Guild Wars 2

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Darknicrofia.2604:

Fat Disgrace.4275:

May be for conquest maps (which are boring anyway) but the likes of wvw roaming and even champions dusk, power builds are still very strong

um yea…except the king of wvw roaming is a Dire PU spec cancer perplexity condi mesmer build.

ONLY if the enemy facing this sort of thing hangs around and trys to fight it.

That’s like saying “ONLY” if the mesmer logs in that given day and plays the build.
I hope you see the flaw in arguing against something being OP in a supposedly PvP game mode by stating “only if you fight it”

You are supposed to fight it, it’s PvP. Any build encouraging passive gameplay and dodging fights should be permanently deleted (should not even exist in the first place)

The current meta is about spamming skills left and right (GW2 has always been like this to be fair), that’s why this sigil is currently OP as hell.
The healing factor is just too big, especially considering it’s an AoE.

Someone brought up Air sigil – that is single target and doesn’t have a secondary effect added to it, it’s for pure damage.

On one hand the sigil punishes players who faceroll their keyboards.
Furthermore (and this is the real problem) it is adding further benefits upon the already considerable damage it does.

It gets exponentially better with 1vX, while it’s healing factor is in check during a 1v1.

Adding to my “CC” post and thoughts, I think another issue is that every class applies its damage the same way – i.e: Direct/Condi

A DoT necro is not unique cause other professions can apply DoTs as well, hell, some are even better at it. Thief is not the only class with a huge power spike: Rev, DH hit just as hard. You hopefully get my point.

I think this is a result of obvious lazy class design and “copy-pasting” mechanics instead of coming up with original design.
You want build diversity, I want class diversity.

As a result the transition from one role to another (which would be multiclassing in GW2’s case) is not that big of a deal.
We could see Pro players picking up Rev instead of thief and mastering it in no time just because apart from a few differences (which are minor looking at the bigger picture), the class has the same role and mechanics.

As others pointed out before me the No-Trinity looks good on paper and could work. But you need to come up with something to replace it, otherwise we will be (are) watching essentially players with the same roles bashing eachothers’ skull just like in an FPS.

The point I’m trying to make is that by making certain CCs, mechanics, conditions class-specific, the character could turn into a really special something and would indeed reflect the player’s playstyle.

The title “Pro Thief” would actually mean something and would reflect the fact that you are especially good at that one playstyle, which would require certain skill set.

But right now every class (and every player) is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades.

Asrat.2645:

Wolfric.9380:

We and anet has to sacrifice new specs and classe, because it will make the mess greater and harder wo work out…. They should focus on other contet not new classes in the next expansion. But i fear this is somthing we won´t bring into the minds of Anets marketing …

Well that part I completely disagree on.
This is not related to powercreep, but the introduction of moar elite specs is the best way to save build diversity.

On that note…do these elite specs or classes for that matter really differ? We don’t have specified roles, which means each class is/should be able to cover all areas (damage/sustain/control) relatively well.

If you think about it…at the end of the day…is there really a huge difference between say, Power Revenant and Thief? I’m referring to MOBAs here and I know far too well, that this is an MMO and is not intended to be shaped to any MOBAs image, but think about it. You don’t really have to adjust your whole gameplay/team comp drastically just because a certain class is present in the enemy comp, which means the class itself has less of a meaning and it’s the player who determines who you could counter that.

I don’t think introducing new elite specs would help with build diversity or would shake things up for that matter….
Power spike damage is power spike damage at the end of the day…how you apply it may differ somewhat, but not that much that it would make things more interesting to watch in the long run… (considering eSports is the goal here for ANet).
All the spectator sees is that X got bursted by Y using Z skill. Great.

Not sure I was able to properly phrase my thoughts, but hopefully you’ll get my point ^^’

What I would like to see for example is to make each CC category class specific:
• Give thieves and only them pulls for example
• Knockbacks to Guardians
• Knockdowns to Warriors
• Fears to Necros
• Roots to Rangers
• Stuns to Engineers
• Taunts to Mesmers
• Launches to Elementalists

Just a quick list without any thought given to balance and whatnot. The idea is to make that specified class indeed unique, cause right now every profession can do everything (of course there are classes who can do better in certain roles), which renders the nature of the class almost completely irrelevant.

I’ve been running without condi clear on evade lately partially because PI is just plain OP at the moment.
I’ve been also testing Staff here and then

I’m somewhat in the same shoes, getting familiar with the class.

• You can take the Staff trait that gives the player increased damage if you don’t want to use Distracting Daggers as one of your utility skills. Generally Signet of Agility and Shadowstep are kinda mandatory, which leaves you with 2 free utility slots.
• you can either equip Distracting Daggers and the trait with PI as you’d still have plenty of interrupts without pistol offhand (Steal/Daggers/your elite skill)
  or
• you can equip Blinding Powder which would pretty much guarantee you a Vault after the Stealth attack, which is a knockdown. The choice is yours, I like to mix it up
• Impairing Daggers is also nice with the immob, which would also guarantee you landing a Vault
• For Elite, I think both skills are pretty viable, depends on your playstyle. If the enemy team has a strong rez comp, I usually take Impact Strike just for skipping downstate (if timed perfectly)

• I take Improvisation over Executioner only if there are classes with decent stolen abilities in the enemy comp (necro/mesmer/warrior/etc.). This part depends on the enemy comp almost entirely for me though. For example if I have an enemy comp with 2 thieves, I would take this trait for sure as the extra stealth would be a huge advantage on my side if they decide to jump on me. Double Fear and double plasma is also nice.
• I find Shortbow essential, the poison on downed corpses, the evade on #3 and the vertical mobility on #5 is just too nice for me to give up. If you run Blinding Powder, the Immob from stealth is pretty strong too IMO.

I’m still learning though forcing myself to get out of the tunnel vision and find a proper function for Staff #3 and #4 as well, which I know they have.

S/P paired with PI is fun to play, especially against said engies.
I know that the set is not considered to be skillful and it has many issues especially with the PW aftercast, but man, I’ve been shredding Reapers/DHs/engies with this set lately

It is also quite fun to watch the average Thief player shadowshot-spam you and teleport into your swingity-swingy 80-0 themselves in the process

I had some issues with the dagger’s projectile speed though – but I guess it won’t be tweaked since it’s an already spammable interrupt on a relatively low cd.

