Guild Wars 2

Wiser with Age.3714:

Last I checked, the damaging portion of Leeching Venoms was the only thing that changed. It used to be a flat damage value until it was changed to be based off of +Power. Now you need to invest in +Power for the dps output of the LV proc and you’d still need to invest in +Healing for the healing output of the LV proc.

This could be the case. Will have to test further.

evilapprentice.6379:

Adaneshade.2409:

Damage and heal are a 1:1 ratio

That’s what I thought, but then I thought it was silly that +healing power would contribute to damage in that manner. I guess I was wrong.

Right, it’s affected by power, not healing power as of a patch not long after release. (Not certain if might scales it up, but i think it does.)

Damage and heal are a 1:1 ratio

Silver.4798:

I’m learning to make the full switch from d/d condition to burst, and I must say I’ve been having a ton of fun as of late going S/D and D/P, switching up with S/P and SB whenever I get bored. Biggest adjustment I’m trying to make is to learn how to use stealth offensively (in my condition build my stealth was purely defensive, I try to stay stealthed as long as possible after I stack my bleeds so I heal while they die, regen my initiative and do it again).

I’m still in the “just wing it and see how it feels!” mode, but I do wonder what thieves with more experience do in these situations, so I’m hoping y’all can help me out again as you have before (much appreciated!)

In the S/D weapon set, I basically IS -> autoattack -> flanking strike if I see a hit coming -> SS back, reposition if needed and do it again. Rarely do I actually stealth and if I do it’s because I’m getting swarmed. Is there a way to use stealth offensively here? The 1 attack off of stealth in sword feels underwhelming, yea opponent is dazed for a sec. Meh.

D/P, obv u BS off of stealth, the question is how do I manage the revealed buff until I can stealth again? Generally I SS->BP->autoattack x5 -> HS -> BS -> BP again and autoattack -> HS -> BS. After I take out maybe 2-3 targets I’m out of initiative, so at this point now what?

I appreciate all inputs!

Use it to interrupt revives in 1vmany fights.

I’ve found using S/D and frequently juking them with Infiltrator’s Strike/Shadow Return makes it easier to win out. My best luck vs fight club mesmers has been in a really rugged build using S/D and something like 10-30-30-0-0. Of course, if you don’t stack up enough defensive stats to withstand one of those shatter bursts, any mistake will kill you.

Also, don’t be overly aggressive, keep a close eye on confusion stacks and shed those off. I’ve seen many thieves blow themselves up when just waiting a second and using shadow return to clean off the confuse stack right after they apply it would have won it for them.

evilapprentice.6379:

Adaneshade.2409:

I run a 30/0/30/0/10 build in tPvP using S/D + SB. Works REALLY well. Funny thing is, the build doesn’t work as well in hotjoins because it relies on having allies intelligent enough to make use of the venoms you’re giving them; but in tournaments, its simply nuts.

Yeah, all the personal regen from my trait choices and Dwyana runes make the spec a bit more solo oriented (though it still contributes in an organized team). I like the mix – I don’t absolutely rely on a coordinated team to take advantage of the spec, but it contributes almost as well as 30/0/30/10/0 does .One less venom trigger isn’t that big a loss IMO. Also, the loss of the rock dog is well mitigated by the -insane- regen you have access to (14s of 288HPS if you get hit with 5 bleeds, 7s when you heal to you and all allies in range, 5% chance for 14s On being hit, 14s at 75% HP plus burning/poison/bleed cleanse)

Indeed it does. With my power I proc lifesteals at about 415. So that extra venom application works out nicely for an additional heal plus I get that 10% bonus damage from the 25 pt minor which really helps since my crit is rather low. However, I do see how your build provides more overall solo ability.

I run a 30/0/30/0/10 build in tPvP using S/D + SB. Works REALLY well. Funny thing is, the build doesn’t work as well in hotjoins because it relies on having allies intelligent enough to make use of the venoms you’re giving them; but in tournaments, its simply nuts.

