Guild Wars 2

KrisHQ.4719:

Arganthium.5638:

Yeah, I asked him on his stream to justify some (not all, but some) of the things he said in his rant. He responded by throwing out all kinds of insults at me, and completely and utterly evading the question altogether.

He’s incredibly rude, and it’s not wonder ANet doesn’t want him coming on these forums; he’s a stain on our otherwise decent community.

Justify what?
Pretty much everything in his rant is true, definitely not false (not taking any sides in any argument, just curious as to what needed to be justified).

Even if it is true (and I don’t think it is- not all of it, anyways), then Helseth needs to be able to at least counter the arguments that are made as counterpoints to his.

I’ve made a lot of arguments about the S/D spec in the past. I’ve watched cast times up to tenths of a second and analyzed every trait point, every stat that’s put into the spec. I’ve talked about a lot of ways that the spec can be played, the ways it can be countered, the ways you can counter those counters, and the ways opponents can counter your counters to their counters. And yet, of all of those people, Helseth is the first that didn’t even attempt to counter my points- he just completely blasted me in his stream when he honestly knows nothing about me whatsoever.

Anyways, to answer your question, his complaints about S/D thief need to be justified.

Lighter.5631:

Arganthium.5638:

Yeah, I asked him on his stream to justify some (not all, but some) of the things he said in his rant. He responded by throwing out all kinds of insults at me, and completely and utterly evading the question altogether.

He’s incredibly rude, and it’s not wonder ANet doesn’t want him coming on these forums; he’s a stain on our otherwise decent community.

because defaming someone in a public forum without any prove is a decent community. cool story.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2pvptv/b/453218582 1:08:00

Poxxia.1547:

Arganthium.5638:

Yeah, I asked him on his stream to justify some (not all, but some) of the things he said in his rant. He responded by throwing out all kinds of insults at me, and completely and utterly evading the question altogether.

He’s incredibly rude, and it’s not wonder ANet doesn’t want him coming on these forums; he’s a stain on our otherwise decent community.

Do you have any proof of this, or should we just accept your word as proof (and I might add, he seems to not be able to post here). Because in that case, it is just your PoV and honestly it seems a bit slanderous.
I have seen people posting here and seeming reasonable, but when you play with them, they are imho none of the sort. In other words: We don’t really know people in here. For all I know, you could have started out by saying something that seemed rude to him, isn’t it?

There are a lot of you asking me for proof, and since you’re the only one that seems at least slightly honest, I’ll respond to you.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2pvptv/b/453218582 go to 1:08:00

You can’t see the chat unfortunately, but that doesn’t change the fact that I brought up arguments about the thief, and he either responded by throwing out insults or (as in the argument that I made about LS being vulnerable) he’ll just rudely ignore what we say and answer the question himself. It really goes on like this until 1:12:00, although if you watch longer you can see him really start to rage about he’s faaaarrrrrr more successful than any of the people that were watching his stream, and just… Whatever. You get the point.

So, does that answer y’alls concerns?

Yeah, I asked him on his stream to justify some (not all, but some) of the things he said in his rant. He responded by throwing out all kinds of insults at me, and completely and utterly evading the question altogether.

He’s incredibly rude, and it’s not wonder ANet doesn’t want him coming on these forums; he’s a stain on our otherwise decent community.

Walorx.5129:

Yeah, it’s really disheartening about how the game has developed and how we’ve been stuck in the worst meta in the game’s history all summer simply because of 10 players going to a hotel to play a match.

I liek dis

redslion.9675:

Arganthium.5638:

redslion.9675:

Well, I don’t think he was talking about pure balance. Thieves are balanced in the meta, like other builds (some of them cheesy) are. The problem is about the meta.

He was certainly talking about balance; it just so happens that metagame is a subset of balance.

Yes, but he said it’s more or less as OP as some warrior builds, as some ranger ones, as some necro ones and so on…

I don’t say i agree with him (It’s one month I’m not playing, so I don’t know how things are now) but I guess he wanted to say the problem is not whether those builds are beatable, but how they change the meta into spamming.

