The changes didn’t remove staff thief. They just made it slightly more optimal to play DA with staff master now.
You can cancel it by logging out mid vault.
You’re welcome!
Not really. They could have lowered its damage by 10% or made it have a 1s ICD. Just any change that would be inconsequential at higher levels of play but be helpful for newer players.
Surprised they didn’t touch PI at all or hit CV a little harder. I really like the SoA change although I can understand why dash and acro thieves would generally prefer an additional dodge over the buffed condi cleanse.
Adapt or find a new game.
Sounds like a reason to play a power build!
That’s a fantastic summary, Ensign.
Wow, that’s a lot of nerfs. Do you really play thief?
Bound isn’t a sleeping beast. The majority of thief players, at least on NA, tried Bound first when HoT came out before moving on to other classes and D/P Dash builds in later patches. Most sPvP thief players know what it can and can’t do.
It might be easier to just buff X rather than make X better through nerfing Y.
We could just not play ghost thief out of some small sense of respect for ourselves as players.
In my experience, the best time to make a suggestion is during the game right as or right after something is happening, such as an over-rotation to make a soon to be 2v1 a 3v1.. Any trace of anger and we’re probably done. If we think it’s hand-holding to do this, we’re probably just using this belief to half-kitten our attempt to encourage improvement.
it quite literally doesnt matter if u hold their hand and tell them or not. the MAJORITY of this player base is INCAPABLE of learning.
According to the theory of diffusion of innovations, only about 16% of people will be completely opposed to a new innovation. In other words, only about 16% of GW2 players will prove to be incapable of learning new and better strategies. If most people are responding unfavorably to your suggestions, there might be something you can improve with how you make suggestions. For example, asking yourself what can be done to make a message more respectful, how you might respond if someone attempted to help you how you’re offering to, etc.
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All of that is true, the issue is most of the complaints are about REALLY basic stuff that the MAJORITY of the player base is incapable of understanding. How many times does a person need to be told/read/see these TRULY BASIC principles before it sinks in?
If it’s not said in a way someone wants to listen to, you can tell them something an infinite number of times regardless how of basic it is. How something is said is probably much more important than what it is said.
If you’ve ever had both the fortune and misfortune of reading this forum, reddit, map chat, or any other venue where players occasionally express their views on the collective actions of other players, you’ve probably seen some complaints. Those attempting to capture the amount of malice some players can express toward others summarize the GW2 player community as a toxic community, and they’re actually onto something. However, this complaint itself is also incredibly ironic.
Complaints do have value but not all complaints. What separates a good complaint from a bad one is whether the complaint offers a better alternative to the idea it’s tearing down. For example, telling a player he or she is bad because they’re leaving nodes to outnumber fights on a bunker build does little or nothing. Telling a player why it’s generally unhelpful to outnumber as a bunker, on the other hand, has potential to be helpful. What makes GW2 toxic are the complaints without substance – the complaints which don’t also offer what the person receiving the complaint can interpret as an agreeable suggestion.
The irony of GW2 is our complaints about toxicity are also failing to include substance. When we complain about elitism, people being sheep to the meta builds, or the abusive tone of how players typically express their frustration, we’re being just as bad as the people we’re criticizing. We’re being just as bad because we’re making the same mistake when also failing to offer better alternatives. Ironically, we’re contributing to the toxicity of GW2 with how we often comment on the toxicity of GW2.
So. What’s the alternative?
Simply put, provide criticism with a suggestion that you believe will lead to improvements. Additionally, attempt to make this suggestion in a way that conveys not just what you believe but also communicates it in a way the person receiving it will be more inclined to take seriously.
What does that look like in practice? Unfortunately, this isn’t inherently simple – it depends on the person. How this process can start, however, is simple. Rather than call someone out, start be asking, “Hey [player name], are you curious about something you can do to win more often?” We might still be toxic. This toxicity may also be ironically contributed to by some of those criticize it through how they criticize it. Nevertheless, you can start to standout amidst all this nonsense through demonstrating some simple respect.
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Vault is really good against those who are not.
