Guild Wars 2

bobross.5034:

Arganthium.5638:

I’m guessing he doesn’t have a degree in science or any other such field, because the point of scientific fields is to change one variable, keeping everything else the same, and measure the effects.

Woah – what’s with the personal attacks, guy? I’m not angry at all – in fact I’m excited to try your build – I’ve been collecting PvT gear all day, and I just had an issue with your logic, and was trying to debate it. I don’t have a beef with you or anyone else on here.

Also – I’m about 6 months away from a PhD in clinical psychology – my dissertation even uses scientific methods as well as advanced statistical modeling…But let’s get out of the personal realm.

You said it yourself – science is about changing one variable and then measuring the effects. In the arbitrary thought experiment example I just gave, I showed how changing the single variable that you described would impact an otherwise equivalent matchup. Now in a scientific model – that would have been better researched (using exact numbers, rather than made-up ones) and it would have served as a hypothesis, that then would have been tested (having various people play the game with both sets of armor on otherwise equivalent builds vs various opponents, etc.).

My entire point was that a simplistic model of a complex system only gets you so far…and eventually you wind up having to test it. That is what science is all about. You are the one who tried to boil the whole game down into two statistics and then waved them around like they were absolute facts – rather than well-reasoned conjecture. And conjecture is fine – but a scientist should know the difference between a fact and a hunch, and they make it clear in their language (lots of maybes). Because despite all the work that you put into deriving a formula – you probably haven’t done the testing required to establish that your formula actually maps on to the game – and I only assume this, because the amount of testing required would be ridiculous.

Ok – now I am sorry for this, because this really was just a “check out my build” post, and I did not want it to turn into some sort of heated debate. And personally – I’m not really heated about anything, so I hope I haven’t deeply offended anyone here. And I hope we can just get back to trying the build out and saying how we like it.

My apologies. I’m just overall angry about this whole shenanigan, but as Ray implied (although I don’t fully agree with everything he says), I should’ve expected this in the first place. Ah well.

The entire point of theorycrafting is to get over any personal biases one might have and instead focus on models that actually represent the game. I didn’t just decide “oh, let’s put this little number in this equation so that it looks good for me!”. I’ve even shown the math, yet people still choose not to believe me. I’ve literally given the same arguments over and over and over again, and yet there’s some part of everybody here that wants to stay holed up in their sad little zone of thought and not believe that maybe, just maybe, they were wrong about something all along.

Let’s look at the example Bob just gave. Basically, he throws out a large number of arbitrary numbers, and then says that because there are so many numbers, the game is too complex too understand. I’m guessing he doesn’t have a degree in science or any other such field, because the point of scientific fields is to change one variable, keeping everything else the same, and measure the effects. But anyhow, because, supposedly, the game is so complex, it’s impossible to model. But this is incorrect; everything in the example he provided is able to be modeled. For example, the maximum heal efficiency per second. The attack rate’s effects on DPS. Am I upset about all of this? Of course, but the reason is that we get people like Jumper coming in, playing one good match, and then suddenly being up in the spotlights as one of the most famous GW2 players out there, who eventually develops a guide based on subjective reasoning that has no basis in reality and is more of a “well, I personally think that X, Y and Z are true” type of guide. Of course, everybody loves the guide. Then we have people that have put months and months of effort into developing very simple yet logical models of the game, then taking videos of them to show their effectiveness, and yet is being criticized for inputting bias into his equations, that his equations don’t mean anything, and that formulas as simple as (Additional Power + Base Power)/(Base Power) mean nothing, even though that’s the relative amplification for power relative to base that I showed right there, and makes perfect sense.

Yes, of course I’m upset. I don’t get to play in PAX, so I can’t show anybody my build in the tournament. I’ve messaged people in-game or talked to people on the forums, asking if they were interested in everything I’ve developed. None of them have responded. I’ve been kicked out of teams multiple times now because of ridiculous biases against players like me which bear no real significance in reality. After creating a Twitch stream and then this guide, I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, my months of effort around the thief community and around the GW2 community in general (I just checked, I’ve made over a thousand posts just on these forums), putting in little notes here and there, might create some kind of positive response within the thief community, maybe even help to shift the meta. Instead, I get everybody crying out that my math sucks, that the game is far too complicated for their brains to possibly understand.

That was my little rant for the night. I’m just… Horrifically disappointed by some of you guys right now.

bobross.5034:

Arganthium.5638:

Since some people don’t seem to understand this concept…

Let’s say player A has an offensive amplification of 2, and a defensive amplification of 1. Let’s say player B has an offensive amplification of 1.5, and a defensive amplification of 1.5.

Therefore, Player A is going to be able to kill Player B 2/1.5 = 1.33 times faster than he would have otherwise been able to do if he was at base levels of stats. However, Player B will be able to kill Player A 1.5/1 = 1.5 times faster than he would have been able to do from base. The result? Since one player can kill the other faster, Player B wins, assuming equal skill level and ceteris paribus.

right, but this assumes that both are trading blows on a 1:1 basis – this may be true if we’re talking about 2 s/d builds – which may make PVT a counter to an equivalent zerker build. If they are different builds where one is better at avoiding blows, absorbing them, amplifying own dps, bursting, preventing healing, whatever…then the equation becomes much more complex.

