Guild Wars 2

just get the fractal weapon…use it and it will ask you if you want to use it for pve or pvp. Choose pvp.

ronpierce.2760:

ensoriki.5789:

Vitality is already useful but far as I can see Both it and toughness are inherenently individually inferior to power. Tbh I don’t even think condi DMG holds up to power normally except in extreme amounts of toughness which is probably why they buffed the application in the summer.

I kinda disagree. Minus enemies with a ton of condi removal, Settler’s armor can do a kitten ton of dps on warriors/necros/mesmers/rangers. You really don’t see any Cleric builds that ever stand a chance at actually killing someone (Except maybe my banner healing power warrior I made once, but that was carried by high fury uptime and might stacks via signet). Conditions seem to be superior in damage without back up. What makes power pull ahead is it has TWO supporting stats. Power -> Precision -> even harder crits. Conditions don’t really have that. which is probably why they do more damage initially, not a fan of it, but I guess it’s sort of needed now with how much access to condi removal everyone has.

Actually no one except for warriors and guardians with contemplation of purty and/or lyssa runes have enough condi clears.

The reason you think a lot of people have condi removal is probably because of lyssa runes, and that was born out of desperation in the condi meta. I would love to not use lyssa runes, but it’s pretty crucial considering how little condition removals some classes have.

Best of all – Anet doesn’t care.

Just give up – there has been numerous skyhammer threads made in the past and none of the devs even respond to them. It’s like they are mad that we don’t like the map so they want you to keep playing it, just to stick it to you.

Mrbig.8019:

Amaterasu.6280:

Who.4651:

Amaterasu.6280:

Since pistol whip animation buff, s/p > d/p slightly because of evade frames and sword 2. I think once you’ve played d/p enough and understand the flaws, then s/p will definitely be superior to play especially against another d/p thief. The fight will depend on the better thief, but if we’re talking about players of the exact caliber, then I think s/p would win for sure. It really comes down to timing and anticipation/guessing.

Yea you can headshot the pistol whip cast but why would you waste 4ini to daze and tickle someone for 1/4s only for them to do it again? You’re not going to be able to do headshot while simultaneously dealing damage to them so you’re wasting loads of ini…seems like a pointless trade off. If I see you daze me and leap at me with HS out of blind field, i’ll pistol whip then and you’ll eat the whole thing…

Pre-daze nerf I would agree since you can still auto attack 2x before they come out of daze, but post-daze nerf, no.

Oh and spamming BP against a s/p thief is dumb…don’t do it.

its not 1/4s , if u stun the PW, they wait about 3~s to be able to do it again, 3s in thief world is a lot

You have got to be kidding me…

Please do yourself a favor and don’t post unless you know what you’re talking about…and it’s obvious you don’t even play a thief.

Lesson for you:

Thieves run on intiative, not cooldown time in seconds like all other classes. If you stun/daze my pistolwhip or any other weapon skill, it will put ALL of my skills on the same stun duration as your skill (I.E: Headshot has a 1/4s daze, thus all my skills will go on a 1/4s shutdown)

I will immediately be able to use whatever weapon skill I please after that 1/4s daze. It will NOT put my pistol whip on a 3s CD upon interupt because IT HAS NO CD. Try it for yourself. This is my reasoning behind why I don’t think Caed’s suggestion of dazing the pistol whip helps with the fight at all…you cannot do damage while simultaneously dazing them because the daze duration is too short. Not to mention you have to waste 4ini just for it. Since post-daze nerf, it’s totally not worth it.

You’re thinking about dazing/stunning a skill on a class whose weapon skills runs on CD times. Say, if I interupt a warrior’s Backbreaker(which has a 1s cast-time and a 30s CD) with Headshot, , I will put that particular skill on a 3s CD, while all his other skills will be put on a 1/4s CD.

The only way you’re going to disable a thief for 3s is if your skill actually stuns/dazes for 3s like Signet of Domination on a mesmer. You cannot put any of the thief’s skills on a 3s CD.

Again, i agree S/P is superior to both D/P and S/D, but D/P will ALWAYS win in a duel, unless outplayed.

The last 2 words sums up every thief 1v1 fight’s outcome. Being outplayed is what it comes down to in the end because thieves have very little margin for error compared to a lot of other classes/builds. That’s why most good thief 1v1s end up looking like DBZ battles, right?

The steal-stab isn’t really convincing me.

Steal-backstab – Unless I don’t see you at all (which probably means you’re coming from SR) then yea maybe you can sneak behind me and steal-stab. But that’s no different than any other thief burst. s/p = steal+pw, s/d = steal+LS. But what comes right after that? That other thief will shadowstep away and most likely get his/or heal off right? Remember s/p and s/d uses withdraw, not hide in shadows so you can’t rupt it neither.

If you mean steal-backstab while the we’re already engaged in the 1v1, then it’s very unlikely i’ll let him land that backstab. If I can see him laying down the BP and leaping from it, then I can counter-play it and position myself so that he can’t land it (on my side/back atleast).

If you’ve played d/p you know it’s not the easiest thing to land steal+backstab since positioning and timing is EVERYTHING. When dodges/evade frames come into play, there is a huge chance of it not landing the way you’d want it to.

Who.4651:

Amaterasu.6280:

Since pistol whip animation buff, s/p > d/p slightly because of evade frames and sword 2. I think once you’ve played d/p enough and understand the flaws, then s/p will definitely be superior to play especially against another d/p thief. The fight will depend on the better thief, but if we’re talking about players of the exact caliber, then I think s/p would win for sure. It really comes down to timing and anticipation/guessing.