I would understand that, but the problem is that good S/D thieves shouldn’t spam; positioning and timing are extremely important to the spec. That’s coming from somebody who’s been playing the spec for almost 4 months now, and who’s theorycrafted a ton on the spec.

Mrbig.8019:

The issue regarding S/D thieves is not FS -> LS chain, neither is the evade.

The reason why S/D is so strong is because it’s able to snowball low HP classes thanks to Inf strike mobility, without even giving them time to reposition.

Not that it matters, since Inf strike will just get the thief back to you in no time.

Add this to the natural strong 1vs1 capability of the build and you know how it will ends.

Most thieves won’t talk about it because they KNOW the issue is Inf strike, not the evade, neither the damage ( in fact a common EU S/D build CAN be defeated 1vs1 by multiple classes, as long as they have decent ranged options or good CCs, or good AoE control/damage), and all thieves know that a nerf to Inf strike would not only break the set, but the whole Sword MH.

Nerfing damage ( unless they totally kitten it ridicolously, stuff like -33% damage like they did with C&D or dancing dagger) won’t change anything, because the issue is Inf strike coupled with the good sustain S/D offers.

Also: note that S/P is not used simply because pistol whip deals mediocre damage and ROOTS YOU IN PLACE: if we could use pistol whip on the move and dealt a little bit more of damge, NOBODY would run S/D.

LITERALLY

NOBODY.

You haven’t played S/D before, have you?

Also, the small mention of the weaponset didn’t explain why S/P isn’t used just as much as S/D is, because of Infi Strike which is apparently OP (not really). There are tons of great things about S/P, specifically, interrupts, burst, and blind field.

ahuba.6430:

Jumper.9482:

A 10% dps nerf would be enough for me to shelf S/D, pick up D/P again, and never look back.
I wouldn’t mind it though, because D/P is actually a complete kit and more fun to play.

what do you think about flanking strike only flipping for larcenous strike if fs hits?

Evade will be even worse than people say it is right now.

redslion.9675:

Arganthium.5638:

redslion.9675:

Well, I don’t think he was talking about pure balance. Thieves are balanced in the meta, like other builds (some of them cheesy) are. The problem is about the meta.

He was certainly talking about balance; it just so happens that metagame is a subset of balance.

Yes, but he said it’s more or less as OP as some warrior builds, as some ranger ones, as some necro ones and so on…

I don’t say i agree with him (It’s one month I’m not playing, so I don’t know how things are now) but I guess he wanted to say the problem is not whether those builds are beatable, but how they change the meta into spamming.

I once made a topic in these forums

It was titled

“Why good S/D is not 3 spam”. And what the title says is true.

redslion.9675:

Well, I don’t think he was talking about pure balance. Thieves are balanced in the meta, like other builds (some of them cheesy) are. The problem is about the meta.

He was certainly talking about balance; it just so happens that metagame is a subset of balance.

1. More builds
2. Spells requiring more skill, i.e. in-battle Infi Arrow or Line of Warding
3. More builds
4. Spells requiring more skill, i.e. in-battle Infi Arrow or Line of Warding
5. More builds
6. Spells requiring more skill, i.e. in-battle Infi Arrow or Line of Warding
7. More builds
8. Spells requiring more skill, i.e. in-battle Infi Arrow or Line of Warding
9. More builds
10. Spells requiring more skill, i.e. in-battle Infi Arrow or Line of Warding

Dual.8953:

Well I’m going with what I’ve been hearing going around with this rant being the icing on the cake: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Helseths-Rant-of-the-Week-THIS-META/first#content

I can see how the presents of an S/D thief in a game can block boon heavy classes from playing, and I want LS to still be a counter to boon users but not completely shut them down by it’s mere presence.
S/D used to be considered a respectable thief set. Now it’s joined the ranks of the “mindless spammers” in people’s minds. I get the inkling that most Spvp S/D users hardly ever even use Tactical Strike anymore.
I realize there’s a lot more problems with other classes in SPvP but I don’t have experience with them, I have been with S/D from the start, which is why I speak about it and not them.