Arganthium.5638:

Oh My God.8423:

Arganthium.5638:

To quote myself…

4. You think that thieves make awful support classes
This tends to be something that people complain about when they define a “support class” as one that gives boons to all of its teammates, but could never survive a 1v1 on its own. Rather than going into detail about how this is misleading, I’ll just give you some reasons why thieves can make a good support class.
For one thing, thieves are irrefutably the class with the highest mobility in the game. We have teleports all over the place, tons of ways to boost our speed, and a great capacity to evade often. Thus, we are able to insert and extract ourselves from skirmishes in the blink of an eye. Use this to your advantage. If you see a teammate struggling to fight a bunker guardian, go help him or her out! Burst the guardian for a few seconds with (for example) the S/P Infiltrator’s Strike + Pistol Whip, add a few more bursts in there, then use Shadow Return and find somebody else to fight. I promise you that this will drive other professions completely insane.
Or maybe you and your party can work out a strategy where they will just damage as much stuff as possible, and then you can be the clean-up crew for them, wiping out enemies with moves like Heartseeker or Pistol Whip w/ the Executioner Grandmaster Trait.
Another idea: did your friend just get Downed? Maybe they were killed in an enemy-heavy zone. Use Hide In Shadows, Blinding Power, and then lay down Shadow Refuge with a 20 in Shadow Arts to get them up and fighting again.
One last thought: you know how annoying it is to fight entire mobs? Even if you have great AoE, it can be a real pain in the kitten, especially when you’re fighting higher-level hordes, like the Risen. Thieves specialize in 1v1, though, so make the most out of that. Find somebody who looks like maybe they’re causing a bit of trouble, and take them out. Reducing the size of the swarm one by one will make things surprisingly easier for your allies.

If you define “support” as sharing boons with your allies and whatnot, you’ll be disappointed. However, this idea of “support” is a very narrow view that, I believe, doesn’t make much sense.

My idea of support is very similar to being a force multiplier: in other sense, being a buffer or a debuffer. So I am interested in builds that makes the team or any one around me better.

So based on that premise, is thief still a good class?

If that’s the case, then no, I think you would be much better off rolling guardian or mes.

No other class provides that niche that VS thieves do, though. It essentially allows the other players to become walking CC machines even though their own builds lack that feature all together. A great example is a GS warrior paired with a VS thief, the warrior can literally pin down anything and kill it because of the added CC to his attacks. It takes the ability to avoid attacks away from the enemy when all of the thief’s allies are spamming them with immob/stun/chill etc.

Regardless, it looks nothing like a swastika… The ends aren’t angled back.

Oh My God.8423:

Conditions seem to be hitting me quite bad. What sort of conditions removal tools do I have?

If you use sword, you have spammable purge with Infiltrator’s Strike/Shadow return

Maybe there are fewer XFire users? Lol who still uses that anyway.

I can see the OP’s point about floor/cap relationships. Currently, I choose to play a Venom Share thief. The amount of work I have to put in on an encounter with things such as well timed interrupts and evades is way more than that of a thief simply utilizing a burst rotation. Yet, my build’s performance capabilities does not exceed theirs.

However, in this team-oriented environment, I make my team-mates stronger and he does not. So my team’s power increases multiplicatively while his only increases additively.

By my conscious decisions to position myself while fighting in such a way as to provide venoms to as many allies as possible; I see higher performance results from my build, maybe not directly, but indirectly through the increased power of my allies.

You do get armor rewards, nearly every piece you can get in PvE outside of lengendaries… The armor is only wearable in PvP, but if all you do is PvP who cares.

I prefer the current way, so they blow all their initiative then take a beating. All is right in the world while hacking a HS spammer apart with my sword. The sound of their anguished screams of “don’t!” “stop!” “no!” “for the love of GOD!!”……is music to my ears.

FYI If ya wanna bold something put it in asterisks.

Back on topic…..I don’t have an issue with any options for custom arenas, the more the merrier. If people don’t like how a room was made, they can play in one they do like.

Joshiasi.2840:

But, but I spam HS to cover more ground when I do not have enough ini to use SB or trying to run away when my switch option is in CD.

Do you spam it on a target who is at full health while they laugh in your face at your pitiful damage?

The problem with this is the trait lines are not uniform across classes. Each trait line is a combination of 2 different stats, but they are combined in different ways for each class.

