Guild Wars 2

evilunderling.9265:

Dom.2310:

Insert another angry reply here. I know it’s not the point but considering I tend to let troll unguent pulse up the astral force and oftentimes I’m at the back deliberately avoiding damage, making it so it doesn’t work on healing ourselves is ridiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiculous.

• It’s perfectly reasonable not to encourage or reward blatant overhealing.
• It’s perfectly reasonable to punish less-blatant overhealing — e.g., topping people off who are damaged, but not actually at risk, when you could be DPSing.
• It’s perfectly reasonable to not want people to engage in boring pointless busywork for a gameplay advantage.

Being encouraged to jump into damage pools and not dodge damage in order to ensure CA is up when it’s needed is reasonable, though?

I totally agree. I think a 15-20 second cooldown on CA with no more AF would be a great idea. It would allow druids more variety in their weapon choices.

The problem, though, is that they might actually listen to us. They’ll get rid of AF but give CA a 1.5 minute cooldown or something. I would not doubt that happening at all. Maybe hiding from any development is our best bet. Every time we get looked at we somehow come out worse for wear.

jewishjoyride.4693:

Interesting change. We have more sources of Astral Force generation. We have limited opportunities though. Astral Force has higher value, but is situationally easy to gain.

I’m thinking maybe TU is no longer the clear cut winner for AF gen from your heal. Anyone else?

TU is even more necessary now, as other heals will bring you to full instantly and ticks of regen will no longer provide AF. TU continues to provide more AF by itself and through allowing your other sources of healing to actually give you AF.

I believe AF generation should be removed and the cooldown should be upped to 15-20 seconds. This most recent change has destroyed any possibility of going druid without a staff. No other elite spec is punished so harshly for not using their new weapon.

It really was an awful change. It promotes letting a lot of damage through just so you can heal it up. The longer I dodge and sit at full health, the longer I put off having my astral form charged and ready when my group needs it. It actually pushes us into Troll Unguent even more, as a burst heal will get you up too fast and block out regen and other small health ticks charging astral form.

It also completely destroys any druid build that doesn’t use a staff. No other elite spec is so insanely held back by not using their new weapon. I was having a lot of fun with my janky shortbow druid build, but this change completely destroys it. I get to enter astral form every blue moon now.

This is an insane change. Just doing some casual stuff in old Tyria with friends and astral form is NEVER up, let alone when you actually need it. It is exponentially worse if you have the gall to run without the staff.

I just can’t believe it. It’s so much worse than it was.

Pistol 1 and 2 do not pierce anymore and the trait has been removed. I’m not sure why they would remove it though, to be honest.

I’d say give us back the icon from the beta, but don’t get rid of my lil buddy floating over my shoulder.

I love him. He is my child.

Dust Strike is definitely lacking and won’t see much use in its current state unfortunately. I think a few potentially ideas could be:

• grant 2 seconds of stealth if it hits an enemy that is casting
• knocks back enemies a short distance
• grants allies in its area 1-2 seconds of super speed
• removes 1 boon from affected enemies

Personally I’d love to see the knockback added.

I feel like the Druid would be a perfect candidate to use celestial gear on, so the staff should really have some damaging conditions added to it. I think a few simple solutions would be as follows:

• Solar Beam ticks have a 50% chance to apply 1s of burning
• Astral Wisp applies 2 stacks of burning for 1s on the initial target when applied, then 2 stacks for 1s every time the wisp moves through an enemy.
• Vine Surge should apply 2-3 stacks of bleeding and poison for 4-5 seconds
• Maybe allow Sublime Conversion to corrupt 1 boon on an enemy as they pass through it

I’m not a big fan of solar beam only giving burning on the final hit just because of its piercing effect to enemies in between. I want targets that run through the beam to be potentially punished with burn even on the first and second tick.

I love these changes! The only thing I would add is a massive change to Air and Earth auto attacks because I personally hate channeling.

I would turn Arc Lightning into a three step attack chain, each cast basically a weaker version of Lightning Strike. Then change Lightning Strike into a self buff that increases the damage of your next three air auto attacks by 30% and apply short duration weakness.

Stone Shards could be changed into a three step attack chain as well. The first two casts would be identical, each flinging a single barrage of stone shards, inflicting 2 stacks of bleeding. The third in the chain could apply cripple.

