Guild Wars 2

Zoltreez.6435:

a single thief or mesmer will delete your entire shroud in the opening or atleast 80% of it..

I don’t think it’s really fair to mention thief here because daredevil literally hard counters necro. It’d be like if I used dragonhunter to say that thief needs more defense. That matchup is the outlier, not the norm. And condi necro kittens on power mesmer all day every day. The only way you lose is if you get 100-0’d from stealth or outplayed. And honestly, most of the time you can see them coming before they stealth and/or instant cast shroud to absorb some or all of the burst.

Zoltreez.6435:

Who the hell told you inc dmg to shroud is Halved ? WUT !?

Um. It does. Necro actually has a lot of little tricks the average player doesn’t know about. I’m not gonna sit here and spill the necro tea because I didn’t figure it out myself, but this specific information is readily available on the wiki so…

Zoltreez.6435:

on demand protection ? you mean once in a lifetime ?that usualy instantly removed and turned into condi ? while other classes can spam their 226 bilion of boons?

Spectral Armor and Spectral Wall are both super good utilities. And power builds aren’t running around corrupting those boons so that complaint feels a bit out of place here. Lack of boons is an intended weakness of the necro. No one wants a necro with ele-like boon generation and the base stats it has.

Zoltreez.6435:

and you no freaken way gonna hold off 4-5 glass canons as a necro alone…

Yeah, I find that hard to believe too. It feels like there is nothing squishier than a pure glass necro. But fortunately necro doesn’t have to be glassy to do damage.

With that said, I don’t think shroud is very strong right now because HoT emphasized defensive steroids over raw stats- and the strength of shroud is that it essentially makes necro a big stat ball. Part of me feels bad for necros because they have a hard time with things other classes don’t have to deal with, and part of me loathes them because their condi builds are extremely potent in small fights and they have had several problematic and brain dead builds over the years (pre-nerf dhuumfire, current shout builds, etc). At any rate, I think PoF will be good for necros.

Looks like we’re also getting cantrips and new “malice” mechanic.

I don’t really see the point in arguing condi v. power. Condi builds are more forgiving and cheesy, but even most power builds are total aids to play against. I’m not saying the two are equal, but there are outliers on both sides that make threads like these impossible.

Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that, like others have said, the power creep has gone too far. There are too many stats. The game was much more balanced when each trait line was associated with certain stats (limiting how much damage defensive builds could do and vice versa) and we only had three stat gear. Obviously we can’t return to that point, but toning down some numbers and removing the plethora of defensive steroids in the game would go a long way.

My ping is spiking super high every day around reset. I played for a few hours before reset with no issues… then as soon as reset rolls around the whole game becomes unplayable.

The system doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t start to apply the chill and then reduce it -100%. It never actually applies in the first place. No bleeds.

Ajax Blue . Why does this thread even exist? I thought this was understood.

But the annoying sounds were like 80% of the reason I made both of those obnoxious weapons. :< I guess some people just can’t handle the stampede of my dashing rainbow stallions and confetti parties.

I honestly really hate this change, but ANet doesn’t seem willing to deal with the underlying issues ruining thief diversity so I think it’s the best chance we’ve got atm.

lmao this is actually hilarious! Nice to see vT again. You guys need to post to the forums more often. :P

KrHome.1920:

Viper condi reaper is totally unviable in wvw.

I have no idea what opponents you fought but they must be terrible. These thieves in your video… Thieves have to destroy you. No excuse! Every thief that gets killed by a GS viper reaper is a noob.

And you did not even run soul reaping. You die the moment a decent player is looking at you.

I mean… if you watch the video s/he is clearly doing work. I don’t see how specific matchups/traits/whatever are relevant as long as OP is having fun. If you don’t have something nice to say…

What? You’ve found roamers in T1? I haven’t seen anyone outside the BG zerg. lol

And tbh, I was in T4 before the new linkings and I was having a great time. There were plenty of people and fights.

JeffHardisty.1926:

543 is a problem, it is the reason TC got locked into T1. It was the 5th ranked server at the time and had a 5% chance to roll T1 (which it got) in the week that they changed to the 543 scoring. Because of the scoring they couldnt lose points, and ended up gaining points. They can not lose enough points to make it easy to drop back down. Here is a image from near the end of the week before it got links; this was its worst loss this year and still gained score.

Wow. That’s actually messed up. >.> I had no idea that even happened. Like I said, I don’t really pay attention to the score because it’s not my thing. I just like fights.