It’s hard to say exactly because it depends on so much. It depends on the class, build, the situation, and much more. Some classes have boons you will want to rip with steal. Some classes have heals skills you can interrupt with steal. Sometimes, steal is used just to close a gap. Steal can be used while rezzing to daze and prevent someone from interrupting you. It can be used on mesmers and druids to use the stolen skill to save you from some conditions. There are just so many uses that can be highly effectively.
The simplest and most through explanation we can provide is to tell you to watch a skilled thief player play and see the multitude of ways they use steal for yourself. For sPvP, you would want to watch Sindrener. His twitch is: https://www.twitch.tv/sindrenerr
Yeah, they like fighting. They like winning too.
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You know what’s so amazing about biases? Knowing about some of them doesn’t prevent a person from being biased. In some instances, they can be used to make unnecessary and even fallacious arguments – knowing about biases can also bias arguments when we attack the perceived biases of others without also realizing how they’re also biasing ourselves. For example, not realizing we’re over-projecting the implications of our personal experience as holding true for most other people, devaluing information because it can be over-simplified as group-think, etc. What could it be in addition to and/or instead of group-think?
Sometimes, people also develop similar beliefs and understandings because we’ve become aware of some small amount of truth, like learning X is generally better for achieving goal Y. As much as people love to conform to groups and share similar mentalities, we also love improvements too. We can also love doing better, raising our expectations, pursuing more ambition goals, seeking better understandings, and more. If all you see is group-think, you’re only seeing one small part of what contributes to the formation of a “meta.” Other aspects are out of a goal to stream-line and enhance the quality of the PvP experience – to build a community which challenges its players to do what we didn’t know we could. For example, through attempting to beat extremely skilled players and eventually succeeding. Players can accomplish this more quickly if they have a better understanding of what generally works from the get-go.
For the sake of expediting this argument, lets assume immobilize is more useful against DH and Warrior. What about all the classes where Headshot is clearly much more debilitating? Like against Druid, Ele, Thief (especially dash and staff thieves!), Mesmer, Rev, and Necro. If an ability is more debilitating against a greater number of classes and all these classes are regularly played, how is that ability not generally better?
More importantly, do you have any way of disproving what you believe to be true? I think P/D is worse overall than meta thief builds. However, I also have no illusions about maintaining this belief if it’s demonstrated to be a strong build, such as by other thieves achieving high ranks with it, succeeding with it in sPvP tournaments, destroying me in games with it, destroying players who are currently better than me with it, etc. I’m open to proof as long as it’s more than the individual experiences of a couple WvW players of questionable skill level.
You think I don’t like P/D because I dislike condi thieves. I don’t like P/D because I can’t feasibly achieve what I want to achieve and what I can achieve with other builds. If it’s lack of use overall is any indication, other players have generally come to the same conclusion. If someone wants to know what might work for them, then what’s a better starting point? What works for babazhook and saerni or what works for the majority of other players?
You have an opinion. You have personal experience to support that opinion. So do I with mine. What you don’t have is a way of gauging the relevance and accuracy of that opinion and personal experience for PvP players in general. I can point to the sPvP leader board rankings and point to examples of strengths and weakness of builds from streams to highlight where they succeed and where they fail. Those leader board rankings and win/loss ratios are the closest thing we have to empirical evidence and you’re ignoring it. If we’re going to address the question of how good, bad, or in-between P/D is in WvW, sPvP, and PvP overall at least somewhat scientifically, it’s irresponsible to ignore this kind of evidence.
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Then duo Q to the top.
If you’re using steal and spider venom in conjunction, which you’ve stated you typically do when describing how you play your build, you do only have one condi burst every 26 seconds. Stacking abilities makes it a much better burst but it’s still one instance of attacks and thus, one burst. You think I’m misunderstanding your build when this is probably simply a difference in semantics – I.E. you think I’m saying you have one burst ability when I’m saying you have one burst.