Yea you can headshot the pistol whip cast but why would you waste 4ini to daze and tickle someone for 1/4s only for them to do it again? You’re not going to be able to do headshot while simultaneously dealing damage to them so you’re wasting loads of ini…seems like a pointless trade off. If I see you daze me and leap at me with HS out of blind field, i’ll pistol whip then and you’ll eat the whole thing…

Pre-daze nerf I would agree since you can still auto attack 2x before they come out of daze, but post-daze nerf, no.

Oh and spamming BP against a s/p thief is dumb…don’t do it.

its not 1/4s , if u stun the PW, they wait about 3~s to be able to do it again, 3s in thief world is a lot

You have got to be kidding me…

Please do yourself a favor and don’t post unless you know what you’re talking about…and it’s obvious you don’t even play a thief.

Lesson for you:

Thieves run on intiative, not cooldown time in seconds like all other classes. If you stun/daze my pistolwhip or any other weapon skill, it will put ALL of my skills on the same stun duration as your skill (I.E: Headshot has a 1/4s daze, thus all my skills will go on a 1/4s shutdown)

I will immediately be able to use whatever weapon skill I please after that 1/4s daze. It will NOT put my pistol whip on a 3s CD upon interupt because IT HAS NO CD. Try it for yourself. This is my reasoning behind why I don’t think Caed’s suggestion of dazing the pistol whip helps with the fight at all…you cannot do damage while simultaneously dazing them because the daze duration is too short. Not to mention you have to waste 4ini just for it. Since post-daze nerf, it’s totally not worth it.

You’re thinking about dazing/stunning a skill on a class whose weapon skills runs on CD times. Say, if I interupt a warrior’s Backbreaker(which has a 1s cast-time and a 30s CD) with Headshot, , I will put that particular skill on a 3s CD, while all his other skills will be put on a 1/4s CD.

The only way you’re going to disable a thief for 3s is if your skill actually stuns/dazes for 3s like Signet of Domination on a mesmer. You cannot put any of the thief’s skills on a 3s CD.

Mrbig.8019:

Amaterasu.6280:

Since pistol whip animation buff, s/p > d/p slightly because of evade frames and sword 2. I think once you’ve played d/p enough and understand the flaws, then s/p will definitely be superior to play especially against another d/p thief. The fight will depend on the better thief, but if we’re talking about players of the exact caliber, then I think s/p would win for sure. It really comes down to timing and anticipation/guessing.

Yea you can headshot the pistol whip cast but why would you waste 4ini to daze and tickle someone for 1/4s only for them to do it again? You’re not going to be able to do headshot while simultaneously dealing damage to them so you’re wasting loads of ini…seems like a pointless trade off. If I see you daze me and leap at me with HS out of blind field, i’ll pistol whip then and you’ll eat the whole thing…

Pre-daze nerf I would agree since you can still auto attack 2x before they come out of daze, but post-daze nerf, no.

Oh and spamming BP against a s/p thief is dumb…don’t do it.

Uhm, no, i can’t agree with you.

as a D/P thief you can hide in stealth quite forever while your S/P opponent is always vulnerable ( if he starts with pistol whip, just interrupt it with steal-stab and puf, already under 50% HP).

Unless you waste your steal stab on a random disabling shot ( because kitten happens), a D/P thief will win 100% of the time.

This of course doesn’t mean D/P > than S/P, it’s quite the opposite, but still you can’t say that in a duel D/P won’t win, because it will.

Moreover, S/P is quite inferior to S/D in dueling capacities, and it’s a lot less forgiving ( you can end up swinging your sword at the air quite often) so there’s a reason why thieves may stick to S/D.

Still i saw Sizer playing S/P yesterday.

Maybe the scrub S/D meta reached its end.

Hide in stealth forever? Trickery d/p can heartseek a total of 3x with full bar of 15ini if they do bp+heartseek stealthing. That’s a total of 6 seconds after burning a full bar of ini…I don’t see how that’s hiding in stealth forever. Not to mention for the typical stealthing of 3 seconds, while the pistol whip evasion frames are roughly 1.5s alone. The other 1.5s you can just dodge and/or position yourself elsewhere via sword 2. If you’re talking about shadow refuge, s/p thieves use the same utilities as d/p..or at least I do.

As I said, it’s all about anticipation and guessing. It also helps if you can dance in and out of range and LoS. One great thing about s/p is that sword 2 still goes through walls, and you can dance in and out of range especially when they are abusing stealth. Shadow shot can’t hit through walls, so unless they have stealth and/or infiltrator’s signet up, it’s very hard for them to catch up to you and position a good backstab in 3 seconds.

You gotta remember s/p trickery has sleight of hand as well…you can easily daze your opponent back.

Saying s/d is inferior to s/p is totally untrue as well. s/d heavily relies on handing larcenous strike which is totally telegraphed after flanking strike…you can always anticipate it since larcenous strike only remains active for a while after flanking strike. They also suffer heavily from BP spamming because unlike pistol whip, they can’t hit through it because of how slow their attacks are. Vice versa, they have no way to negate pistol whip damage aside from spamming dodges.

Again, in thief fights it always comes down to who plays better, but speaking about people of the exact same caliber, I think s/p has a slight upper hand (no pun intended) over d/p and s/d.