I’m linked to TC atm, which isn’t something I really mind, but this matchup has kept me out of WvW all week. There’s literally nothing to do. I was holding out for reset to see if things changed, but obviously it stayed the same- and now I know why. Now I have to consider paying for a temporary server xfer in order to play the mode at all because I don’t want to leave my guildies and they aren’t active enough to spend resources moving around.

I’m sure this thread will be locked in the morning because we aren’t supposed to talk about matchups, but it’s kinda whatever. There isn’t anywhere else to get these issues addressed- and there’s no reason I should have to pay for a xfer with gold/gems/money I don’t have so I can play the only mode I enjoy.

Tarnished Coast is desolate, Mag is sandbagging, and BG has people on around the clock. I honestly don’t even care about PPT or the score or whatever else, but WvW is unplayable right now and I’d rather it not be unplayable for the next 4 months or however long it takes to relink the servers.

ANet pls.

RodOfDeath.5247:

TakeCare.3182:

Sarrs.4831:

Yeah.

I hope we can find a better long-term solution because T1 is just hell at the moment. Can I go back to 3-4 please

No joke. Nothing like getting zerged 1v50 because you don’t have any allies on the map. lol

Think that’s all tiers and the game in general but gets better in the lower ones.

Zerged or condi “roamed” to death 1 poor player is the anet way lol

Yeah, zerging happens in every tier. That’s not a big deal. But the game becomes miserable when the enemy has a zerg 24/7 and you don’t even have a commander on the map.

Sarrs.4831:

Yeah.

I hope we can find a better long-term solution because T1 is just hell at the moment. Can I go back to 3-4 please

No joke. Nothing like getting zerged 1v50 because you don’t have any allies on the map. lol

DeceiverX.8361:

Whether or not it’s overpowered is up for debate.

What isn’t up for debate is that the build is stupid, easy, and downright unfun to play against.

That’s why it deserves to go, along with all other source of stealth stacking, non-animation-locking defenses, immunities, passives, and excessive CC.

This guy. He gets it.

Simonoly.4352:

I do think Vault needs to be addressed. I would actually prefer for the evade duration to be reduced 1/4 – giving players more opportunity to interrupt this massively damaging AoE skill whilst also making it a bit more of a high risk/high reward skill for my Thief. It would just make things more interesting for everyone involved.

I think reducing the evade duration would be a good alternative to nerfing the damage. Vault is so tricky to deal with. Right now it’s very satisfying to use, but incredibly frustrating to play against. Either adjustment sounds good to me, really.

Simonoly.4352:

Signet of Agility -snip-

Yeah, I’ve thought a lot about Signet of Agility. It’s a tough one. I don’t think signets in general feel good with a cast time, but what can you do… it’s kinda overloaded at the moment. Maybe removing the condi clear would be a nice love tap. I don’t even know if I remember how to play without it. lol.

Simonoly.4352:

There are so many things on Thief that need to be brought up to date to improve build diversity and viability – such as the fact that I actually do as much damage with a simple auto-attack chain on dagger as I do when using Pistol Whip. This really shouldn’t be the case.

Amen! I literally wouldn’t be playing this game anymore if it wasn’t for thief, but it is not in a good spot right now. I feel like ANet is trying to be delicate so they don’t knock the class out of the game like they have before, but… I mean, a lot of it just doesn’t make sense, like you said. And it’s clear that they really want S/D to be a thing, especially in PvP, but it’s like… why would you take something that’s just inferior?

Feral.3609:

As others have mentioned, it’s a bad idea to nerf thief with your given suggestions. Rather than bringing down d/p which keeps thief relevant and in pvp today, instead bringing up the other sets.

The concern with this is that the game has already been power creeped enough. Buffing the other sets could exacerbate the problem, but in all honesty, I would take anything ANet is willing to give. I feel like my approach is much more healthy for the game, but as others have noted, it may require more buffs later on or nerfs to other classes.

Feral.3609:

As for d/d thief, something I think that would help is removing the cripple from dancing dagger and putting it as an addition on death blossom. As for dancing dagger it would apply 1 second of slow and 3 seconds of weakness. The idea of the set would be not just burst, but debilitating your opponent – forcing them to eat attacks and this would also allow more defensiveness to d/d. I would also add a 3 second blind to cloak and dagger.