Vieux P.1238:

displacedTitan.6897:

Vieux P.1238:

More mesmer QQ’ing? Every season it’s the same sob story. I get it, Bunker mesmer last season was bad. But we are far from that now. After the way to many nerf that mesmers has incurred in the last year alone, we are left with one viable build. ONE! & the only reason why the class is surviving pvp is not cuz of the merc amulet or the inspiration line or the high skill level that mesmer players are in. It’s cuz none of you keeping the pressure on the mesmer. It’s way to easy to kill it. You complainers are just to use to have to deal with mesmers that does no damage & that you can deal & dispatch with last. With no consequence. I’m sorry, but i feel the game more balanced then ever since this off season we are having more & more close matches then disparities.

Power Shatter took skill and timing to use. The meta condi Mesmer is the very definition of spam and tank playstyle. Its much more like the bunker Mes from season 1 in its play style than the Power Shatter that people were ok with in the past.

Shatter is shatter no matter if it’s power or condi base. Playing mesmer takes skill & espacially timing or you die. Simple as that! If you dont time your shatters, They are bloc, dodged or just plain ignored & resisted. So i’m sorry, but your argument does not hold here. The rest..keep QQ’ing.. seems your high on that skill. sigh..:(

I used to main power shatter at some point, which was helluva lot of fun back in the days.
IMO the skillfulness of the class didn’t come only from setting up your shatters, but also from the fact that it took quite a piano concert on the keyboard to not get eaten alive by thieves.
Chrono survivability even without Stealth is insane compared to Power Shatter. OH Shield is by far the best off hand choice a Mesmer could have now.
Where is torch and all the Stealth set-ups? Where is GS?
Nowhere, because Staff is just plain better for the current meta and it would be just stupid not to take OH shield when it clearly outshines everything else.

You can toy around with builds, but if you go for maximum effectiveness (which people usually do in Ranked PvP), you will take OH Shield. Block and CC? Yes, please.

I don’t think the issue is with the damage. It took skill before to set up a shatter, it takes now as well. Once you learn to dodge through clones, the mesmer really has to be on his toes to land a proper shatter on you.
But at the moment the class is just too forgiving, with blocks, ports, invulns.
It’s too easy to stay alive on Chrono while you’d continuously apply pressure

That is my issue at least.

I think ANet intended to buff the damage output of the class in a way it would further strengthen its areas where it really shines (mobility):

• currently the only reason a Thief is in a team comp is its /somewhat/ supreme mobility. Your role is to +1 fights, play the map and quickly down targets. That’s what the current LA change encourages. Use your SB to travel across the map, build up your stacks so upon engaging you’d do the highest possible burst the class is capable of.
• spamming damage skills is easily punishable. There are tons of invuln. traits (looking at you engi mini) that trigger at X % to prevent such burst attempts, not to mention dodges and channeled blocks.
  If you spam your skills and you are facing good opponents, they will quickly empty out your ini bar, which leads to your death on any weapon set.

I disagree with the statement that it actively encourages spammy playstyle. People who wanted to spam have been spamming so far despite of it being ineffective.
Furthermore spamming is still ineffective, given the fact the Thief is facing competent opponents.

Gallant Pigeon.5807:

Staff is a better brawler alternative to s/d. Slightly less mobility, but a lot more damage. Staff struggles 1v1 vs good players though. It lacks CC and is highly telegraphed. d/p is the best +1 set atm.

You could play d/p + s/d. You can jump cancel s/d #2, making it almost like shortbow.

I’ve been considering Staff a lot these days team fight-wise as the inbuilt evade on its highest damage skill would theoretically let me stay in fights for a longer time, while also applying continuous pressure.
On the other hand, it seems to be a one-trick-Pony, but who knows…

The boon steal and shadowstep on S/D is hard to give up though…

My 2 cents on the topic (bear in mind I’m new to the profession)

• Thief is already one of the classes with the biggest burst damage – high single target damage. Adding high AoE damage as well (especially from ranged) would be kind of OP IMO
• you are not meant to cleave. You are meant to down someone and stomp him if the cleave is not enough/not possible. For that you have plenty of options: Shadowstep, stealth stomp, hell, Impact Strike cannot be countered at all if you time it well.
• you are the best for staggering rez’s in small skirmishes. Plenty of access to dazes with Head Shot, Steal, Reflexive Strike, etc.
• Shortbow #4 is an AoE poison field, which is quite underestimated IMO. Put that down on a downed body – if your team is not able to finish the downed player in an even situation, the problem is not with you (or with the Shortbow)
• if the situation is so dense that everyone is stacking on that body, you are better off getting decaps/caps anyway

Dahkeus.8243:

So, here’s my 2 copper:

If you want to play the role of +1, you’ll generally pull that off more effectively with a D/P build. S/D can +1 as well, but it’s more of a brawler type build that sacrifices burst for the ability to survive a messier fight and strip boons. D/P, on the other hand, will jump in a fight with more burst and excels at quickly downing a low HP target or at least shutting it down with stuns.

My biggest grief with Dagger main hand is that I find it hard to land Backstabs in the chaos of a team fight.
There is just so many particle effects flying around that I literally don’t see if the enemy shows me his back or not. This results in missed Backstabs, however, I’m sure that here the problem is with me.
On the other hand the #5 + #2 combo for stealth feels clunky and slow – it can be seen from a mile away unless I stack stealth, but then I run out of ini and bet everything on that Backstab, which I’m not particularly good at landing…* sigh *…

CnD into Backstab feels much more “fluid”, but there we have the problem with off hand dagger not being that good, especially compared to Pistol’s Head Shot
It just feels like Dagger main hand is not suited for my taste :/

…which is a shame as it seems Dagger main hand is the weapon to use given the current spot of Thief in the meta…

Hi peeps,

I’ve decided to get intimate with the thief profession and master it in (a lot of) time. However, as it is with beginners, I’d have a couple of questions.
My build is the following: http://tinyurl.com/hvqkc5e

• as I see it the profession’s role is still to quickly +1 fights and play the map, nothing more, nothing less
• my weapon sets are S/D + SB: I can’t help it, but feel crippled without shortbow as I seem to lose even that tiny advantage I have over Revs in terms of mobility.
  Plus with the new change to “Lead Attacks”, I might as well stack that multiplier while travelling across capture points.
• I currently run Eagle runes and am well aware that there are potent alternatives. I just don’t feel comfortable enough on the profession to maintain the health threshold for utilizing Scholars and the idea is to burst down low HP targets, so Eagle’s bonus come in handy anyway. I am open to suggestions though as I feel this is something that could be improved.
• need help with my 3rd utility skill. I know that Shadowstep is the go-to choice, however having a skill with 50s cooldown on a thief which is mainly used as a teleport (read a thread about how its condi cleanse feature and how it’s not the best to use, which I agree with) feels a lot like a waste to me. I’m well aware of the benefits of having that skill on the toolbar, but it doesn’t feel that rewarding for such a high cd
  My question here would be: any suggestions for the 3rd utility slot? Fist Flurry came into my mind as the general issue with S/D (which everyone seem to agree on) is the relatively low damage output/burst potential especially compared to D/P (I’m just simply not suited for D/P so let’s leave it at that).
  However, I haven’t seen anyone using or mentioning that skill. Is it the long cast time or rather the fact people favour Shadowstep over anything else?
  I feel the skill would already benefit from the Physical trait and could be a decent damage booster for bursts given the fact that this build has a ton of access to immobs/stuns so landing it would actually be no problem.
  Is it the long cast time?

