Do you have the revealed debuff at the time? If you use an ability that deals direct damage while in stealth you’ll break stealth and get the revealed debuff, which will show in the list of buffs/debuffs you have, and this prevents you from entering stealth again until it has expired.
Sometimes when I use an ability that places me in stealth my character will appear visible on my screen but I seem to be in stealth; the stealth icon appears in my list of buffs and players/NPCs behaviour as if i’m in stealth.
Thieves generally offer high burst damage with stealth for an escape, which makes the profession quite easy and effective in PvP, but these attributes aren’t particularly useful in PvE content, where high sustained damage and damage mitigation skills are far more useful.
The profession isn’t very forgiving in PvE. You have low hp, low armour and very few skills to mitigate damage and handle conditions. As said, use sword/pistol for the 5 ability on the pistol to blind enemies around you and auto attack. Also grab caltrops as soon as possible as these make it much easier to deal with a group of enemies. You can also use dagger/dagger to spam death blossom until you’re out of initiative then just keep your distance while your bleeds kill everything.
Signet of malice can be better for group fights, but I prefer hide in shadow for the condition removal, stealth and more reliable healing. Also worth noting is the 2nd ability on the sword, which can be used to remove condition when needed.
In high level play, defeating another skilled player is more about predicting and countering them, with good management of cool downs/intiative and endurance and knowing when to apply pressure and when to play more defensively. At this level, everyone has a good grasp of how their profession works and should be played.
I think to say that elementalist is the most powerful profession is a little premature. The meta is always changing and it is only relatively recently the current cookie cutter elementalist builds have become so popular. With more experience playing against the build, people become more accustomed to them and how to counter them. What is considered OP one day maybe be balanced or even underpowered the next.
If you want a high direct damage build i recommend going with sword in your main hand and pistol in your off hand. Use the 5th ability, black powder, to blind enemies inside the field and use your auto attack to deal damage. The second ability on the sword can also remove conditions if you need it.
As said, for traits just pick whatever seems most useful to you at the time. Endgame builds generally wont be as useful since you don’t have access to most traits. Resetting your traits is quite cheap and you will have to do it anyway when you buy a new trait book, so feel free to experiment.
So what you all are saying, since now the majority of GW2 players in wvw and pvp have major trouble dealing with the thief, you guys are pointing out THEY should get there facts straight and find solutions to the problem which they haven’t done enough yet?
Nooooo noooooooooooo it’s the major part of the players that can’t counter them who are all ignorant or dumb or haven’t done enough research or whatever… Sure sure…
Even if that is true, this game is supposed to be doable and enjoyable by the vast majority of GW2-players, not the minority who DOES find a way to counter the current state of thieves in pvp and wvw.
Should the game be balanced around the majority of players or the more skilled players though? If you nerf the class so it’s balanced for the players who not counter it then the class becomes very weak against players who can.
When game came out, 100b frenzy warriors were considered very strong and OP, with complaints on the forums calling for nerfs. Arena Net did nothing to reduce the damage of 100b because it was easily countered by more skilled players. The majority of the community became more aware of how to deal with it and now the build is now considered quite weak because you can counter it so easily.
Those GC backstab thieves do encounter other thieves and also find people who know how to counter them. Most of the people saying L2P aren’t just saying it because they don’t want their class nerfed; they have experience either fighting other thieves or being countered by other people to know that the class isn’t as OP as the forums would have you believe.
Is the damage of backstab too high? Possibly, but if you’re playing well you shouldn’t get hit by it anyway other than being caught off guard with your counter skills on CD. If you can’t see the thief due to culling then that’s an issue with how the client functions rather than the profession. I would rather they fix that than balance the profession just for WvW and leave it weaker in all other areas.
Any ability that causes you to deal direct damage while in stealth will break stealth, incurring the revealed debuff. This does not include abilities that cause condition damage, such as caltrops or choking gas. If you wait for the stealth to expire you can use cloak and dagger to stealth again straight after.
If you look at your buffs/debuffs you will see the revealed icon when you break stealth as well.
beating a thief atm is like playing chess with you blindfolded and your opponent isn’t. it is possible to win the match but you need to put great effort into it.