Example:
Thief has Toughness + Healing Power for one tree
Ele has Toughness + Condition Damage for it’s related tree.

You seem to have some misconception that skill has anything to do with WvW rankings. It boils down to raw man power, every time. Whoever has the most people in WvW with the most coverage of hours throughout the day wins the match. Pairing, say a T8 server with a couple of T5 servers would simply end in an absolute roflstomping (not because the players/commanders in T8 are any worse than the ones in T5, but simply because of the difference in WvW population).

If it were a death-match style, it would work awesomely. With ANet’s insistence on the conquest game mode though, it would never work.

Your troll power is over 9000!!!

Kudos, man, I will be tying htis one out tonight :-P.

You do get 30% crit bonus from traiting 30 points into that tree though, So if you weren’t traiting into crits before, you will hit harder.

Kneru.8014:

I dusted off my Mesmer the other day to give my Thief a break. Ended up running into a R45 HS spamming Thief. Was the saddest thing ever. Poor kitten never stood a chance. Not sure if he was trolling with HS, or seriously that bad. Made me laugh though.

What’s sad is he managed to find enough players bad enough to die to that in order to gain R45.

evilapprentice.6379:

avilo.1942:

Nilgoow.1037:

The biggest problem with ‘boon hate’ is that so many classes have boons on procs that are relatively unavoidable or core to their defensive spec. You can never make ‘boon hate’ good because there is such little player input involved on either side. Turrets and Minions have the same problem. You can’t create a competitive system where one player can punish another when the mechanics involved are side-effects of other ubiquitous elements like dealing or taking damage.

Boon hate is indeed a very bad idea because what they are going to do is create a cluster…you know what.

If they go through with this…they are essentially gutting their own boon system, making it bad for you to have boons…which is entirely contradictory to the concept of applying a boon to yourself.

A new player, or even veteran, expects that if you apply a boon to yourself you are getting stronger, not being suddenly opened up to being damaged more. It’s completely unintuitive and goes down the slippery slope of, “oh so we added boon hate, what’s next, we have to add in boon love?”

“Boon Love” – this has been added into the game, we are planning to add traits/abilities that allow players with boons to not take as much damage from players with boon hate.

So you see the problem anet? The concept of boon hate is unnecessary and going to make your balance design overly complicated for no reason.

Instead of doing this, let’s be real here. Address the actual balance problem instead of trying to avoid the issue. And that of course currently is the d/d elementalist with lots of boons for the most part.

I honestly do not think the d/d ele is a problem overall yet, but if they believe it to be they should tone down the d/d ele’s boon, or obvious things like the arcana trait that gives 5 seconds lingering attunement bonuses..etc.

You get the picture – address the issue of the d/d boon ele instead of introducing a concept that’s adversely going to affect your entire class system.

They can go one of 2 routes.
1) Take a long, in depth look at every class that can currently “Boon Spam” (Read: Keep a plethora of boons up during average length combat, even through boon stripping). They would have to take into account all traits, utilities, abilities and rune sets that grant access to and lengthen the time of said boons, and then take into consideration current boon stripping options, and whether or not they need to be expanded, and then make adjustments.
2) Add Boon hate (or boon stripping, targeted or otherwise) so that players can’t just blindly throw up boons anymore. They’ll have to make choices, only using boons that apply to the fight at hand, and not just blindly re-applying over and over again because they can. A thief or warrior will be scary not because “Oh kitten, they can do alot of damage in 3 seconds”, but instead because “Oh kitten, I can’t just blindly keep stacking duration on 6 different boons (only 3 of which are really helping me in this fight atm anyway) anymore, I actually have to apply those boons when they’ll be most useful.” This has the added benefit (if done correctly) of making thieves and warriors a more fun class to fight against – no more burst fest fights between non-bunkers. Instead, we’ll have some give and take, more opportunities for counter play, all without compromising the ability to deal with bunkers.

I absolutely do not trust anet to do 1/10th of the work that option 1 entails correctly. Option 2 is much simpler (though admittedly IMO still beyond their ability to properly implement) and carries less overall work to implement, and less complexity to take into account.