So taking all that into consideration – lets put S/D into context against other builds – whether it’s your version or jumpers – S/D thief is –
1) better at avoiding damage than most other builds
2) more mobile and more reliant on mobility than most other builds
3) better at boon stripping than most other builds
4) Less able to take a hit than most other builds (yours may be able to tank better than jumper’s, but you’re still probably just tankier than a glassy necro).
5) ok dps (this is probably true for both builds) both spend a lot of time avoiding damage, so dps is probably mediocre in both, when taken over a long period of time
6) ok burst (probably true for both builds)

The difference between your builds is not how long you can survive – both can survive a long time. It is:
1) how long you can survive while making mistakes / cc’d
2) how quickly you can end a fight.

No, it doesn’t. It assumes the exact same conditions as beforehand, just that the stats have changed. That’s what ceteris paribus means.

Even if the ration if 5:1, Thief A is still going to be dealing 1.33 times more damage with these new stats relative to base (and relative to his previous ceteris paribus 5:1 ratio), and Thief B is still going to be dealing 1.5 times more damage relative to base. The only difference is that we could convert this to a 1:1 ratio, but since it’s 5:1, relative to that previous 1:1 ratio, Thief A is actually going to be deal 6.67 times more damage. But, as always, we’re assuming ceteris paribus.

Since some people don’t seem to understand this concept…

Let’s say player A has an offensive amplification of 2, and a defensive amplification of 1. Let’s say player B has an offensive amplification of 1.5, and a defensive amplification of 1.5.

Therefore, Player A is going to be able to kill Player B 2/1.5 = 1.33 times faster than he would have otherwise been able to do if he was at base levels of stats. However, Player B will be able to kill Player A 1.5/1 = 1.5 times faster than he would have been able to do from base. The result? Since one player can kill the other faster, Player B wins, assuming equal skill level and ceteris paribus.

ensoriki.5789:

[snip]

Okay.

The first thing you have to realize is that these “calculations and crap” turn out to be the exact factors that go into fights, not just some random numbers that I pulled out of my kitten. But I guess you were never much of a math wiz, so you wouldn’t understand. Which is a shame, because people have made millions, even billions off of the subject after having applied it to real life.

Secondly, I clearly state that my purpose is a far-point assaulter in the opening, and then a team support DPS character for the rest of the match. It confuses me how you don’t understand this after I fairly explicitly wrote it in my guide.

Thirdly, just read some of the stuff I wrote about why quadruple boonsteals are so excellent. Especially against HGH, which would otherwise kill my team.

Fourth, if I went to far just so that I could die, that would defeat the entire purpose of going far: to keep it neutral, cap home, gain a small lead, then escape the battle. If I died because I was running a build like Cruuk’s, then not only would I give the enemy an important 5 points, but I’d give them the time wasted for my team by my being dead. Also, the utilities are perfectly swappable, but even without SR you seem to be missing the grand picture of what “team support” actually is.

Fifth, you again miss the point of going far. It’s not to deal damage (and I’m pretty sure, as my calculations showed, relatively more would be done to you anyways), but rather to keep the point neutral. If you have to spend all the time just getting to that point to only keep it contested for, say, six seconds, then that’s bad.

Sixth, if you’re even playing half-competent opponents, they’ll target you and you’ll die instantaneously. Simple as that. Standard team strat. Oh, and since I’m guessing you haven’t tried this build… 12k damage (perhaps over a period longer than 6 seconds, granted) is easily achievable. And at least I won’t be dead.

Finally, about Jumper… You’re right that I’m not exactly pleased with him. Partially because he basically took the opportunity to insult months of research into the game as being “useless” in a couple of sentences. Partially because he came onto this thread trying to insult me, and of course I’m the one getting grilled by everybody else for it. But I didn’t put Jumper in the guide to be bitter about him, I put him in the guide to give people a build to compare my build to. I made it his build, too, because, of course, his build is extremely popular.

Crimes.5317:

I have to agree with Jumper on this one, for the fact that your gimping your damage so much to have a support build when another class would fit that goal better. Sure you’re build will do more damage over time since you will survive longer, (also giving you’re opponent plenty of breathing room to pop their heal and re-cover boons) but whats the point when you could invest in CS and have the burst damage that can down someone almost instantly. Conquest pvp is all about time, the more time you waste, the more points you’re enemy can accumulate.

Someone said it earlier, 10/30/0/0/30 is the build I use, same boon steal abilities but will actually do respectable damage, it can absolutely ruin a bunkers day, letting you cap that point that much faster and potentially winning the match. Sorry to be biased but CS is just too good not to take for competitive play.

I’ve boldened all of your problems.

Support is not defined by the number of builds you give to your allies; it is measured by the amount by which you can increase overall DPS dealt by your team over the amount done to your team. If thieves are really good at single-target DPS, then they can pursue that goal as a team supporter. That’s the whole idea behind Caed’s build, of course, except that this build allows you to just jump into the fight, not fight from afar for the majority of it. I don’t think that any other prof has such good single-target DPS, and since it’s essential for team play, developing a thief that can deal as much of it as possible is absolutely necessary.