• I need to vary my rotations and stop spamming in favour of more strategical skill usage. I have troubles with off hand dagger though. It seems…useless somehow. Like why would I use dagger #4 and #5 at all? Stealth does not seem to be that important in this build (can be nice to rotate unnoticed) and #4 is just simply terrible in my opinion, but I could be wrong.
  What are the advantages of off hand dagger? Do you use #4 and #5 and if so, when?

I think that would be all for now, but I’m sure more question will arise with the discussion.

Thanks in advance for your valuable inputs!

Dear ArenaNet,

I would like to point out a fact that so many before me has done, yet as of today it has not been addressed at all.

People leave games more and more often and there are absolutely no negative consequences coming out of it for them. Yesterday I had 3 matches in a row when someone decided that it was enough and left the match. 3 in a row. This morning I had another 2 and I could keep going…
Just because the match does not start the way they want or we have a rough matchup, they decide to jump off the ship and do something else for that 10 minutes or so while we get roflstomped. Cause that is literally the only consequence – you have to wait out the match you just jumped out from to play the next matchup.

From today on me and 2 of my mates will refuse to play a single ranked game because of it, as it got extremely frustrating that one could do such a thing without any consequences. The fact that you dare to call it “competitive” game mode is just beyond laughable…
I know that is probably not a scary thing to you as you have thousands of players still playing the game, but I simply refuse to support a game and its developers who do not care about such huge factors at all.

Please refrain from the standard kitten. I don’t care if you will introduce something with HoT. The problem is very much present NOW and we need a fix NOW.
Not in months.
The fact that the developer community cares so little about communicating with the playerbase is more than disheartening aswell. People told you countless times about this (and other issues) aswell, yet there are no official statements from the dev team addressing these concerns at all.

Oh, and before someone comes with the “one could get dc’d too, ya know” argument, let me tell you: it is a Massive Multiplayer Online game that requires internet connection. If you still use dial-up or just have a terrible connection in general, do not expect to play such a game.

…excuses Sladi. Smokee would not be pleased.
Does he know that you are out getting rekt by TC? :o

Inb4 you claim to be the defender of beginners…
you should really read what other people write – I stated that I’m no longer a necro main. that doesn’t mean I haven’t played the profession for months.
If you would be actually curious about my story, you would have checked my post history (it’s not even long as I tend to read the forums more than posting myself).
Had you done so, you would have seen that I made some quite lengthy and detailed posts regarding necro balance back in the days. Granted, not nowadays, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get on my necro from time to time to play it in ranked.

I’d suggest to follow Drarnor’s advice and let this one go. I will certainly do so.
My opinion stands still regarding the Elite. Yours too. I’d still have a lot to add to your last statement(s), as there are several incorrect argumetns in there, too, but seeing that you have a personal issue with me, I’ll refrain from that.

Let’s just forget that this has happened and call it a night.

heavenswrath.9850:

What do you guys do against this? It’s like a permanent lock out from every skill you have. Even if you stun break they just dump another daze on you. God forbid there happens to be a thief around spamming daze as well.

would help a lot if you could describe the scenario

• what gametype
• what weapons did the mesmer use
• what is your spec

can’t do much with 0 information.

Guess the civilized conversation is over. I’m sorry if I stepped on a nerv.

Bhawb.7408:

This is a buff in any situations where you would have lost stability, which was pretty much any time you would have used Lich against competent players. Yes new stability is relatively easy to get through, but to chain CC Lich you end up “wasting” a lot of extra CCs, whereas before you would have just removed stability and done it better.

Bhawb.7408:

Lich is far stronger now than it was before. The pulsing stability is a buff whenever boon ripping is present, aka almost all of PvP where Lich is worth popping. The only time this won’t be a buff is in WvW against hammer trains, which were also nerfed.

Perhaps I should have quoted other necro mains from the start, who have been known for playing necro in PvP, instead of posting from a different point of view as an ex-necro.

Balekai.6083:

Although it’s not as important to get that first boon strip off from the get go, It will definitely be harder to solo-counter lich pressure over 20 seconds (6-7 pulses of stability). Having to boon strip or cc a lich every 3 seconds to remove stability, in addition to keeping them cced and not DPSing, is definitely a buff overall against players that actually know/knew how to counter it.

Of course it’s a nerf in all those situations where players never try to strip lich stability and just take lich DPS in the face until they hit the dirt. Now players will be able to “accidently” strip lich stability through use of cc skills.

Or even this statement.

But you obviously jumped at my throat the first time the opportunity has been given.
So be it. What I was actually saying is that as a mesmer main, I had 0 issues with Lich Prior patch. With this change, it becomes a lot harder to be dealt with.

You would like 2 stacks on a 3s pulse. Meaning leaving only a 1s window for actual CCs to land, assuming you don’t eat more than 1 CC in 1sec.
Btw stacking CCs to get rid of the stab effect is a quite useless way to use them. Instead of having them to be chained to stack in duration, you will end up with less CC duration to land when you’ll have the opportunity to do so.

It’s a buff against competent players. Probably you will realize it somewhere on the way.
When that happens, you won’t have to come back to make an apology. You’re welcome.
Have a good night!

GhOst.4019:

If there is a thief on point, you don’t go lich. Same for mesmer;

You somewhat lost your credibility at this sentence. What you are stating here is that if the enemy player whose job is solely to counter you as the power necro does his job even halfway decent, it’s pointless to use your elite.