Basically, I would do anything to get rid of the awful arc lightning and stone shards animation.

I like the idea of a warhorn for the tempest. The concept of a storm caller would be awesome. My suggested abilities are probably a little too strong, but all the elite specs seem very powerful… And one can dream, can’t they?

• Fire
  Wildfire: Unleash the echo of flames, burning all targets within 600 units for 1 second. Summon a patch of wildfire at your feet that grows in size the more targets originally hit. Wildfire deals slightly less damage than lava font. Acts as a fire field. Lasts 5 seconds.
  Firemender: Blow your warhorn to heal yourself and allies for a moderate amount and cure burning and poison. Heal for much more if burning or poison is removed.

• Water
  Call Fog: Surround yourself with a dense fog that chills and blinds for 4 seconds. Acts as a smoke field that moves with you.
  River Song: Echo out the River’s Song, giving nearby allies resistance and endurance.

• Air:
  Hurricane: Summon a hurricane to push back enemies around you. Pulses every second for 3 seconds.
  Vacuum: Temporarily displace the air around an enemy (1 target), dazing them for 1 second and removing two boons.

• Earth:
  Seismic Instability: The targeted area becomes unstable, pulsing AoE cripple and torment over 5 seconds.
  Magnetize: Magnetize your body, granting 2 stacks of stability, increasing your toughness by 2000, and pulling in all projectiles toward yourself for 5 seconds. Projectiles used against allies within 360 units are redirected to yourself during this time.

NinjaEd.3946:

I apologize if I made it sound like necromancer has terrible condition clearing, I meant to say they are better targets than most, while some are even better targets. I look at necro condition clearing like how TC used to be in wvw (I think SoS took that spot for now). They aren’t quite Tier 1, but they are better than tier 2 if that makes sense. I’d still focus a necro with conditions over a Mesmer even if Mesmer isn’t superb at clearing conditions.

You would honestly focus conditions on a necro over a Mesmer? Are you joking? In what world is that a good idea? I’m trying to understand the reasoning.

I feel that it’s pretty clear you have no understanding of how this game works in regards to conditions and their counter play.

Maybe you should try putting more thought into it counterplaying conditions. Surprisingly, condition builds have abilities that are just as important to dodge as power builds, with pretty obvious tells as well. There are also times when cleanses are best used, that do require thought.

Take, for example, the P/D condi thief that everyone loves to hate. Save your condition clears for steal, when they apply poison and confusion. The confusion will apply only on interrupt every 21 seconds, or on every steal, but with a 27 second cooldown. Plenty of time for cleanses to cooldown.

Are they running into melee? They’re about to CnD for stealth. Now is a good time to dodge. Still got the CnD off? Save your next dodge for their sneak attack. It has a one second channel and you can dodge a large portion of the bleed stacks by dodging the second you see them appear. Don’t dodge beforehand, good thieves will wait for you to waste a dodge.

What about the bleeds from the auto attack? Don’t bother dodging or wasting cleanses on these. Just like a power build’s auto attacks, there will always be a steady income of damage that will get through. Do you dodge autos from power builds?

Ritt.3069:

frans.8092:

Ritt.3069:

It’s not often that I struggle on my 1v1’s, but there have been several cases in WvW now where I have completely outplayed these condi cheesers, yet still had a hard time beating them. I had nailed my bursts on them, dodget their CnD’s, hardly getting a scratch on myself, completely outmatching the said Thieves. Yet why did I have troubles? What made the fights hard were the easy access to stealth and thus to sneak attack via utilities, especially so with Shadow Refuge. I dodged 5-6 Sneak Attack bursts in a row, but had the final burst nail me with condis. For the PD, it was a 0 risk situation, where he could just spam his Sneak Attack from the distance over and over again. At least the dagger thieves have to come up close, risking themselves at the same time for the burst.

That doesn’t make sense, you dodged their C&D’s yet they had plenty access to stealth? Usually only one or two utilities provide stealth, on long cooldowns. Then you dodged their Sneak Attacks, 5 of them(?), not taking a scratch, but you got nailed by their last one? I don’t think so.