Your second problem is the “invest 30 in CS to burst somebody down” issue. Typically, this only happens when you’re fighting with another teammate… Which defeats the purpose of your later comment about trying to waste as little time as possible. 2v1’s are undesirable if you’re the team with the 2. Otherwise, though, the sheer badness of CS tends to overcome any defensive abilities that you might otherwise have (if you don’t think it’s that bad, just go over my DA vs CS calculations again). By going into burst, you’re sacrificing tons of defense, and the truth of the matter is that higher-level players are going to be able to counter your burst and you’ll be dead almost instantly. It’s an unnecessarily risky gambit with an easy counter.

Also, while it is true that you don’t want to waste time, remember that you’re also wasting your opponents’ time when you’re dueling them. Furthermore, the only team that’s wasting time when you’re dead is your team. As I showed with my calculations, because of the long-term DPS, my thief should, stats-wise, be able to beat a GC/burst thief any day of the week. When you’re downed like that, the only team that’s going to be wasting time is your own. It doesn’t matter if you spend a minute fighting if you make your enemy spend a minute fighting and then an additional 20-30 seconds in downed state or res’ing or whatever. In fact, it’s actually better for your team for that to happen.

And finally, again, even you recognize your own bias. I can tell you that I’ve never had the same bias towards CS. The stats suck, and so do most of the traits. Executioner is easily countered. It’s just flat-out not worth it, whatsoever.

Bob: the truth of the matter is, eventually, we are just trading blows. I mean, we don’t deal damage when we evade, right? And the one attack where we more or less do, we can time our animations to hit our enemies just as FS hits. Just as there are counters to enemy DPS (ie dodging, range, etc), those same counters apply to you. This just results in what is honestly just a trade of damage, and that’s why it’s so important to learn the advantages to using a soldier’s ammie.

The real problem with the argument is assuming that, as you get better, your opponents don’t. If this was true, then of course it would be preferable to get additional DPS. However, in practice, this isn’t true. Also, the reason Jumper hardly dies in battle, from what I’ve seen, is related to when he engages/disengages battle… But that’s just my opinion.

I mean, your argument is completely valid, don’t get me wrong; it’s just that, in reality, it doesn’t apply to real-life situations that well.

The issue goes back to the problem of biases. You’re just too old-fashioned, and have been overly influenced by everybody else’s style of thinking:

“We need 30 CS and zerker gear, and there’s no question about it.”

But that’s wrong. As I displayed in my calculations in the guide, 30 CS is only marginally better than 10 DA, stat-wise. The difference? While you’re still alive, you’ll deal 331% of base damage to your opponents, but you’ll die only 58% slower. On the other hand, I deal 229% of base damage (and approximately 242% with force rune) to my enemies, while dying about 138% slower than base (or, you could say that I die at a rate of 238% of what base dies at). This gives you the illusion that you’re dealing more damage, when, quite frankly, you’re actually having to hinder your own abilities by running away from fights more often that you need to. And this is why I’m not “potentially half as useful to my team”. As you said earlier in your LoL example, just because you deal more damage, does not mean that your allies are going to be better off for it. In fact, they often may be worse off. You’re committing a hypocrisy that goes against your own philosophy of helping your allies over dealing more damage as a soloist, and I’m really quite annoyed by this.

If you’re going to insult others, tell them that their months of buildcrafting and theorizing are worthless, at least know what you’re talking about.

Jumper.9482:

I don’t die because I maximize the efficiency of aftercast and evasion frames in conjunction predicting and outplaying each burst from my opponents.

“The Soldier’s Amulet [+Zerk Jewel] is going to increase your lifetime damage amplification the most”
…It gives 15% less critical dmg and 28% less crit chance.

Nowhere throughout all of your pointless calculations do you compare the straight up damage potential of each build with Zerks and the 14% crit chance and 30% critdmg loss from 30CS resulting in a total of 42% less critical chance and 45% critical damage.

Your post is incredibly misleading for newer players, claiming that “my build does more damage cause I’m tankier!” when clearly you deal roughly half the damage on average as a thief with Zerker and 30 in CS and as such, you are potentially half as useful to your team.

Cool. So does everybody else.

As for your next part…

This is just wrong, and this is why I completely and utterly disagree with virtually everything you say.

Actually, my calculations do compare our damage potential after the zerker amulet and all of that. Now, before I go into my equations, you need to know the following:
-These calculations only apply to raw stats, i.e. power, precision, vitality, etc.
-We are comparing builds from a base line. For both of us, that baseline is going to be a thief that has full armor but no additional stat points, and 0 precision points. The reasoning behind the 0 precision points is that it makes it easier to calculate the denominator for the offense equation. Either way, since these are all relative measurements, even if we did factor in the beginning 916 precision, then dividing your build’s lifetime damage by mine (or vice versa) would still result in the same ratios as before.
-There are multiple ways to do these equations, but they all add up to the same numbers either way. This is a more convoluted and complex-looking process than I use, but it gets us to the end calculation faster and probably more clearly for the less… Mathematically inclined of us.