No, you just have to be smart about it. Your average GC thief is squishy and predictable, which makes them easy and fast kills in my experience. One of the greatest strengths of thieves against bad players is stealth since most people seem to have no idea how to deal with it nor make any attempt to do so.
I watch people fight thieves and they try hitting them until they stealth, after which they just stand around until they reappear. They complain about how OP backstab and stealth are yet they did nothing to try and counter them. I tell them what they did wrong and they just ignore it, preferring to believe the class is simply OP and used exclusively by noobs rather than the seeming inconceivable prospect they are just playing poorly.
The thief is only in stealth is you let him hit you, aside from the stealth utility skills and healing skill if he used them. If you don’t let the thief pull off CnD then his time in stealth is very limited and therefore ranged CC and ranged attacks will work. Fear me is an area effect so you don’t need a target for that to work either.
The dps lost by going ranged is more than made up for by the amount of health you prevent the thief from healing. You can try and melee the thief all day long, but unless you can burst him down, he’s just going to CnD and heal through all your damage.
The thief has only a few ways to shadow step, assuming he brought them, all of which mean nothing if you just dodge when he uses the CnD animation, and these all have a considerable cool down. The point is to try and keep distance and prevent the thief from stealthing to heal. You can go melee him but you would have to try and stun lock the thief and burst him down.
please tell me how you would prevent a thief from stealthing where 3 hammer warriors could not.
You mean what would I do differently to having 3 people staying within melee range to prevent the thief from pulling off a melee attack?
As I’ve said, use ranged weapons with ranged CC. Don’t stop moving and dodge if the thief is going through the CnD animation, use area CC such as fear me to keep the thief away from you, even in stealth. The guardian has several ways to CC the thief and place obstacles in the way. Fear me + 3 people dealing burst damage alone will either kill the thief or deal a lot of damage.
If shadow’s rejuvenation heals for ~1600 hp in 4 seconds, shadow’s protector heals for ~ 1300, assassins reward should heal for ~600 hp iirc, then 5 attacks from sneak attack with SoM for ~700 hp and maybe 2 procs from omnomberry pie you would be looking at around 5k health.
If he only had 10k health and it took it a second to render it’s possible for him to heal half his health from CnD followed by sneak attack. It sounds like the thief was able to do this whenever he was in trouble though, which is where you went wrong imo. Prevent him from stealthing and you prevent all this healing that he relies on to stay alive.
If you use the shadow arts trait line you can get 5 seconds of regeneration when you stealth and regenerate health every second while in stealth. As said, there are also foods to improve your self healing. This grants the thief a lot of survivability if you can stealth often, the downside is that these P/D build rely on stealth for staying alive and damage.
Going with hammers may not have been the best option since you need to be within melee range, which means the thief can easily pull off CnD whenever he needs to. You should have countered it by using ranged weapons with ranged CC skills, such as bolas, and tried to burst him down.
They’re overpowered because that’s the general consensus of people which is absolutely correct. BullRush, despite having them in my sights just seems to miss almost all of the time. Even if I hit them, i get them down to 2/3 health and they run and cloak, throw doubles and having me chasing ghosts while they shot the heck out of my with blasters. Too fast, too stronge, too many chances at escape.
Believe me, I’m not a bad player, my guy is slow sure, but he has a ton of health, pimped up mods and I can beat almost everyone 1v1 except the thief, I just fought a particulary stupid thief, no real skill he should have easily taken me, however he just, by the skin of his teeth managed to kill me.
It’s ridiculous, if I could start again I’d just be a thief, hide in a hold and annoy the heck out of people trying to the jumping puzzles.
Lots of people complaining on the forums doesn’t mean it’s the consensus nor does it mean that it’s correct. When the game first came out there were lots of people complaining about how overpowered the 100b frenzy warrior was. Arena Net did nothing to nerf the class because they knew it was easily countered. Skip forward a few months where most people have learnt how to counter them and 100b frenzy warriors are considered quite weak, effective in killing only those newbs who do nothing to counter it. Personally I think these GC backstab thieves are a repeat of this.