True, if it wasn’t for the fact that they can spam Sneak Attack back-to-back safely 5 times in a row from Refuge until it finally hits. With S/D acrobatics set, I can maintaina high time of evade, but most of the classes have no counterplay against it, they just have to take the hit. You could argue that I could just shadow step out of combat for the while, but what’s really the point of me resetting combat when I’m on the offensive?

While those utilities are on a ‘long’ cooldown, there’s a few things you must first consider. First of all, you have Refuge, where you can spam Sneak Attack with zero risk until it hits. Secondly, if you run P/P or D/P as second set, you only need Black Powder + Blinding Powder (+leap) for possible 8-12s of stealth again. The long cooldowns suddenly don’t feel as long, when you can maintain high durations of stealth so easily. Most P/D thieves also run HiS, granting them yet another way of safely stealthing. P/D is mostly ran in WvW, where you can just nail your CnD’s off critters, in the best case, you don’t even need to make direct contact with your actual opponent. Steal and Infiltrator’s Signet also make it extremely easy nailing those CnD’s, if you’re even somewhat decent and can actually read your opponent even just a ltle (i.e. use it after he evades, block window ends, etc.). Also, don’t misregard the trait Improvisation. It has a chance of of resetting the CD’s on all utilities of a certain type, in the case where the fight may turn really nasty with back-to-back refuges and blinding powder-black powder-combos.

I may have overdone it with the original description, but the argument still stands. P/D (+x/P) is an extremely forgiving and easy set, but luckily only useful for WvW Roaming and nothing else.

People rarely fully dodge my sneak attack. Dodge is .75 seconds of evade while sneak attack is a 1 second channel. Often people will dodge most of the channel but 1 or 2 ticks will still get through and reveal me. I highly doubt you are fully dodging 5 sneak attacks back to back.

P/P doesn’t give you any more access to stealth and wouldn’t help as an off set. D/P would be a waste to swap to just to get easy stealth for a potential sneak attack 18 seconds later while in combat. Don’t even bring up Improvisation, no one uses that. Do they give up Shadow Rejuvenation or confusion on steal for that?

Also, if we’re bringing up NPCs, use a nearby NPC as a body block when they go into stealth or kill nearby critters before they get to them.

I think you definitely overdid it in the original description.

Shemsu.8721:

randomly.6395:

Shemsu.8721:

Shockwave.1230:

Karolis.4261:

Let me explain you some basic stealth mechanics. If you do direct damage to someone while you are in stealth – you get revealed. That’s exactly what you are describing here.

I don’t know where your expectation is derived from, but mine comes from Heartseeker and Smoke fields.

IF you hit someone with heartseeker WHILE in stealth you will be revealed

If you use heartseeker while in a smoke field and hit an enemy, you will gain stealth.

If you use cluster bomb in a smoke field and hit an enemy, you will gain stealth, but immediately become revealed.

If you use heartseeker in a smokefield while ALREADY stealthed, you will be revealed

Well, duh.

The difference is that the initial Heartseeker in a smoke field can give you stealth even when doing damage. This is not so with blast finishers that deal damage.

Probably coded this way very specifically, as others have said, for other blast combos.

Mark of Blood has a base 8 seconds of bleed. Condition duration cannot go above 100%. So the most you can see out of Mark of Blood is 16 seconds.

Blood is Power has a base 30 seconds, so with 100% bleed duration you should be seeing a 60 second bleed.

What’s your actual condition duration?

Shemsu.8721:

Shockwave.1230:

Karolis.4261:

Let me explain you some basic stealth mechanics. If you do direct damage to someone while you are in stealth – you get revealed. That’s exactly what you are describing here.

I don’t know where your expectation is derived from, but mine comes from Heartseeker and Smoke fields.

IF you hit someone with heartseeker WHILE in stealth you will be revealed

If you use heartseeker while in a smoke field and hit an enemy, you will gain stealth.

If you use cluster bomb in a smoke field and hit an enemy, you will gain stealth, but immediately become revealed.

Sizer.5632:

You guys can come up with whatever distorted arguments you want to prove your point but it doesnt change the fact that things like this are the reasons a huge amount of the population of the game ignores wvw, and from talking to people I bet (but cant prove) that a majority of non forum posting players would agree.

Spvp players have to set up an entire build to get 40% condi duration, and you tell them they can spend 30+ silver (which is a lot for some, though thats not the issue) per 30 minutes to get that just from food, and theyll just laugh.

