrecked too. people REALLY don’t expect the dmg output from sword + haste
use your utilities for condi clears and escapes. both withraw and roll for initiative clear immobilize, chill, cripple AND 1 condi on top from your trait. Haste clears a condi too cuz its a trick.
I find this build stronger than the standard Shadow refuge + infiltrators signet + shadowstep. I think shadow refuge is useless nowadays.t heres too much dmg out there. having to sit in that is a deathtrap. it WONT let you res people anymore, it will just get you killed. you’re better off with a haste for more burst + condi clear. Infiltraors signet is nice, but i feel roll for initiative is better. U can use sword 2 to get on someone, and the RFI will drop a condi too, as wel as return 6 ini. between withdraw, sword 2 and RFI u can jump in and out repeatedly and very fast. You are treally hard to track and lock down. Oh and RFI is a stun break too. Shadow step is still king for mobility and stun break and more condi clear if u need it.
try it. The condi clear is good, the dmg is insane, the survivability is slightly better than dd. Oh and its a hell of a lot more fun than d/p. Though 1v1 dp will still wreck you from the blinds. But i feel ur much more of a threat to others than dp is.
you people are weird
Let me remind you that as a new player in WvW I’m penalized and do not have guard stacks (I’m close on the fortitude). Aside from that there are many post about the thief one shot, so I’m not alone. Again none of my toons are glassy and are in a mix of soldiers and knights with trinkets that maybe zerker. /shrugs …I guess I’m a scrub.
Lack of guard stacks would account for you being within 1-shot range. Although ur mix of tanky gear might put you back up above it. Just realize the thief is even lower base stats that you. Much lower. ranger is 16k+ base hp, war is almost 20k. thats with full offensive setups. The guardian ironically is the squishiest of ur 3 classes in terms of base defensive stats, being about the same as thief at just under 12k, and is the most prone to one shots. Guards get a lot of tools to mitigate or ignore damage though, so they gain much more of slotting an hp items or two in terms of effective hp. The thief suffers from slotting too much defense because of how hard it impacts damage and how little mitigation the thief gets.
Obsidian sanctum. Its a thing. Go duel there. If u aren’t in Obsidian sanctum and u get jumped in your duel its your own kitten fault.
I never go to obsidian sanctum so if i see someone red, I will attack. And if they wanna kitten about it i’ll happily explain how kittening dumb they are to expect anything else on an open wvw map.
Choovanski: The build is fine. Deadly art/shadow arts/crit strikes. ive swapped trickery instead of crit strikes too. The boon rips and steal cd is nice, but not worth the dmg loss. If you read, Im not complaining about the loss in damage. I’m complaining about the loss of survivability. Specifically in Shadow arts, though acrobatics got the shaft to for the sword thieves out there. Either way, other classes do similar damage. And yes, I can dunk on some scrubs too. Any player that isnt bad can avoid or mititate enough to survive. I don’t have those options anymore with the loss of the toughness.
Zinkz, thief was the most popular for roaming in solo/duo. Once u started getting 3, 4, 5+ people, basically small-medium group combat, thief dropped in popularity compared to warriors guardians rangers, and was on par with eles and mesmers. was above necros and engies tho. Also, I’m not talking about what was before, im talking about what is now.
Jana, spot on. yea, ina group fight I can of course jump in on someone half hp and drop them… but so can any other class. The difference is they can survive doing so much more reliably. In group fights thief is now relegated to being a shortbow-bot. Might as well play ranger.
Kamara: Ur ranger can drop 0dmg, as can your warrior. Your guard can block and uinvuln. They all have the base hp to survive a standard steal cnd backstab opener (biggers thief burst). there is zero reason for you to be getting one-shot by a thief when they can all become invulnerable. Unless u were half hp? but then ud get 1 shot by any power class blowing their burst on you. Yes, i used to kill 3-4 people at a time on occasion too. If they were bad. The moment someone ur fighting actually knows how a thief works, even prepatch, those odds wouldnt work. cloak and dagger is stupidly predictable, and the moment u avoid it the thief is kittened. same for smoke field/heartseeker, its very easy to interrupt doing so leaves the thief low on ini and royally boned. there is no reason anyone competent should ever lose in a 2v1 vs a thief. u dont even need to be good, just competent.
Theves are still killing in WvW. Mostly its solo/duo roaming and ganking scrubs. In a group setting the thief just doesnt pull their weight. they need to get carried a bit to keep the pressure off em, because they have no response to it themselves.
slot some defensive gear. you miss that toughness? slot some Knights gear.
all stats are in gear now, if you want more defensive stats get them. im big into celestial trinkets right now. work great on my zerker medi guard, zerker engi, and my rampagers engi too. damage has increased for every class by a lot, maybe you need some defensive gear now. you can still maintain 2k+ power if you just swap a few trinkets.