Let me tell you something about Helseth.

I went to his stream this morning to discuss S/D thieves.

He basically responded to every thing I said by telling me that I was stupid, that I was what was wrong with GW2. I mentioned tons of little details about cast times and general counters to the build, and the only- only- thing that Helseth responded with that I was a complete idiot and that everything I said was just automatically wrong.

Seriously? I agree with some of the guy’s ideas, but that he feels that he has to insult people who provide factual counters to his ideas is just absurd. I can hardly take him seriously any more after his rage episode this morning on the GW2pvptv.

On a separate note, IMO S/D is in a perfectly fine place right now. I’ve already written a ton about its counters though, so unless somebody asks me something specific about S/D counters, I don’t want to write anything more about how to counter the build. -_-

EDIT: also, those of you that think that FS does “a ton of damage” or whatever should go check out the actual damage stats. It does less than any of the attacks in the auto chain.

This guy is such a pain in the kitten.

It stopped being funny a loooong time ago, m8. You’re like that little kid that was funny at first but quickly became annoying to have around.

Lux.7169:

I read that as no ‘rangers’ at first and lol’d. My gf and I are looking to be more active in tPvP again. What vc do you guys use?

She exclusively plays trap ranger and I play thief.

Lol.

Aphro is a great choice for a team player, he’s one of the best D/P players I know.

Atherakhia.4086:

Arganthium.5638:

It’s not balanced. Why? Because it gives a powerful passive effect in a decent radius with an extremely high probability of occurring, and on no CD. That’s ridiculous. Passive effects are supposed to give you a small advantage, and only occurring for either an individual or within an extremely small radius. Look at thief venoms. They’re active skills in that they require conscious activation to be useful (the same could technically be argued for spirits, but since they last for 60 seconds and their passive effects can be used infinitely many times within that margin of time, and because of the number of times these effects can potentially be used within the margin of time they’re usable, spirits are difficult to define as being “passive”). Thief venoms also have an extremely small radius of effect in being granted to allies, and they only even give them venom buffs if you grab 30 in SA. And yet, in spite of the fact that they’re active skills, venoms are still far, far worse than spirits.

Do you see the problem yet?

There’s a 10 second internal cooldown.

Just checked it out, didn’t appear on the GW2 wiki. Well that definitely balances it out a bit.

Still, they are fairly powerful, and they’re on a very wide radius.

It’s not balanced. Why? Because it gives a powerful passive effect in a decent radius with an extremely high probability of occurring, and on no CD. That’s ridiculous. Passive effects are supposed to give you a small advantage, and only occurring for either an individual or within an extremely small radius. Look at thief venoms. They’re active skills in that they require conscious activation to be useful (the same could technically be argued for spirits, but since they last for 60 seconds and their passive effects can be used infinitely many times within that margin of time, and because of the number of times these effects can potentially be used within the margin of time they’re usable, spirits are difficult to define as being “passive”). Thief venoms also have an extremely small radius of effect in being granted to allies, and they only even give them venom buffs if you grab 30 in SA. And yet, in spite of the fact that they’re active skills, venoms are still far, far worse than spirits.

Do you see the problem yet?

Basticida.4375:

Speaking about that, I’m not this good to try, nor I play tpvp with a team; but in a condi meta like the one we are living now, a more “bunker” played mesmer does not sound that bad.

I mean like a 0/20/0/30/20 played only for survivability:

vigorous revelation and shattered conditions for Aoe PermaVigor and tons of Aoe Condi-cleanse
staff for mobility and chaos armor
maybe glamour mastery and null field to even more condi and buff cleanse and more chaos armor
and retal on shatter#2.

Did someone ever tried something like that in team play?

Yes.

And my answer is a definite no.