Without video footage or a well thought out explanation of how a profession is OP, it’s difficult to say how valid your points are. Telling people they you are actually a good player, it’s just that the person you’re fighting is super OP, isn’t very reassuring.
Stealth lasts 3 or 4 seconds with a trait. The attack you want to avoid is backstab, which is an attack thieves can only do while in stealth with their dagger and deals double damage if they hit you from behind.
My advice is simply create some distance while a thief is in stealth so they waste their time in stealth chasing you. Once you become more comfortable with the mechanic and how predictable your average GC thief is stealth wont make much difference. Skills like Fear Me and Updraft can be used when you think the thief is close to you then follow it up with some AOE damage.
If a thief uses basilisk venom, an elite skill that turn you to stone for 1 second or possibly 2 with a trait, then use an ability like mist form, endure pain, shadow step etc to either create some distance and avoid an burst damage or make yourself invulnerable to it.
Perhaps the damage could be adjusted but the core mechanics can be countered and are not OP imo. More people need to try and counter something before they automatically assume it’s overpowered.
I see everyone talking about dodge roll avoiding the burst like its cake and they are all experts at it. Very rarely do I run into people who can do this. You have to preemptively guess the burst right. You wait for the roll and then pop them anyway and its back to insta kill. Better yet, fake them out with auto attack to get the dodge roll.
People can use utility skills to avoid the backstab damage. Endure pain, mistform, lighting flash, shadow step etc are all instant and all can be used to outlast the stealth from CnD, even with basilisk venom. I will often get hit by the mug and CnD damage but, unless my counter skills are on cooldown, seldom am I hit by backstab.
If you don’t use basilisk venom then just dodge after getting hit by mug and CnD and use some CC option such as updraft or create some distance with skills like ride the lightning or whirlwind attack so you waste your time in stealth chasing me.
The D/D burst thief build is not the only one. I’m not saying that the thief profession is crap but I do think that the GC backstab build is very weak in a 1v1 situation and I do not play it. If you kill someone in seconds in a 1v1 then they didn’t do anything to counter you, in which case why shouldn’t they lose? Well played, thieves are strong in pvp but the same can be said of just about any profession.
All the high burst damage builds can do a huge amount of damage in a short time, but these combos are also easy to counter and the build sacrifices a lot of survivability to pull it off. Does this mean they are OP? I’m not sure but personally I don’t mind them. Bunker builds are annoying and I do think they need adjusting because you can’t really counter them by yourself.
Is mug+CnD alone really a problem though? For a combo that can be used once every ~40 seconds, and they alone will certainly not guarantee a kill, I don’t think it’s OP. If a GC thief only manages to land these 2 without the backstab and then still manages to kill you, I think they deserve the kill.
Most of the time, I completed the combo without a hitch.
Isn’t this the issue though? The mug+CnD part of the combo is practically unavoidable, but the most damaging move, backstab, is quite easy to avoid imo. I think this is why they nerfed CnD rather than backstab and why dying to this combo seems like a L2P issue to me.
If you don’t bring anything to counter a certain build or if you don’t use it effectively then I don’t see why you shouldn’t be killed by it.
The combo isn’t instant though. I will often get hit by the CnD and mug damage but I find there is enough time to activate a utility skill to avoid the backstab damage.
Unless my counter skills are on timer, usually I’m only killed by this combo if I’m not paying attention. I’m not sure if this makes it OP though, although I suppose this depends on what you consider to be overpowered. It is annoying and it does feel cheap to die to it, but I consider it my own fault for not reacting fast enough.
The thief forum is filled with complains about the mug+CnD+backstab combo with numerous videos and calls for nerfs. I don’t play WvW, so I couldn’t really say how much of an issue it is there, but in sPvP people run the GC spec and it works on new players but, against anyone who has a skill to counter it, the thief build is quite weak in a 1v1 situation.
I mostly play thief and elementalist and generally all I need to counter it is shadow step or lightning flash/mist form. If these escape skills are on cooldown then I am generally killed quite quickly, but I don’t think this makes the combo OP. Any burst build with a CC to help land the damage could do this such kittenter mesmers or 100b frenzy warriors, although perhaps not as effectively.