Since pistol whip animation buff, s/p > d/p slightly because of evade frames and sword 2. I think once you’ve played d/p enough and understand the flaws, then s/p will definitely be superior to play especially against another d/p thief. The fight will depend on the better thief, but if we’re talking about players of the exact caliber, then I think s/p would win for sure. It really comes down to timing and anticipation/guessing.

Yea you can headshot the pistol whip cast but why would you waste 4ini to daze and tickle someone for 1/4s only for them to do it again? You’re not going to be able to do headshot while simultaneously dealing damage to them so you’re wasting loads of ini…seems like a pointless trade off. If I see you daze me and leap at me with HS out of blind field, i’ll pistol whip then and you’ll eat the whole thing…

Pre-daze nerf I would agree since you can still auto attack 2x before they come out of daze, but post-daze nerf, no.

Oh and spamming BP against a s/p thief is dumb…don’t do it.

What’s fixed? You can still use fractal weps in pvp. Or what did you mean?

I play a thief and I kill hambow wars 95% of the time 1v1 as long as I have 1 stunbreak up.

It’s more about timing than anything. If you can dodge the telegraphed moves and stay out of fire field + arcing shot then you should be good. You just have to make them blow their zerker stance and/or endure pain. If you can play a class that can reflect projectiles, it’s a big bonus as well.

A lot of hambow wars are very confident because they can rely on the build to carry them, but actually have very little knowledge of how to fight certain classes…use this to your advantage. The better player will win in this case.

Yes, but not guarateed. I’ve salvaged a set and gotten 0 tokens before.

Pistol whip as a skill needs no nerf, the only reason why people complain about PW in general is because they feel it’s all about spamming 3. And as the OP says, there are a ton of things that PW doesn’t evade…whether it’s a bug or not I’m not sure. And the underlying problem with S/P still exists, which is the inability to chase people down like D/P.

Which is true to a point – but the spam is not by choice. When your weapon set has only 2 skills worth using, 1 of which is a teleport…you’re going to be forced to spam 3. Headshot is a ridiculous skill post-stun nerf and black powder is extremely situational as PW already evades, thus making BP kind of redundant.

Pistol whip itself is not a problem and people should look into the source of the problem, which may be upping the usefulness of the other weapon skills in conjunction with that specific weapon set.

The only weapon set that’s not “spam” based (though some may say otherwise) is d/p and that’s only because 4/5 skills in the weapon set have their situational purposes. You can auto-attack for sustain, you can place BP down for blinds and defense. You can then leap out of it with heartseeker to setup backstab, and you can shadowshot as a immediate gap closer. Even headshot which is utter horrid right now has it’s purpose. It’s just a smooth and complete set because every skill has it’s use.

If we are going to nerf evades, we should be taking out the evade off of Shortbow #3 instead. That is truly the ultimate spam and evade forever concept – along with acrobatics and signet of agility. SB #3 already allows you to distance yourself to zone targets out…in no way should it be evading in the process. I also believe dodges should have a .1s or .2s aftercast so that there are outplays for people who just spam dodges for the hell of it. I believe that would truly bring out the good thieves vs the bad ones.

They need to fix this crap.

They fixed it a long while ago because everyone agreed that swapping mid-game to counter-comp is unfair, and now because they can’t fix certain bugs, they decided the best way is to allow this again?

I’ve faced teams recently that do this…it’s such a shame. No honor.

Daishi.6027:

Uh oh secrets out :b

But seriously chaos storm is the easiest to avoid AoE, it doesn’t last all that long and compared to other AoE skills it’s pretty small.

Yeah bugs should be fixed that’s fine. However I’d personally have no problem with making it a guarantied stun if you take 30 in Dom which lets be honest here is a pretty rough point synch for anything but mantra builds. It’s funny how Mesmer is supposed to be a control class, but even with a decent amount of daze it comes no where near the amount of fear, hard stuns, and/or immobilize other classes have.

I’m not justifying to keep the skill unfixed but just a thought.

You can’t avoid an AOE that’s casted onto you.

Sure if you see it before engaging, then you can sit out…but when it’s casted on top of you, you WILL be perma stunned for the duration of the chaos storm.

You mean to say that it’s reasonable?

Free bump for the buddy supcutie.

I have cut down my headshot usage by 90% since the nerf…honestly why use it when it does so little? The only time I still use it is to rupt stompers with no stab from a distance. Rupt a skill only for it to be used immediately after. You can burn all your ini to rupt them but you won’t be able to follow up with a killing blow because of how short the daze is.

Sucks.

Swagg.9236:

Furthermore, it’s never really a “one bad dodge and you’re dead” scenario—especially in a 1v1 match-up. Even the glassiest of set-ups can take a few good hits.

Really? Not sure what kind of thief you play or have played against but thieves are the squishiest next to zerk eles. Take a few good hits? Really not really.

You have to remember that Lyssa runes were born out of desperation. No one used Lyssa runes before the condi meta, and it was the crucial thing to have if warriors were able to kill a necro before zerker stance came out.

As a thief, I didn’t need to use Lyssa runes, but I have to now because of the constant nerf to my class, especially our dazes. Before, I was able to fight a necros/engis just fine because I was able to daze and interupt them…now daze is utter garbage on a thief and thus those classes will be able to put out a lot more pressure and spam more condis. Lyssa is the only way to truly cleanse them.