Darnis.4056:

I’m okay with Conditions with the Domination Cleansing Conflagration IX trait…
Arcane thievery and Runes of Lyssa
Nullfiled would be good if it was burst removal, but no it’s like.. 1 per second snooze.
Make Nullfield strip all condies instantly plz or atleast 5 ?

Arcane thievery way better, goodbye 16 bleeds, Hello Crazy dps.

Arcane thievery is okay but has too long of a CD for it to be used particularly often as a condi cleanser. It also doesn’t help when necros actually heal for more when they have condis on them. -_-

Nullfield is also eh IMO, but at least it’s slightly more reliable and it’s an AoE.

Move Shattered Conditions to being either a master or even an adept trait, and maybe move it to illusions.

/fixed

evilapprentice.6379:

Why ditch the Soldiers ammy? Admittedly, I’m only running this in hot join until i get used to it, but against better skilled/higher ranked players I’ve been doing phenomenally well. There’s definitely a bit of a TTK problem with some specs, but at the worst I can currently win any 1 on 1 given enough time (assuming I dont get outplayed). If a second player is required to deal with me, I’m giving my team an advantage (and If I’m lucky, I can contest a point quite a while). If I’m forced to bail, I have the tools to get to another node and try again in minimal time.

Shadow trap I get, even if I don’t love it.

It depends on your role. I know what you mean, that the first build could essentially take on multiple opponents at once, hold a point- whatever. This one, for me, is maybe a bit more fun though because I just like the higher damage, and I don’t get tons of people jumping on me saying I’m a bad player for running a tanky thief.

I’ll probably go back to trying the soldier’s ammie again though. I’m just throwing this build out there for people who really love high damage to get into the trait spec, since it’s clearly far different from pretty much any other S/D build (or, for that matter, any build in general) that you tend to see.

As for Shadow Trap… I don’t always like it that much, but it essentially gives me another point that I can go to at any time, along with Shadow Return. Shadowstep, on the other hand, was limited a bit by LoS problems as well as a lack of range compared to Shadow Trap. I’ve played fights where I’ve literally walked from one point to the other and placed a Trap between them, then started fighting somebody on a point, chased him when he was running away, and then used Shadow Trap as a positional weapon with extreme success by predicting where he was going. It’s obviously also extremely good as a method of going from one point to another. That being said, I absolutely hate when the trap fails, but when it succeeds it can be a game-changer. I’d definitely suggest it for the Zerker build; for the Soldier one, it depends.

I should also mention that, since this seems to be a fairly condi-focused meta right now, that Zerker amulet is really good as a counter to this meta. Soldier’s, on the other hand, is great against direct damage but not as much against, say, a condi necro or a Spirit Ranger, simply because the toughness suddenly means virtually nothing. As it so happens, the math favors Zerker in a condi-focused meta, or in a meta with a ton of bunkers. While the second isn’t true (and isn’t likely to be true any time soon), pretty much everybody agrees right now that there are a ton of conditions in the current meta, or that the current meta allows condis to be extremely strong. That’s basically going to be the main justification for Zerker’s, therefore. Once the meta changes (hopefully!), I may very well go back to Soldier’s, which is going to be favorable in a more direct-damage focused meta.

Heya guys,

I’ve updated my build since I last posted it here in the forums, here’s what it looks like now to those of you who are interested:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYm6Oncy3E/5Eh3DyO2wqVgmdP4qV1KA-TsAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNKYZxkCA

I’ve decided against incorporating math into every inch of the game, but a lot of the basic ideas that were in my original post are in this post as well, among others.

Enjoy.

Heya,

I’m an S/D thief that would be interested in joining a team with you, PM me in-game if you’re interested, thanks.

Parisalchuk.9230:

Arganthium.5638:

People keep telling me that “rank doesn’t matter”, but then when it comes around to it they decline my team applications because I’m somewhat low-ranked (r31 right now).

Although admittedly I was playing really badly in general my last application. I dunno if I was just nervous or what, I just kinda stopped caring after a bit.