TBH, these GC thieves do not bother me and I consider the spec quite weak outside of ganking people whose counter skills may be on timer. Am I missing something though? Whenever I read about people dying to the chain I can only assume it’s a L2P issue.
If the damage of mug is nerfed too much the trait becomes worthless. Steal can be used once every ~40 seconds and it’s damage isn’t amazing considering the cooldown and the fact it takes up a trait slot. It’s only real use is as a way to increase burst damage.
The CnD+mug+backstab combo deals a lot of damage in a short time, but the actual attacks themselves are fine. Getting killed by the combo is a L2P issue imo, and I think A-net shares this view when they nerfed CnD rather than backstab. Mug and CnD are practically unavoidable unless you see it coming but there is enough time to counter the backstab portion of the chain.
In a sPvP environment I have no problem dealing with these GC thief builds and find it hard to understand why there is so much QQing over them. Just slot a utility skill to counter this combo and they’re a free kill most of the time. If my escape tools are on cooldown, they will take me out quickly, but this would occur with any burst build with some CC such as 100b frenzy warriors or shatter mesmers.
Stealth is a thief’s survivability atm. Thieves are severely lacking in defensive abilities, which I would like to see more of for PvE where stealth isn’t as useful. In PvP I don’t have any issue with the stealth mechanic. You could have damage numbers appear if you attack a thief in stealth, although having dot damage appear would completely negate being in stealth, but personally I don’t think it’s necessary nor would it make that much difference. This is from someone who does sPvP though; I couldn’t comment about thieves in WvW.
Having damage or, even worse, dots break stealth would just ruin the class. Stealth isn’t just a way to run off if you think you’re going to die or a precursor to using backstab, it’s a way to avoid high damage attacks and reposition ourselves. Stealth is intrinsic to the profession and the way the profession functions. The proposed ‘fix’ would not balance the class it would simply make it nonviable.
I have never got a thief below 50% health 1 v 1, it’s definately overpowered
You can’t kill a thief therefore they must be overpowered? Thieves require little skill to be effective but that doesn’t mean they are OP. The vast majority of complaints about thieves are a L2P issue imo.
I don’t play a GC thief, mostly because of how weak they are in a 1v1 situation against someone who knows what they’re doing, but they don’t bother me at all tbh. If you have an ability to escape basilisk venom and you can predict or avoid the damage of a thief in stealth they’re very easy to deal with in my experience. Warriors are probably the weakest profession in a 1v1 situation though but good use of stuns, dodging and invulnerability, such as shield stance or endure pain, and you can counter GC thieves. A good player is always going to be hard to kill though, regardless of profession.
It depends on the els, but generally you’re going to have a tough time taking them down. If you’re a GC backstab build, don’t open with the mug+CnD+backstab combo. Instead I suggest kiting them with short bow and wear their health down until you think you can finish them off with the combo. If they manage to avoid this I would either retreat or return to kiting them with shortbow and repeat.
Axe in your offhand can have some use. If you use omnomberry pie to steal health with crits, then the 5 ability is pretty good at regenerating health if you have several mobs within melee range. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pkvY8PIYN8 shows a duel axe warrior showing this.
But this is pretty situational. As spelignErrir said, other weapons in your offhand are generally more useful.
considering how much good the first aegis did. do you truly think that would have turned this situation around?
A second aegis could have given enough time to finish his heal animation, which is at least 8k+ healing. He could also have used virtue of resolve and the shield 5 skill for some more healing. This would heal him for about 10k hp in total. Outside of backstab and heart seeker spamming, the damage of a glass cannon thief is quite easy to handle.
Well, i understand your point but passive mitigation does in fact have an effect on the outcome of a fight.
It does, but I think people believe that slotting vitality and toughness gear means you shouldn’t be able to be burst down. This is a misconception imo. Gear is just meant to support your play-style, not make you an invincible tank that doesn’t have to bother doing anything to counter other builds.
Stacking vitality and toughness gear should mean that you can take more damage, but if a well played burst build attacks you in a 1v1 and you don’t bother to counter them and you still win, then I would consider that unbalanced and unfair.
Virtue of courage is instant iirc, so he could have activated it during the heal skill animation after his first aegis was removed.