I would happily never touch Lyssa again and use scholar/ogre runes if it wasn’t so absurdly easy to apply every condition (especially burning) in the game. The condi meta is still at large, and until that gets toned down, Lyssa should not see a nerf. Perhaps condi spams should require more skill instead of spamming everything at once, to bait out lyssa runes?

Not a trait suggestion, but I’d love for them to up the SB #1 fire speed and/or rate since the tracking nerf.

It’s been months and months, but it is extremely frustrating how hard it is to hit anything with it past 5-600r when they are moving…people who know of this abuse the fact and there is nothing you could do about it. They just laugh at your face while they are landing all their attacks while you miss everything.

The fact that other classes could stafe quickly back and forth and you’d have no means of hitting them with SB #1 is ridiculous, especially when so many classes/builds have 100% tracking/instant autoattacks. SB is our only means of safe ranged AOE and we are punished for using it at a distance. In conjunction with how slow cluster bomb flight times are, SB is extremely ineffective at a distance…which is totally contradicting to what it SHOULD do for a thief. The poison field alone just doesn’t put out enough damage/utility.

Even a necro’s staff auto attack(which is a 1200r skill) tracks better than a thief sb, and the projectile has a larger hitbox radius.

Consider this before you talk trash about using p/p in fractals and how s/p or d/p is far superior:

In high lvl fractals especially, everything 1-shots you. Being able to deal out good damage at a distance with p/p and sb is amazing not because it deals out the most damage…but because you will SURVIVE and thus put less burden and stress on your party. When you die in fractals, you are putting a burden on your party because ressing is often a huge risk. No matter how many dodges and evades you have via pistol whip, you can easily make a simple mistake and get 1-shotted just because your timing was off.

The above is especially true for bosses. You want to tell me you’re using s/p or d/p on fractal bosses when most of them require ranged? I’d love to see you man mode melee a fractal boss and not use range. You can argue and say you have SB on switch, but that’s the catch right? Your SB will never be able to put out as much DPS as p/p on a single target. So what then? I guess you would need to take the advice of a certain individual and delete your thief then, since you are not using it to it’s full potential.

I don’t know how many times I’ve done 49 with heavies and they die way more often than I do – simply because they need to melee.

Now you’re telling me, you’re able to use s/p or d/p to it’s full potential and not die? I’d love to see that in a full fractal run at 49 because full potential to me means that you can put in a lot more damage AND survive without getting 1 shotted every mob. And I don’t mean SBing 90% of the time and whipping out s/p 10% of the time.

I’d much rather humbly sit back and dps with p/p + sb while maximizing my survivability.

You forget that not dying is a huge help to your party, much more than a bit more dps. I’ve personally done very well with p/p and am usually the one ressing other party members, 90% of which, are heavies “at their full potential”.

Clumsy.6257:

Amaterasu.6280:

Omg Casey.5973:

Amaterasu.6280:

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.

You’re saying that I should delete my thief if I decide that it’s best to use p/p in fractals? “Full potential” you say…

Trolls will be trolls.

That’s exactly what he’s saying. Just because you “decide that it’s best” doesn’t actually make it the best. In reality your purposely halving your damage to make it easier on yourself. If you not going to play the class to its fullest potential then go play an easier class that you can play to its fullest potential.

If you think that p/p = cutting thief damage in half then you have zero credibility to speak about anything thief related.

Omg Casey.5973:

Amaterasu.6280:

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

You should probably delete your thief if you can’t use it to its full potential, that being a top tier dps class.

You’re saying that I should delete my thief if I decide that it’s best to use p/p in fractals? “Full potential” you say…

Trolls will be trolls.

Nope, I play full zerk at lvl 49.

Just learn to dodge and use your utiltiies. Don’t use melee weapons, you’re not designed to fight anything long term with them since everything 1-shots you. I hardly ever die unless I make a mistake.

Use p/p and s/b instead of a melee weapon. 8k unloads (10-12k with buffs via banner and might)

I think mesmers should be revealed when their phantasms attack, just as a thief is revealed when he attacks in stealth.

2 words – healing signet.

As a thief, warriors are the only class in which if I don’t constantly keep 100% pressure on them, the second I try to peel off and re-engage, they would already have all their HP back. It takes a lot more effort in killing a warrior because of heal sig. Of course the combination of other things as well – I.E: if they bring endure pain…but healing signet IS the #1 problem. They could have kept the hammer damage if they would just nerf heal signet.

Coulter.2315:

I salvaged r60 CM armour and got a Phoenix token i assume it goes for the other tiers too.

You mean salvaging the armor you get from buying the full r60 set from the new vendor?

Thanks for the heads up, much appreciated. I guess RNG is RNG! I’ll keep trying to salvage for a dragon token. Grats on the IDS! Must be cool.

ohmybob.2789:

I have gotten a dragon token from salvaging a bramble weapon. Used it to make the jormag sword.

Oh really, IDS?

What was the recipe?

Anyone able to successfully get a phoenix/dragon token from salavging?

I’ve salvaged both frozen + bramble stuff with no tokens.

evilapprentice.6379:

Amaterasu.6280:

Quit complaining, any veteran thief will tell you sword #2 was broken. I am using the new shadow return just fine…you no longer have a get out of jail card, big deal. You have a stunbreaker for that reason. It’s time to focus on timing dodges and gameplay, rather than relying on sword #2 to save your kitten .

Except OP is a veteran thief, while I’ve seen your name on the boards a mere handful of times (Which isn’t an insult, just to say by your logic I should trust Arg’s opinion over yours)

lol I stopped reading when you mentioned leaderboards…leaderboard rank = vet now? Good joke.