+40% condi duration food is not the reason “a huge amount of the population of the game ignores wvw”. How can you even make this claim with a straight face? You absolutely pulled that out of your butt.

While roaming in WvW, people are stubborn. They don’t want to build up a bit of defense against condition damage, like they will for direct damage. Or they want to build full offense and wonder why they have trouble when they run into builds that were designed with attrition and outlast in mind.

Even ignoring that, WvW is not designed around 1v1 or 2v2 battles. It is a place for large scale battles with a hundred different elements that effect the outcome. And even with the +40% food as is, we see condition damage lagging far behind in anything that isn’t small scale roaming. Even necromancers, the so called kings of conditions, run power well builds in group fights.

So you want to remove the +40% condi duration food from the game because you don’t want to be bothered to understand how to deal with conditions in a game mode that the devs have said they don’t balance around. A change that will make conditions even worse than they already are in WvW group fights and PvE.

You aren’t arguing for balance here.

IchigoHatake.5098:

dancingmonkey.4902:

You actually replied to the statements? Probably shouldn’t have even acknowledge it. He is literally using scepter auto attacks on two character with entirely different trait set ups as a basis to claim balance or imbalance. You cannot take that seriously.

As well, you can never take anyone seriously that claims to tell you what everyone in the entire game wears for gear.

Dire is the what most people use for condi, it gives you vitality toughness and condition dmg. Also this just shows that as a berserker i needed 3 stacks of might to be able to beat a condi ele and i only won with 1k hp left. I don’t know but that makes condi sound pretty op to me, the condi ele doesnt even need condi to win.

The only condition build I know of that uses dire more often than rabid is a P/D thief. Every other build gets more out of rabid and crit procs.

Mesmers need crit for sharper images, necros for barbed precision, and engies for incendiary powder. And all three benefit greatly from the sigil of earth. I know warriors have a bleed on crit proc, but I haven’t seen enough condition warriors to know if they bother to spec for it.

The point is that condition builds do give up damage when they use dire stats. P/D thieves use dire because they don’t benefit as much from crits as the other builds, and their damage is lower by comparison.

Also, the test you did was awful. The way the game actually plays doesn’t match up with your results. I’d stop referring to it, for your own sake.

dancingmonkey.4902:

You actually replied to the statements? He is literally using scepter auto attacks on two character with entirely different trait set ups as a basis to claim balance or imbalance. You cannot take that seriously.

As well, you can never take anyone seriously that claims to tell you what everyone in the entire game wears for gear.

Oh, no. I don’t take him seriously at all. It’s literally one of the worst scenarios I’ve ever heard in this “condition vs power” debate. But you have to give props where props are due. Like a prize for most losses.

IchigoHatake.5098:

So I did an experiment, I used an ele and fought another ele (in spvp, where direct dmg has not been nerfed) we used scepter and spammed water auto at each other. I was using berserker while the other ele was using settler which was typical because that ele was using a condi build. We tested it out, I had 3 might the whole entire fight and only managed to won with 1k hp left over. Therefore I conclude that this is completely unacceptable and shows how op condi classes are. They have toughness and vitality to take all your dmg while spamming condi at you, <—- don’t deny this, most of you condi people run dire.

I’m wondering how this can be true when the Tournament of Legends had a larger amount of direct damage builds than condition damage builds. If condition builds can have all the damage of berserker, but remain high defense, shouldn’t we have seen this reflected in the tournament?

Is it possible your test was awful?

Snorcha.7586:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Okay, so you tick for 1.1k for one second every five hits. You have a few other sources of burning, but I hit that high with just 7 bleeds on a condition build with any other class. Or 1-1/2 times that on a Knight’s build auto attack.

Translation: if you’re “owning” people with a condition guardian, it’s because they really suck.

You need to have a look at “Runes of the Guardian” and then experiment with some builds… you’ll get the picture soon enough, it’s quite easy to maintain 100% burn uptime with a guard even on the highest of condi-removal classes.. Not saying condi guard is an excellent choice, but it can be very effective.

Even with a 100% burn uptime, it would take you roughly 15-20 seconds to kill someone, depending on their health. That doesn’t even take into account their heals, condition cleanses, or condition reduction.