GhOst.4019:

“Letting your team breath” for 5 seconds doesn’t matter if you are now dead. Can’t breathe after that, when they are now outnumbered. Forces you to use Lich in small skirmishes only and takes a big team fight out of the question.

Again, small skirmishes, where your supposed hardcounters happened to be conviniently away doing probably a lot more important stuff, than focusing you down?
In an ongoing foight on the point, popping Lich from the top at Keep or the stairs at Foefire, will make the enemy team, as a response, leave the point and go for you just to CC spam leaving the point uncontested?
Seems like a worthy tactic…

GhOst.4019:

You say getting more than 3-4 off before, meant you are playing low tier but that’s just not the case. If you got more off before you either A: correctly liched at a good time or B: Low tier.

Based on your logic so far, it’s definitely low tier.

GhOst.4019:

You make it sound like there is never a good time to lich and if you get more than 3-4 off you are playing noobs.

I make it sound like that if your counter is even half decent, your “dream Lich” prior patch would have been shut down in 2 secs permanently from the start of the match till its end. Now, it cannot.

Shiki.7148:

Problem is “tank it” doesn’tr really work when you ar epingponged around 90% of the time due to not having decent stability acces

None of the zerker classes have stability on their utility bars, so not exactly sure how or why necros should be different. Not having a reliable Vigor source is a much bigger issue. You can fix it by adding Energy sigils to the mix, but then you’ll lose out on damage somewhat.

Shiki.7148:

or get bursted down because all you have is a second hp-bar and no block etc. of any description.

One might argue that having a second HP bar is actually more useful to soak up damage opposed to invuln skills. Whilest the first lets you contest a point, the latter doesn’t do so. In small fights DS is somewhat close to blocks/invulns. The problem becomes relevant when facing outnumbered situations aka focused fire. Then again, if 5 ppl are tunnelvisioning you, your team must be utter garbage not to capitalize on it and apply counterpressure, single-ing out one of their squishies – sorry, there’s no nicer way to put it. It’s is not a cele class, don’t try to outheal the incoming damage, it won’t work. Instead you have to apply the “best defence is an offense” mindset and retaliate somewhere else.
People keep blaming Nos and point at him saying “well, well, Necro is indeed garbage. Look at how bad he did against oRNG”, while in fact they forget that Abjured’s (arguably) main DPS, Magic Toker failed miserably at applying counter- or any kind of pressure.

Shiki.7148:

Can’t run, can’t survive – thats the necro currently.

We’ve been over it – S/F ele, LB Ranger are all on the level of Necro, when it comes to disengaging. And even worse sustain-wise.
Mesmer is a lot worse sustain-wise, but has a slightly better chance at leaving a fight.
_____________________________________________________________

I know your problems and believe or not, I share your opinion as in necros should get some tweaks. You just happen to bring up the wrong arguments, which will eventually get you nowhere. It is not an issue when you get countered by another player on the forums, but not receiving the necessary buffs, just because you are asking for the wrong things while backing it up with unviable arguments tends to be irritating.

People crying nerf must play another game. That is the only real explanation…

You have X amount of CC to face. Prior patch, without boonstrip, it was useless to CC a Lich. that means that the X amount of CC, the enemy team had, had been distributed amongst 4 players (or whoever was present at that engagement).
Now, with having the chance to CC Lich without the boonstrips, the X amount of CC is distributed amongst 5 players.
Yes, you may not have an easy time spamming 11111 and will have to actually pick your target/watch out for what’s coming to your way. I’m sorry, if it leveled the skill cap of the Elite.

But whilest you may have it arguably harder, your teammates will have more breathing room, as from now on, you will also be a potential target to CC in Lich.

Anyone who says that prior patch, he spent more than 3-4s in Lich being useful either

• a.) faced horrible opponents
• b.) was outnumbering the enemy team
• c.) is lying

Prior patch, it was popping Lich, dashing out 2-3 AA’s at best, losing the stab to boonstrip, getting CC’d, getting out of Lich into DS, tanking the damage and hope they run out of offensive cooldowns. In a team fight, at least.

As for WvW…if you were using Lich over Plague in WvW for ZvZ/GvG, I have bad news for you. It used to only serve as a HUGE target on your head, nothing more. It still has the same function…

Bellamy.9860:

My only point is about things you can do with different classes against focus fire and, to be honest, mesmer has more active play there than necro which is important because active play and options makes it so you feel less limited by your class and more limited by your own skill.

This is where the intended playstyle comes into the picture.
While mesmer seems to be more like a hit&run prof and thus have better chance to actually run from focus fire, necro requires indeed a different approach. Having superior on-point pressure compared to mesmer for example is what’s been taken into account in my opinion.
First step is to admit that you will never be able to outrun focus fire.
Next is to try to counterpressure instead of playing defensively – a Fear here, a Chill there, drop your well(s), “tank” in it. Since people are usually used to look at someone’s back while they’re applying pressure, this might catch them off guard. (hence the WTS finals against Abjured)
With the fixed downstate (16 bugs, really ANet?), you are a threat even when you are downed.

A class design is at play and I’m afraid it is intended to function the way it currently does. Horrendous, if you ask me, but nevertheless a conscious decision.

spoj.9672:

All 1 handers are like this (except for thief). Damage on auto. Other skills for utility. For 2 handers you then have some burst skills to make more interesting rotations.

Axe disagrees.
So do S/X ele and Sw/T mesmer.

Bellamy.9860:

Actually survivability is decent. A core problem of the class is simply not being able to get breathing room.

Blocks(gear shield, shelter), invulns(distortion, stances kinda, renewed focus), dodges due to vigor, invis and ports are defensive and allow you to escape focus fire or disengage.
All of these are tools that allow a player to actively defend himself. On the other hand DS is simply a button press that helps with enduring. It is not really active and your survivability comes from beeing able to face tank stuff. This leads to necro players feeling powerless when confronted with focus fire. And to be honest you are pretty powerless. You press one button and hope things clear up when your life force is empty/ or stunbreaker/putrid/heal ready. Meanwhile you are also easily disabled from applying counterpressure when in deathshroud since your mechanic makes it so that you have to eat CC and can’t retaliate back.

As something anecdotal: even though i have worse mobility on hamguard i feel i can more easily disengage due to the class giving me block and invuln and thus avoiding CC till i can line of sight most things that get thrown at me.

Although, especially power necro feels like a wrecking ball – come late to the party and set the house on fire – you are doing that from inside the house. Once committed to the fight you are most likely staying until it ends.