The problem is that even with offensive gear im barely matching the damage of some of the lower damage that other classes can put out.
if i slot defensive gear, it doesnt solve the overall balance issue. Its not a gear issue, its a trait issue. The stat loss from traits hurt thief the most. With the planned removal of vitality from guard stacks, this is going to hurt even more.
And no i cant gank people. But they sure as hell can gank others. Like im doing on my warrior right now because its hella easy.
heres some burst numbers from other classes for examples of what i get hit with:
Static discharge engi crit me for 3.5k static discharge twice + 6.5k spanner hit + blunderbuss for 4k. 17.5k nigh on instantly.
Warrior gs spin will smack me for 7-8k. Arc strike or eviscerate (gs and axe burst skills respectively), crit for 7-8k. Thats 14-16k burst with 2 buttons in around a second. thats more than my cloak and dagger backstab does. blade rush can crit for 6k+ easily. Warrior dmg is insane right now compared to how survivable they are and how much mobility they get. Oh and rampage. Lulz.
Guardians. My buddy jumped into a thief and 2 rangers on his guard and 1-shot them with the combo. All of them. He runs mostly zerk with a tad of condi damage. He drops 18 burns on people + the power burst. I don’t even know how much dmg that is. the burns dont last long but they tock hard. he ticks 1k+ with 3. So thats 6k+ burn dmg added to a guardians power burst, easily another 10k. More if they wanna blow a cd for shield bomb or smite condis.
Rangers. Double rapid fires or double mauls with their trait. They can either do zero dmg or stealth from trapper build for survivability. And their 1500 range being the biggest help to their survivability. They drop more damage than a thief, and they do it from range. AND they can do it from stealth too if they running trappers.
Mesmers. Do i really need to? 5.5k per mind wrack. thats a 10s cooldown shatter that can hit for 16.5k. Aside form other skills, and while they are at range. Mesmers are kittening insanely OP right now.
Ele: The one class that has a hard time out-bursting a thief. I mean they CAN outburst us, but only with a scepter Fresh air build. Those builds are no longer viable IMO. Same reasons of lacking survivability plus bolt to the heart being in competition with fresh air. However DD can still drop a good amount of damage. it may not match the 15k on demand of other classes, but they can easily drop 10k with fire rush + grab. While being INSANELY survivable compared to a thief. I actually feel that eles are in a good spot right now balance wise. Other classes just need to be brought in line.
Necro: I don’t know much about necro, I don’t play one. They don’t seem to have radically changed. Power necros were always powerful, and seem to be doing ok, but not OP right now. Good burst matching a thief’s around 10-13k, insane dps in lich, all while having TONNES more survivability with essencially 3 life bars. their immobility and lack of mitigation keeps them in line tho i think. They seem balanced.
TLDR: Thieves are kittened. We need survivability. Desperately. And some classes need their dmg brought down. engies need static discharge build nerfed slightly. their survivability on this build is relatively weak, so the nerf needs to be either very slight, or be compensated with some survivablity. warriors need an overall drop in dmg. a sizeable one. Warriors were honestly fine pre-patch. I play one and they are insane right now. mesmers seriously need a drop in dmg. a heavy one. They have a bucketload of survivability and utility options, and now u give them the ability to one-shot almost every class. Rangers need a very slight tone down. Honestly they need a rework so they arent a 2-button class 80% of the time, because nerfing that can kitten them if u overdo it, but if u do a slight nerf it might be ok. U really should rework the kittening class tho its a joke in terms of design right now. Leave Eles and Necros. i feel like they are in a good spot for now.
Disclaimers:
1. The contents/whining of this post are directed to small/medium scale group combat. Not 1v1’s. Not zergs.
2. I’m a thief main, but i do enjoy playing multiple classes. I play everything except engi and necro. I just play thief a bit more i’d say, so i guess that’s my main. This is mostly a “thieves are too weak” QQ thread.
SO post-changes… every single class can drop 15k dmg on demand in under 1.5 seconds. Every. Single. Class.
it used to be a dd thief special. Mesmers could pull it off with a 4x mind wrack, or a guardian blowing half his defensive cooldowns could do it once at the start of a fight but it was much harder to set up, and not as on-demand as the thief.
Nowadays? Every class either matches, or outdoes my burst, and can do it as frequently. Mostly because they don’t need to blow all their cooldowns for it anymore Damage has skyrocketed so much that every class can do similar burst. While having more survivability. A LOT more. Shadow arts doesn’t give the 300 toughness it used to, meaning i get 1 shot by any classes power burst.
now before you scream “lol l2p just stunbreak, dodge, etc etc, gg”, realize that in a real group fight, with anything more than 3 people per side, you WILL get hit at times when u don’t have cooldowns up, and u wont see it coming. Thieves just don’t have the raw stats necessary to survive this. We used to with the combination of going SA and other classes dealing much less damage. We were still the squishiest and the most prone to getting bursted, but there was room for counterplay because it wasn’t a free 2-button 100% kill for our enemies. Getting focus switched to you in a fight was always a problem. I just feel that right now, thieves can’t realistically deal with it short of having precognition.