I am highly suspicious that you can actually kill anyone who knows what they’re doing as a condition guardian. Could I see your build, please? I’d love to try it. I’m not even being sarcastic, I’d love to see a viable condition spec for my guardian.

DeceiverX.8361:

As others have mentioned, why not just remove both +/- foods?

That would result in anyone fighting against a condition user having the equivalent of running the -40% food. All condition builds right now already heavily rely on the +40% food and are likely running with it at all times. Power builds running the -40% food are much more rare, despite giving a huge advantage over the condition build.

In fact, the -40% food overpowers the +40% food. Take a 4 second bleed and add 40% to the duration. Now we’re at a 5.6 second bleed, or 1 extra tick. Remove 40% of that 5.6 and we are at 3.36 seconds and have actually removed 2 ticks of bleeding. That’s 1 less tick than the base bleed.

So you might argue that this example is a good reason to remove both foods, but condition builds rely too heavily on the 40% food and are still nowhere near the top. Where were they in the ToL? Where are they in groups larger than 5 in WvW? Where are they in dungeons or fractals? Removing this food will push condition builds even further into the ground.

If anything is overpowered, it’s the -40% food. Not only does it negate the +40% food, it continues to remove an additional tick from second-based damaging conditions. The -40% food is objectively better than the +40% food.

Sartharina.3542:

How is a food that can be completely negated by a slew of powers available to everyone be OP?

It’s not. +40% condi food can be negated by -40% condi food. Most condition classes in WvW will be set up with the +40% food. But I’ve found people running the -40% food to be pretty rare.

This is obviously based on condition damage. If +40% condi duration on non-damaging conditions was OP, why don’t we see more power based specs using the food? +100 power/ +70 ferocity food must be really OP if it’s still chosen over +40% duration on their non-damaging conditions.

So how do you conceal another “nerf conditions!” thread while appearing to have the best, most honest intentions? Claim both sets of duration food are OP. Make it out to look like power based specs are taking a hit with this nerf, despite the majority never actually using the -40% food. They can continue to use the butternut squash soup that they’ve been using the whole time.

Conditions are already terrible in WvW (and the entirety of GW2) outside of roaming. Even while roaming, they are easily dealt with if you play smart. When I actually run into people with the -40% food and use their cleanses with a brain, I hit like a wet noodle.

Loco.4561:

And then there is the matter of condition removal, most condi players can stack conditions faster than you can clear them or your char doesn’t have a lot of access to condi removal, so what are you supposed to do then?

That’s the point. You aren’t supposed to be able to clear every condition all the time. Otherwise you’d be able to shrug off any condition user. The point is smart use of those condition removals.

I swear, people on these boards think they should be able to ignore any condition user with cleanses alone.

bigmonto.4215:

randomly.6395:

Yeah. Let’s nerf condition damage so we can make way for more build diversity. We won’t see condition damage anymore, but those power builds will finally get a chance to shine for a change.

If all you do is small scale roaming in WvW (literally the only place in the game where conditions are viable) why not build specifically with conditions in mind? Ignore toughness and stack vitality, actually invest in -condition duration food, and take as many condition cleanses as possible.

I play a thief in small scale wvw, most would agree they have some of the worst ways to deal with condition removal, but conditions hardly give me much trouble. I play both a condition and direct damage build.

Once you realize that conditions are not spammed anymore than direct damage is and that there are big cooldowns to look for and dodge, things become a lot easier. Don’t panic the second you see a bit of bleeding on you. Understand that you can’t remove or avoid all conditions, just as you can’t avoid all direct damage.

In WvW you can stack -60% condition duration easily. That is ~60% less damage taken throughout a fight against a condition build. An 8 second bleed becomes 3.2 seconds, but because bleed ticks only happen at every next second, it becomes only 3 seconds of effective bleeding. Coupled with smart use of condition clears, dodging important cooldowns, and actually using a bit of vitality, I can’t imagine you’d have much trouble anymore.

While you are right about being able to negate a lot of condition damage, your conditional opponent will almost always be tougher and have more health than you do.

When a class deals its damage over time in ticks, they are generally a bit tankier in order to actually survive to see their damage do anything before they die.

What if you took two builds and compared them side by side. They both have the same health, armor, and damage. One deals its damage upfront and instantly, the other deals its damage over ten seconds. Which do you feel would be better?