Now, for the equation:

Relative Offensive Amplification = (Power*(1-CritChance)Power*(CritChance)(CritDamage)) / (BasePower*(1-BaseCritChance)BasePower*(BaseCritChance)(BaseCritDamage))

Or, in other words,

Power and precision bonuses/what you had in the first place, assuming you had no precision.

For you, this roughly equals

(1839*.35+1839*(.65)(2))/916

Which is equivalent to RelOffAmp(Jumper)=3.31

For me, going through the same equation (I won’t do the calculations here, too annoying, but you can do them yourself), my amplifier is equal to roughly 2.29.

Now, looking at defense, our equation is

(Armor+Toughness)/(Armor+BaseToughness)*(Health)/(Base Health)

Or, how much more damage, relatively, you can take from attacks times your health, relative to base.

For you, this equals about 1.582. For me, it equals about 2.376.

So, so far, we have your amplifiers at 3.31 and 1.58, while mine are at 2.29 and 2.38 (doing a bit of rounding). Now- remember that we’re operating under ceteris paribus assumptions (if you bothered to read what I wrote whatsoever…). This means that all we are doing is changing stats, and not play style, initiative regeneration, etc.

Now, if you live 1.58 times longer than you otherwise would have done at base level, and you’re dealing 3.31 times as much damage as you were dealing at base level, then you’re overall dealing 1.58*3.31= 5.23 (or 523%) (rounding up) times more damage within your lifetime than you would otherwise have been doing, just looking at your stats.

On the other hand, I would be dealing 5.45 (or 545%) (rounding down) times more damage than I was dealing at base level, within the expanse of my lifetime. Therefore, roughly speaking, relative to base, I am dealing 5.kitten .23= 22% more damage than you are, relative to base.

Granted, what these stats do not account for is healing effectiveness change; however, as it turns out, my heal is only 3.63% less effective than yours is, relative to base, which doesn’t even get close to spanning the 22% gap aforementioned, and doesn’t account for the fact that I use Assassin’s Reward, anyways (by the way, this gap is even larger if we include my force rune- specifically, the difference widens to 47.4% by my calculations, relative to base). So, the truth is, Jumper, that I do indeed deal more lifetime damage than you do.

Jumper.9482:

You’re not looking at this the right way.
Imagine, this same argument on a LoL carry, let’s say Tryndamere.
Sure, you can spec Bloodthirster GA and do infinitely more damage relative to your personal defense. But then you turn around and see that your entire team is dead because the amount of pressure you put out for your team is >300% (estimate) less than the enemy Tryndamere running Phantom Dancer Infinity Edge 2-shotting your teammates. The same concept can be said for a ranged ad carry for an even more extreme example, if you can imagine. The one exception being Urgot because he is basically a ranged AD Caster and doesn’t scale the same as other ranged ad carries.

I play a 5v5 game. Not 1v5.

And PS: It’s rare that I get myself killed more than once per match.

I wasn’t going to turn this into an aggressive thread, and I’m still trying not to. However, what I am going to ask is- how is my build, as you might describe it, a 1v5 build? After all, I do have more boonsteal and boonshare. I can get into the thick of battle easier, and help ease the burden of others taking DPS themselves. I can go from battle to battle quickly via Shadowstep and Shortbow. In fact, the situation you described above, from what I understood of it (I’m not an LoL player), actually better describes you than it does myself. I don’t compare my DPS to my defense, I compare my DPS to a baseline- in this case, the “baseline thief” that I use in my guide. I compare your DPS to that same baseline as well, so that we can get an accurate comparison between the builds. However, if I was comparing my DPS to my defense, then I would say that my offensive amplification is 101.173% of my defensive amplification, just looking at stats. On the other hand, your offensive amplification relative to base is 210.493% of your defensive amplification, relative to base. In other words, my offensive and defensive amplification are nearly equal; your offensive amplification, relative to base, is over twice that of your defensive amplification. So, in all honesty, this whole “offense relative to defense” stuff that you stated applies better to you than it does to me.

So now, I’m wondering… How is it that I’m playing a 1v5 build?

And I could make a very snide remark about why you don’t die in tPvP, but I’ll hold off from that…

bobross.5034:

That lifetime damage potential is an interesting stat…but I’m not sure it always maps on well to battles, especially for a class like thief. For example, Jumper’s build, (when played by Jumper) takes damage so infrequently that defensive stats really don’t factor largely into the builds survivability. Meanwhile, offense does – since it potentially shortens the battle and reduces the likelihood of an opponent joining in.

On the other hand being able to take a few hits may mean that you get to stay put and hit more often than another build that needs to spend more time dodging / stealthing. The result may be more overall dps but less burst. The lack of burst may be the difference between finishing a fight in 20seconds or 20 minutes. Then again, if you screw up often (like I do), it may end in 20seconds with a glass build – as a loss.