I’m not asking for thieves to be uber OP. At least bring it back to the level of strength we had prepatch. And its not damage i ask for. Just give me some survivability. Short of not being in a fight, its impossible to avoid damage. we have no invulns/distortions/blocks/protection buff, etc. we have no mitigation. Stealth is nice and all but only works on kittenty players who don’t realize u can still hit the thief in stealth. Most know u can and will finish you easily when u try to escape using stealth. I think anyone who actually knows what they’re doing will tell you thieves were fairly decent before patch. the class was mediocre in groups fights at best, and even then only in skilled hands. It did well in 1v1’s… but i hope u don’t balance ur game around that.
Continued on next post because of kitten limits on post length:
Yeah no. Stealth already has very little counterplay, especially with the recent patch. If anything, revealed should be increased to 4s for WvW as well, but that will never happen because that would crew over dagger builds in PvE.
Here we have someone who’s never played a thief. Stealth has a RIDICULOUS amount of counter-play. Play a stealth class (especially thief). You will learn a LOT of counterplays very quickly.
im not kidding play a theif. doing so helped me know how to fight them and other stealthers on my other classes. It’s really easy to predict where people are going to go in stealth, and very few stealth skills last long enough to make those predictions expire. Unlike blocks/blinds/invulns/0damage/distortion/reflects stealth does not actually protect you. and unlike most other defensive abilities stealth abilities usually require a cast time and can be easily interrupted by anyone who knows the animations.
Maybe they can just make SE give you invulnerability and immunity to conditions while in stealth? Stealth seems so underpowered. All you can do is hit hard from it, heal in it, gain ini faster in it, make yourself harder to hit in most situations, and reset most fights using it. If only it could have more advantages. If only stealth was the thief’s only mechanic they needed to use. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about learning any other mechanic or learn to use other non-steal skills! /s
Seriously, this is a good change. And in my opinion a necessary one. Not all nerfs are bad nerfs. Some of them are necessary and good for the game. Just as the engi’s Lock On trait is also a good addition. Cleaving and AoE’ing areas, in the hopes of hitting a stealthed enemy, is not good enough imo. Yes, some professions can knock or fear you out of SA, but that is the price you pay for having a skill that can give you 20 odd seconds of stealth. There needs to be drawbacks for such a powerful skill. And the same goes for stealth in general. There needs to be more solid ways of countering stealth, and I am really happy (as a stealth user) to see Anet adding more counter options and adjusting the potency of stealth for the thief.
The meta is changing, this is something you cannot avoid. With so many changes to skills and traits, builds people got confortable with are very likely to need adjustment. For me, I now take something else on my skill bar to deal with immob. This is not a big deal, and I can still make good use of stealth, both offensively and defensively. This change is not as crippling as many are making out.
Learn to adapt. And if Anet finds hundreds of thieves are dropping like flies, because of this change, I am sure they will fix it. But I doubt very much that will happen, because those who enjoy the profession as a whole, and not just the stealth mechanic, will likely be happy to adapt and will find ways to cope with this change.
I get the feeling you don’t play a thief.
As someone who plays multiple classes (thief ele guard warrior ranger in wvw and arenas and mesmer in arenas only) i can tell you thieves are in the tank right now.
Arena, nobody even takes Shadow arts if they know what they’re doing (and thats the trait line this thread is about). WvW, Shadow arts WAS imo a must outside of 1v1’s. Even in 1v1’s, half the classes you needed it for. With this huge nerf to SA thief survivability and sustain is almost completely gone. With my other classes in WvW (ele ranger warrior guard) i can deal with being outnumbered in a group fight and deal with multiple people at once. I used to b able to do that pre-patch, mostly because people are really kittening bad at this game. It is no longer possible to do that as thief against anything but the worst people.
If you lost to a thief on anything but a mesmer or ele pre-patch in a 1v1 it means you sucked. majorly. now both those classes can win too. Literally every matchup is stacked against thief.
I should note at this point that im talking about a power thief. obviously (hopefully obvious anyway). Condition thief used to be useless in anything larger than solo or duo roaming. It is much stronger now, and thats great. Im happy for condi thieves getting some power to compete in group settings. But i don’t want to play my thief that way as the playstyle is not enjoyable to me. I don’t play condition on any of my classes. I prefer the reaction/timing focus of instant power dmg over the condi and kitten off while they die approach. I respect people playing the more startegic condi style, butt i enjoy power more. And i don’t want to see the only thing that gave power thief enough suitability in groups to be viable gone.
theres no cooldown, it does way more damage, and we can perma stealth (only against kittens or npc’s though) with it.
prestige and CnD are not the problems right now. Like at all.