Headshot is categorically better than Body Shot. It’s so good it prevents the majority of other classes from effectively playing their own marauder/zerker builds, like marksman druids and shatter mesmers. Few other abilities are having this profound of an impact on the viability of builds in the current game. It’s arguably one of the more disgusting abilities because of how strong it is with PI. It’s one of the main reasons D/P is currently the build of choice for most of the best thieves. What could someone do to prove this to you? Make a poll asking for popular opinion on the value of Headshot with PI vs Body Shot with condi duration? Ask experts on the class, like pro-league levels thieves, on which they think is better?
Technically, it might be impossible to definitively prove or disprove anything. The lack of a high ranked P/D thief, however, does suggest it’s less likely the build is currently comparable to those players are more commonly succeeding with in sPvP. In other words, if a new player wants to predict what weapon sets and builds they’ll succeed with, I’m attempting to show them they should bet less on P/D being one of them – that Babazhook’s experience is more of an exception than a rule. For me, the top 250 is one of the most important places for a build to be viable because trying to climb rankings is still one of those doable (at least before the NA pros filled the rankings with alt accounts) but difficult challenges for more casual players like myself. It can be one of the more exciting aspects available in GW2.
I just want to babazhook to say “P/D is viable for me and what I currently want to do in WvW.” I won’t argue that because to me, this would be the most accurate summary of his point of view and what players who wish to learn from his experiences would benefit most from hearing. They can then couple it with a point of view like mine, which is “S/P, D/P, and staff are viable for me and what I currently want to do in unranked sPvP. D/P dash and staff are viable for me and what I currently want to do in ranked sPvP.” As a result, they may be able to more quickly a develop an understanding for themselves of what can work, when it works, where it works, and why it works. This doesn’t work if we overstate the positive aspects of a build, such as by presenting the boon rip from Rending Shade or the effect of immobilize as stronger than it currently is in most situations.
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Yeah, you’re right. I’m so used to sPvP where Body Shot is generally awful. It could be okay with this build since it can be used from the blind field for an additional blinding shot. If fighting a class where the immob can stick, the immob prevents dodging the next Sneak Attack. Headshot, similarly, can be constructive without PI as long as the interrupts are done when condis are ticking away.
Obviously Vavume’s build is built around Sneak Attack instead of Head Shot, so it wouldn’t have the needed Head Shot support. I did try out some variations of P/P ‘rupt in HotM and I had a great time. There’s definitely something there, if not yet fully formed.
Yeah, I understand the concept – it’s what bugs me. To me, the entire point of the initiative mechanic is to be able to overload someone with damaging abilities, like proccing panic strike on a staff build and finishing them with two vaults while they can’t move or landing a back stab and finishing someone by using my remaining initiative to interrupt their heal(s). In Vavume’s build, there’s nothing worthwhile to dump initiative into to finish someone off. It’s just BP-> Bound -> Sneak Attack until the next steal/venom burst.
If P/D can work in sPvP as you’ve suggested it can, then why are there no P/D thieves in the top 250 of either EU or NA? There’s a variety of D/P thieves and staff thieves. There’s a few D/D acro condi thieves. There’s an S/D thief in Sizer. Why are there no P/D thieves if it has even the slightest possibility of working regularly in sPvP?
It’s not a power build mentality – it’s an optimizing mentality. Both historically and currently speaking, optimizing a thief build, especially for sPvP, has meant and continues to mean playing power. If condi wasn’t still so limited in sPvP, I would happily play it. If I had a power mentality, I would not be so open to trying a feasibly strong and fun condi build.
I’ve never said Vavume should fundamentally alter his build nor that his build was certainly worse than other potential versions (although I can see how someone could interpret this meaning as being implied by saying “This is what I would try” and offering something different). I only stated how I would attempt to make and play a P/P condition build. Part of the changes are clearly preference. If I can win all the same fights playing carrion gear rather than dire or trailblazer’s, I’d rather play carrion simply because it’d make the fights end faster. Similarly, if I can accomplish similar pressure using 20 seconds CDs, such as steal with SoH and Impairing Daggers, over using 24-26 seconds CDs, such as confusion steal and spider venom, I’d rather play the shorter CDs because missing them is less consequential.