Like I stated in my first post in this thread, when it comes to dealing with focus fire thieves and guards have it best, thanks to their “uniqueness” in the zerker meta. Mesmer comes at 3rd place probably, then Ranger/necro and then last S/F ele.

Like I said, those classes should be brought in par with the other zerkers – ie: make focus fire just as hard to deal with on them too.

I might be partially biased when it comes to mesmer, but I’d say the survivability/damage “ratio” is somewhat in balance.
It takes a piano concerto and rather good tactical insight to successfully deliver a full mesmer burst, whilest a ranger/necro/thief/guardian burst is somewhat “easier” to pull off.
Based on this logic, mesmer bursts should land less frequently than the other classes’ – so they’d need compensation in another areas. I’m still not convinced that mesmer mobility/survivability is that much better, but I can see how it could be more appealing in certain situations.

That’s being said, I still don’t think that other zerkers (apart from the 2 golden boys) have such an edge over necros when it comes to 1v1.
+1’ing is a different story and classes that can stealth on their own (like mesmers) absolutely have an advantage in this regard, as they have the element of surprise on their side.

Shiki.7148:

You either do not play Necromancer, or you are blind or just blank out everytime you play one. Sure, both players have to manage their CD’s…

I’m not exactly sure why you had to jump on me so imperiously, but I’ll play along for now.

Shiki.7148:

Just that eg. Mesmer has more burst, CC and survivability than a necro while popping less skills.

How exactly? Please elaborate on this.

Shiki.7148:

Blocks, invulns, stealth, stunlocks and damage in one set of skills. Necro has a little burst, a second healthbar and then… nothing.

I just made a very short list in my previous post, that you seem to have missed, about what advantages you have over the meta mesmer. It is quite lackluster and could use a bit of adding – the point was to draw attention to the fact that power necros do have some advantage over the meta mesmer.
Blocks, invulns, stealth, stunlocks and damage in one set of skills
you are actually wrong here – none if these exist all at once in the meta builds.
A CI Lockdown build has the potential to have all these abilities combined together, but

• a.) They are far less common than shatter specs
• b.) have to play absolutely perfectly to shine with it. Granted, if done so, it does wonders.

If you think that necro has little burst, I’d advise you to look up Hollts PvP montages or even watch some tournament matches of Radioactive [dK] – granted, the latter is probably not the best example of how to play a power necro (simply personal opinion).

Shiki.7148:

Like, seriously. To do any decent amount of damage you have to take Dagger+ WH and/or Focus, + one or two wells, which leaves you with spectral walk or spectral + wurm. Meaning situational at best mobility and rest simply damage and one-2 CC.

Locust Swarm is a feast against a mesmer. Not only it dispawns clones and thus halv the mesmer’s damage but grants you additional life force aswell.
If you, however, choose to grab Focus instead of Warhorn, then you’ll have a high vuln. stacking skill on a relatively low cd and a decent boonstrip + chill that does quite good damage – not adding sigil procs to the equation.

All while having a mainhand with a strong immob and way more superior AA than the mesmer’s. The #2 is excellent to track down stealth (hint: usually they’ll use decoy after you Fear). The AA is absolutely superb to get rid of clones from the mesmer’s dodge, again crippling both his offense and defense.
I’m actually not sure how the LF on AA works with the new cleave – whether it adds X amount/target or adds X amount regardless of how many targets you hit. If it’s the first, it’s another LF feast for the necro. But I’d happily have someone correct me and explain how this ability works.

Shiki.7148:

A Mesmer has the same or more burst, while having way more CC, and the option to block attacks or just stealth away, not to mention the “teleports” from spawning clones/illusions.

Again, please expand on the damage part, I’m curious how you got to that conclusion.
As for CC, the traditional Sw/T + GS shatter build has 2 CC abilities: iWave and Diversion. The latter requires either a clone or the mesmer himself to stand next to you.

As for the teleports from spawning clones – I’m assuming you were referring to Phase retreat – I guess, the piercing LB is just perfectly suitable to help you out in that situation.

I have the impression, however, that you were talking about more of a CI Interrupt spec. Please correct me if that was not the case.

Shiki.7148:

And last but not least :

Mesmer gets help: Necro is kittened.
Necro gets help: Mesmer goes stealth and is the kitten out of there.

I’m also having trouble understanding this deduction. Stealth itself does not grant you a way out of fights, especially those on a relatively long cd, that mesmers have.
If the mesmer goes Stealth and ports out, it means that during the 1o1 the necro didn’t manage to make him blow either of his stunbreaks – which implies that something went horribly wrong from the necro’s part in that matchup.

+1, where do I sign it?

Just remove this useless line(s) of coding already and replace it with a meaningful trait.
stunbreak upon entering DS would be a nice start…

Roe.3679:

[…]
Looks like lich won’t be much use in any bigger fights if the other team has a brain or enough people.

…which was the case up until now being extremely susceptible to boonstrips.

People expected Lich to be turned into an extremely overwhelming auto-win by this patch.
It didn’t happen, and the skill currently is only overwhelming , which is why people are disappointed.

Palmski.6419:

It’s a big WvW nerf too, was ping ponged about mercilessly last night during our raid. Our necros all agreed it was a(nother) big nerf to Lich in this game mode.

Unfortunately WvW balance is way out of hand at this point, with all the damage modifiers and foods/oils/stones in the game.
I agree, it’s a sad state, that the gamemode has been in nearly since launch.

PvE necro is another issue, essentially non-existent as far as I know, and is tied to other problems. Let’s stick with PvP as most of the thread is about concerns towards that gamemode.

Prior patch, popping Lich was essentially useless whenever an enemy:

• mesmer
• thief
• necromancer

was involved in that fight. It meant a guaranteed counter to Lich, making a 180s cd skill completely useless when those counters were present – quite often.

However, if these classes and thus boonstripping were not present, popping Lich was an easy auto-win skill (easy snipe, easy on point pressure), with absolutely no counterplay.
It was “run or die” with a bit of oversimplification, which is quite bad design in my opinion.

Now, this “default” advantage – from both sides – is gone.

One has X amounts of CC. A control class (a hambow warrior for example) can make a decision to use one of his CC abilities to burn through the stab stack, leaving himself with X-1 CC skills at the end of the process and only a 3s window to follow up with his chain (that has one less CC skill) before the next pulse is up again.