This is actually SUPER interesting to me. I don’t like the idea of adding a blink to CnD at all. I think it’s one of the best designed skills in the game as far as risk/reward and counterplay goes. That’s also why I don’t particularly like the idea of making it unblockable, which others have thrown around before. The requirement for positioning really makes CnD an expression of skill on thief, and that’s something that I think is incredibly important to maintain. However, I actually love your other suggestions. I think that niche is solid and could actually expand on D/D’s playstyle, which it really needs. I hope ANet is reading this. xP

Feral.3609:

Staff -snip-

I feel like staff is in a pretty good spot now. I do like your suggestions as they move some of its power budget away from Vault. Poison doesn’t really fit thematically, but the daze is interesting. I would just be afraid to push it over the edge. I am definitely not an expert when it comes to that weapon so it would be nice if a more experienced staff player would chime in. xD

Zero Day.2594:

Right…

But see, how it fares in relations to other classes IS relevant.

True you can look for “local” balance within the class itself, but it’s also important to look at the “global” balance across the board… Else you risk making the class too good or too bad.

Also, meta-builds, you wont be able to escape. They will always exist as people will always try to run the best and most optimal build for a given task.

But yeah, neither of us are game designers.

The balance of thief in relation to other classes is relevant when discussing how to make thief competitive with other classes. This thread, however, is not about thief competing with other classes, but how thief builds compete with each other. If these changes crippled thief in the overall metagame, then we could certainly find other buffs to compensate.

I completely agree! Meta builds will always exist and they will always be better for some reason or another. I think D/P would still be the best weaponset for the class, even with these changes. But the point isn’t to delete the meta builds. It’s just to prevent them from oppressing other options that have no chance of being relevant if they can’t use tools like Impacting Disruption or Bounding Dodger. Ideally, we would make the tools exclusive to certain weaponsets less potent and then give the whole class more power so that all builds are brought up rather than just one or two. And it’s hard to capture that in a single “suggestion” patch, but we would have to see what these changes would do to thief builds to actually know where compensation buffs should originate.

First, I just want to say thank you for your nice, constructive response, MUDse. This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping to stir! As for the specifics…

MUDse.7623:

i dont think there is a reason to remove that 1s ICD. -snip-

I do agree that spam should generally be discouraged, but I feel like the 1-second cooldown lowers the counterplay to stealth and disproportionately affects builds that aren’t D/P. For example, before the cooldown was added, one of the best ways to counter D/P permastealth was to predict where the enemy was and fish for them using Backstab and Tactical Strike. Now that’s no longer possible. Really, the only way to stop a D/P thief (with Bound) from camping stealth is to stand in or around their Black Powder, which isn’t ideal if you don’t want to lose half your health to a stray dodge or retaliatory combo. D/P doesn’t even remotely care about the stealth attack cooldown because Shadowshot allows you to get in position whenever you want.

MUDse.7623:

now with that i can backstab and stealth instant again remain in stealth as long as i see fit and backstab again -snip-

That would definitely be annoying to an extent, but you also have to consider the cost of using a utility skill to cheese stealth like that. If someone is using Shadowstep or Shadow Refuge that way, they’re going to have a bad time. The only problem would be Blinding Powder, which would be a 45-second cooldown if this were an actual patch. I guess a lucky Improvisation proc could also be problematic.

MUDse.7623:

and that 4s cd, even with your trait you wont land instant 2 backstabs -snip-

The intent of the trait is not to allow us to Backstab twice in a row without effort, but to offer some counterplay to low cooldown abilities like Detection Pulse, which essentially renders all of Shadow Arts useless.

MUDse.7623:

i play with this trait, its already one of our best condition removing traits, no need to buff it even further -snip-

The buff isn’t necessary, but I think it’d be a nice quality of life change. I never really saw why it was nerfed to begin with.

MUDse.7623:

in that other thief thread about heartseeker, there is a good explaination, why this wont fix the intended problem but will make the trap useless for any other condition build that is not permastealthing.

I would be more interested in seeing a condition build that isn’t permastealthing (that also uses Needle Trap) than I would be in reading that thread. xD Jokes aside, I see your point, but can’t think of another way to kill ghost thief.

MUDse.7623:

still will remain one of the worst pulls ingame then.

No joke! That feel when DH pull makes you fly across the map every time, but Scorpion Wire can’t pull a stationary target on flat terrain standing right in front of your face. :|

MUDse.7623:

Basilisk Venom: This ability is no longer unblockable.

Not gonna lie- this change would sting a little. But I felt like unblockable basi would be too strong with the removal of the 1-second cooldown on stealth attacks. Aegis wouldn’t mean anything anymore.