I do realize what you mean, and, if I could convince myself that this was entirely true, I might agree with you. However, there is something that you have to realize, and that’s that there are counters to Jumper’s build, just as there are counters to any player’s build. When I say counters, I don’t even necessarily mean other builds; I just mean ways that you can tweak your playstyle to counter dual S/D builds. I know that in the thread that Hype mentioned, whether or not I displayed any sort of grace there, I did write some counters to Jumper’s playstyle and build. Some of them are very specific, and others of them are difficult for other non-S/D builds to use. However, I’ve used all of the tactics I described in that thread, and while I haven’t played against Jumper himself playing his own S/D build, I have played against other people who have been running his build, typically with very good success. The truth of the matter is that the reason why Jumper doesn’t take much damage is because he’s learned how to counter other people’s builds, and other people have yet to figure out how to counter his. Once they do, things will become tougher for him, I have no doubt, as I’m sure they will for me. But they are figuring it out, and I’ve been able to tell it from others’ playstyles.

But, apart from that, assuming that people are basically clueless about how to counter you, then, you’re right, there’s no reason to take defensive stats. If I could always guarantee that people didn’t know how to counter me or other S/D thieves, then I would almost certainly go with zerker gear for additional DPS.

So in reality, you are correct, to some extent. The real debate is about how well people have figured out how to counter S/D builds.

Hype.8032:

Arganthium, I’d be curious to hear more of your logic behind your build crafting. I understand what you said about calculating a value to determine a build’s effectiveness. Do you start with any minimums? Say for example, if you want to be a far node assaulter then you’ll need X dps over time to be likely able to win that 1v1 or as a bunker do you need X defense to be successful in that role?

I like dps, I make no effort to hide it. Typically when I’m picking a build I start with a minimum level of offense and then figure out how to make the best of remaining defensive capabilities. That’s why I like 10/30/0/0/30 for d/p + sb rather than the old 25/30/0/0/15. I calculated (with assumptions everywhere) that they had pretty similiar offensive output but the former had more utility/survivability.

I don’t doubt you when you say this build has a higher multiplier than the 0/30/0/30/10 s/d build but that isn’t proof of being superior. We have to define what role we’re comparing the builds against. I mentioned a fight with a guardian before but I also saw you participating in drawn out team fights where you held your own; it’s obvious you’re a good player and this build has potential.

Hope this wasn’t too long winded.

Ugh. I wrote a good response to this earlier, but then my wi-fi got all crappy on me and somewhere along the way the response got deleted, so I’ll try to make this as short as possible.

Basically, unless I am running a very specific counter-strategy, no, I do not start with any minimums. I do, however, build with objectives in mind. For example, for a bunker guard, I might ask “how can I increase survivability as much as possible, in exchange for offensive potential?”, or, for a counter-bunker, I might ask “how can I increase damage versus bunkers as much as possible, in exchange for defensive potential?”. However, for a far-point assaulter, neither of these is necessarily the case (unless we’re using a GC to counter a far point that has a bunker on it). With my build, I try to keep a point contested as long as possible in the early game, which means that I need to maximize overall DPS in the long run, not just offensive potential or defensive potential. Make no mistake, defense does have its effects on DPS; just look at the lifetime damage stat. Thus, maximizing long-run DPS (or lifetime damage) is not the same as maximizing offensive capability (which means dealing more damage in the short run but less in the long run). So, to answer your question: no, you don’t necessarily need to have some kind of bare minimum to be successful in your role. Simply put, you need to play the stats to your advantage. With bunker guards, this happens by increasing defensive amplification greatly, while offense sucks. This means that the guard deals less real damage overall, but he/she’s basically making the opponent waste their having any defensive stats whatsoever. As long as healing and defense keep up with DPS dealt by enemy, then the bunker build will be good. I suppose that, if there is a bare minimum, then this would be it.

And, of course, this build is only superior in its role, not overall. The metagame tends to dictate its overall success. Against an all-bunker team (heavens forbid), for example, this build would be pretty awful. Against a team where you’re going to be fighting standard DPS characters, however, then this build is fantastic. So, it really depends on how you define your role, like you said. If you’re going to go against bunkers, I suggest putting on a zerker amulet (with either a zerker or a soldier’s jewel). This is the real difference between my build and Jumper’s. His is better for going against bunkers. Our builds seem about even in going against condi builds. Mine is better for going against pretty much everything else, simply due to the mathematics and strategy behind the build.

So really, it depends on your role.

Shinobi.3240:

Looks familiar ^.^ …. anyway good summary.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/The-Evasive-Invader-Support-Bunker

Haha yeah, I remember this build. the soldier’s amulet w/ cleric’s jewel used to be the same thing I ran, actually, although I later realized how crappy healing power is…

Also, Signet of Agility is a perfectly viable option, but I don’t take it because of the relatively short radius, the fact that it doesn’t stun break, and the utility otherwise granted by other utilities that I already use. But if you want to try playing with it, go ahead.

Ray.3780:

The thing I dislike about investing so heavily in trickery, is that power based builds give up so much potential raw damage and pressure, for team utility. Utility that is easily brought by other means, or other classes with less detriment to damage output.

If you want to refill your allies’ endurance, Signet of Agility does that, instantly, on a very low CD, although comes with the caveat of not knowing their endurance and guessing.

I think the fact that you can steal 4 boons is wonderful, but you’re also allowing your target to live longer, indirectly giving them more opportunity to reapply those boons anyway. Currently, the most powerful boon to be stolen, Might, doesn’t steal the full no. of stacks last I checked.