The trade off is that you give up a bit of offensive power for your defense. Otherwise builds that deal their damage over time would almost always be inferior.

Yeah. Let’s nerf condition damage so we can make way for more build diversity. We won’t see condition damage anymore, but those power builds will finally get a chance to shine for a change.

If all you do is small scale roaming in WvW (literally the only place in the game where conditions are viable) why not build specifically with conditions in mind? Ignore toughness and stack vitality, actually invest in -condition duration food, and take as many condition cleanses as possible.

I play a thief in small scale wvw, most would agree they have some of the worst ways to deal with condition removal, but conditions hardly give me much trouble. I play both a condition and direct damage build.

Once you realize that conditions are not spammed anymore than direct damage is and that there are big cooldowns to look for and dodge, things become a lot easier. Don’t panic the second you see a bit of bleeding on you. Understand that you can’t remove or avoid all conditions, just as you can’t avoid all direct damage.

In WvW you can stack -60% condition duration easily. That is ~60% less damage taken throughout a fight against a condition build. An 8 second bleed becomes 3.2 seconds, but because bleed ticks only happen at every next second, it becomes only 3 seconds of effective bleeding. Coupled with smart use of condition clears, dodging important cooldowns, and actually using a bit of vitality, I can’t imagine you’d have much trouble anymore.

Junkpile.7439:

Spam evade not stealth.

I’ll take that into consideration. Thank you for your insight.

The buff gained in edge of the mists for players that hold the overgrowth towers (that can proc a lightning strike on hit) can proc off the damage from cloak and dagger, causing the thief to be instantly revealed.

I don’t know what the internal cool down on the proc is, but I’ve had it proc on multiple cloak and dagger hits throughout a fight, wasting so much initiative and being unable to get into stealth that I’ve had no choice but to run.

The obvious solution is to just not fight in areas where you’ve got the buff, but often that is just not practical. Can I propose that we have the option to personally turn off the buff, or some way to make us personally immune to the buff. As any offhand dagger thief will tell you, having important cloak and dagger hits proc the lightning and reveal you is a death sentence, especially back to back.

Swim.6830:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Swim.6830:

Meanwhile I can stack tons of condition damage and toughness and basically tank, while killing people, because I don’t have to pick and choose my stats carefully!

Meanwhile I can stack tons of power, precision, and toughness and basically tank, while killing people, because I don’t have to pick and choose my stats carefully!

OR

Meanwhile I can stack tons of power, vitality, and toughness and basically tank, while killing people, because I don’t have to pick and choose my stats carefully!

To those who have actually tested it, compared direct damage to condition damage builds, with the same vitality and/or toughness levels, know my statements are accurate. On the other hand folks making some fairly biased statements of conjecture without having actually tested it. Statements similar to the one I quoted.

Tested on a dummy, did you? Especially the second one. I bet they are as viable as the condition tank…

I am sorry but either way you cut it, when you stack condition damage and toughness you only have 2 stats to focus on and main, unlike your examples.

Then why aren’t we seeing condition damage anywhere but in small scale roaming? If they don’t have to give up toughness and vitality to do their extreme damage and burst damage, shouldn’t we see them all over tournaments and zergs compared to their direct damage counterparts?

Or is it possible that the game isn’t balanced around 1v1 duels? And that nerfing condition damage would result in seeing it nowhere in the game?

Glaciate.3901:

stolen ability whirlwind from warrior doesn’t reflect projectiles, it works the same way as as the warrior’s. Dagger storm is the only reflect the thief has access to.

I hate to be so direct, but you’re wrong. Stolen Whirlwind Axe will reflect projectiles. As a condi thief, I save it specifically to use as a reflect, as the damage doesn’t do much for me.

The tooltip and wiki even say it will reflect. If you have personal experience with stolen whirlwind axe not reflecting, it’s a bug.

phaeris.7604:

Conditions are too plentiful, too easy to spam and do too much damage.

Direct damage is too plentiful, too easy to spam and do too much damage.

Straegen.2938:

randomly.6395:

1. Whirling axe. This is the steal ability that thieves get from warriors. It is a melee range AoE that reflects projectiles. If no one was in their melee range he could easily use it to reflect your kill shot while in stealth.