Zero Day.2594:

TakeCare.3182:

Zero Day.2594:

TakeCare.3182:

Introduction:
I’m not a game design expert
…

TakeCare.3182:

The thief meta builds are just over tuned right now. And while they may be on par or even worse than other meta builds at the moment, that doesn’t justify the state that the class is in. And you are correct, I do believe the other classes need to be nerfed significantly as well. Thief is just what I know and can offer insight on.

I will pretend you’re showing part of the over-all solution…

And with that say, it’s best you show the WHOLE solution and explain all the nerfs across all the classes – not just one.

Until then, this “balance suggestions” are pointless and can come off as someone salty pretending to be a thief main proposing “balance suggestions”.

Oh yeah…
Take Care ;D

Why would I make suggestions for classes that I only play enough to know what they do?

And what part of this post is salty? I proposed changes and outlined where I think each weapon is in terms of balance and what direction they should go. Do you play thief? You don’t think D/P and staff are better than every other weaponset? I mean, if you play the class and you think it’s in a good place, I can only assume that you either don’t care about diversity or you rely on some of the things above to function in the game.

I mean, I guess the other solution is to leave thief the way it is and we’ll all just play the same build- or we’ll buff every other weapon until they’re all equally as forgiving?

Please.

“I’m not a game design expert”

“And you are correct, I do believe the other classes need to be nerfed significantly as well. Thief is just what I know and can offer insight on.”

Either, explain your whole concept of balance, across the board, for all classes, what needs to be done for each. Or don’t.

It’s great you can “balance” one classes and basically say "yeah this will work, if/when other classes also get a ‘balance’ pass " – but that kitten just doesn’t fly well here.

You don’t have to be a game designer to offer balance suggestions in the same way you don’t have to be the President or a member of Congress to know about public policy. So please save it for someone else. lol

I don’t have to explain balance across the board. Thief has problems in and of itself that need to be addressed independently of other classes. How it fares in relation to other classes isn’t relevant in this context. Thief’s entire power budget is loaded into one meta or two meta builds that suppress every other option. It’s unhealthy. I guess if you rely on the meta builds- or god forbid a ghost thief build- to survive, then these suggestions are probably terrifying. But honestly, if you can’t survive without Bandit’s Defense or kill people without spamming Headshot, then you’re probably not doing it right to begin with.

martin.1653:

You should have named the thread “How to destroy thief”.

I agree on few points, but majority is just silly.

Also, I’m curious about this: “Stealth attack skills now have a 4-second recharge if they successfully hit.” You do know it’s pretty much impossible to land 2 stealth attacks in 4 seconds interval?

If you look at the Shadow Arts changes I proposed, there is a new GM that removes the Revealed debuff. The new cooldown would be to prevent something dumb like Backstab + Blinding Powder + Backstab, which would be obscene. xD

Zero Day.2594:

TakeCare.3182:

Introduction:
I’m not a game design expert
…

TakeCare.3182:

The thief meta builds are just over tuned right now. And while they may be on par or even worse than other meta builds at the moment, that doesn’t justify the state that the class is in. And you are correct, I do believe the other classes need to be nerfed significantly as well. Thief is just what I know and can offer insight on.

I will pretend you’re showing part of the over-all solution…

And with that say, it’s best you show the WHOLE solution and explain all the nerfs across all the classes – not just one.

Until then, this “balance suggestions” are pointless and can come off as someone salty pretending to be a thief main proposing “balance suggestions”.

Oh yeah…
Take Care ;D

Why would I make suggestions for classes that I only play enough to know what they do?

And what part of this post is salty? I proposed changes and outlined where I think each weapon is in terms of balance and what direction they should go. Do you play thief? You don’t think D/P and staff are better than every other weaponset? I mean, if you play the class and you think it’s in a good place, I can only assume that you either don’t care about diversity or you rely on some of the things above to function in the game.

I mean, I guess the other solution is to leave thief the way it is and we’ll all just play the same build- or we’ll buff every other weapon until they’re all equally as forgiving?

Please.

The whole post does seem like a list of nerfs, but a lot of them are inevitable and, while they might not be coming down the pipe in the next patch, they will eventually come. The idea is to bring all thief weapons to a more even playing field to establish diversity and then provide buffs where it’s appropriate rather than just relegating ourselves to ONE weaponset and calling it a day.

Turk.5460:

This isn’t a balance suggestion thread, it’s a nerf wish list. None of these nerfs are remotely warranted with the current state of Thief vs other professions. Nerfing x to make y stronger is not what needs to be done, unless you also suggest appropriate nerfs to all other professions.