So you played poorly for a team tryout… and your claiming they didnt pick you just because your rank 31. Right….

It was just one of the justifications that they used. I felt that the team leader was fairly rude in his conduct of the whole ordeal and so I really didn’t want to join the team after some of the comments he made.

Now please, shut up and don’t talk about things that you don’t know about.

Maximka.4128:

Arg do you really think i payed $60 just to go troll on the forums? I’m sorry i had little to much to drink… just having fun between solo Q

Fun? Drinking?

Haha xD

Humor? Is that a player? What’s his/her profession?

kirito.4138:

Coloxeus.3480:

look how OP their heal/condition with 3.4k Armor . almost can heal 1.2k HP/ sec with inspiring banner trait

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q58u1ygJU3Q

So you survived for over 4 minutes against the warrior by mostly pressing #3 skill and nearly beating him. Guess that makes you 2nd in line to be OP

Even the warrior didn’t play that well. Coloxeus’ gameplay was still just… Terrible though. He would fail so hard against top players.

People keep telling me that “rank doesn’t matter”, but then when it comes around to it they decline my team applications because I’m somewhat low-ranked (r31 right now).

Although admittedly I was playing really badly in general my last application. I dunno if I was just nervous or what, I just kinda stopped caring after a bit.

Mrbig.8019:

omg what a terrible build.

And omg what a terrible player O_o

Bad players should NEVER post stuff like this and cry for OP stuff, this is EXACTLY what made you dear thief class nerfed to the ground in almost EVERYTHING.

I’m not really saying that warriors are “fine” ( warriors are crazy strong right now, it’s ridicolous players don’t understand it and i can’t even play currently so i don’t know if teams are getting this and bringing wars again into their comps but whatever) since they aren’t, but “proofs” like this are simply ridicolous.

I’ve dueled condi warriors to understand their strenghts, an S/D thief will ALWAYS win against them.

Stun warriors or LB-HA warriors are those we should worry about.

I agree with most of this, I might say that the matchup between warr and thief is more like 70-30 or 80-20 thief’s favor though.

Coloxeus.3480:

Arganthium.5638:

Coloxeus.3480:

Crovax.7854:

katniss.6735:

The regen is OP in WvW.

And nobody cares about wvw because it’s not pvp, it’s wvw

Coloxeus.3480:

look how OP their heal/condition with 3.4k Armor . almost can heal 1.2k HP/ sec with inspiring banner trait

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q58u1ygJU3Q

What a shame. From the thief community side i was under the impression you were supposed to be somewhat decent but all i can see is 3 spam and dodging nothing.
Well, it seems the skill requirements for thieves this days isn’t exactly that high…

i need to dodge before entering a battle bro. and i should NOT or must NOT make my endurance Full. have u ever seen or heard skill trait “Fluid Strikes”
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fluid_Strikes

Woah woah woah. Stop. Just stop. This is pure comedy gold.

So, you place energy sigils on both of your weapons, and then you complain when you have too much endurance that you’re having to waste it.

Then, apparently, in order to fix this issue, you have to evade 30 feet away from your opponent, when you could’ve combo’d your evade with Slice and done more damage overall while still fulfilling your trait requirements.

LOL

Oh, and btw, we weren’t talking about your evading before the fight started.

i added u as friend come lets duel we have private arena

Yeah sure, I can’t play right now but I’ll make sure to find you in-game eventually.

Coloxeus.3480:

Crovax.7854:

katniss.6735:

The regen is OP in WvW.

And nobody cares about wvw because it’s not pvp, it’s wvw

Coloxeus.3480:

look how OP their heal/condition with 3.4k Armor . almost can heal 1.2k HP/ sec with inspiring banner trait

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q58u1ygJU3Q

What a shame. From the thief community side i was under the impression you were supposed to be somewhat decent but all i can see is 3 spam and dodging nothing.
Well, it seems the skill requirements for thieves this days isn’t exactly that high…

i need to dodge before entering a battle bro. and i should NOT or must NOT make my endurance Full. have u ever seen or heard skill trait “Fluid Strikes”
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fluid_Strikes

Woah woah woah. Stop. Just stop. This is pure comedy gold.