This ability does not reflect projectiles. It is more likely a fluke Dagger Storm that thief used when he saw the warrior charging his rifle shot.

The stolen version of Whirling Axe does reflect projectiles. I’ve reflected with it many times, and as a condition thief, it’s the only real use I get out of it.

I don’t play a warrior, but you may be getting confused with the warrior version which does not reflect projectiles, as far as I know.

1. Whirling axe. This is the steal ability that thieves get from warriors. It is a melee range AoE that reflects projectiles. If no one was in their melee range he could easily use it to reflect your kill shot while in stealth.

2. Possibly the bone minion? It looks very similar to the ranger devourer pet.

3. As others have said, quickness makes stomps lightning fast. Warriors have access to on demand quickness.

It’s certainly possible people were hacking in your examples, but each one has a legitimate explanation.

Grimreaper.5370:

sinzer.4018:

I build exclusively for power. I don’t have much of an issue, i kill most people i fight. That may be down to my playtime on my main though (1k hrs). I’ve never found it unfun to fight condis. It never occured to me that it could be infuriating to. Fighting against someone that relies heavily on stealth is tedious but condis? lol. /cleanse

Just wait until you run into 2+ heavy condi spam necros who are well coordinated. THAT is FUN.

Yeah, we should nerf conditions based on the fact that two well coordinated players working together can make it incredibly frustrating on one player. Ignoring that two well coordinated players of any class will be a challenge to any single player.

And in the event of two necros against a group, the group should have the ability to bring in AoE condition clears that the team can cycle through on important CDs instead of on auto attack conditions. People panic when they see a bunch of conditions on them.

Also, why is using cooldowns to unload conditions on your target called spamming, but using cooldowns and all your direct damage abilities called bursting. You realize that power based builds “spam” their direct damage abilities too, right?

People have it in their head that conditions shouldn’t be viable. They don’t want to build with their defense in mind while out roaming. Condition damage already becomes increasingly worse the larger the scale of the fight gets.

Dee Jay.2460:

Welcome to Condition Wars 2. You would have really enjoyed your time with Perplexity Runes 1.0.

Yeah, those dang perplexity runes. Giving you 5 stacks on interrupt, cleansing, and then being reapplied instantly 15 seconds later.

Rudy.6184:

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Can someone please post a good build for P/D thief for WvW roaming? I need all the help I can get

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAqYVlsMp0pdPxzJ8PNBNRxdNUCzg3XxXshaFAA-TVSAABKcIAo4BAoomAAODAhq+zYK/6Z/BC1D0mSQSBAxyK-w

That’s what I use (simmilar, cause lack of ascended). Go and be op…

That build has a few problems, in my opinion. I’m not sure why you’d want to use carrion armor, that extra precision isn’t doing much for you. I get that you have sigil of earth, but you could probably replace it with a sigil of bursting and slot dire instead. You’ll get way more out of the 4.5k health than the 30% crit chance.

You’re also at 120% bleed duration, which is 20% overkill. You can drop the 20% bleed sigil and replace it with whatever you want. Probably the 10% condition sigil.

Krait runes are nice, but I’ve found perplexity and slight of hand to be infinitely more useful. Interrupting an important heal and slapping them with a ~14 second confusion is crazy. The Krait 6 piece is also extremely so-so, honestly. As P/D we already have good poison, bleed, and torment application. The 45 second cooldown is not worth it. The 45% bleed duration is the only saving grace, but I’m not sure it really pushes it above perplexity.

Uncatchable seems cool in theory, but doesn’t appear to provide too much in actual fights. Long reach, combined with a 21 second steal, seems way more useful, but I guess this one could be a toss up depending on the player.

This is all assuming you actually wanted to “go on and be OP”.

Does Superior Sigil of Blood have a two second CD? I’m reading 5 seconds on the in game tool tip. But the wiki says 2 seconds as well.

Aidan Savage.2078:

That’s the risk you take when you slot sigils and runes into unsalvageable gear. (Duplicate topic as well)

There is no risk. Using an extractor is a waste of gold or gems. With the same amount of gold or gems, you could just buy the rune or sigil with gold to spare (minus one or two crazy expensive sigils).

lordhelmos.7623:

Rune of krait basilisk spiking from stealth requires a stunbreaker, condition clear, and heal (if backstabbed) to counter. Unless your a psychic and can dodge stealthed attacks.