The PI damage might be too low to warrant it’s use but not for lack of power. If WvW had an equivalent to HotM and we could test gear freely, we could just check. However, if it is too low in practice, it wouldn’t be because it has 1000 less power. The build would need to be carrion gear (or preferably mercenaries but that appears to either never been implemented into WvW or removed when it was also removed from sPvP). With carrion, it looks like it would only be several hundred less power depending on the number bloodlust stacks of the power build you’re comparing this to. With +25% physical damage from Bound and Lead Attacks, this still has most of the damage modifiers a power build has.
The build I posted doesn’t use venoms (other than BV). It uses Impairing Daggers for a burst. The main reason I posted a PI version of a P/P condi build is partly because EA is so incredibly bad against good players. In WvW, this would seem to be even more extreme because you guys have more access to condi duration than players do in sPvP – condi builds have less reason to continue attacking you when some condis have landed. I understand it’s still likely to generally be the best option for a condi build with no power to augment PI, but this is why I would want to be able to try the build with carrion gear first.
I wish WvW had a HotM type of area to test gear (or better yet, no PvE gear grind at all). P/P condi with interrupts actually looks like it would fun for me to play.
I would compare a top D/P thief in sPvP to a top P/D thief in sPvP if a high-ranked P/D thief existed (there are high-ranked D/D acro condi thieves, such as Maygi on NA who I think is still in the top 30-40 or so). Instead, the closest thing currently in upper tier ranked sPvP to what Saerni described, which was a thief build that supports through stripping boons and providing immobilize for teammates, is S/D played by Sizer. If his build, which uses some of the same core mechanics of the P/D builds you guys use through applying immob and ripping boons with attacks, is deficient, then why is it so hard to see that P/D is also currently deficient? You guys have said it works through boon ripping, immobilize, and a strong condi burst (with a long CD). Here’s a specific example of why that boon ripping and immobilize isn’t enough for the build to be among the best.
If you believe it’s viable for what you’re attempting to accomplish, I can’t argue this. According to my own definition, viability is relative to our goals. Someone attempting to win duels and fights in WvW, which seems to be what you play for, is typically attempting something much easier than those attempting to legitimately achieve their highest ranking possible in sPvP. On the other hand, if you believe P/D is comparable to other builds overall, like D/P and staff, then I’m going continue to struggle to attempt to keep an even-tempered and patient discussion because of how insane this perception currently is – particularly in sPvP and especially higher rated sPvP.
Lets look at a specific example of this insanity. Babazhook, you’re telling me timing a Headshot to land after a dodge isn’t needed because immob with condi duration prevents someone from dodging. By playing a P/D build to begin with, you don’t need to time Headshot on dodges (or anything else) because you won’t even have Headshot to interrupt with! That’s a huge problem with the way the weapon-set currently is! It lacks the ability to drastically cripple opponents in the ways which are currently most optimal in most situations, like through interrupting abilities with D/P or sustaining a high amount of damage like staff can (I.E. not just a single-target condi burst combo with 26+ seconds between bursts).
If you want to make an argument, please at least make one that makes sense, such as making a case for why a spammable immobilize would typically (I.E. in most situations and not just some) be more valuable than a spammable interrupt and how this value typically outweighs other comparative deficiencies P/D currently has, like lack of cleave. If you wish to apply these arguments to sPvP, please provide some example for why this isn’t just misguided theory-craft based solely on WvW experience against less practiced players, like providing a link to a twitch account of someone who does what you’re describing and succeeds comparably to most non-P/D thief players while doing it. If we can’t do this right by exchanging ideas and revealing what is typically correct, then we can at least attempt to do this less wrong.
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Why do I get beaten so badly by the league players if this game doesn’t require enough skill? Am I just not “spamming” hard enough?
It’s been like this is in other games too, like Starcraft and Warcraft 3. For whatever reasons, we (Americans) tend to look for easy ways to achieve higher rankings more often than players from other countries. It’s really strange. There are surveys stating we’re generally more optimistic than Europeans and Asians overall. If that’s true, we’re certainly not being more optimistic in our gaming.