Furthermore, many classes bring their own fury/vigor/swiftness close to 50-100% uptime, and the sharing radius is not huge. Building all this utility into steal also makes you think twice about using it on CD, despite it being only 21s-ish. Do you open with it at 100% HP and waste the majority of the Mug potential? Do you use it to chase/finish someone and/or stay alive but miss out on boonsharing because there’s no one near you?

Every second you keep it off CD though, you’re wasting all those trait points which are reducing its CD. I guess what I’m saying is, you mention that Critical Strikes traits are useless/wasted/avoided, and I feel like that applies to many traits for all classes.

I really like the build though, I’ll give it some real-life practice, I think it’s overall pretty cool, thanks for the write-up.

While I might agree with you about the lack of damage potential from not using DA or CS by instead investing heavily into Trix, the other thing you have to remember is attacking rate. I’ve tried out builds before that only invested heavily into those stat points that mathematically did the most for my build; all of them failed miserably. The truth of the matter is, every trait in Trix (well, that we use in this build, anyways) is good, and the only thing that’s a real shame about it is that it builds up condition damage. That’s the real reason to invest so heavily in to Trickery; while the direct advantages are somewhat lacking, it provides absolutely excellent initiative regeneration as well as a large number of boons (and the quadruple boonsteal, which is incredibly useful against certain builds). IMO, the offensive advantages granted by investing into Trickery thereby is greater than the offensive advantages granted by investing as heavily into DA or CS. Neither of those trait lines provide particularly good initiative regeneration options.

Also, you’re missing out the point behind Steal. It’s an all-around class counter. It doesn’t matter if opening with it sacrifices some Mug potential if the total damage that I deal as a result of using the steal early on as opposed to later is greater than the healing I would have gotten from it later on. Also, remember that when you aren’t using steal, that it’s not on CD. That’s much more important than you may think; the ability to keep up large amounts of fury, might, swiftness, and vigor uptime is huge. Either way, stealing is a very powerful countering weapon, and every single part of it is useful, even if not all parts are used together simultaneously.

And, like you said, it is true that, for many classes, the traits taken are often quite lackluster, as is true for CS. The thing is, however, that this shouldn’t have any effect on our build crafting; we don’t need to build crappier builds because our opponents are building crappier builds. We should aim to make our builds powerful relative to all builds, and that’s why I don’t approve of CS; one, maybe two of the traits are useful whatsoever. This build aims to get rid of as many such unnecessary traits as possible in its trait choices.

Hype.8032:

Arganthium.5638:

Hype.8032:

I’ll give this a shot some time. You should know that you selected assassin’s retreat rather than vigorous recovery though. Watching one of your videos it was pretty clear you didn’t have the dps to take down a guardian, that’s definitely a down side. This seems tankier and more meant for team fights.

Btw, your little public quarrel w/ jumper isn’t interesting to the rest of us.

First, thank you for reminding me of that trait. I had seen it and promised to change it, but I ended up forgetting after I didn’t know how to edit builds originally.

I find your other comments highly interesting. Of course, if we’re talking specifically about a bunker guardian, then it is true that it is difficult for me to take down that guard. That being said, the truth of the matter is that, at low levels, the marginal benefit of offensive stats tends to outweigh that of defensive stats. Bunkers are flawed in that they take so many defensive stats. However, they also make the opponent take more defensive stats than might otherwise be preferable as well, which gives them the slight advantage of essentially rendering your defensive stats useless. This is why zerker thieves are going to be better at taking down guards. This build is more designed to keep points contested, hold out until reinforcements arrive, or assist allies. This is not necessarily a soloist’s build, and I don’t personally believe that soloists are very good for team strategy. If that’s what you’re looking for, good for you; just swap the amulet and you’re set. Otherwise, though, know what you’re talking about before you speak.

And I didn’t mention anything about my quarrel with Jumper, and, as you said, what “quarrel” there is is minor. I made a joke relating to Jumper creating his own build guide, and your attempt to flame me for it is somewhat rude, to be quite frank. Not to mention quite childish and immature.

If this was the only time you were hitting below the belt I might agree with you. I’m sure you remember the thread where you called him out however. I’ve found it distasteful and lacking tact. I, and I’m sure others, have taken you less seriously because of it. However, you’ve been made aware (assuming you didn’t already know) so I’m done talking about it.

I’ll take build threads over nerf threads any day. I remember questioning how this trait/stat layout could put out any damage at all when you mentioned it earlier so I’m glad you put this together.

I’ll take what you’ve said into consideration.

Hey bob, thanks for understanding what our “quarrel” really is.

So basically, when I evaluate different builds mathematically, I always compare them to some type of baseline. Coming from a thief background, that tends to be the amount of damage that a thief does when he/she is wearing full armor but has zero additional stats from runes, sigils, traits, etc. Then, I tweak the traits here and there, and, basically, my little mathematical GW2 machine pumps out numbers saying by how much I’m increasing my damage, relative to the original thief with full armor but zero additional stats. At one point, I stated that the amount of damage this build does, over the course of its lifetime, is equal to about 5.47 times the amount of damage a thief with full armor but no additional stat points (for the sake of simplicity, I’ll just call it a “base thief” for the rest of this comment), assuming that stats are the only things that change, and not enemy reactions, player reactions, etc, etc. Basically, I’m measuring the effects of changes in different stats, ceteris paribus (if you know what that means :P).

