You should have a look into the different options an ele has. If I were referring solely to the number of skills I would’ve left out the obvious.
Weapon Swap would give eles access to massive CC, blind, heal, combo field+finishers, invuln and trait procs. This is what I mean by obvious.
Condition thieves are pretty good at handicap fights. Stacking poison and AoE bleeds on multiple targets automatically means high overall dps across all your targets. 8k is a bit too high but 6-7k is not unusual against 3 ppl.
That would make eles op for 40 obvious reasons.
oh and Dagger/Pistol may be UP combat wise but you’ll never see one go by they have by far the best gimick in the game the ability to pull of perma stealth.
You can do that on any thief with 15 points in Shadow Arts and shortbow which is mendatory (imo) anyway.
Moa is okay, it was mad op in 1v1 situations before they changed the skills though.
Biggest issue IMO is the meta that evolves around the current game mode and its restrictions. Static environment and lack of complexity effs up the class balance.
It’s a pity that you will most likely lose a match if you don’t bring certain professions/builds.
Eles not contributing much? Low CC abilities? Are we talking about the same game?
P/D is only good for trolling 1vX in WvW. For anything else D/D+SB is better.
If you have high hit volume go for SoM else go with HiS.
If you wanna build for massive dodges and perma Vigor go for Withdraw.
I can’t believe that I gotta agree with the OP here. Mesmers were totally fine without that excessive might stacking. But well it’s mesmers not thieves. If thieves got a comparable buff, like “might on stealth” trait increased to 3 stacks and moved into Critical Strikes trait line, hooollly shiz forums would explode because over 9000 ppl would call for insta nerf. (just for the record thieves are fine as they are now, they don’t need any buffs, just saying)
Good necros destroy condition thieves.
Also DD/SB outperforms P/D in sPvP/tPvP. For WvW I guess P/D is the better option.
Check the video in this thread if you want an example of how a condition thief can perform in tPvP: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Video-Condition-thief-solo-queue-tPvP/first#post957564
Basically the majority of weapon skills is usefull no matter how you look at it therefore the amount of available skills would make a second weapon set definitely op.
Ele is among the strongest and most versatile classes right now. Giving them even more versatility is never going to happen.
You’re asking for specific combinations? Pick whatever you want it’s just way over the top. Imagine S/D+Dagger/Focus. More healing, more auras, invuln, more condition removal, projectile reflect, projectile immunity, more knockdowns, daze, 1 more fire field and holy kitten lots of blast finishers. How is that not op.
Death Blossom bleeds’ default duration is 10s. You can even steal skills that apply a 1min bleed stack. Anyway since bleeds tick every full second there is no point in getting 7.5. I’m not sure if the game rounds up though – needs testing I guess.
Class balance itself is more or less the same but build balance got worse. The recent patch buffed burst builds way too much in various aspects.
Second weapon slot would give the ele access to up to 40 weapon skills+his utilities. That’s why weapon swap would be op.
IMO best utilities for D/D condition thief are Bliding Powder, Caltrops and Shadow Refuge. Shadowstep is really strong but you can do perfectly fine without it as a condition thief.
I’d rather watch some skillfull tPvP gameplay than boring and repetitive P/D WvW Vids :/
BS has a cast time and an animation. If you BS ~.25s before stealth runs out it will hit after the buff wore off resulting in revealed not triggering. That means the thief can restealth right away and BS again or run away or /dance or whatsoever.
That’s not a hack, rather an exploit of current game mechanics.
If you are completely new to the game and aiming for PvE I wouldn’t recommend going for a thief right away. You will most likely have alot of trouble right from the start. Probably run a warrior just to get to know the game and its aspects/mechanics and then roll a thief or whatever you want to play.
lol what? Ele has tons of very good traits
Signet of Shadaws is just good for traveling distances, in combat it is only good for stomping – you might want to replace that to get more stealth options.
There is food and WvW shiz
I probably didn’t make my point clear enough. I read your post and ofc I’ve read your remarks concerning utilities and kitten but you’re basically just counting.
When counting conditions for example you treat every condition equally completely neglecting its effect on your gameplay, the amount of stacks and duration. You simply don’t take into account how you can actually benefit from those.
Scepter blind is an extremely valuable tool to secure stomps. Line AoE blind is extremely powerfull in terms of damage mitigation and can be combined with dagger earth#5. Those 2 blinds offer way more utility than weakness, kittenty bleeds (which scepter also has btw) and cripple which doesn’t seem to stack with chill anyway.
Stun is very powerfull as I stated already. Yet again Shock Aura applies stun passively on hit. If the enemy is smart enough you can’t use it for offensive purposes with some exceptions such as Caltrops triggering the stun. But yea for defense it is indeed a very powerfull tool.