Maybe it makes sense. I’ve read overall attitudes in America toward gaming are much more negative than Europe and Asia. Maybe American players are so much more bitter toward each other because we’re used to people being bitter toward us for playing games at all.
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Yes, lacking interrupts (or lacking the absurd damage of staff) currently makes a build categorically inferior. Your argument for P/D is essentially the same argument for S/D. It’s the same because what S/D brings is boon rip from LS (which for me is much easier to land than CnD+Sneak Attack) and immobilize from sword #2 (which is also easier to land and less telegraphed than the flying bola of Body Shot). Thus, although I haven’t attempted to play P/D for sometime, I know from experience how helpful additional boon rips and on-demand immobilize can be. It’s helpful but not as helpful as interrupts (X/P builds) or having much higher damage (staff builds).
Immobilizing a necro with more than Panic Strike, for example, isn’t as helpful as interrupting their casts. They’re not going to outrun any thief builds. They only have the two dodges and shroud for defense. What they can do, however, is re-sustain with their heal and CC chain us into oblivion. This can only occur if they’re allowed to cast by not interrupting or not exploding them with vault.
If you’d like to make a comparison between the value of boon ripping versus interrupts without playing much sPvP yourself, I’d suggest you watch Sindrener (one of, if not the, best D/P thieves currently) and compare him to Sizer (one of, if not the, best S/D thieves currently). They both play a very similar role of moving quickly around the map supporting teammates by causing outnumbered fights. They, however, have varying success in these roles in large part because of differences in their builds. The main pattern to note is how easily Sindrener can pressure most classes he outnumbers while Sizer becomes relatively useless against the better D/P thieves, Warriors, Druids, DHs, and Scappers. The second main pattern to note is how much longer it tends to take Sizer to down someone than Sindrener. In extremely close sPvP games, those seconds matter a ton.
If interrupts are difficult to perform, one of the best places to practice them is in Heart of the Mists against the NPCs. The necro NPC tends to dodge a lot and cast immediately after dodging. This allows practicing timing Headshots to land immediately after dodges – something that typically works well against newer players (but is expected by experienced players). Other NPCs have several abilities which are harder interrupt but can be interrupted every time when they’re anticipated, such as the Rev NPC’s Unrelenting Assault, the engi NPC’s leaping attack, and and the DH NPC’s blinding sword leap.
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Someone says this every season…
P/P condition in my experience does not do well trying to get interrupts to work. I tried it and for INI spent the payoff not there. What I found worked best if I had INI to burn off was to apply a venom (or more) via unload and spike up the might for higher intensity stacks. This style more “bursty” can can use lower durations then P/d which has no might sources.
With p/d however you can get a real nice burst with steal (hidden thief) to apply confusion poison and weakness , sneak attack for 5 bleeds and than shadowstrike away for 2 torment. IF the changes added in pvp extend to WvW this will work even better.
A weakness of P/P is if you close range to do a steal it harder to reopen the gap and you pretty well need that gap for reliable stealth.
I think you’d have plenty of initiative for interrupts as long as you don’t spam them. In Vavume’s video, he’s typically sitting at 3/4 of his total initiative. I’ve probably played more bound D/P than any other HoT thief build. When using Shadow Shot to land Backstabs, it’s a more initiative intensive build than Vavume’s. Nonetheless, I still have initiative to make use of Headshot when playing that build – I just can’t spam it. Similarly, a big reason to take PI and an interrupt sigil isn’t just for Headshot – it’s to have and boost the effectiveness of Sleight of Hand.
I’m gonna expand on defining viability and then offer a counter point to the importance of supporting through immobilize and boon ripping.
Viability depends partly on us and our opponents. The big part we bring to answering “What’s viable?” is goals. If we want to attempt to beat extremely practiced players (a more ambitious goal), the number of viable options goes way down. If we want to beat less practiced players while defying the meta because we prefer playing a build we feel is more creative, then P/D may be exceedingly viable. Viability also depends mostly on opposing players and what they allow to be successfully used against them. Their skill level is going to determine what generally works, then what can feasibly work, and then, ultimately, what is viable.