Following from that, my build turns out to amplify the amount of damage I can take by 2.38 times, and the amount that I can deal by 2.3 times. Multiply those together, and you get damage over lifetime, relative to the base thief. This value is 5.47, or 547% of the damage of the base thief. On a similar string of though, Jumper’s build increases lifetime damage by a factor of 526.8% relative to that same base thief.

Of course, this is just discussing stat points. This does not take into account whatsoever other factors like healing, init regeneration, boonstealing, etc. I prefer to write about that kind of stuff in other places, as things like those can sometimes be subject to some degree of bias, which it is my goal to eliminate. Hopefully that explains what I meant to you well enough. I know that I can be bad at explaining things sometimes. xD

Anywho, my original 10/0/0/30/30 build did actually run Inertia (you can see a few vids of me with it here. The thing about it is, for a lot of classes, applied vigor doesn’t often last particularly long, so it’s often hard to steal a significant enough amount of vigor to really do you any good. Also, because I have to be very specific about when I want to heal, I usually don’t keep up particularly good vigor uptime just from boonsteal and Bountiful Theft (btw, on a side note, Bountiful Theft is good because of the vigor, and all-around team boonsteal, and is especially good against boon-heavy builds- just check out my quadruple boonsteal combination). I mean, when I practice against golems, I’ve been able to increase my vigor uptime by a significant amount of time (hit about 1 min 45 secs when I was training on golems before a tourney today), but in practicality, you’ll typically not have vigor even nearly that long because of the timing on your heals. Personally, I’ve found that the evades are really good for holding points, which is my main objective. However, I’ll take your idea into consideration and try PoI a bit more soon. c:

Oh, and btw- quadruple boonsteal is far more common than you might think. Especially against HGH engineers and Shout Guardians. In their situations, the quadruple boonsteal combo is just… Absolutely godly, but it’s also necessary because- for example, with HGH- additional boons flowing in “buffer” the more important boons for you to steal, like Might, meaning that an opponent could potentially generate boons fast enough for you to be unable to steal the boons you really need to steal. BT, however, is a much safer boonsteal (insta-cast) that also provides team support, and allows you to get around the boon-buffering problem.

Hype.8032:

I’ll give this a shot some time. You should know that you selected assassin’s retreat rather than vigorous recovery though. Watching one of your videos it was pretty clear you didn’t have the dps to take down a guardian, that’s definitely a down side. This seems tankier and more meant for team fights.

Btw, your little public quarrel w/ jumper isn’t interesting to the rest of us.

First, thank you for reminding me of that trait. I had seen it and promised to change it, but I ended up forgetting after I didn’t know how to edit builds originally.

I find your other comments highly interesting. Of course, if we’re talking specifically about a bunker guardian, then it is true that it is difficult for me to take down that guard. That being said, the truth of the matter is that, at low levels, the marginal benefit of offensive stats tends to outweigh that of defensive stats. Bunkers are flawed in that they take so many defensive stats. However, they also make the opponent take more defensive stats than might otherwise be preferable as well, which gives them the slight advantage of essentially rendering your defensive stats useless. This is why zerker thieves are going to be better at taking down guards. This build is more designed to keep points contested, hold out until reinforcements arrive, or assist allies. This is not necessarily a soloist’s build, and I don’t personally believe that soloists are very good for team strategy. If that’s what you’re looking for, good for you; just swap the amulet and you’re set. Otherwise, though, know what you’re talking about before you speak.

And I didn’t mention anything about my quarrel with Jumper, and, as you said, what “quarrel” there is is minor. I made a joke relating to Jumper creating his own build guide, and your attempt to flame me for it is somewhat rude, to be quite frank. Not to mention quite childish and immature.

Here ya go m8. Sorry it took so long.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Finally-my-build-explained/first#post2502656

Not to be outdone by Jumper, I created a decent guide explaining my build and the ideas behind it over here. Check it out, if you’d like to see it.

swinsk.6410:

You have some dumb choices for traits.

jportell.2197:

Tier S

Thief S/D only Larcenous strike. For the utility of it and being unblockable the damage is a little on the insane side. A person with 3500 armor taking 4k damage from this is and losing all of their defensive boons is ridiculous. Damage reduction or making LS blockable would be a nice start. Or reduce the amount of time the thief has between using flanking strike and LS or interrupting FS makes it so they have to do FS over to get to the LS part of the chain.

This is a nice Halloween story with no basis in reality whatsoever.

LS doesn’t have a high enough coefficient to hit 4k whenever you use it, unless the thief is running so glassy that you’ll be able to 1-shot him or her anyways. It’d be like giving a guardian maximum offensive stats, seeing him do damage, then setting that to the standard for all guards (even bunkers) and thereby calling guards OP. If you don’t believe me, I can even do the calculations for you; I doubt that you understand the slightest inkling of the mathematics behind this game.

The time you already get to be able to use LS is very short- 5 seconds, which is extremely short when you pretty much have to be right on top of your opponent to use this skill, and even shorter when delaying, as a zerker thief, could very well get you killed.