Not many classes have enough CC skills on their own to burn through the stab and still lock you down with a rotation afterwards. Obviously, Focus fire is a different case, but then again, Lich was essentially weak against FF prior patch, it still is post pach. So I see no nerf in that area.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

cyanidecapsule.3926:

Meanwhile, Dolyak Signet – a 60-second CD UTILITY, gets 10 stacks!

Wat.

Why are you still surprised by Anet’s lovechild getting all the goodies for zero effort? At least one class has to wear the mantle of spamtastic meathead.

Nevermind the fact the SoD is a defensive utility skill, while Lich is arguably the strongest offensive utility in the game.

The pulsing is an enormous buff against boonstrips. Prior patch, it was popping Lich, dashing out a few AAs, losing Stab, panic and pop out of Lich into DS, get CC’d, get rekt.
With the new changes, Lich became a much more fearsome elite than it’s used to be, but not an auto-win, hence the 1 stack of stab.

Learn to dodge certain skills in Lich if you think it’s necessary to prevent lockdown.
Although, 3s is not such a long window, despite that many people imply it is.

Overall, it made Lich a lot harder to counter, thus more meaningful in PvP.

Ragion.2831:

Yes it is fair to be vulnerable to focus fire but i don’t see how fair it is that the other classes can choose to run from you if your teammates show up to focus fire and when the reverse happens you are stuck.

Mesmer has 1 port, just like necros, but the port requires LoS, unlike Wurm.
So in that regard, necro has the upper hand. Granted, Wurm itself is vulnerable to damage, but then again, if someone from the paintrain stops to kill your Wurm, it should give you enough time to react.

In a scenario, where a mesmer tries to glue himself to you, you have the upper hand, with the Wurm + sWalk combo. Talking about all utilities off CD.

• You even have a strong immob, against a spec that has 0 condi cleanse.
• Vuln stacks and chill, against 0 condi cleanse.
• 1 or 2 fears (depends on choice of weapons), against 2 stunbreaks – 1 of them is the port that you have difficulties with.

Ragion.2831:

I decided to do a long practice run and shatter mesmer alone can easily break through death shroud and still dissappear leaving you vulnerable.

Of course it will eat through your DS if you take the full burst. Shatters take an immense amount of preparation compared to even your own burst skills, to be on par with other bursts. not to mention their obvious tells – you can dodge a MB+Shatter combo so easily when the mes is visible, it’s really frustrating as a mesmer main
Ofc, when he jumps on you from stealth (+1’ing the fight), it can surprise you, but such is the nature of stealthed bursts in this game.

Ragion.2831:

There is almost 0 chance that you can counter burst a mesmer, with the blocks, invulns and stealth and still deal with a hammer warrior.

True, which is why you should reserve your Wurm for escaping if you are expecting a +1. If you blow it in a 1o1, you will be left with no escapes – just like a mesmer if he blows his Blink in a 1o1.
On a side note, your ability to retaliate has got immensely buffed with the new Elite stab changes. Now Lich is actually meaningful and feared. Prior to patch, it was ridiculously underpowered. Even as a mesmer, I thought it was plain wrong to counter a 180s cd elite with a single boonstrip.
With the new stab change it is no more 4s Lich time, then swapping out for DS to defend yourself, but can stay Lich for the full duration. That itself is a huge buff imo when it comes to counterpressure your enemy.

But let me turn the tables. Do you really think it’d be fair to successfully escape from such an unfavoured matchup, without any kind of serious effort or planning ahead (saving your Wurm to disengage) as a glass cannon?
Yes, if you face a Control class (warrior in this case) and a burst class (mesmer), you will bite the dust quite quickly, unless you react fast enough to get out of the CC-fest. If you decide to stick around, or have no means to disengage, you should suffer the consequences.

Ragion.2831:

In a situation like that i would have preferred to leave the fight but i don’t have that option, but a mesmer in the same situation can do it easily. Meanwhile we both have fairly equal levels of sustain.

Just like you, the mesmer has to manage his cooldowns aswell. Like I said before, it all comes down to CD-management. If you blow your disengage ability in a 1o1, don’t be surprised, that you can’t escape a +1 later on.

And this is just the Mesmer. Other zerk classes, ranger and S/F ele are – arguably – having it worse.

I think sometimes necros expect a bit too much from balance. I used to main necro at some point before I swapped to guardian and nowadays I’m playing mesmer. I exclusively do PvP.

If you swap out necro for any other zerker class, the result remains the same. If you are getting focused by a pain train, unless your teammates peel for you, you will end up in downstate.
Mesmer is the same, even with Blink off cd – thief/mesmer paintrain can easily follow up
Power Ranger is the same, Signet of Stone only delays the inevitable, while still being susceptible to CC.
S/D-F ele? No defense at all.

Thief with Stealth is one of the rare exceptions, but it is a lot more complicated issue.
Without going deep into that, let me just say that Thief nearly pushed out all zerker roamers with the ability to stealth and disengage again and again.

Meditation guardian is the other exception, since all his utilities heal him for a respectable amount and he has further blocks to negate a surprise burst with follow-ups.

Hence why these 2 zerkers are the most viable bursters in the current meta.

But apart from these, I’d say, necros are in line with all the other zerkers.
If anything, I’d say it is a good design. You have so many ways to blow up ppl in 1o1’s or 2o1’s (being a zerker you should really focus on +1’ing fights), it is only fair to be vulnerable to focus fire.

What really grinds my gear is why those 2 classes are exceptions to that rule. I think it has nothing to do with necro balance – instead those 2 classes should be brought in line with the rest of zerkers.

L Step.8659:

I actually thought Nos played well. I see a few people on their high horses about positioning, and yeah he wasn’t perfect everytime, but positioning isn’t standing 900-1200 range away on ledges barely effecting team fights. Really I saw it more as Nos just getting focused by an amazing team, that kept forcing bigger team fights with their rotations.

If anything it’s just an example of why necros need some sort of sustain help.

In EU I rarely see any necros in teams, it seems more popular in NA, and whether it’s because of different playstyles, EU teams countering it more, or one region being better than the other, the fact is there’s a reason it’s barely represented at the top level of pvp. And not just because these amazing people that do not stream or pvp are too lazy to join an organized team.

I thought he did fairly well given the circumstances.
It seems many forget that this game is still team oriented. Usually you can’t pick 1 guy and make him take all the blame, unless he is clearly sub -par compared to his teammates. This was not the case regarding Nos.

This wts final clearly showed necros weakness against focus fire, but blaming solely the class and the balance for it would be incorrect imo.