So, you place energy sigils on both of your weapons, and then you complain when you have too much endurance that you’re having to waste it.

Then, apparently, in order to fix this issue, you have to evade 30 feet away from your opponent, when you could’ve combo’d your evade with Slice and done more damage overall while still fulfilling your trait requirements.

LOL

Oh, and btw, we weren’t talking about your evading before the fight started.

Daecollo.9578:

Sorry I misread, and I don’t get sarcasm.

Oh okay.

EDIT: was this sarcasm? xD

Daecollo.9578:

Arganthium.5638:

dejay.2598:

Daecollo.9578:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spider_Venom

/thread

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Short_bow

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Serpent%27s_Touch

now /thread

Honestly, either of those are better options that Spider Venom, and, in fact, my build happens to run them both.

But SB is tossed aside cuz S/D S/D is apparently better (even Jumper admitted that he needed SB in his own build), and Serpent’s Touch is a part of DA that for some reason most people won’t even touch nowadays.

Ok… so basicly your saying you won’t use the one that that will destroy this build… because Jumper said it was bad… ? ? That is really your excuse?

It would be good for this “duel.” because apparently hes specced to destroy you, but your not specced to destroy him? so Warrior=OP?

L2P?

Uh

What?

The first statement about S/D S/D being “superior” was obviously sarcasm, and I’m really not sure you looked at what I said about ST.

Furthermore, I’ve been arguing this entire thread that warriors are not OP.

So… Just… What?

dejay.2598:

Daecollo.9578:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spider_Venom

/thread

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Short_bow

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Serpent%27s_Touch

now /thread

Honestly, either of those are better options that Spider Venom, and, in fact, my build happens to run them both.

But SB is tossed aside cuz S/D S/D is apparently better (even Jumper admitted that he needed SB in his own build), and Serpent’s Touch is a part of DA that for some reason most people won’t even touch nowadays.

Crovax.7854:

What a shame. From the thief community side i was under the impression you were supposed to be somewhat decent but all i can see is 3 spam and dodging nothing.
Well, it seems the skill requirements for thieves this days isn’t exactly that high…

Yeah… He’s honestly not. He’s just another kid making videos of himself playing what is, IMO, a completely debunked build and hoping to show himself to be some kind of superior player. I’ve even called him out on it in the past, only to be shunned by the thief community because apparently the only reason I thought he was bad was his build, which of course isn’t true.

Against good opponents, this kind of playstyle would be wrecked completely.

Coloxeus.3480:

Arganthium.5638:

So, you took another video of your crappy playstyle/build and used it to justify the idea that warriors are OP?

Your evades are wasted, and honestly all I’m seeing is a really, really bad 3 spam.

Not impressed.

sorry im not PRO like you. show me how you play thief then. and impress? im not trying to impress anyone in this video wtf you’re talking about lol

Why don’t you just go look at my stream.

And I don’t think you understand the meaning of “not impressed”.

Lachanche.6859:

Arganthium.5638:

Not impressed.

Maybe you would be if you knew that flanking+infiltrator costed 4 ini instead of 5 before nerf ?

Lol dude.

I main S/D. I have been for months. I’ve written tons of material about the build, and even wrote a detailed description of the tank version of my boonsteal thief in ITM.

Wut.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and, as Med said…

Med.6150:

1. How is that relevant?

2. I don’t even know what you mean by flanking + infiltrator’s used to cost 5, unless you meant larcenous instead of “infiltrator’s”. You should learn the names.

No justification, no beans for you.

So, you took another video of your crappy playstyle/build and used it to justify the idea that warriors are OP?

Your evades are wasted, and honestly all I’m seeing is a really, really bad 3 spam.

Not impressed.

Bananas, bad singing, and Caed’s statue face.