They also made boons to integral to bunkering – in most games, buffs or boons are helpful, but aren’t the thing that make or break a tank. In this game, the difference between a bunker and easy prey is heavily dependent on the boons they have access to, how often they can be applied, and how long they last – perfectly balancing boon access, boon duration, and boon stripping would be a nightmare for any company.

“Bunkering” was never intended to be part of the game by the devs. They listed class roles as control, support, and dps (in varying degrees of combination) in several interviews pre-release, “tank/bunker” was never mentioned.

However, they did not fully consider every conceivable way that players would stack traits/boons to reach insane levels of survivability; so we wind up with “bunkers”. This is an anomaly that they are attempting to fix to some extent by giving some sort of counter to it other than “zerging” them.

seraphenslaved.6235:

Please don’t do it. It makes you look really really bad.

Just make a point of calling them out on it every time you splatter them all over the ground.

ensoriki.5789:

I use S/D.
All things are possible through “Mug”.
inb4 nerf.

This…..

I think there is a large misconception about just how much burst damage output the S/D is capable of.

This is likely due to the fact that the large majority of the very few people who actually use S/D, also take a more balanced approach to their build rather than going full GC. A full GC S/D setup can be just as devastating as full GC backstab builds.

Nothing beats trolling a zerg with it. Set it up top on a cliff, jump down then return back up when they follow and wave to them as they scratch their heads :-P

swinsk.6410:

Adaneshade.2409:

Yeah, I can agree that something definitely needs to be done with the fluidity of combat particularly for those that rely on stealth as bread and butter. I don’t really feel that the removal of culling had quite the effect we were expecting, though; and the devs clearly think the class needs some adjustment.

One extra second of revealed did nothing but make gameplay feel more clunky, it did not really effectively reduce the power of the thief in combat. Six seconds might both bring fluidity back and reduce the power of stealth as a mechanic; then again, it might not. The only way to really know for sure is to try it.

6s of stealth would literally make the class unplayable for unskilled players. I don’t use stealth in spvp only wvw.

Also, where do you get that “devs clearly think the class needs some adjustment” from?

Either back that up with a quote and a link or don’t make such a statement imo.

The simple fact that they attempted to nerf stealth and caltrops shows they feel this way. I don’t include the haste nerf since it was universal across classes.

Jinks.2057:

You’re team adapted to the fact you want to play a weaker class…..they aren’t a better team for it.

I’m sorry, that tournaments have not been a good meta for you. Most likely your insistence on being a glass cannon is to blame for that. The only reason people make the false claim that thieves can’t be an asset in tPvP is they insist on pigeonholing the class into a burst dps role (you simply CAN NOT use those tactics effectively vs a highly skilled opponent with good defense). My point throughout the entire scope of the argument in this thread is that while thieves do make a decent burst class, they are even more powerful as a light tank with a CC focus.

-edit: I’m growing weary of arguing with a brick wall….not going to engage in this conversation any further. Best of luck to ya, Jinks.

Slamz.5376:

I would actually do it the other way. Ditch glicko and just lock the tiers. That’s how DAOC worked. That’s how Planetside works. If you don’t like your current matchup, either because you are always winning or always losing, then you fix it yourself by switching teams.

The glicko system effectively encourages people to stick with lop-sided situations by suggesting that if they stick with it, even though it sucks, eventually it will get balanced out without them needing to take any action of their own.

This would work if they’d lock transfers to the winning servers so that only transfers possible would be to the server with the lowest score in each division.

The reason it worked so well in DAoC (then subsequently broke ¹) was that you COULD NOT play on the opposing realm, if your realm was taking a beating, tough kitten, you couldn’t just go to the winning side.

¹They later added in the ability to play on multiple realms on the same server and we saw the same pendulum swing issue that we have now in GW2.

Jinks.2057:

Adaneshade.2409:

Jinks.2057:

Adaneshade.2409:

Is it so odd that someone who primarily competes in tournament play would design builds focused around group synergy rather than “going cowboy”?

Mayhap u didn’t get the memo, but in tPvP you sticking with your team is only hurting your team.

There is no role in tPvP a thief does that isn’t covered significantly better by another class.