Say what you want, but you and OP just seems sour because you can’t use sword 2 as a instant (no skill) get-out-of-jail card. I think the nerf was totally necessary to make thieves put some thought into using using their sword 2, and actually learning to dodge instead of charging in like an idiot and being able to rely on shadow return to save your kitten if anything ever goes wrong. You have stunbreaks and dodges, use them.

Quit complaining, any veteran thief will tell you sword #2 was broken. I am using the new shadow return just fine…you no longer have a get out of jail card, big deal. You have a stunbreaker for that reason. It’s time to focus on timing dodges and gameplay, rather than relying on sword #2 to save your kitten .

Really? Funny I’ve never seen a single fractal skin in the mists before…

You tried it out personally and it works? Just can’t deposit it into the locker?

Force feeding us skyhammer is the solution Anet has come up with…they figured the more we are forced to play, the more we’ll enjoy it.

Logic!

Anet doesn’t care if we like it or not – they like it so that’s all that matters.

Can’t you tell? They’ve ignored these threads since people started making them a while ago.

Play their crappy map, they demand it!

Josh Davis.6015:

Hello fellow PvPers,

This is a friendly reminder that we’ll be resetting the leaderboard for Solo Arena and Team Arena with tomorrow’s updates.

We decided to reset the leaderboards because of the matchmaking changes we put in on November 12th. Those changes, along with the leaderboard reset, should allow for a much more competitive environment going forward. Because the matches will be more competitive, players should also be placed in their correct rating much more accurately. I’d like to make it very clear that this reset does not mark the end of an official ‘season’, and as such, we will not be rewarding players for leaderboard placement. I know that this may be a tough pill to swallow for our more hardcore players, but we hope you understand our reasoning behind this.

That said, we’re not opposed to giving players rewards based on ladder placement in the future. Next week we’ll be able to give more details on our plans for the leaderboards, rewards, and beyond.

I am kind of sour that Anet has now seem to casually brush off not giving out ANY reward for top 10 or top 100. It seems like a big F-U to the dedicated players…and I don’t mean the ones that were top 10 from playing 30 games.

You guys decided to make a defective MMR system and now the players have to pay for it. What makes you say that the future leaderboards won’t be as much as a joke as it was before reset? I’m sure you guys didn’t think it was a joke when you first released it….but now it’s become apparent after months, the players get the short end of the stick.

I didn’t play team Qs everyday with my team for titles, but I would think it’s a decent thing to do for the players who have seriously dedicated months to playing team Q especially when we played through so much of this horrible meta in which MANY veterans left in. At least reward them with even a title like with QPs, for their dedication. (THEY ARE JUST WORDS, or is words too much to ask for from dedicated players?)

Whether you guys believe the system is defective or not, the ones with over a few hundred games in top 100 actually had to work for it – it was not handed to us by a few lucky wins. I don’t understand the reasoning for this at all, and I believe it is unfair to your dedicated players.

I’m definitely disappointed that Anet couldn’t even give something as simple as a title out…it costs you no resources, and it doesn’t shake the trading post. You want to give pvp players incentive, yet when we do work for certain things, we get nothing out of it. Really? What’s going to make me play now? I have to just HOPE that I will get something out of it besides bragging rights that don’t mean anything?

Agreed.

Headshot is in a horrible place right now…and is really gimping the d/p set.

I don’t need to be able to 4 1 1 4 1 1, but at least I should be able to have higher dmg or up’d utility like confusion/torment because the interupt is very pointless right now.

If you’ve tried headshotting after the nerf, you should realize that headshotting anyone stomping WILL interupt their stomp, but they would be able to stomp again immediately after so you will never ever be able to res your teammate by the time the stomp comes off.

Same goes for heals…you can surely waste 4, 8, or 12 ini to daze and try to interupt heals, but that person is going to get his heal off again before you could do anything…so there is no point in interupting. Your target doesn’t even have to panic because headshot does equal to no damage, and the rupt is only .4s, which feels much more like .1s IMO.

I find myself using headshot less and less now unless i’m in a 2v1 with my teammate and i’m just trying to stop the enemy from doing anything while my teammate murders him.

Point is, no other interupt in this game lasts for .4s, most last for 2s because in those 2 seconds you could make a counter play after the interupt.

Your stunbreaker does break daze, it’s probably just not one that teleports you so you got stunned again from chaos storm with halting strike…

hooma.9642:

Sensotix.4106:

well either they make pets scale more with the stats of the ranger or they make them harder to control but one of the both things should happen imo

harder to control? ever tried to use f2 on drake? the chance he is hitting with this attack is at nearly 10% or lower. only in perfect situations.

the same goes for all f2 abilities. u need to think ahead if u wanna use them, cause pet will always first end the actual choosen action and in consideration the activation time with 3 secs its ridiculous on some abilities. aoe fear 3 secs activation? lol, watch war or necro, how high is theyre activation timer for fear?

In my opinion, your theory would be fine if the pet didn’t have autoattacks because you can actually watch out for the animation…however there are a million things someone has to pay attention to in order to fight a ranger, and it holds especially true to spirit rangers:

- Trying to position yourself in front of the ranger to avoid bleed stacks, mind you the hitbox in which counts as a person’s side or back is very forgiving. I could strafe around the ranger thinking i’m facing him and just take all the stacks of bleeding from crossfire. It’s a double edged sword because if I don’t strafe, I’m not kiting the pet, which means it’s free dps. If I kite, I will take bleeds.