Since you’re breaking builds down by type, lets look at the support thief builds as a type rather than condi thief as a type. Lets define types of support as abilities which allow our teammates to bring down targets much more easily. Right now, you’ve been looking at immobilize and boon ripping as a means for providing this support. However, you’re also missing the biggest and best type of support we currently have: interrupts. P/D has more immob and boon ripping potential than D/P but little or no means to interrupt abilities. In sPvP, this is game-breaking. Having additional boon rips on top of Bountiful Theft, or additional immobilize on top of Panic Strike, isn’t as helpful as being able to interrupt heals and attacks. If I interrupt certain abilities, like ele or druid heals, Revenant UA, the DH leap, etc., this results in a faster kill than removing protection or resistance and not interrupting some of their abilities.
If Bountiful Theft didn’t exist, Rending Shade would be more important.. If Panic Strike didn’t exist, pistol and sword #2 would be more important. However ,they do exist and every Thief build can support through removing boons and immobilizing targets. When used in conjunction with an offhand pistol and PI, we have an additional option and arguably better option for support. Thus, if you’re comparing viability based on type, P/D may only seem viable because it’s being compared to other condi builds (which are all arguably awful). If you look at “support thief” as the type for making comparisons, this may better allow you see the multitude of limitations P/D currently has (and why it’s not viable for me in sPvP).
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On any damaging condition I look for a base of at least 7 seconds. This can generally best deal with the cooldowns of the respective classes on their cleanses. Once you get over 7 seconds the odds drop that the full duration will run.
You can not look at percentage. you have to look at raw duration. D/D as example has 10 second bleed base. That is plenty of duration. 50 percent more duration on d/d bleed adds more total seconds then 100 percent duration on the p/x bleed.
Obviously as saerni dated this would not apply to something like burns which is a high damage condition. Those you can do with less duration as the enemy tends to try and clean those rather then let them run till more stacks on.
SB obviously has even lower base durations but of you push poison to the max as example even that low base can put on some significant stacks if the enemy stays on the field and you use whirls or projectiles in it.
When using a condition build you can not ignore the effectiveness of longer weakness Vuln, crippled immobs and the like. Just as example #2 on either set becomes very usable with higher immobs and vuln. The way I look at it with 100 percent duration you in essence get two Body shots for the same INI cost.
Needing ~7 seconds minimum before diminishing returns would fit within my experience of condi duration being mostly unhelpful on D/D. Wouldn’t a P/P condi build need less condi duration than a P/D build to maintain similar condi pressure because it’s able to apply conditions more consistently by not needing melee range?
Shorter duration high damage condis benefit far more from duration than lower damage longer duration condis.
Cleanse will matter relatively more for longer duration condis. Of course this can be mitigated by knowing what the cleanse method your opponent is using is or knowing that you can use enough cover condi to mitigate their cleanse.
Of course but what’s an optimal amount of condition duration percentage overall? You guys have toyed around with going lower and higher, right?
My only experience is playing a D/D condi build when HoT came out and comparing wanderer’s amulet to rabid. Rabid, despite only having 150 more condi dmg and none of the 30ish% of condi duration of Wanderer’s, generally seemed better because of how common cleanses were.
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How do you define viable?
Overall, viable is a combination of seemingly having a certain minimal chance to win and having some fun playing the build. P/D would not fit this criteria for me.
In ranked sPvP, viable is something I can feasibly use to do my part to beat NA’s better sPvP players in matches. Right now, that’s pretty much D/P dash and staff builds.
In unranked sPvP, viable is something I can feasibly use to win 60-70%+ of my games, which for me is D/D condi, staff, or offhand pistol builds. Also, viable is enjoying playing the build (so D/D condi is out).
Some of it also depends on the situation, like non-D/P thief builds becoming less viable or not viable against good D/P thieves and S/D, which can be considered viable for someone like Sizer, still being so very, very bad against scappers and warriors even in his hands.
There you have it. Viability is thinking I can maintain a certain standard of success and enjoying the way this success comes about. With P/D, I can do neither. Can the OP? That’s up to him and what he considers viable.