Don’t believe I ever mentioned zerging points. Simply said that I build in such a way that the benefits I provide to nearby allies cause us to be greater than the sum of our parts in combat.
No other classes can cause the amount of CC on the battlefield that a venom share thief can, not even close. Not only am I stunning, immobilizing, chilling, and poisoning foes but, all nearby allies are too. That CC prevents players from being able to fight back effectively.

Who said anything about zerging points? I just said you are hurting your team by sticking with your thief.

You went and said venom share is teh best there is…….problem is you remove your thief and plug in one of the better classes to get better group utility + something your thief isn’t supplying.

“By sticking with your team” sounded like you were speaking against zerging, my apologies. Since you mean “by sticking with your thief”…..The thief kind of has the monopoly on non-projectile CC, reliable damage to targets with invulnerability (lifesteal still procs through it and the trait causes your allies to lifesteal as well with the venoms you give) and spammable boon stripping.

Our team has managed to create an unusual synergistic relationship between all the members, to the point where they rely on those venoms to turn the tide of a fight as much as I rely on my dps assist to take down the targets I call out and lock down.
It’s working well for us so as they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

Maugetarr.6823:

Adaneshade.2409:

Jinks.2057:

Adaneshade.2409:

Is it so odd that someone who primarily competes in tournament play would design builds focused around group synergy rather than “going cowboy”?

Mayhap u didn’t get the memo, but in tPvP you sticking with your team is only hurting your team.

There is no role in tPvP a thief does that isn’t covered significantly better by another class.

Don’t believe I ever mentioned zerging points. Simply said that I build in such a way that the benefits I provide to nearby allies cause us to be greater than the sum of our parts in combat.
No other classes can cause the amount of CC on the battlefield that a venom share thief can, not even close. Not only am I stunning, immobilizing, chilling, and poisoning foes but, all nearby allies are too. That CC prevents players from being able to fight back effectively.

Engi

Engi’s can CC pretty well. The issue with them is twofold though,
- first (if they use a turret CC build) it’s random thanks to the RNG targeting of their turrets,
- secondly the majority of their CC is subject to reflection (both grenades and turrets) since it’s mostly projectile based

Venom share is more precise, causing the team members to apply CC to their target, giving them the advantage in a fight, in addition to being applied with whatever medium the ally is using to attack (ranged or melee). Also, engi’s can’t provide unblockable CC’s for clutch stuns against a guardian casting shelter or a warrior hunkering down in shield block.

Jinks.2057:

Adaneshade.2409:

Is it so odd that someone who primarily competes in tournament play would design builds focused around group synergy rather than “going cowboy”?

Mayhap u didn’t get the memo, but in tPvP you sticking with your team is only hurting your team.

There is no role in tPvP a thief does that isn’t covered significantly better by another class.

Don’t believe I ever mentioned zerging points. Simply said that I build in such a way that the benefits I provide to nearby allies cause us to be greater than the sum of our parts in combat.
No other classes can cause the amount of CC on the battlefield that a venom share thief can, not even close. Not only am I stunning, immobilizing, chilling, and poisoning foes but, all nearby allies are too. That CC prevents players from being able to fight back effectively.

Is it so odd that someone who primarily competes in tournament play would design builds focused around group synergy rather than “going cowboy”?

It’s not been an issue for me as I play without the use of stealth as a matter of principle. But I do see how it’s adversely affecting those who do utilize stealth.

Maugetarr.6823:

Fair enough. If they would unify D/D now, it might be considered more of a skilled setup. A longer evade maybe (since it has a relatively long windup unless you’re mashing it). I think the problem with the set is that you only use 1,2 and 5 in a direct damage setup and only 1 and 3 for condition damage. If it were unified in either direction, I think the stigma about it being a less skilled setup would go away as neither would spam anymore and have more abilities to choose from while adapting to the battle conditions.

Ideally I’d love to see all of the sets move away from a stealth spam requirement. Playing with minimal use of stealth is way more difficult, but is rewarding. At the moment, we’re forced into Sword builds for effective sans-stealth direct damage builds, nothing else provides effecive protection from knockdown spam of the hammer wielders.