Regarding fire combo fields Ring of Fire’s CD is way shorter than regular blast finisher CDs which means that from your side as an ele there arn’t more might stacks to expect. Regarding the skill sequence you’d probably raise the fire field uptime from 40% to 50% at max if at all which equals 1.5s. It’s not like this is a major benefit.
Since you pointed out the leap finisher, what benefit would you get from that? Fire Aura maybe or retaliation or area weakness might be likely. Not really game breaking. Leap finishers are the worst in the game imo.
At the end both S/D and D/D are pretty close regarding strength. It pretty much comes down to the actual situation. Potentially I personally think S/D is the more versatile set because it synergizes way better with other players.
Who knows maybe there was an ele around buffing 13 stacks of might on him
Infiltrator’s Signet basically is an on-target shadowstep. It functions the same way as steal on that part. If you use it during the cast of CnD you will be instantly stealthed and rdy to BS. Or in other words, the stealth will be applied directly after your shadowstep.
Anyway shadowsteps do not break stealth. Your character becomes visible on your screen but you still have the stealth buff. Same applies to Infiltrator’s Arrow. Try it out with Shadow Refuge. Man I wish there was a way to break stealth without hitting a person/object at Kyhlo….
I use Dagger Storm in combination with Lyssa runes mostly when I’m out of initiative or when I’m against a lot of people, and against ranged ppl ofc.
Due to heal, traits and Lyssa runes I even use it against melees and it usually works out quite well. Hit volume seems to be a bit buggy though. Sometimes it hits alot against a single player and sometimes it like never hits (emphasis on single player > no bouncing and shiz)
CnD>Infiltrator Signet>BS>Steal>BS no pls
I feel that it’s kinda situational. Scepter brings 2 additional blas finishers which result in 6 additional stacks of AoE might and overall higher dmg of all your skills and your party. 2 syncronized S/D Eles stacking up might on the whole party its incredible. With the recent change to DT it’s even easier. The CD on DT is also kinda low which means you can sustain those might stacks to some extend. Scepter also brings a ST blind that does not interrupt stomp casts as well as an AoE blind. This comparison is mostly done on the basis of theoretical dmg output. Utility is neglected for the most part as well as synergies or the fact that scepter has higher range which might make a difference in certain situations – hence my very first statement – it is situational. Scepter or dagger (pick whatever you want) could just be the way better weapon just because your enemy runs a specific build. Against a thief with Caltrops Shock Aura is absolutely OP because it basically means 5s perma stun for the thief. Against rangers I personally think that Scepter is the better weapon.
You’re not getting the point. Ally res+self heal is just faster than stomping.
Thieves have very limited acces to interrupts so even that’s just rarely an option.
Eles themselves are fine. If you dodge their knockdowns it’s alot harder for them to get their hits in. Bunkers are a bit over the top atm. Bunker ele on graveyard and you are in serious trouble but yea that’s how the game currently is and it’s still enjoyable.
What really bothers me is their AoE dmg. Let’s say there is a 4v4 at keep and you are against 2 eles and 2 random classes. Those eles will buff the entire party with kittening 26 stacks of might and use AoE/splash attacks on downed people and kill everyone trying to res almost instantly. Almost the same applies to necros though. AoEs just seem way too strong.
Don’t worry I am aware of that. I was just trying to give you a comprehensible explanation for my actions.
Mesmer downed#2 is actually pretty easy to counter because it has cast time. Thief downed#2 needs a blink/shadowstep utility. Hardest to stomp is Ele. They cannot be stomped first try in like 90%-95% of all cases.
Rangers getting 2s quickness on pet swap – mad op
Lyssa makes Dagger Storm a lot less situational hence it’s my rune set of choice.
There isn’t a single fight in the vid where I did not switch to daggers except the one at mine, but that was puposely done to get the last 5 stacks from my Sigil of Corruption which is attached to my SB. Anyway against ranged classes I tend to use SB more since they’re always going to seek distance which you can clearly see at 2:05. I’d rather burn 3 ini than 5. Moreover you see me use the full skillset of the SB in that vid as well as Surprise Shot in combination with Caltrops. Probably wound’t have been able to do that if I had switched to D/D in the wrong situation. Also take into account that this is a video you’re watching. You are just observing while in a tournament you are constantly anticipating what is going to happen and you’re constantly making decisions what to do or not to do. Some decisions might even be wrong, like when I got snared by that ranger. I should’ve used Steal to get out of it but yea, I’m just a human and in the end I still got use for the stealth I guess.
Thieves can still be hit and interrupted in stealth.