Among other things.

Ivonbeton.6814:

Arganthium.5638:

Hype.8032:

I think dancing dagger should move faster and cripple longer to make it worth using. As far as the other suggestions, I don’t use those skills/traits now and I still wouldn’t after those changes. When I look at suggestion threads I’m wanting to find things that will improve our weaker weapon sets.

5s is a pretty good amount of cripple for a skill that you can use over and over again with little cost. I remember using DD yesterday on some practice golems while waiting for a tourney, and I managed to throw a ton of them before initiative started becoming much of a problem.

I do agree with the speed change, or at least a change to the cast so it’s not some big windup skill.

Agreed. Allthough I think a lower initiative cost would also make it more worthwhile to use.

Eh. 3 initiative tends to be fairly cheap unless you’re pure GC. It’s really not all that much tbh.

Allie Murdock.8152:

This is the excessive hyperbole that I mentioned in my post. You have every right to complain, but we can’t really understand your problem unless you actually provide some constructive feedback.

Well, I know that the majority of the sPvP community has been pretty much keeping spirit rangers and necros in their sights for a while now (although you guys probably already know that), with some secondary targets including thief S/D (one that I don’t agree with, because I know how much skill the build requires and how it can be countered, but w/e), stun lock warriors (too gimmicky for me to think it’s that good), and even just condis in general (not really, but necros and rangers are dealing a lot of condi damage right now).

On the other hand, a lot of us feel that eles are extremely underpowered right now, as well as mesmer but to a much lesser extent.

Stealth.9324:

Vote for Arganthium. A sneaky kitten with ego, say with sacarsm

CachoDm.4639:

Arganthium carried my team in solo queue, vote in his favor

D’awww thanks guys. And I <3 you too Stealth. xD

#Arga2016

Allie Murdock.8152:

Firstly, we have no qualm or rivalry with Helseth.

That aside, I have some questions, and would like to address some other points made.

1. What exactly do you mean by allocating resources to eSports?
2. What exactly is your definition of fun? Fun is subjective, no?

While we definitely appreciate it when players are vocal and provide feedback, excessive hyperbole does not help us to understand the fundamental issue.

Some more points:
1. The current meta is not controlled by the PvP team. Yes, we monitor it closely as balance greatly affects PvP. However, no resources are being taken away from PvP development in order to do balance. So I’d like to just squash that misconception now.

2. Skill effect clutter – another thing not controlled by the PvP team. Another thing that we monitor and provide feedback to the teams that do control it.

3. Sending out in-game mail is not as easy as it sounds. Keep in mind that every message that is sent has to be edited and localized.

• This is, however, something we recognize as an area to be improved. We are investigating ways to provide in-game messaging for events.

4. Lastly, I want to thank you for promoting the guildwars2pvptv channel. I always see a few people on the team with the stream always going on their 2nd/3rd monitors. Once PAX has past, we’ll be looking to better promote streamers from all areas of the game. So keep it up!!

In allocating resources to Esports, I think he means the fairly large focus on the PAX tournament (although he might have slightly exaggerated it).

As for fun, I think he just means balance, and, if you saw his post from last week about spam, and the post that was on the same line of thought that I put up recently about skills being used more tactically and strategically than they currently are.

Q- Heal
WASD- Movement Keys
E, R, T- Three utilities respectively
V- Steal
C- Elite

I also run
F- Call target
G- Change to marked target

EDIT: I also run X for evade, but I usually just double-tap; it’s faster for me overall.

You’ve tried everything?

Try my 10/0/0/30/30 build (if you like, run Zerker amulet and jewel, it works quite well too). I’ve played S/D + SB for ages and I’ve been hugely successful with this build.

Hey, I have 317 games on my thief, and I’d be interested in joining the team. I’ll contact you as soon as possible.

evilapprentice.6379:

I’m still waiting for your take on my last post Mister Pioneer.

I’m more than open to the fact that I might be wrong, I’d like to hear your take on why you think HS not going the full distance isn’t an exploit in light of the points I made earlier.