- Trying to kite the pet while he auto attacks you freely (which is impossible on leveled terrain unless you have swiftness) Even against terrain in which you could LoS and try to pull them away, they literally run right back to you with godlike speed. (This is another issue that should be fixed…if a ranger is running away, his pet should NOT run back to him in a flash…I should be able to chase that pet and kill it)

- Against spirit rangers – have to try to kill spirits and stay out of range of their actives while trying to stay alive from burning and bleeds.

- Finally, trying to actually kill the ranger while doing all of the above.

It’s very hard to watch out for the active pet’s CC when trying to do all of the above…especially since they are already on your kitten auto-attacking you. I probably won’t have a chance to pay attention to a drake about to shoot 7k worth of lightning bolts into my face. You could call it L2P or not, but I think the amount of concentration and awareness when playing against a ranger vs playing as a ranger is skewed – mainly speaking spirit rangers. I have a lot more respect for power rangers.

oh and I’m not talking about warriors because they are a whole other story, but I mean classes/builds that don’t faceroll.

^this.

15chars

Can’t agree more…nothing more irritating then getting hit by a drake for 7k when you’ve already got to waste all your dodges with the spirits kicking your kitten (all while you’re getting loads of burning and bleeds from SB autoattacks). Not to mention storm spirit can crit for 6k too…I don’t agree that AI should have this type of power when classes are built for condis.

Mistwalker is the 2nd to last pvp title. I’m not sure if there’s a gw1 attainable equivalent…maybe?

To put that into perspective, most of the highest lvl pvpers are lvl 50s-60s at most, which should give them Marauder and Ravager titles.

The next after Ravager is Reaper, then Mistwalker. I’m pretty sure you’re not going to get Mistwalker until you get to/approach lvl 80 in pvp….which would probably take years.

silvermember.8941:

Dual.8953:

silentnight warrior.2714:

silvermember.8941:

Cynz.9437:

from all threads all i saw so far is this:
. thieves shouldn’t have stealth
- thieves shouldn’t do dmg from stealth
- thieves should be squishy
- thieves shouldn’t have moblity
- thieves shouldn’t have traits that help their survivability

honestly, do you guys even read what you write?

Thieves shouldn’t have perma stealth.
Thieves shouldn’t do a lot of damage from stealth.
Thieves should be more durable.
thieve should not have cheap teleports.
Thieves should have to make a choice between mobility and stealth.

or stealth should have some type of counterplay and giving rangers a stupid skill on a long CD is not one of them.

This ^^

So thieves should play like Warriors taking everything front, or give up all thier effectiveness and avoid as much damage as possible, takes as much effort to kill as a Bunker, yet still be unable to hold points. That what you’re going for?

dont you find it weird that the mesmer has a lot of those thing and doesn’t play like a warrior? obviously the mesmer has other mechanics.

But the thieve should be improved while removing all the cheap crap like perma stealth and free teleports, both aspect should exist but it shouldn’t be that ez.

Perma stealth is already going to be gone by December.

You want to compare thieves to mesmers, ok, let’s go:

Not sure what “free teleports” mean, but mesmers have a blink as well. Also staff #2, a “free teleport.”

Mesmers have stealth, especially condi mesmers who play with torch offhand. Here are the mesmer skills that grant them stealth: Torch #4 (3s) , Decoy (3s) , Veil (2s which you can walk back and forth in) , Mass Invisbility (5s). Mind you, with Prismatic Understanding, all of the above will get +1 sec of stealth. Unless you dive into shadow arts, which most don’t unless you’re Cruuk., the typical D/P thief has 3s of stealth everytime they go into it.

Also, note that in order for us to maintain just 6s of stealth, we need a total of 12 initiative. A typical thief will have 12-15 initiative, so that means for us to even stealth for 6s, we waste pretty much our entire initiative bar which is extremely dangerous in itself because it means if we choose to backstab you with 3 initiative left, we will have no initiative left aside from 1 heartseeker.

A condi torch mesmer can maintain just as much stealth as a thief all while being able to continuously put massive condi dmg on you via clones, all of which are tracking. That is a HUGE advantage compared to thieves because thieves cannot do any damage to you in stealth besides lay down a poison field via shortbow. If a thief is in stealth, they are NOT doing damage to you…all you have to do is predict when he will backstab in stealth and most of his damage would be mitigated.

You want to talk about cheese on thieves, and say how mesmers are different…well just read the above and tell me what your thoughts are. I can tell you A LOT of veterans would rather fight a thief than to fight a condi stealth mesmer, which are extremely popular now.

Zenith.7301:

Eurantien.4632:

Fortus.6175:

Because unlike thieves, as a guard, most of them time you choose to engage, you remain there, and judge ntervention doesnt hit you for 80% of your health. Sure you can use focus 5 but if I see a guard running around with focus 5 on I will count and dodge for the definitely-coming judge focus combo, with a thief you never know. That is the difference.

If you’ve played the game enough you should be able to know how long it takes for a target to walk up to you without swiftness. You should also know that most thief stealth lasts about 3 seconds 10 if SR. So those two things coupled with the ability to count (which you’ve shown you can do) leaves me wondering why can you not count against a thief the same way you count against a zerker guard? I mean, you can’t say it’s not possible because it definitely is. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve blocked a backstab on ranger, I’ve even blocked backstabs out of shadow refuge 3s block vs 10s stealth. It’s not that hard to predict. I’ve even blocked backstabs as they are happening with GS 4. This is simply a l2p issue. That is a fact. Which you will undoubtedly argue against…

Because focus 5 goes off without random intervals. In those 1-3 seconds the thief can choose when to land the backstab. You also seem to be forgeting shadowstep signet and steal backstab combo, and because they’re stealthed you can’t even tell when they’ve arrived at your location.