I’m going to take a wild guess here – you are one of those thieves that only plays power D/D, only able to c/D steal backstab for the one hit kill. You know, part of that incredibly vocal minority who complain when they can’t instagib another thief…

The thief meta builds are just over tuned right now. And while they may be on par or even worse than other meta builds at the moment, that doesn’t justify the state that the class is in. And you are correct, I do believe the other classes need to be nerfed significantly as well. Thief is just what I know and can offer insight on.

lol. No. I play D/D, D/P, S/D, staff, and S/P (in order of frequency) and I would say I’m pretty good with most of them. My point is that there is absolutely no reason to play anything but D/P at the moment and the meta builds cater to players who make frequent mistakes. Play D/D, S/D, or whatever weaponset you want, but as soon as you swap to D/P, you’re suddenly so much better at the game because the weaponset is just that good.

rennlc.7346:

Wow, that’s a lot of nerfs. Do you really play thief?

I have 3000+ hours and counting.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Sounds like OP is salty about Thieves and needs to l2p against Thieves badly, but iirc the OP used to main Thief years ago but stopped playing and possibly maims a different class. Now. Or the OP says they Main Thief and actually doesn’t and uses that to try and ask for nerfs, Or the Op no longer actively plays and is inviting Chaos.

The nerfs to stealth access and Stealth attacks are ridiculous, Op wants to delete Shadow Arts trait line which is the most underused traitlines Thief has, and would make Thief be useless with Stealth when they are designed around Stealth at a conceptual level.

I main thief. I know how to play it. I know how to play against it. And I know that the meta builds are very forgiving compared to other thief builds and should be brought in line with the rest of the class so we can actually get buffs to help us compete with other classes rather than just abusing broken traits and utilities.

The changes to Shadow Arts and stealth attacks are actually 100% buffs, and incredibly strong ones at that, so you might want to read it again. The trait line is complete garbage right now. No one uses it. With those changes it might actually be viable again.

Intended Weapon Strengths and More Suggestions:

Dagger/Dagger:
Ideally, D/D would be one of the highest burst sets thief has access to. It’s melee, lacks a reliable defense mechanism, and requires proper positioning to be successful. There is an abundant amount of counterplay to Cloak and Dagger and players should be rewarded for using it correctly. Death Blossom should be adjusted to reduce the spam and frustration of condition oriented builds.

Dagger/Pistol:
This weaponset trades some of offhand dagger’s damage for more utility. Right now it is a bit overturned, crowding out other options for thief. It currently has more damage and utility than any other thief set (with the exception of staff). The defensive options within the set itself are fine, but additional traits and utilities push it over the top.

Pistol/Dagger:
I honestly haven’t played P/D enough to know how to make it viable. Power, hybrid, and condi builds should be viable with the set, if possible.

Pistol/Pistol:
Again, like P/D, I haven’t played the set enough to know how to fix it, but the auto attack likely needs adjusted to make the set less reliant on Unload for damage.

Shortbow:
As a utility weapon, shortbow has never fallen out of favor. The mobility it provides is amazing, but Disabling Shot leaves something to be desired. Choking Gas isn’t nearly as potent as it used to be and doesn’t feel good to use, but I am unsure if there is a way to bring it back without it being oppressive in team fights.

Staff:
Staff fits a more evasive, bruiser playstyle. What is lacks in stealth, it should make up for in evades and AoE damage (which it currently does). However, right now Vault is a bit too much.

Sword/Dagger:
S/D is similar to staff in that it’s an evasive, bruiser playstyle, but it trades damage for stealth. Ideally, it would be the best thief weaponset to take against tanky/boon classes like ele and guardian. Unfortunately, Flanking Strike is too easy to dodge/blind/block so it ends up being pretty meh.

Sword/Pistol:
S/P actually feels like it’s in a decent spot, but it’s hard to compete with the meta builds in terms of effectiveness. Bringing down those builds should increase the relative strength of S/P significantly.

Conclusion:
I’m interested to hear what the community thinks of my thoughts. Maybe some of the suggestions are good, maybe some are bad. Maybe they’re all bad. I don’t know, but I think changes need to be made. I’m so tired of playing D/P or being objectively inferior to D/P. :|

Introduction:
I’m not a game design expert, but I’ve been playing thief for years and I’m ready for some changes. The class has been pigeon-holed into one or two meta builds for the last two years. It’s time to give thief players some options.
[Note: These changes are primarily directed towards WvW, and to a lesser extent, PvP.]