Just wait until you find a mesmer running a mix of high damage shatters and a stunlock build… kitten’s scary as it’s basicly an improved version of our Basilisk Venom and Backstab…
Try s/p 6 0 0 6 6 with the right traits, utilities and gameplay you can destroy every freaking shatter mesmer
So you want us to take a no-stealth weapon set to fight one class.
Aside form arguing about whether or not S/P is actually a counter to mes (though I agree it stands more of a chance because of the easy evasion messing with shatters), lets not forget that it sucks against mostly everything else.
taking a spec to deal with 1 class is dumb.
shrug i have zero problems with power rangers, of almost any skill level as a thief of any spec or ele (dd cele or scep/foc fresh air) in arenas, and those 2 are my mains. My warrior handles them ok-ish tho i have poor experience with it. My power shatter mesmer gets destroyed tho i have poor experience with it, and ts IMO a very high skill-cap class. i don’t know if it’ll overtake an equal skill player once i master the power shatter mes. My medi guard feels about on par with power rangers. I’m moderately comfortable with the guard.
That being said i do trapper power ranger in WvW with a couple guilldies who do the same. the potential to almost perma stealth and have mad mobility and have 3-4 rangers pop out already rapid firing you from stealth is nuts imo. as a small flanking group with piercing arrows and LB #5 you can do insane hurt on huge zergs while having easy GTFO ability. Its pretty good zerg-bust.
I havent tried to do ranger in arena yet, as i JUST made the class and hit 80. i’ll give it a shot soon, though it appears from general experience/observation that it is NOT overpowered. It is simply a low skill cap class, and the tactics to beat it require higher skill caps. But the power ranger’s tools also feel very limited. Its a quick power curve when just starting GW, but i feel it plateaus much earlier than other classes. the simplicity of power ranger is its downfall as it means the class isnt very versatile. Its highly predictable because its only an effective class when perched above mid. you see an enemy ranger, assume that’s where they’ll be 24/7 and play around it.
pro-tip: power rangers cant handle pressure in their face. they WILL knockback as the first thing they do. Easy to anticipate and dodge or stabilkity it. after the knockdown is nullified the fight is easy. they’ll pop invuln or die. save offensive/defensive cooldowns until the ranger invulns. After invulns are popped ranger is an easy target. all you really need tto do is evade or pop stability for the knockback. the rest is easymode.
What happens when 2 griefers/trolls/whatever join a party/dungeon group? Requiring 4 votes may be excessive.
The only trolling I’ve seen done by 2 people who join together is when they kick others. I’ve never seen 2 people both purposely trying to derail a run/grief/troll.
I think its an extremely rare occurrence. Basing the system on the very rare possibility of multiple trolls in a group, and consequently allowing the much more common abuse of the system towards legitimate players is, I think, a mistake.
4 votes works fine in other games. Its been proven effective. if someone is detrimental to the group the other 4 people will be willing to kick them. If not every player is willing to kick them, theres a good chance that they don’t deserve the kick.
the only time people should be allowed to kick on 3 yes is when theres only 4 in group.
Another alternative I’d be ok with is only the group leader can start kick votes. I imagine it feels even more ridiculous to get kicked from a group you put together.
I think its completely ridiculous how you can be kicked with only 2 people after putting in time in a dungeon/fract.
I was just doing a lvl 19 and was kicked towards the end of the third fractal. Presumably people wanna get their guildies their daily. Complete bullkitten. And this isn’t the first time.
Its a complete waste of time when you put in that much work and some kittens decide to kick you. I know other players who’ve had the same problem too.
Now i understand that a kick mechanic needs to exist, as some players will troll people or act in a toxic manner. But when all it takes is two people (often one person, as I’ve seen people get kicked after a wipe despite not making mistakes. the second person just assumes “oh it must’ve been that dudes fault, ok i’ll vote yes”) its way too easy to screw others over.
IMO vote kicks need to require all 4 other players to vote yes. This is a pretty simple fix that will help prevent players from wasting their time. This is common in the MMO industry for a good reason. Its a simple fix. I can just avoid groups where i see the other 4 are guildmates. Besides if all 4 other players want to kick me, i must’ve been doing something wrong.
“don’t tell people”
-Scrubs who need artificial advantages and prefer exploiting to fair gameplay.
If you exploit in pvp, what the hell is the point of pvp in the first place?
What the hell is the purpose of this thread?
HS hits harder than 1.5k at 50% ish. at 25% it hits WAY harder (closer to 3k). Against another thief that is, Not against bunker builds obviously. but im guessing the ranger doesnt hit 1.5k on them either.
Auto speed matters too. Daggers auto for less, but much more often. DPS isnt all about single number hit size.