Jinks.2057:

Adaneshade.2409:

Maugetarr.6823:

S/D is also stealth spam, but its stealth>wait to interrupt + daze instead of dumping stealth into backstab quickly. I’d say almost all of our builds revolve around some measure of stealth spam (except maybe P/P and S/P) since we lack the defensive boons that others have to make up for being visible 100% of the time. We have dodging as a lot of people point out, but there are several classes with vigor on crit traits which lead to perma vigor, which is better in a drawn out fight. Feline grace is nice, but since its only a 15% return, overall it provides 1 more upfront dodge but is slower in the long run than perma vigor.

That style of play ceased to really work though when the duration on daze was nerfed. It is now way more effective to play the S/D set with a more holistic approach, using daze simply as an interrupt, since it can no longer function as a “stunlock”. Use of boon shears, immobilize, and unblockable attacks are now required.
S/D was easymode when you could perma-daze, but not so much now.

S/D daze wasn’t touched in PvE……aka WvW

Are we just talking sPvP here????

Yes. Well tPvP anyway, not really even considering hotjoins as the opponent sample is on average, weak to mediocre.

Jinks.2057:

Adaneshade.2409:

“How do thieves kill bunkers?

Burst.

How does stacking P/V/T on a thief beat bunkers?

They don’t."

Bunkers rely on being able to block, stack boons, and/or heal to stay alive. S/D’s weaponset is capable of defeating any of those defenses and when combined with the proper utilities, shuts down the bunker’s ability to defend themselves entirely. I have no issue whatsoever killing bunkers. Burst isn’t the only way.

Conversely, full burst thieves are unable to burst hard enough to take me down before I am able to pin them down and kill them.

I still laugh at how S/D is “pr0”

Can you name any other weaponset where the use of all 5 skills is a requirement to compete at a high level? D/P comes close, maybe even matches it for complexity since you rely on 2 abilities to combo field your stealth (in the end it’s still just a stealth spam build though).

The other are simply spam CnD / opener, or (in the case of D/D condi) spam the 3 key. (We’ll not even get into how lawltastic HS spam thieves are, as I’m sure even you can agree there)

I’d consider managing the use of 5 abilities contingent on your target’s current action/boons more difficult than the use of 2 or 3 contingent solely on your target’s current HP.

So what happens when thst glass thief picks S/D up as his 2nd weapon set?

Whats that?

Cause I can tell you S/D is infinitely easier to play. You then pair D/P up with your S/D…

Either way a good bunker isn’t going to let you daze lock them. They’re also able to reapply boons faster than you can clear em.

Then you got the awesome WvW builds that other classes get. Max defense and superb attacking power/burst.

I generally laugh at P/V/T thieves because they die faster than a 1/2 decent GC thief.

Replied just a tad too early lol. But as I said in the post previous to this one, daze spam is ineffective. Boon shearing is not though, combining venoms with the shears slows down their ability to restack.

As for the death comment, I realize that your sample isn’t the best as there are maybe only 10% of the thieves that can considere themselves good; so I wan[t fault you for saying it. I assure you, though, that I’ve never had any issue from berserker thieves.

I’m more than willing to head to a vacant PvP room if you want to hash out some tactics.

Maugetarr.6823:

S/D is also stealth spam, but its stealth>wait to interrupt + daze instead of dumping stealth into backstab quickly. I’d say almost all of our builds revolve around some measure of stealth spam (except maybe P/P and S/P) since we lack the defensive boons that others have to make up for being visible 100% of the time. We have dodging as a lot of people point out, but there are several classes with vigor on crit traits which lead to perma vigor, which is better in a drawn out fight. Feline grace is nice, but since its only a 15% return, overall it provides 1 more upfront dodge but is slower in the long run than perma vigor.

That style of play ceased to really work though when the duration on daze was nerfed. It is now way more effective to play the S/D set with a more holistic approach, using daze simply as an interrupt, since it can no longer function as a “stunlock”. Use of boon shears, immobilize, and unblockable attacks are now required.
S/D was easymode when you could perma-daze, but not so much now.

ensoriki.5789:

S/D vs D/D difficulty does not matter.

I stated that the only builds affected were the ones that abuse stealth burst for easy kills.

He retorted with his opinion that S/D builds are easy and burst builds are hard.

Now, here we are……still on topic….sorta…I think?

“How do thieves kill bunkers?

Burst.