And if that guardian focus 5 fails? He’s gotta wait for, oh, 40 seconds. The thief can repeat his crap far more often.

Moreover, while the guardian has to deal with guaranteed retaliation as he approaches, the thief can close distance without fear from getting whittled by ranged weapons (most ranged weapons need a target), and in melee the only option for most characters is autoattack as many skills require targeting.

You don’t seem to understand the difference between guesswork and actually being skilled by telling animations apart.

Read what Eura is saying and read what you are saying again…

l2p (learn to predict, and learn to play)

Maybe you ought to pick up playing a thief for a while to truly understand the mentality of one.

Nobody uses engis in tourneys? You’re kidding me right?

How are engis different than the downed states of necros, guardians, warriors? They could all be blinded/stability stomped.

Engis have the pull and the blowout which is extremely strong if not blinded.

The only downed state that needs fixing is a ranger’s because of the 900r AOE interupt and lick wounds.

i got 6 consecutive skyhammer pops last night(half of which was a 4v5)…I thought I was going to die.

Remove it from solo q, it promotes nothing but trolling. You don’t even fight on skyhammer, you just try to see who can pull or fear the other person down first.

Not to mention whoever thought that it would be good gameplay that you can’t dodge skyhammer…well their thought process is extremely questionable.

ronpierce.2760:

Amaterasu.6280:

I don’t think AI needs to be removed, but if it’s AI that’s doing most of your damage, then that’s a big problem because AI is extremely potent in chasing targets and sticking on them. Kiting is not an option in combat because you are much slower.

MM necros, spirit rangers are the main culprits here obviously. In my opinion, if AI is to do damage, then that damage should be lower than the damage coming from weapon skills.

I’ve attached a screen shot here of my death breakdown from fighting a spirit ranger once.

EVERYTHING on there was automated, from the burning (via sun spirit) to physical dmg + bleeding (via auto attack), to the pet’s auto attack.

How exactly does this promote skillful play? 14k from burning, 12k from bleeds, 3.5k auto attack dmg and all you have to do is have your sun spirit up and have your pet follow me while SB #1 is on autoattack. I would love to know, because as a thief I have to pretty much use every weapon skill/utility smartly just to survive and fight against a spirit ranger / mm necro.

You want to argue that spirit rangers/mms are useless in team fights, but they offer body blocks as well as other utilities (more so spirit rangers), group burning/proc and res?

Spirit rangers are not bad in team fights, in fact they CAN shine there, hence the buff spread. However, that’s not an AI issues. You’re complaining that Shortbow consists of mostly 1 spam (not an AI issue), and that the burn is too potent for a buff (not and AI issue, its a buff light might is, its just strong), and then the pet that ranked under all the rest. Most pets don’t hit as hard as ranger pets, that’s the whole idea behind ranger is fighting with their pet. I don’t even play a ranger and I know that ranger itself suffers due to having that dumb AI pet because their personal attacks/damage suffers to compensate for it. You need to look at what you’re complaining about, its not “ai”, your issues are that spirit ranger shortbow is bland and that the spirit’s “support” buff is too powerful. None of which is an AI issue…

It seems like you define AI simply for pets/minions/phantasms.

I define AI from everything like pets/minions/phantasms to everything that happens on the passive end…because guess what? It’s not done by player’s choice – it’s done via the system.

Call it what you want, AI or just problems with passive abilities, but those things promote dull, and unskillful gameplay. I have no problem being outplayed due to reflexes and such (i.e: being interrupted right before I heal) but when the enemy kills me with things that he didn’t even purposely intend on doing, and all he has to do is position himself around his pets, auto attack me and occasionally lay down a water field and leap through it…it makes the matchup very stale considering how much I have to do to fight them in comparison.

I don’t think AI needs to be removed, but if it’s AI that’s doing most of your damage, then that’s a big problem because AI is extremely potent in chasing targets and sticking on them. Kiting is not an option in combat because you are much slower.

MM necros, spirit rangers are the main culprits here obviously. In my opinion, if AI is to do damage, then that damage should be lower than the damage coming from weapon skills.

I’ve attached a screen shot here of my death breakdown from fighting a spirit ranger once.

EVERYTHING on there was automated, from the burning (via sun spirit) to physical dmg + bleeding (via auto attack), to the pet’s auto attack.

How exactly does this promote skillful play? 14k from burning, 12k from bleeds, 3.5k auto attack dmg and all you have to do is have your sun spirit up and have your pet follow me while SB #1 is on autoattack. Not to mention storm spirit’s call lightning can crit a medium armor for 7k with absolutely no power needed, just full investment in condi dmg and toughness. I would love to know, because as a thief I have to pretty much use every weapon skill/utility smartly just to survive and fight against a spirit ranger / mm necro.

You want to argue that spirit rangers/mms are useless in team fights, but they offer body blocks as well as other utilities (more so spirit rangers), group burning/proc and res?