Goals:

• Make the class as a whole less frustrating to play against
• Increase build and weapon diversity

General Changes:

• Stealth attack skills no longer have a 1-second recharge if they do not successfully hit.
• Stealth attack skills now have a 4-second recharge if they successfully hit.
• Preparedness made baseline across the whole class.

Trait lines:

Shadow Arts:

• Shadow’s Embrace: This trait has been reverted to its previous iteration which reads “Remove conditions periodically while in stealth” (prioritizes damaging conditions).
• Shadow Protector: This trait has been removed from the game.
• Cloaked in Shadow: This trait has been moved from Grandmaster tier to Master tier.
• New Grandmaster trait: Deception skills remove Revealed (from the user only).

Trickery:

• Preparedness: This trait has been made baseline.
• New minor trait: TBD

Daredevil:

• Impacting Disruption: The internal cooldown of this ability has been increased from 0-seconds to 5-seconds.
• Unhindered Combatant : The damage reduction from this trait has been removed.
• Bounding Dodger: The damage of this trait has been reduced by ~15%.

Weapon Skills:

Offhand dagger:

• Cloak and Dagger: This ability now blinds the target upon successful hit.
  [Note: This change is unnecessary if Cloaked in Shadows is moved to Master tier]

Staff:

• Vault: The initiative cost of this ability has been increased from 5 to 6.
• Vault: The damage of this ability has been reduced by 25%.

Shortbow:

• Disabling Shot: The evasion component of this ability has been increased from 64% to 100% of the skill’s duration.

Dual skills:

• Flanking Strike: This ability no longer needs to successfully hit a target before giving access to Larcenous Strike.

Utility skills:

• Bandit’s Defense: The cooldown of this ability has been increased from 15-seconds to 25-seconds.
• Blinding Powder: The cooldown of this ability has been increased from 40-seconds to 45-seconds.
• Needle Trap: This ability now does a small amount of damage.
• Roll for Initiative: The cooldown of this ability has been reduced from 60-seconds to 45-seconds.
• Scorpion Wire: This ability has been made more reliable on uneven terrain.

Elite skills:

• Basilisk Venom: This ability is no longer unblockable.

MUDse.7623:

so u want thief with every weapon to be as strong as he is with D/D ? as long as CnD is not unblockable u wont make me use that set.

The point is to make other weaponsets viable. D/P has been THE thief set for years now. There’s nothing wrong with it being a good- or even the strongest- thief weapon, but it is a problem when it crowds out other weapons and becomes frustrating to play against.

The Acro, Bandit’s Defense, Bound dodge D/P build is legitimately OP in WvW. You can’t be bursted from 100-0 because of Instant Reflexes, your stealth can’t be interrupted because of Bound dodge (and it essentially makes it so that you never run out of stealth or initiative), you can’t be locked down because of Hard to Catch and Bandit’s Defense, your interrupts can do anywhere from 3-4k damage, and you can take out 70% of a squishies health in a combo.

Having strengths is fine, but right now it’s actually hard to die. Nerf what is OP and buff D/P in other ways that will give skilled thieves the same relative strength, while also making it less frustrating to play against and less forgiving to players who aren’t as good or experienced.

To that same end, other thief weapons are garbage atm. Anything D/D and S/D can do, D/P can do better. S/P has more CC and P/P has more range, but they’re still inferior to D/P. I’m not even going to talk about P/D. Staff is good. Vault is a little dumb, but it isn’t making other options less viable. I love thief- I even like D/P- but the options have grown stale.

It’s like people can only think of ways to nerf D/P that will also kitten on power D/D builds, which are already bad. LOL. Nerf Bound , Acro , Pulmonary Impact, and increase the initiative cost of Vault by 1. Remove the cooldown on stealth skills. Then buff thief weapons across the board until they each have a niche they can fill or are at least somewhat viable. D/P and staff are overtuned right now because they’re the only weapons you can use against OP builds and competent players. Nerf what makes them spammy or cancerous and then bring them up in other ways with the rest of the weaponsets. It isn’t hard to make thief more fun, diverse, and balanced.

Black Scoutsman.5830:

I really like this build and the video.

Thanks! I’ve been working forever to make a D/D build that isn’t total garbage. And while this one is still pretty bad compared to D/P, it has a good amount of sustain/damage and is a lot more fun.