Nos’s teammates failed utterly to counterpressure and did essentially nothing to remove him from the focus. Magic Toker was not able to perform at all – he was more on his SB than his S/D, ranging from the sides. He should have been the one applying pressure on the other squishies, but he couldn’t do that at all. That is only one factor and then there’s several more.
Phantaram missed 80% of the team fights, granted his role is to 1v1 at far. Still, not having their more aggressive/offensive ele in the team fights cost them greatly.

No class can survive a pain train combination regardless of its composition, unless the team counterpressures or completely pull out from the engagement. None of it happened. We could see from time to time – they stayed in the fights and the cele classes could sustain somewhat better – they still got trained down (the engi primarily). Nos not being one of them went down first.
It’s not the class, but more like the play style. They should have adapted to it, which they couldn’t do.

I think we can all agree on that intended or not, bug or not, exploit or not, these classes that are able to port the way they do, have been balanced around the ability to do so.

You don’t address a balance issue, cause in this case this is what is at stake, without addressing possible ways of compensating for the nerfs you make during the process.

It would be like “from tomorrow we’ll remove warriors’ healing signet as it turned out to be OP with celestial stats.” without any further explanation

I’m not upset only because I’m playing mesmer and this change will cripple the class beyond measures.
I’m upset, cause they say nothing about how they’ll compensate for this huge hit these classes will take.

Judging by their balancing history, they either:
- don’t know it yet
- don’t think there should be any kind of compensation.

THIS is what makes me slightly upset.

There are 2 ways to counter stomps in teamfights:
- rupt the stomper
- res/banner/cloak the downed ally

Of course, as X class, you won’t be able to perform all of these options. Hence why the game has professions and not identical classes.

Saying, there is no counterplay against invuln. stomps seems to be a l2p issue. Maybe not from your part as the downed player, but from your team’s. It is what it is, nevertheless, a l2p issue.

You have to make an active call, depending on which scenario you are facing. And this is imo is a proper way making downstate matter. The active counterplay comes from your team rather than from you, who is down on the floor. And this is good the way it curretnly is imo.

Aeroxe.8140:

Let’s wait until the patch actually hits first… It does sound bad for thieves, but the entirety of the nerfs might not even make it and it’s always possible that they might compensate for them in some other fashion.

This would be the best possible scenario and I would absolutely love it.
However…

Judging by ANet’s balance history, they simply don’t know how to balance mesmer, what role it has in pvp and what are the necessary tolls that should be given to them in order to be effective. I don’t want to take the thread towards Mesmer balance, although it’s kind of part of the grief. I’d suggest you and all opposing porting the way it currently works to hit up the Mesmer profession subforum to see what problem the class really has.

I’m honestly curious how these people asking for this specific change or ANet for that matter think X zerker class, especially Mesmers, should counterpressure the LB ranger, who had the chance to take his sniping position at the beginning of the match.
Especially having superior range compared to every other class, a knockback on one weapon set and a leap on the other one.

Aomine.5012:

I find it funny that people kept saying their mesmer/ thief will be destroyed, but truth is very VERY FEW of the player-base can really utilize this advantage like some of the top streamers do. All they can do is use it as an exploit in Kyhlo map to fast travel all parts of map. They don’t use it like some of the most skillful and knowledgable thieves and mesmers, to use all those small ledges to avoid damage.

so what you are saying here is that one of the already least viable professions (mesmer), that takes an immense amount (way more than certain other meta classes) of practice to get it on par with the cele-faceroll classes – something the avergae player will never have – is completely okay to be nerfed cause the jukes that made the class slightly viable in high-tier PvP are almost exclusive to the top 5%. Post-patch, not even them will be able to pull off such moves. Seems legit.

Because the average mesmer player can’t use his blink the same way a top streamer does (i.e uses it only as an “o, kitten” button) it shall be taken away. Not gonna affect much.

Here’s what will happen: the top teams will still look over mesmers as nerfing Blink this way will be a huge hindrance to the class. That is a fact.
From mid-tier, mesmers will simply disappear, as for medium skill-level players, Blink was simply invaluable the way it worked.

I couldn’t care less about the very top spot of Khylo’s CT. I’m way more affected on Foefire and Niflhel as a mesmer. Now I won’t be able to blink up and out of LoS if a ranger decides to solely focus on me, nor will I be able to instantly counterpressure with my insta port to him.
No, will have to walk away burning all my survive skills on my utility bar (hence, unlike thief, mesmers have to use utilities, not simple weapon skills to evade), leaving myself completely open to the other 3 players (which is a standard rotation on mid-level) – essentially a free kill.
Or you know, I can leave that ranger there and watch my teammates or even myself getting rekt by it. As without ports no class have the necessary gap closer and damage output to succesfully counterpressure LB rangers.

but like I said – inb4 GS mace/shield warriors become meta again…
I guess warrior needed another spec to have at least 2 of them in each team and so people wouldn’t be able to say that the class is only built on the celestial cheese in sPvP.
Meanwhile other classes got and will get left out, but who cares…look, we justified having a non-celestial warrior in your comp, mate, so cele is balanced just fine.

OMNIBUS.2913:

I’ve made several points too in which you have not responded to(hypocrisy!). Blink on mesmer is not only a way to survive but basically its gg vs anyone who also has no stealth, invuln or blocks becuase their AI keeps pummeling away. It needs to go… Plz tell me how do i fight mesmer that I can’t hit 80% of the time becuase he is either stealthed, blocking, invuln, blinked to some location i cant los, interuppted me or moa’s me(by the tiem all these things are done and recharging my ds is gone and im at low health cause my only option is to try to run away or die). All while the AI constantly hits me…… How does necro fight and beat this? Rhetorical question pretty much cause you cant beat what you cant hit but i’ll wait and see what you have to say.

I’m assuming based on this post, that you are playing condi necro.
Mesmer is the weakest zerker when it comes to condi pressure, having 0 condi cleanse so not sure how you have problems with that. Without DS it is quite difficult (an everstanding necro issue regarding every class), but with decent LF bar, it is a stomp.

close the gap while AA’ing and thus building up condi pressure, use chill if trying to kite
force out the juke >> wurm next to him
(SoS if you run it) >> DP >> Fear chain >> gg no re

as for avoiding AI, dodge iZerker, it’s not rocket science

this is horribly oversimplyfied, but I honestly don’t understand how can you have difficulties on a condi spike class with a high natural health pool against a zerker class with low base health pool and 0 cleanses.

lighter.2708:

there’s really no point to argue, these spots give classes like thief and mesmer an advantage over other classes.

whilest a cele bruiser can heal from a full burst from the very classes you mentioned in seconds and can do it again and again.
I can’t talk about thieves, but mesmer’s strength always lied in pulling off those juke moves (ports) to avoid incoming burst. Having no gap openers on our weapon sets, it was one of the only nietzshe solutions.