Food only applies 20 percent durations. Given the base of the AA bleed is 4 seconds 20 percent duration will not even get an extra tick off the bleed. With the AA one can get off about 2 shots each second meaning 2 bleeds added per second. That means at base you can never get more then 8 bleeds via the AA. (this the theoretical limit and bleeds apps will in fact be lower with no base duration add)
With longer durations the AA can act as condition pressure between cleanses and in particular when your steal app and or ini runs down.
If we look at steal it a 5 second duration Confusion base with BA meaning the Condition duration food will just add one second. By getting more duration that confusion steal will last longer.
A lot of times once you apply all these conditions the target will try and “run them out” by avoiding combat for a few seconds rather then use up a cleanse. They just can not afford to do that with those long durations.
This then helps with your other conditions one big one being Weakness. If you can get your weakness/vuln/cripple durations all up in durations, cleanses are much less effective and the underlying damage conditions they that are doing the damage can tick for longer.
Obviously this does not work as well in a Zerg fight where other parties will add cleanses but the longer durations does not give up a lot in the way of damage even there.
Another thing more condition duration via traits/sigils armor and runes does is free up that food slot for something that can be as effective. Ie the Might on dodge food for yet more endurance or the mussel type foods which add boon duration along with 10 percent damage mitigation.
What condi duration percentage would you say is the sweet spot where it’s long enough to extend condi duration but not so long that cleanses make it worse than alternatives?
A condi P/P build with PI and the interrupt sigil might work with the duration provided by krait runes alone. In that build, the Sneak Attacks, AAs, and their bleeds are mainly just filler. It wouldn’t use confusion on steal because the main punches are interrupts and Impairing Daggers.
Well clearly you do not understand where I am coming from, you have already jumped to your own conclusions, so lets just leave it at that because nothing positive is coming from this conversation.
If you have your own build idea’s feel free to make your own thread and post it.
It’s true – I don’t understand. This is why I asked questions. This is why I’m continuing to ask questions. Conclusions are not phrased in the form of a question.
Is this for a pat on the back? I think P/P bound is by far the best setup for a ranged condi thief build. Well done for using this setup over P/D!
For a discussion on P/P bound condi thief builds? This kind of discussion would involve suggestions, criticism, explanations for build choices, and possibly answering questions.
For some other reasons? I’m drawing a blank at the moment about what those could be. Maybe you can educate me?
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So suggestions are off the table for you because they’re inherently critical? In other words, you want credit for what you’ve made and suggestions take away from what you’ve done?
I don’t ask to insult. I simply want to understand where you’re coming from.
Why aren’t you looking for suggestions, Vavume?
Making builds on paper is one thing, but you really need to go out there and play it to see how it actually plays, I can see straight away that you are going to be squishy to power and have problems with conditions, shadow’s embrace will not save you from the monster condition builds out there, and with no toughness you won’t last long vs a power thief, mes, war.
You have no condition duration for bleeds, poison, torment. You are relying far to much on interrupts imho and will have little to no preasure without them, you wont steal pulsing stab often enough from some classes to even be able to interrupt, and if you attempt to interrupt to much you will not have int to re-stealth.
To be honest with you it looks like a somewhat rushed build that you haven’t tested or tweaked.
We seem to have a different understanding of how thief should be played. We’re not supposed to eat a condi bomb and rely on an opponent continuing to attack us as we spam dodges to cleanse it. We’re not supposed to counter power bursts by tanking them with toughness. We’re supposed to avoid the condi bomb and power bursts by dodging, blocking, or using stealth before or as it’s coming.
Ideally, you would be someone who tries the build I put together. I have no stake or interest in WvW. I’m just an sPvPer with an outside perspective for you to consider. You, however, do having something to gain. This is a chance to take a build you like and work in one of the more rewarding aspects of thief game play with interrupts. Were suggestions and new perspective not part of what you were hoping for when you made this thread?
Perplexity runes were changed an no longer benefit off interrupts. The confusion now comes when a heal used so you have to be in range when you use that heal or it wasted.
depending how one fights I find I will swap spider venom for ID quite often. Ie SV really works better in a group. Added to that SV , unlike ID can be applied using another attack. So as example the sneak attack with SV loaded gets 5 bleeds 5 poison in that single attack whereas in a build using ID you need to do a separate attack (blockable etc).