How does stacking P/V/T on a thief beat bunkers?

They don’t."

Bunkers rely on being able to block, stack boons, and/or heal to stay alive. S/D’s weaponset is capable of defeating any of those defenses and when combined with the proper utilities, shuts down the bunker’s ability to defend themselves entirely. I have no issue whatsoever killing bunkers. Burst isn’t the only way.

Conversely, full burst thieves are unable to burst hard enough to take me down before I am able to pin them down and kill them.

I still laugh at how S/D is “pr0”

Can you name any other weaponset where the use of all 5 skills is a requirement to compete at a high level? D/P comes close, maybe even matches it for complexity since you rely on 2 abilities to combo field your stealth (in the end it’s still just a stealth spam build though).

The other are simply spam CnD / opener, or (in the case of D/D condi) spam the 3 key. (We’ll not even get into how lawltastic HS spam thieves are, as I’m sure even you can agree there)

I’d consider managing the use of 5 abilities contingent on your target’s current action/boons more difficult than the use of 2 or 3 contingent solely on your target’s current HP.

silvermember.8941:

Adaneshade.2409:

silvermember.8941:

Not only do PvE play the bills and sustain the game and can be monetize. PvPers tend to be less loyal and more likely to easily move from one thing to another faster than a PvEer will do. GW1 had everything PvPers would want, however that did not prevent it’s inevitable decline. So it makes little sense to dedicate a lot of resources to a game mode that is less monetize AND significantly less loyal.

Recently.1043:

I am pretty amazed at the new PvE thing though, it looks interesting. Not interesting enough to get me to log in after 3 months, but amazing nonetheless.

It begs the question why would you bother hanging around a forum of a game you don’t play?

I always found that amazing…in a kind of sad way why people do that.

Not so certain about your loyalty statement. If you want a history lesson, look at DAoC. The people that stuck around and are still around ARE the PvPers, the PvErs left between SI and ToA updates for the most part.

Ya, DAoC came out when they were very few games. I will admit, I could be wrong but my xperience in other MMORPG with PvP tend to be in that manner.

Pyrial.2917:

silvermember.8941:

PowerBottom.5796:

silvermember.8941:

Not only do PvE play the bills and sustain the game and can be monetize. PvPers tend to be less loyal and more likely to easily move from one thing to another faster than a PvEer will do. GW1 had everything PvPers would want, however that did not prevent it’s inevitable decline. So it makes little sense to dedicate a lot of resources to a game mode that is less monetize AND significantly less loyal.

Less loyal?

Ever heard of e-sports?

How many MMORPG have ever become esport? (I should have quantified my statement by specifying MMORPG, you win by default). Or they tend to jump to the next thing, easier than PvEers.

And yes, they are less loyal and react harshly to change.

Clearly you have stats to back that statement up…oh we’re just making stuff up? PVP’res are by far more loyal to a game than pve’ers. So everyone can do it and have fun too!

This isn’t a law class or scientific discussion. If you don’t believe me don’t. But look around, go to other MMORPG with PvP, the first to jump ship are PvPers.

True, but by the same logic, the ratio of PvP focused to PvE focused games was not quite as skewed as it is now.

Atm players are constantly bombarded with new MMOs, the majority of them predominantly PvE based. Very few MMOs offer PvP as a primary gameplay type so there is less “distraction” in the market, causing more PvPers to tend to stick around longer simply because there are no other options within the genre.

swinsk.6410:

Adaneshade.2409:

Did not mean it childishly in the least. If fluidity is such a big deal, and they want to decrease the time we spend in stealth…..that’s the next logical step.

The next logical step to me is to revert the changes and see how culling plays out.

Well, that would have been the first logical step to me. If it was still a problem, then I would probably add the 4s but in the same patch I would have changed auto-attack or fixed it so that the “feel” of the class didn’t change.

Seriously, there isn’t a big deal between 4s and 3s other than the timing of our swings.

The biggest nerf to thief was hands down removal of culling in wvw.

This isn’t daoc where a class gets punished for years because people complain about it constantly then finally when they do get some changes they are way over the top to compensate for the years of abuse.

ANet to me has always seemed to be fairly slow when making changes in regards to balance. One small step or few small steps at a time.