Just watch Helseth kiting like a beast with Staff. That is gone. Now if a melee burst class catches up to you it’s game over for sure. Don’t even get me started on LB rangers.
Or even a celestial bruiser for that matter cause you don’t have the sustain it’d take to wear it down.

OMNIBUS.2913:

glorius.1235:

Quoting and replying to the comment that has some rightful salt in it due to listening to the continuous repeating of the same flat out wrong argument, instead of answering to the valid points others make doesn’t do you more good either.

Hypocrisy at its finest^ Plz elaborate whats wrong with any argument beyond just saying they are wrong. And who are you determine what rightful salt is? And why does rightful salt mean you don’t have to make any points and can call people bad?

It’s been explained several times even in this very thread how teleport skills the way they are functioning as of now are an absolute necessity for certain classes to survive.
If you don’t know what’s wrong with the argument that keeps tossing this quite important point away, you either:
A.) pretend you don’t understand it
B.) overlook it
C.) actually don’t get the point

None of the aboves mean that me or anyone else explaining it the X+1’th time will make any significant results.

Rightful salt regarding listening to the same wrong argument again and again. Please, read what I wrote above.

I’ve made several points in my previous post. You are yet to nullify them.

coglin.1867:

Drennon.7190:

Firebird.8324:

This would be a really, really awesome change.

Sure! Take away vertical attacks too. So longbow Rangers and power necros can’t sit on a ledge or roof and spam one. Because they take so much skill! It’s only fair!

They have to walk up they, they to not get an instant teleport to those locations. So your point is completely irrelevant and off topic. You should go make a thread on it.

That would put them in a state where Turret engies currently are regarding 1o1’s on point.
Do you really want that? Oh, wait…

Firebird.8324:

Just wanted to point this out, ele can tele too, so they WOULD be affected.

sure, but they still have 2 gap closers on meta weapon set aswell
mesmers have 0 on Sw/T and 1 mediocre at best on Staff (which will be gutted too with this change)

inb4 GS/Sw-Sh, bullscharge warrior becomes the new roamer.
flat out ridiculous

I love how ppl say everyone should have the same “toolset” to work with.
Sure, take away the port “gap closers/openers”, so everyone has to walk to cover distances.
Meanwhile they don’t take gap closers on weapon skills into account at all.

Solid decision gutting necro mobility (that little, they had) and reducing it to absolute 0.
Thieves are the ones who will get affected the most?
As far as I know Shortbow itself is the issue, not Shadowstep. so there’s that. not much is gonna change.

Meanwhile classes with gap closers on weaponsets (warrior, ele, ranger) and, God forbid, superior ranged capabilities will have such an advantage that no other class can match up to.

it is already a suicide to walk to a LB ranger if you don’t have ports/dodgerolls to spare, you’d better be off LoSing that, cause you’ll just get obliterated.

Equal footing. Sure.

lighter.2708:

there are way more new players in ranked compared to unranked.

^This

I just finished my 1v1 against a ranger who went down on point, but had to run away due to I was going down to condi – thought I would be able to make it >> wrong estimation.
Meanwhile a LB ranger (from my team) stood at the side and did nothing, then ran past both of us allowing the ranger pet to fully heal the ranger (btw what other downed skill allowes you to do that? – it’s utter garbage).

I didn’t want to believe my eyes.

dat feeling though, when you somehow manage to get away with it and beat a full 5-man premaid all on comms (judging by their coordinated bursts combined with CC) after they smacktalked you just cause they blew you up the first time…

most.satisfying.feeling.ever.

I’d say the casting was rather good (even if I personally don’t like Jebro’s style). Like you mentioned, the game is so fast-paced that by the time you get into details of what one player has done (jukes or whatnot), you miss out on several other things.
This style, commentating on what’s actually happening on the screen is imo the only style that fits the current pace of the matches.
PiP would be indeed a nice addition though.

However, I do agree that we need some more in-depth reviews aswell.
A possible good way to do it would be to have some veteran players/experts on the show who’d in breaks point out and analyze the clutch plays that helped X team retaliate/come back into the game. Replay the footage and pause/etc to commentate on what has actually happened.

I remember on Forest at that mid wipe of Abjured near Keep when the casters said “what happened?”. Can’t blaim them, too many things going on at the same time, but this is exactly what analyzes should point out as I’m sure the viewers, too, would like to know what’s happened.
This would not only make it more interesting for experienced players to listen to these commentaries, but would also help the beginner playerbase understand more about what went down in the match.

That’s said, the breaks between maps are currently too short to do this, so I’m not sure where could it be squeezed in.

arron.7348:

because it would be far more popular than any gamemode

^This.

still, it would be fun as hell :/
not to mention it would help new players develop the necessary mechanical skills for Ranked so much more than the currently existing hot join (which arguably serves the same purpose as of now).

the traditional “Healer” you may be used to have in other MMOs does not exist here. Each class have their own support spec (some more viable than other).
That being said, the aforementioned d/d celestial ele is well known for peeling for teammates – granted, depends on playstyle.
Same goes for the shoutbow warrior.
“Tank” guardians are fairly underused as of now, although they were highly popular a few months ago (until celestial came along).

There are also a few nietzshe comps, even at high tier PvP, that seems to do work (clerics staff ele), but that actually requires an entire team to build around it.

s/d fresh air ele is famous for 100-0’ing every single glass build in 1 or 2 seconds if he manages to land all his burst skills. I have to point out though, that that spec is mainly for fun play, as it lacks any means of disengaging and missing any parts of your burst will potentially end up in you falling into downstate.

d/p (or s/d thief even) is much more survivable, but needs a tad bit more time to 100-0 the same opponent (still highly effective, especially against non-full HP enemies).
As you mentioned, with the availability of Stelath, the profession is relatively more survivable, especially compared to s/d zerker ele.
Furthermore, with shortbow offhand (extreme cross-map mobility), it even brings more utility to his team, which is overall superior when it comes to Conquest – which is what PvP is about in this game.

- dagger/pistol thief or scepter/dagger fresh air ele (arguably medium range)
- dagger/dagger cele ele and/or shoutbow warrior

search for topics mainly in the Professions subforums