There wasn’t much he could do, although he could activated virtue of courage to give him time to use his heal. Most of his abilities where on cool down and that’s the main reason he should have died imo. He was an easy kill for any burst build, especially one with some kind of CC.
I think people have the wrong idea about how this game works, although this is based entirely on how I think it works :P The game is about skill and how players respond and act more than it is about gear and stats. Sure you could slot some vitality and toughness gear to help deal with burst damage, but this isn’t nearly as effective as slotting shadow step, endure pain, mist form etc in your utility bar to avoid the damage completely. If you don’t have anything to counter another build, either because it’s on cool down or didn’t bring it, then don’t be surprised if you die to it.
The mug+CnD+backstab combo can only be used once every ~40 seconds btw. This is a longer cool down than many skills you can use to counter it, assuming you only decided to bring one.
Extra vitality and toughness are not meant to make your character a walking tank that can brush off burst damage. If you expect to be able to stand around and just take the burst damage of a GC thief throwing everything he has at you then you have a fundamental misunderstanding of GW2’s game design. These are only meant to supplement your character.
A guardian is noted for being the most ‘tanky’ because of their weapon/utility skills for mitigating damage. In other words, it is the tools available to the player to respond to damage that make the guardian hard to kill, not relying on their passive attributes to see them through it.
The OP did nothing to counter the thief therefore he died.
Looks like your average glass cannon thief using mug+CnD followed by back stab. It also looks like he had 19 stacks of blood lust for more damage.
Some well timed CCs and burst damage is the best thing to finish them. I have 12.8k hp and 3.2k armour with enough self healing to deal with any steady damage if needed on my condition thief. The best way to kill me is to get me on low health, stun or fear me then burst me down. Interrupting the heal animation can also work.
I will use shadowstep if needed or use shadow refuge if I don’t think i can use my heal in time. You may have to exhaust these to take me down. I also use CnD as a small heal and way to kill time until my other two stealth abilities are off cooldown so be sure to look out for this and avoid it if possible then exploit this period of time where i don’t have any initiative or any stealth or escape abilities to finish me.
If you mean have the cursor stay in the centre of the screen and allow you to turn the camera as if you were holding down the right mouse button, you can use xpadder to do that. You can enable a button on your controller to toggle whether the right mouse button is pressed down or not.
I’ve been using a controller since the game released without any real issues. Obviously you can’t type and going through menus just isn’t practical on a controller, so I switch to my mouse and keyboard for that.
I play with a PS3 controller, which functions essentially the same as an xbox 360 controller. I use the left trigger as my modifer key and this gives me 30 possible ‘buttons’, which is more than enough for combat with any class. The main drawback is targeting ground targeted skills, which wont be as easy or as precise to do but i place the cursor at the top of my characters head and use it as a guide.
This trait was fine before the introduction of the revealed effect, which now causes this trait to get me killed as often as it is helpful. I think it really needs to be changed to consider the change to breaking stealth, as right now I would prefer to play without the trait entirely.
Often it seems to kick in midway through my CnD animation, causing me to break stealth and incur the revealed effect so I can’t stealth for several seconds. If i’m below 25% hp this usually means I get killed because of this. It either needs to be changed completely or perhaps make the next attack after the trait works not result in the revealed effect, although I can see some creative use of this. Swapping it with one of the adept major traits would be the easiest solution imo.
Right now it’s more of a hindrance than a benefit, which shouldn’t be the case for any trait and especially one we can’t change.
If built around regenerating health through stealth, thief can actually take quite a lot of damage, but this requires sacrifices in other areas. Otherwise Jefzor summed it up. In PvP thieves generally go in, deal as much damage as possible and if you’re not dead they retreat because they don’t have the defensive abilities to stay around.
They are very vulnerable to burst damage, if you can land it, and even a steady amount of damage will kill a thief if they can’t burst you down first. Mobility, positioning and evasion are really required to stay in a fight for a decent amount of time and deal with continuous attacks.
In a 1v1, a backstab thief or similar glass cannon build is easily countered. They are not OP, it’s simply a L2P issue imo. A build like a dagger/dagger elementalist has lots of abilities to counter attacks like backstab.