This change here I think was too far or incomplete.

EDIT: I just think they made a mistake with this one and I’m not even talking about it being overpowered or underpowered. Just talking about changing the way a class feels while playing it. Which is why I was so against the first proposed nerf to stealth. Having a revealed no matter what would totally change the way you play a thief… This change is much better, if a change was needed, but still managed to skew the feel but not as large as revealed all the time.

Yeah, I can agree that something definitely needs to be done with the fluidity of combat particularly for those that rely on stealth as bread and butter. I don’t really feel that the removal of culling had quite the effect we were expecting, though; and the devs clearly think the class needs some adjustment.

One extra second of revealed did nothing but make gameplay feel more clunky, it did not really effectively reduce the power of the thief in combat. Six seconds might both bring fluidity back and reduce the power of stealth as a mechanic; then again, it might not. The only way to really know for sure is to try it.

mursie.3681:

Adaneshade.2409:

Good thieves don’t waste time making vids of themselves rolling noobs lol. They’re too busy actually playing the game to remain on top.

lol adaneshade, it appears you missed the memo. See, if you transfer to anvil rock and roll a premade for six hours every day pug stomping the 2 team tournies… you are decidedly pro. You know, cause 1/2 the ppl still playing are pre level 10 solo queing for them laurelz!!!! Man you dominated those pve clowns. So Consider yourself now informed.

It’s not about your skill, it’s about how many buddies you can bring to the yard! Feel me dawg!! OOH YEAAAAAA

nevermind that they are 15 and sound like bieber circa 2007, the fact that you pug stomp every night with that posse makes you dope yo. Plus, I hear they put your name up on a board somewhere… some day … or something like that.

Hehe this made my top 10 list on forum posts :-P

So what are you attacking then, Jinks, the build or the weaponset?

If build…….
You yourself admit that PVT builds are superior to Berserker by your previous post, particularly the “If those few players actually ran bunker…..omg is all i’ma say.” statement. What kind of braindead person would purposely kitten themselves by running berserker over PVT.

If weaponsets…..
I still maintain that S/D is harder to learn than D/D. There is a reason that the vast majority of the thieves you see in hotjoins are D/D, (hint It isn’t because it’s difficult to use).

At the same time, a much larger % of high level tournament players run some variant of S/D builds.

This is because S/D is harder to learn, but has a higher performance, once mastered, than D/D does.

PS – I’m still waiting on you to provide any link to you contributing any builds or guides of your own development to the thief community. It seems as though you are simply content to belittle the attempts of veteran thieves to provide education to the newer ones on options other than “moar pew pew”.

Good thieves don’t waste time making vids of themselves rolling noobs lol. They’re too busy actually playing the game to remain on top.

It’s what you get with increase to population, you get increase to the tools in that population as well.
The crowd who are there just for their daily, don’t stick it out if they aren’t winning, they tend to bail to “greener patures”…while this is ok in hotjoins, it really screws with tournaments. I think if the ability to complete the dailies was removed from tournaments and made hotjoin exclusive, much of that would disappear.

silvermember.8941:

Not only do PvE play the bills and sustain the game and can be monetize. PvPers tend to be less loyal and more likely to easily move from one thing to another faster than a PvEer will do. GW1 had everything PvPers would want, however that did not prevent it’s inevitable decline. So it makes little sense to dedicate a lot of resources to a game mode that is less monetize AND significantly less loyal.

Recently.1043:

I am pretty amazed at the new PvE thing though, it looks interesting. Not interesting enough to get me to log in after 3 months, but amazing nonetheless.

It begs the question why would you bother hanging around a forum of a game you don’t play?

I always found that amazing…in a kind of sad way why people do that.

Not so certain about your loyalty statement. If you want a history lesson, look at DAoC. The people that stuck around and are still around ARE the PvPers, the PvErs left between SI and ToA updates for the most part.

Glad to see people using unusual builds. It’s good for the health of the class.

Did not mean it childishly in the least. If fluidity is such a big deal, and they want to decrease the time we spend in stealth…..that’s the next logical step.

They could increase it to 6 seconds, so you get 2 auto chains per stealth. Yay fluidity again.