Black Scoutsman.5830:

Literally the only problem I have is after playing so long with the extra initiative and using steal tactically, I have such a hard time with initiative management with only the base. Especially with CND taking so much initiative, one miss is deadly. How difficult of a transition was that for you?

The transition wasn’t very difficult for me, but I don’t usually take Trickery in D/D builds. You just have to keep in mind that you have two CnDs to work with. The build is set up to help you land them.

You have Infil. Signet as a second Steal, which gives you something to fall back on if you ever miss your initial CnD- not to mention the handy stunbreak and initiative regen.

And taking Critical Strikes over Deadly Arts (AKA Mug) allows you to time your CnD significantly later to minimize enemy reaction time. If you use Mug, your CnD has to come after the Steal damage or you’re going to reveal yourself. Without that restriction, you can Steal at the latest possible moment in the CnD animation to get off a super quick stealth + Backstab combo. It takes a lot of practice and I’m still working on it myself, but it’s actually a super big deal. xD

You can also fake engages and disengages to bait enemy cooldowns, dodges, or get the element of surprise, which can help a lot with landing CnD. I do this little number a lot. If you don’t turn around, you don’t give them any indication that you’re going to engage and it almost always works. You can also stow or dodge to cancel any CnD you know is going to fail.

That’s probably a lot more than you wanted, but yeah… xD

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond to everyone. Had long work hours the last few days. xD

Kocoff.7582:

I wish you didn’t speed up the gameplay that much, it seemed like fun, but it is difficult to pay attention when things go too rapidly.
Good job!

Thank you and noted.

SlitheSlivier.1908:

What’s your build? -snip-

DeceiverX.8361:

If I had to guess… -snip-

Good to see other power D/D play, though.

Closeeee! Here’s the build. It relies pretty heavily on Instant Reflexes or you just get one shot by D/P thieves. Don’t Stop is kinda overkill with dash dodge, but it can help in those moments when you’re trying to line up a backstab and don’t want to dodge out of a certain position. It’s the best D/D build I’ve been able to come up with since they nerfed the weaponset ages ago.

ich.7086:

A bit too much ooc for me but still refreshing. Make me think that i haven’t played s/p since ages should run that again one day.

The friend I’m with in the video runs S/P all the time and loves it. You should give it a try. Who says we need to be condi or play D/P / Staff! xD

Taobella.6597:

it very nice play overall bring back memories seeing infiltrator signet xD

Thank you so much! I’ve always been self conscious about my thief play so it feels good to see positive responses! I miss the old SA D/D thief days a lot myself. Trying to recapture that a bit.

Recently started playing again.
Thought you guys might enjoy a few clips from the stream yesterday.

D/D Thief Outnumbered Roaming

Sorry the first few minutes are laggy. For whatever reason, it didn’t record correctly.

Reaper Alim.4176:

Kinda hoping in these desperate times ANet would just temporarily suspend their short term money grabbing practices on Bandwagoner’s for the sake of the continuity of WvW.

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

WvW Then and Now: A Roaming Montage

Hello everyone! I doubt anyone knows me, but I used to upload WvW videos on YouTube years ago. Unfortunately, everything I had was muted (copyright violations) a while ago when I was taking a break from the game. So instead of reuploading everything with new music, I just decided to make one short compilation of clips from the past and present. The game has changed so much. >_> Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

The song is an instrumental version of Azealia Banks’ “Ice Princess.”

The builds are… well, I remember all of them, but they are outdated to say the least. If you have any questions about them anyway, let me know here, in game, or on the channel somewhere.

Ceesa.1350:

If I’m in WvW to grind a gift of battle or the wvw armor set, then I should see that my participation is correlated directly to my rewards. Sadly, this system encourages me to do a soft afk.

The system is intentionally set up like this so that people who are playing outside of the zerg (roaming, scouting, whatever) can get rewards too. There isn’t really another way to gauge “participation” because there are numerous things you can do in WvW to contribute to the matchup that cannot be measured through traditional means.

Straegen.2938:

Thieves are cannibalistic more so than any other class. Thieves kill each other far easier than they can kill just about any other class… and they do so at a good clip.

Truer words were never spoken. Some of my non-thief friends just don’t understand it, but any time another thief is in a fight…

EremiteAngel.9765:

TakeCare.3182:

Dragonhunter crushes Daredevil by default. If you let the fight go on for an hour, you just got outplayed, to be honest.

with all respect, you probably have not fought DDs running cheese builds then.