Backstab thieves can be frustrating if you’re already in a fight and you’ve used your counter abilities already, in which case getting turned to stone and being helpless to a backstab can be very annoying. I wouldn’t say it makes the build OP though. Any profession joining a fight midway could finish you off quite easily, glass cannon thieves are just very effective at this.
Apart from shadow refuge, a thief can only be in stealth for a few seconds. Just survive long enough to avoid the stealth attack and then CC and burst them down when they’re out of stealth. They should have a stun breaker so you may have to try this a couple of time. To avoid stealth attacks just create some distance. If they stealth in front of you just turn around and create a gap with skills like sword 2, GS 3 and 5 etc and let them waste their stealth chasing after you. Skills like fear me and shield stance will obviously work too as will well timed dodges.
I would save endure pain for a mug + basilisk venon+ cnd+ backstab combo. They can only steal once every ~40 seconds. Also remember that, if you can get a thief to hit you from the front, you half the damage of backstab. Just walking and turning around can make it difficult to hit someone from the back.
While leveling in PvE i would say warrior is the easiest. Pick up the healing signet, the trait to increase precision with unused signets and a greatsword and you will do tons of damage to everything while face tanking just about anything you come across. Dungeons are a bit different but in the early levels warrior is very easy.
When you in the higher levels or at level cap then i would say guardian is easier to play due to their great damage mitigation and self healing. It may take a little longer to kill something than a damage focused warrior, but your DPS is still very good whilst having much greater survivability.
Against condition thieves, warriors are basically a free kill. Unless they go with a shout build that removes conditions with shouts, their condition removal just isn’t enough.
Against 2 100b warriors that make good use of their stuns you would have difficulty, but good use of dodging, stealth and shadow step and you could still kill them both. If you go with a condition build, you can actually make the thief quite durable as well so you could take a few hits as well as dodge more often and heal in stealth.
There is a huge difference in skill level between players. If the professions were balanced around the top players, then players with less skill may perceive some professions to be under powered. If the classes were balanced around new players then top players would perceive some professions to be overpowered. If an inexperienced player gets destroyed by a skilled player of a different professions then I think they would perceive an imbalance in the professions, regardless of whether they are balanced or not.
QQing is always going to happen, but I’m not sure you can objectively determine if the professions are balanced. Different builds have different strengths and weaknesses and the value of these is down to our subjective perception of them. At the very least, I don’t think game this complex can be considered to be balanced by everyone who plays it.
You can use the shadow step utility skill to help stomp rangers and guardians. Start the stomp animation then shadow step away, out of the range of their interrupt abilities, then shadow step back just before the animation ends.
If you’re trying to stomp a thief then start the animation and just before it ends steal so you shadow step to the thief after they use their second downed state ability.
It isn’t as easy on a p/d thief but if you can them both down to low health then finish one of them. While the other is ressing take him down as well. Placing caltrops on top of the downed player will help slow how quickly they can ress and deal damage to the person ressing.
Some of the steal abilities can also be useful. Necro’s in particular is worth saving for when you down a player then just fear the other to get the stomp. Guardian’s can interrupt so you can prolong the time to have to deal damage.
It’s not impossible but certainly isn’t easy against a pair of players who know what they’re doing.
If a thief is dealing a lot of damage then they’re also going to die quickly if you can hit them. Try to use some stun or immobilise them them burst them down if you can. They should have some sort of stun breaker, such as shadow step, so you may have to try and CC them a few times. When they are in stealth then just use aoe attacks.
Some builds rely on pulling off stealth attacks like backstab. Their damage outside of these attacks is generally quite manageable. Try and create some distance if you think a thief is going to backstab you or some aoe CC, such as updraft. Just moving and turning around so the thief may hit you from the front will half the damage of backstab. Apart from shadow refuge, all the stealths a thief can use only last a few seconds.
I would recommend trying a glass cannon build and just see how people counter it and the difficulties in pulling off some of the stealth attacks. Once you know how to deal with it they’re generally as easy to handle as 100b warriors.
Thieves can’t take much damage so you have to dodge and move a lot to stay alive in melee range with weapon sets like dagger/dagger.