Narcarsis.5739:

Two things are wrong with what you’ve said. First being “forced” to go 30 into trickery. You aren’t forced to do anything – in fact there are countless builds I’ve doubt you’ve even tried. People see someone make something work and they flock to it without checking other options. Just because one thing suits someone’s playstyle and they are efficient with it does not mean it’s the best – it merely suggests that a player has found a build that tailors to the way they behave. People are lazy, they see success in others and try to imitate it instead of finding success themselves. Instead of assuming that a build is the only (or worse yet, will be the only) viable build find out how you play and tailor something to that. After which you can tweak accordingly. Even worse to this people try something and fail, so they assume that it’s the build when in fact it’s a player skill issue. Just because something didn’t work the one time you tried it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work at all.

Second, you assume that Deadly Arts builds aren’t viable. However they will probably make a return to the meta depending on what happens and the team compositions players choose. Deadly Arts builds have a key counter to burst builds: weakness. It’s abundant. You can spam poison which in turn spams weakness onto enemies. To top it all off it has higher burst and one of my favorite traits: Improvisation. If you think this build isn’t viable or is weaker than Sleight of Hand then you’re misinformed. The reason Trickery builds were more prevalent than Deadly Arts builds were due to a heavy condition meta where weakness was generally useless and thieves needed the extra survivability from the Mug/Sleight of Hand combo.

Anyway – you can think what you want. Just be open minded and don’t assume anything. The patch hasn’t even hit yet. Ignorance is bliss~

Sure, if you want to put it like that, no one is forced to play any build. But Caed – answer me 1 thing after reading all of that:

In tourneys, why isn’t anyone using the other build’s that you say are viable right now? Do you feel it’s because people are lazy and/or did you single handedly dictated the d/p meta build to be 10/30/0/030 since people claim that’s the “caed build” so it must be amazing?

I’m pretty sure you yourself have been using 10/30/0/0/30 since sleight of hand buff. You are sure as hell not forced to play 10/30/0/0/30 but what’s stopping you from using the other builds? Surely if you want to talk about tailoring a build to one’s style of play, not everyone should end up using the same build? There are good thieves around, and they theory craft all the time, there should be a reason why they end up with pretty much the same build?

I’m open minded when it comes to thief builds, sure – but I also know that there are just certain builds that are above others right now in a tourney setting. If you want to talk strictly builds that are “viable” overall in hotjoins or solo Q, then yea you can play anything. But a meta build is a meta build, there is a reason for it.

Why are rangers playing spirit rangers, why are warriors playing hambow? They are definitely not forced into it, but if you want to win, you are pretty much “forced” to play a certain build because of the meta. You could argue it’s a player issue, but that’s a whole other discussion.

daoz.6153:

instead of stealth, maybe build for point decap? scorpion wire enemy out of point, basilisk venom, shadow step to point, immobilize(venom or pistol 2)/basilisk again if extra venom build.

repeat application of immobilize if cleansed. thief guild for extra scorpion wire. use a tanky amulet. role is to keep point neutralized until help comes

lol have you tried to do this to someone, or are you just theory crafting?

You do know that scorpion procs basi right? Let’s say that you mean to basi AFTER the scorpion wire…and what happens when someone uses a stunbreak and hop back on point? You basi them on point and pistol 2 to immob him on point?

Theories will always sound so much easier than in game.

Oh, and scorpion wire is one of the most bugged skill in the game, it’s a RNG in itself if it works or gets obstructed, or simply doesn’t pull.

Narcarsis.5739:

Amaterasu.6280:

I was just thinking about this as well.

In my opinion, I really do wish it worked like arcane thievery, as it would allow smarter plays with steal. It’s also a way of countering a lot of cheese, I.E loads of stability of warriors, plague form stability, 15-25stacks of might, etc. I think if you are going to be walking around with 15-25stacks of might, there should be a risk involved, and the risk could be that a thief could steal all of it and use it against you. That’s assuming IF they can steal it because let’s face it…a lot of random dodges happen and steal can easily miss. Risk vs reward is a good thing in my book.

Example: If a warrior popped balance stance and I stole it from him with the duration, I’d get 8s of stability which I could use against him. It would make fights a lot more interesting and would allow counter-play against the current meta hambow wars where if you get hit by a stun without a stunbreak, you’re pretty much dead as a thief.

Also, say, a necro decides to plague form on point – he gets 20s of stability. If you are able to steal that from him for your team, it would be tremendously helpful and a counter play because he chose to pop plague with a thief around so he should be able to be punished instead of having stability for 20s and being able to hold a point for a long while.

The 3s of whatever boon you steal from the enemy just doesn’t seem sufficient. I’d be happy with a few more seconds if not the full duration. And stacks…STACKS!

I’m against this. It would move it to a Grandmaster trait, and there’s nothing else I’d want in master – I’d take Sleight of Hand over Bountiful in that case as well. Bad idea in my opinion.

But your choice is also linked to another problem – we’re pretty much forced to go 30 into trickery now. It’s bad enough that we HAVE to go 30 into our crit line because otherwise you’d do horrendous physical damage. Sleight of hand with the 20% steal reduction is just so good, that any other trait line just seems underpowered when it comes to playing d/p glass.

If the 20% steal reduction was moved elsewhere I think it’d open up more builds. The daze is just a bonus let’s be honest…I’ve used 10/30/0/0/30 before the sleight of hand buff and it was nowhere near as strong as it is now. There were more choices before like 25/30/0/0/15 or 10/30/0/30/0 or 10/30/30, but right now all the other choices are just not as effective compared to 30 in trickery for 20% steal recharge.