Hm. I could see maybe one of the condi builds being difficult for you to kill because they’re so ungodly tanky.

anotherduck.8730:

You have to realize that most of us are complaining, not because we relied on this to play S/D efficiently, but simply because this nerf was uncalled for. You could say it is the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s one more change that heavily impacts the versatility of a weapon set, that was struggling in pvp to begin with.

Exactly. S/D wasn’t a very good set even with the bug. What’s the point in making it worse? I mean, yeah, I honestly think the bug needed to be fixed eventually because it’s just something that shouldn’t be in the game, but now is not the time. D/P has been THE thief set for years. Last patch they kitten on D/D with the Backstab CD and now S/D is taking a hit. Why? Are we all supposed to play D/P? Is that the intention?

D/D hasn’t been viable since the trait rework in June of 2015. S/D made it out okay, but was still inferior to D/P in just about every way. The January patch of this year made S/D a lot better, but it’s still meh overall. The change today won’t make or break the set, but it certainly feels disrespectful to the people already fighting an uphill battle.

I can only assume that ANet is eventually going to nerf D/P and then thief will have nothing outside staff spam and condi cheese. They have certainly made it clear that they don’t intend on helping offhand dagger. Thief just has so many core problems in general. It would take a considerable amount of work to get us back to a place where there is some build diversity.

Dragonhunter crushes Daredevil by default. If you let the fight go on for an hour, you just got outplayed, to be honest.

I would definitely like at least a blind on CnD. The swiftness would be a nice touch too.

Ikihiki.2316:

Even though i play thief as my main character, this nerf is good.

Thief is not the easiest class to play, but spamming backstab + attack-chain + shadow shot was making it too easy.

This change separates good thieves, that can adapt to the situation, from the mindless metabuild copiers.

This change doesn’t do anything significant enough to separate the good from the bad. The only thing it does is reinforce the meta build. I’ve played D/D thief since the game’s release and the disparity between the D/D and D/P has never been greater. In fact, this change had a little (if any) effect on D/P, but it demolished D/D.

The funny thing to me is that this doesn’t even really effect D/P. I was playing D/P yesterday and didn’t even notice, but it absolutely crushed D/D. It doesn’t have any effect on S/D either. I mean, both of those sets have the mobility to get to a target whenever they want. And even if you miss your stealth skill, they have pressure with the other skills on their set- unlike D/D.

I didn’t think this change was going to be a big deal, but it’s actually super awful. I hopped on my D/D thief in WvW and it’s incredibly clunky now. Fighting D/P thieves was already a chore just because of the nature of the matchup, but now you can’t even fish for backstabs while they camp stealth. D/D is still functional, but the set is so bad in general that this change has ruined the only thing that was still good about it: smooth combos.

Scott Lockharte.3412:

-snip-

Wow! Thanks for the info! Can’t wait to mess around with builds. xP
Hopefully I’ll see you in WvW sometime

Scott Lockharte.3412:

Valk/BM: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhFakjGapxaawyGYvxCugNN2aCVh4r4XcMCNACAtAA-TBCBABQcKAyS5HW7PwoSwAeiCAcgCuU9n8038NgAYQQIQIECr1atWdMChQQKgB2ZB-e
And http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhFakjGapxaawxGYvxCugBNACAtApeQXbfFfF/ilRA-TxBBABep8DgTVQaKBD4JKkn+mLV/Br9H+GMAMEigIiYmZmpRERESBMwWL-e

Either of these are stat-capped, aim for that, GLHF

Hey, Scott! I remember fighting you in WvW ages and ages ago. Are these the builds you’re running now or are you still in that heavy cava spec?

All they need to do is give CnD a blind. D/P would still be better, but it would at least give D/D a chance to deal with the obscene power creep in this game. Until then, I guess we’re just supposed to play daredevil and spam dodges, stealth, and interrupts all day. Because that’s super fun to play as and against /s.

EDIT: Oh god, some of the things in this thread. D/D shouldn’t be balanced as a condi or hybrid spec. That’s absurd. We need less spam in this game- not more 3333333. Rework Death Blossom to make a condi route optional while not being completely brain dead, give CnD a blind, and call it a day. We don’t need unblockable skills. Dancing Dagger is fine. The set doesn’t need an immob or more damage or anything else. Jesus.

Preparedness is really the only thing I think needs to be baseline. Everything else is fine as is, in my opinion.

Someone has developed a few new tactics, I see. :P

Impressive stuff. More pls. :P

That moment you interrupt the engi leap with warhorn daze:

You could definitely try it. :P I think those options might actually be better in the Rampager build just because you have permafury from No Quarter already.