In a more traditional DD condi build using the Impaling trait , venoms can be loaded off your dodges which can turn that dodge into a nice spike of conditions.
Unlike a d/d build which has high base bleeds , a build uysing p/X for conditions tends to need higher durations as the base on the sneak attack is rather low. Gievn the AA applies bleeds , a higher duration can allow more of these to stack even outside the sneak attack apps making it harder for the enemy just to run the timer out on them.
Nightmare runes seem like a solid alternative to perplexity runes then (for the additioal interrupt). Aren’t condition duration traits and sigils largely redundant with the +40% condition duration food?
(edited by rennlc.7346)
It depends on how you define viable.
If I were playing that, I’d make some changes to make use of interrupts and low CD physical skills (which are some of our best 1v1 utilities). I didn’t enter all the gear but this will give you the gist of how I’d play the same build.
-Channel Vigor is way better than HiS. It’s harder to interrupt, heals more over time, and when using bound with offhand pistol, you get more stealth from CV than HiS on a shorter CD.
-Between perplexity runes, PI, and draining sigils, interrupts look OP on paper. They should be used!
-Without any on-crit procs or ferocity requiring greater crit %, 12s Bandit’s Defense is better than Signet of Agility.
-Although Spider Venom potentially does more straight condi damage than Impairing Daggers, the slow and immob on ID can be way more problematic for an opponent (especially when it makes their casts so easy to interrupt, like Druids in celestial form). ID is better.
Basically, use RS to strip stab to allow for regular interrupts. Rather than having a single burst combo with confusion on steal and spider venom, this can more consistently pressure an opponent. It accomplishes this with interrupts and two decent bursts.
The first burst is doing Impairing Daggers + Sneak Attack from stealth (you can start Sneak Attack before the daggers hit and cause reveal). However, this also requires being 500-600+ units away which gives them more time to react (although if the players in your video are typical WvW players, they probably won’t react at all). The second burst is using steal at the very, very end of a bound with the stealth on steal trait. This causes the bound to hit while also allowing you to stealth.
(edited by rennlc.7346)
If you shadow return while dodging, you’ll activate the marks/traps and make them miss.
Nothing will save CnD or really even S/D without first nerfing boons and block access to begin with, honestly, unless they just make Flanking Strike unblockable, but that’s just bad and lazy design.
The set will never be good if both are so easily-spammed.
Exactly. If CnD becomes more accessible and SA more worthwhile, S/D may work partly through using Rending Shade to rip boons rather than FS/LS.
From watching Sizer, it doesn’t look like infiltrator’s return getting interrupted is what breaks S/D. The main problem with S/D is it’s damage, CC and stealth access are all lower than D/P. Even with the prevalence of boons, S/D is so incredibly weak because it does so much less than staff or D/P in the gaps between invulns, blocks, and the like. Sizer can struggle so much to 2v1 mesmers, scrappers, warriors, and druids because of these limitations.
A fix I’d like to see is buffing S/D through changes to CnD and SA, such as by making the blind of stealth trait a non-GM trait, making CnD cost less initiative, and allowing infiltrator’s strike → CnD → tactical strike to become a legitimate combo against certain classes.
For D/P dash builds, it’s just alternating shadowshot, maybe an auto-attack, and dodging away when they counterattack. This process can be sped up by stealing when it’ll proc PI and by tracking their CDs. When head butt, shield bash, whirlwind, etc. are down, it’s safe to do a couple auto-attacks. This is a very safe, reliable way to slowly kill power warriors. They can’t really kill dash thieves unless we let them.
Condi warriors, on the other hand, usually have too much sustain for this to work and D/P dash builds will just die eventually to Krait Runes procs if nothing else (since those runes can’t be dodged).
But over the course of many games and against better players, such those among the top 100-150 in ranked sPvP, can condi be as useful and as impacting as certain power builds? That’s where I’m saying condi fails.