I really, truly, honestly don’t care about this HS debate any more. If you think that changing a game mechanic (camera angle) through a fully legitimate way to change another game mechanic (distance) is an exploit (a method of changing game mechanics using illegitimate methods, ie not game mechanics), then I really don’t think that discussion with you is worth anything whatsoever any more.

It says that in the title? Where? The OP talks about sPvP, but the title doesn’t specify.

…

Why is thief such a “binary” class in PvP?

Yeah okay.

Still doesn’t matter, even with 50% you don’t come anywhere near this 2.4 Precision = 1 Power thing.

The breakpoints that you provided earlier doesn’t affect the level at which Pr = P. That’s just a measure of the decreasing marginal benefit of an additional point of power, relative to the benefit provided by other stats. I might take 1 slice of pizza for two sodas up until the point where I have 10 slices of pizza, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll take 1 slice of pizza only for 10 sodas or fewer. That’s just basic economics.

Yeah. This quote shows what you’re really most known for.

Yeah alright. Okay. Whatever.

Bovinity.8610:

The truth of the matter is that I’m comparing these relative to base stats, and, when you look at base stats, 300 precision and critical damage mean virtually nothing.

Yeah, and no one cares about “relative to base stats”. Sure, relative to the base of 914 power (or whatever it is) any amount of power is awesome.

Edit: Dammit, ate the other half of my post. Will fix in a bit.

Realistically speaking, it’s extremely rare for one point of power to equal any less than ~2.4 points of precision, and that’s assuming you invest fully into critical damage

Depends heavily on your crit . At 50 crit damage, the breakpoint where Power and Precision end up equal is 2500 or so. At 75% (which isn’t even that hard to get) it’s just over 2100.

That’s not to say that precision is amazing, but to say that 1 power = 2.4 precision seems like you’re cherry picking data from one point on the graph somewhere.

In any case, it’s mostly moot since there’s really only one opportunity to actively pick between the two, and the difference between them isn’t huge. Should just come down to which traits you want.

If we didn’t compare relative to base, we’d have to get rid of a large number of builds, because our assumptions would be based on a given set of initial base stats that exist outside of the usual base P, V, T, Pr, CritD, A/etc, and that requires us to assume that we start by taking, for example, perhaps a zerker jewel, or a certain set of runes- whatever. I wouldn’t take a bunker guard and say that he/she should add more power on top of the build he/she is already running, because that 1) defeats the purpose of a bunker and 2) can’t be done anyways because every possible stat slot is already filled (assuming the player didn’t forget to add runes, sigils, etc).

And this is sPvP, as stated in the title. If we were talking about WvW, I might say that you can get really crazy levels of critical damage, but in PvP you can only get it from three sources:

- Traits
- Amulets/Jewels
- Runes

If you max out your critical damage in those first two areas, you end up with 50% critical damage. You can still add about 8% or so critical damage on top of that, but that typically requires rune changes that not many people are willing to make. But since you’re so smart, tell me how you’ve managed to get 75% critical damage. I’m all ears.

I’d be careful before I accused somebody of cherrypicking the data that they’ve been a pioneer in and understand much more about than the majority (or even the entirety) of the GW2 community.

Bovinity.8610:

I don’t think you understand that 100 power only does ~1.6% less damage than 300 precision and 30% critical damage

Only if you’re assuming a character that’s running about 1000 power.

We could go through a wide variety of calculations for every stat combination possible. The truth of the matter is that I’m comparing these relative to base stats, and, when you look at base stats, 300 precision and critical damage mean virtually nothing. This is the point where builds start to vary. Realistically speaking, it’s extremely rare for one point of power to equal any less than ~2.4 points of precision, and that’s assuming you invest fully into critical damage (aside from runes, where you can add a couple extra percentage points, but that’s often a very difficult choice to have to make).

30 CS also drops a lot of trait options and is thus non-optimal for any S/D build that runs a secondary SB.