Really? If you are afraid of 1 stack of bleed, 1 stack of torment, and 8 seconds of poison on a 45 second cooldown from a power build, then you have bigger worries.

Your scenario will never happen. No backstab thief would want to use these runes. If they do, they have no idea what they are doing.

Your concern might be more valid if we were talking about a P/D condi build, but even then, these runes add less than perplexity. The bleed duration on the krait runes is more valuable. Krait runes are more important to builds that do not have easy access to poison or torment, both of which a P/D thief has plenty of.

Even on a P/D heavy condition build, the krait runes provide conditions that a P/D setup already has access to. Poison on Steal > CnD > Sneak Attack > Shadow Strike.

You’re still better off getting the extra condition in the form of confusion from perplexity runes. Krait runes aren’t doing much.

I’m not even going to touch on the fact that these runes are garbage for a backstab build.

I was also hit for a crazy amount from the izerker last night while in SPvP. My thief only has about 2.2k armor, but the single izerker took out about 2/3 of my 16k health in one spin. Wasn’t sure what to make of it, so I tried to avoid her the rest of the game. lol

I’ve been messing around with a double pistol/dagger condition setup with sigils of doom and energy on both weapon sets. I’ve been calling it The Dodger, and if you like non-stop dodging, you will really enjoy this build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQRAqY6Yl0Mp8plOx7J0PNRwpwpG17xXHLA6Uw1rC-zECBoOFRjm6IQ0HhOTqIaslhFRjV3ATxiIq2joIa1kCAm5AA-w

With a 0/0/4/4/6 build and swapping weapons every nine seconds, I can dodge an insane amount of times while keeping up near permanent poison. I’ve been roaming around in WvW and feel insanely survivable while keeping up great condition pressure.

The real fun comes from the fact that feline grace interacts with sigil of energy in a way that grants more dodges per swap than other classes. While revealed, I can dodge and drop caltrops continuously until I need to get back into stealth again. From there I can do the usual CnD > Sneak Attack > Shadow Strike combo.

Power of Inertia works really well in this build with how often you dodge. During fights I generally keep up a constant five stacks of might, going up to seven or eight if am really throwing out the dodges.

I like Blinding Powder for a multitude or reasons in WvW, but I may test swapping it with Signet of Agility for even more dodges. I just really love to dodge, but we’ll see if it’s worth the trade off.

They said an overall damage reduction. A 30% loss in critical damage is only a 30% overall loss in damage if you crit 100% of the time. Assuming you have a 50% crit chance, it’s a 15% overall damage reduction. With fury, a ~20% damage reduction.

Condition damage still scales horribly with each additional condition user in the group and is completely nullified by objects. This change won’t affect what builds people run and is certainly not the end of Berserkers.

These responses are crazy. Adding dueling will lead to trolling? Add an option to disallow all duel requests like every other game has done.

I have a hard time understanding why people would be against this. You can even make it so you can’t duel in major cities.

Stating that adding dueling would only lead to further trolling is just untrue. Of all the ways that you could troll someone in this game, dueling is absolutely a non issue, especially when an option to auto decline all duel invites is introduced.

Bumping this incase anyone has news on this armor. It’s been seven months since I made this thread and this armor is still completely unfinished in PvE.

Can we expect to never see this set in PvE? I might think it was intentional if it wasn’t for the fact that we can get the chest piece in a story quest, but the other pieces remain unobtainable.

Could we please get a response regarding the state of this armor?

Walking through it should grant 3 stacks of might with an ICD per player. Even with this, fire’s focus abilities are rather lackluster.

But back on topic, ignore should absolutely block someone from every channel. Especially emotes. Being told to suck it up is not helpful.

Anoddhermit.4602:

I just want Dark Path be a teleport(or maybe similar to ride the lightning) with an AoE chill, useful for both escape and for catching targets.

Would actually be nice if it were just an F2 skill we could use in any form but maybe that’s getting greedy? Necro is so slow getting around the world compared to most of the other classes I’ve played.

Yes! Make DS #2 act exactly like ride the lightning, with bleed/chill on connect.

As for the animation, make the player take on the form of the elite “Plague” and rush them toward the target. Would fix this skill feeling clunky as heck and would be a much needed boost to mobility.