However, I would suggest swapping to sword/pistol and just run up to some enemies, use black powder and stand in it. This will blind all does in the area every second so usually you wont take any damage. Then just use auto attack until black powder runs out and use black powder again. Repeat until everything is dead.
It’s not very exciting but it should work against just about everything apart from foes with the unshakable attribute, where blindness only works 10% of the time on them. Some foes also attack faster than 1 attack per second, so black powder wont cause all of their attacks to miss.
For condition builds P/D offers greater survivability since you don’t need to stay in melee range and offers to the option to kite. This generally makes it better for WvW.
For sPvP you’ll be fighting over capture points most of the time (or at least you should be :P) so you’re going to be in melee range anyway. The makes the evade of death blossom more useful. D/D also offers aoe condition application and is more useful when fighting 2 or more people in a close area, which can happen a lot in sPvP. Personally I think D/D is more useful in sPvP than P/D but P/D is arguably stronger in a 1v1 situation.
For a burst build P/D doesn’t really offer anything, so D/D is better with backstab and heart seeker.
It would definitely make the class more interesting to play but would require an almost complete redesign of healing, utility and elite skills to balance it. You would properly have to increase the amount of initiative or initiative regeneration thieves have as well, which could also cause some of the weapon skills to become unbalanced if we can spam them for longer. So you’d have to rebalance them as well.
It would probably just be easier to add a new profession to the game built around this :P
Warrior is one of the weakest classes in sPVP in my experience. If i get killed by a warrior in a 1v1 i actually feel a little embarrassed :P
For a beginner the frenzy+bull’s charge+100 blades combo followed by an eviscerate or shield bash + damage will work against most newb players, but any ‘decent’ player will just break stun and avoid the combo. It’s more useful if you’re joining a fight already in progress and catch someone off-guard or that has already used their stun breakers.
A build that focuses on stun locking can also be useful in a team fight to allow your team mates to easily focus on one player, but otherwise it doesn’t offer much.
TBH, my advice would just be try another class if you want to be competitive against more skilled players. The other classes can offer much more in sPVP imo.
You can kite them quite easily with a short bow and shadow step can be used to create a gap twice if they get too close. Otherwise just try to interrupt their heal.
As a condition thief you just have to wear them down. Place a few bleeds on them but save some initiative for when they use their condition removal then stack as many as you can. If you evade properly you can usually heal through most of their damage. I’m usually not worried about them killing my thief, but i know it will take a lot of work to kill them.
Also, if you just want to try out some of these builds i recommend going to the sPVP area. You’re more limited in what you can choose from but you can make the basics of any build in PVP. There are training dummies to test out single target damage against targets with different armor values or a bunch of training dummies to test out your aoe damage. You can also find a lord (mini boss) with 2 casters and 2 melee defending him to try builds out against NPCs that fight back :P
Death blossom alone doesn’t do that much damage, but combine with caltrops and the trait to drop caltrops when you dodge and you can do respectable damage. With gear to extend bleed duration you can get 8-10 stacks of bleeding just from the caltrop utility skill. You could also slot a geomancy sigil to apply bleeding to enemies around you when you swap weapons as well. With these 3 sources you can apply 25 stacks of bleeding fairly quickly to multiple foes.
Condition damage will always be behind a glass cannon build but by focussing on it instead you can invest in toughness and healing power to increase your survivability rather than power, precision and critical damage as a glass cannon build would have too.
Another benefit of this is that all those abilities are aoe and caltrops will continue to do damage while in stealth. I generally pull as many mobs as i can, spam DB and caltrops and stealth or kite.
The most survivable build in my experience is 0/0/30/20/20, focusing on condition damage, toughness and healing power.
Shadow’s rejuvenation, shadow’s embrace and shadow protector will add a lot to your survivability with great self healing and condition removal while in stealth. Dagger dagger will give you death blossom for evading attacks and applying attacks, and with those traits CnD will give on demand healing and condition removal a long with stealth when ever you need it.
Relying on conditions to deal damage comes with the obvious drawbacks however and thieve’s underwater skills are notably lacking in applying conditions.