I pointed that out some weeks ago but some ppl didn’t even get the idea I believe.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Down-state-concept-needs-revision/first#post870267
Since I play a stealth heavy the 33% movement speed are more benefitial to me than short stacks of might. Even though it might not get obvious from watching a vid but when you actually play you can feel a huge difference. Since I often end up in fighting 1vx I need to be able to start my stomp cast before my enemy can start ressing.
I don’t know why you come to the conclusion that I prefer Cluster Bomb over Death Blossom. That’s not the case and after reading your posting I even watched my vid again and still don’t know how you come to that conclusion. Sure I use it alot but that does not mean that I prefer it over DB which I use alot as well in that vid.
In fact the use of both is very situational. If the enemy is clustered I prefer DB if the enemy is scattered or fighting from off the node I prefer SB. Moreover I switch weapons alot to make use of Sigil of Geomancy or just to adapt to the situation.
Sometimes I use Cluster Bomb because I’m bound to my weapon changing CD. Considering the fact that Choking Gas triggers SoM I need to switch to SB regularly to provide constant healing.
Regarding the condition duration you’re right and wrong. In fact it’s 10% condition duration and 10% bleed duration. Since more than just one condition it does make a difference. Moreover every 10% add 1 tick to DB bleeds and every ~15% add 1 tick to Geomancy bleeds. But tbh there is just no other Sigil worth using. I am thinking about moving the Sigil of Coruption to my dagger set and use a second Sigil of Geomancy in the SB but I’m not sure yet.
Regarding the runes I gotta say that those make Dagger Storm a skill which is worth using. Usually when you pop it you are an easy kill for everyone not using ranged attacks. In case you survive the ~8s duration you’re half dead at the end and cought lots of conditions. Lyssa fixes all those problems. Conditions will be completely removed once the effect procs. In case you take heavy dmg one of your auto stealth traits will proc causing AoE blind and make the rune effect proc which means you get all possible buffs in the game which include aegis, regen and protection.
…
I honestly feel that the “Move 33% faster in stealth” trait doesn’t work. It’s a complete waste imo…
It’s working perfectly fine. Like pretty much every movement speed buff this does not stack with other buffs. If you have swiftness on, the trait will basically do nothing since both add 33% movement speed. If you use Signet of Shadows you will just gain an addition 8%. The difference between 25% and 33% is hardly noticeable on short distances. And since stealth is usually only 4s long (I know there is SR and I know there is perma stealth shiz hence the “usually”) the distance you can possibly travel is kinda short.
added a link to the build in the description of the video
Random tPvP solo queue match
D/D – SB Condition build
Enjoy!
Downed team mates spamming #1 when I stealth them to res…
How about you try to find solutions to whatever class/build bothers you in pvp instead of opening one stupid “How is skill xyz of a thief not broken?” thread after another?
as i already stated in an attempt to protect my credibility, ive been tpvp’ing since beta, so i have hundreds of hours in tpvp alone and i know most profs inside out. you dont have to believe me. however, if there was a pragmatic solution, i wouldnt be making broken mechanic discussion threads. that’s why theyre “broken”.
Appearently hundreds of hours tpvp is not enough for you to learn not to stand in caltrops. You even get the AoE indicator for that skill. So how hard can it be not to stand in that friggin red circle. How is not standing in the AoE not a pragmatic solution? What do you do against Eles and their AoEs/splash skills? I bet you’re not just standing still.
You’re contradicting yourself somewhat. You’re saying offense > defense (which is utterly kitten imo) and then you would point out the condition thief’s tankiness to reinforce your “argument”?
I tell you what, I haven’t died to solely condition dmg from a thief for months. Probably there is a way to cope with them like there are way to cope with bursty warriors. How about you try to find solutions to whatever class/build bothers you in pvp instead of opening one stupid “How is skill xyz of a thief not broken?” thread after another?
So what? You can remove all those bleeds within a single second using condition removal. A 100b warrior can burst you from 100 to zero in a matter of seconds, hence the mendatory stunbreaker/burst counter. Hopefully you aren’t going to open a thread called “How is 100B not broken?”…
edit: You’d only get massive blled stacks if your enemy stays in the caltrops field so probably not standing in it could help.
(edited by Malicious.6742)
+1
Necro is what turns fights around at the current state of the game
Get 20 stacks of bleeds use plague signet – 1 button.
Anyway, caltrops take their time to stack bleeds and you can only stack about 8 stacks.
You will never ever apply 20 stacks of bleed with just caltrops.
You probably got some healing from trait line?
So aren’t thieves. Apart from possible might stacks during invisibility stealth itself doesn’t make bleeds stronger. So what the eff is your point? Sorry but this is obviously a l2p issue. Do soem research on the game and combat behaviour to handle condition thieves.
I’d rather have ANet fix the Blinding Powder bug instead..