If FS was interruptible, it would be rendered almost useless. It’d defeat the purpose of its being an evade entirely. Anyhow, FS hardly deals any damage (less than either of the first two attacks in the auto chain), so all you have to do to counter it is simply start attacking while your opponent is using FS, and the two cast times should occur close enough to one another in order for you to get the hit. This is how I’ve fought against many other S/D thieves, and I’ve had great success with it. You can afford to get hit by FS. LS is a different story, but it’s fairly telegraphed by thieves, and missing it can cause the majority of thieves absolute misery.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Maps should be rotated every hour. Or just constantly by a rng. It is laughable that this isn’t in the game.

Because who cares about strategy? Hell, what does it matter- every map’s the same, right?! The map doesn’t matter whatsoever.

Hell, let’s just make the map randomly change during tournament matches. That way we could actually see different maps.

Authority.6145:

S/D Thieves are going to dominate PAX.
S/D OP.

I’m going to cry if they’re Jumper specs. His build is just… I mean, I’ve seen worse, but it’s just non optimal. Entirely. It and most other meta builds based on ridiculous biases from both within and without the thief community that have absolutely no objective or factual basis whatsoever.

Is this a challenge?

I suddenly feel the urge to post a similar guide to my build on ItM. Well, I suppose I was due to do so eventually, anyhow.

vahn.3947:

hi guys
newborn thief here.. and i think this build interest me xD, could u guys give some opinion about it? mainly for PvE and WvW
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUmiPHdy5E+5EB3Dji0k69gsj1saFoJA-jQzAYLEc2gGpAZkWARiAoCIpwioxWwCS5LaVwwqZw0oER1ekioVLEwi1A-e
10/0/30/0/30
- Mug
- Infusion of Shadow , Cloaked in Shadow, Hidden Thief
- Thrill of Crime, Bountiful Theft, Sleight of Hand

with d/d and sb weapon..
:3

Hey,

Sorry it’s taken me a while to respond to this. As it turns out, I’m not much of a WvW thief myself, so I can’t give you much advice. However, from my limited degree of experience with the game mode, I have to say that I don’t particularly like this build. For one thing, its traits seem to focus around a 1v1 skirmisher, stealth-reliant playstyle. On the other hand, its gear would make it seem that the build relies on Leaping Death Blossom. Two very distinct goals, both of which are, if nothing else, decent. However, this build tries to hit two birds with one stone, and, in doing so, misses both of them; the build is very weak due to its lack of focus on a single aspect of play. It simply doesn’t mesh together very well with itself.

So, no, I don’t think that this is a particularly good build. Sorry.

EDIT: alright guys, I’m scrapping virtually every build here and starting anew. Gotta keep up with the meta here.

Liquid.5047:

love it! but is it posible to put all builds in your first post? and have some categories? ^^ PvE, PvP, WvW? would be great.

Yeah, I know. It’s a slow process right now. Mostly consisting of me having to find which builds still work and which don’t.

I used to have a ton of builds here. I’m gonna have to cut down on them and really select the best/most popular builds.

BTW, can anybody link me Yishi’s build? I don’t WvW any more, but I hear he’s a pretty famous WvW thief…

hooma.9642:

Arganthium.5638:

Really? I’ve written pages simply to give people advice on how to play against S/D S/D, my longest writeup being in an thread titled something like “Good S/D is not 3 Spam” a while back, over in the thief forums. I’ve written crazy amounts of material on the topic.

Honestly, if you or anybody else is worried about Jumper’s S/D S/D build being OP, or any other S/D build, just go to that thread. Granted, that doesn’t mean that S/D is inviable; there are always ways to patch up weaknesses in S/D. However, doing so often leaves other weaknesses in other places. The point is- the build isn’t perfect. In fact, I’d be willing to say that no build is perfect, or even has weaknesses that are difficult to spot.

Do your research, kids. And don’t forget to cite your sources. c:

nobody says its nr 3 spam. its evade spam throught different sources. nr3, heal and dodge.. and maybe that long cooldown stunbreakerthing that refills iniative.

if it isnt a problem and has weakspots, why u cant tell them in 2 maybe 3 sentences? its not possible mmh thats a indicator that the build is borderline or more.

Lucky for you, the thread covered all of those different things that you said as well.

Also, explaining why the build isn’t a problem isn’t something you can just do in 2-3 sentences. Anyhow, I’m not sure by what objective standard I should have to be able to describe the situation in such a small margin. It’s like saying that, if you can’t describe the economic problems of communist empires in 2-3 sentences, then those problems must not exist (or vice-versa, whatever you want to believe). It’s simply impossible to do- at least, to somebody that doesn’t have sufficient background knowledge to understand the situation, which, of course, would make the whole process of explanation pointless in the first place.

Really? I’ve written pages simply to give people advice on how to play against S/D S/D, my longest writeup being in an thread titled something like “Good S/D is not 3 Spam” a while back, over in the thief forums. I’ve written crazy amounts of material on the topic.

Honestly, if you or anybody else is worried about Jumper’s S/D S/D build being OP, or any other S/D build, just go to that thread. Granted, that doesn’t mean that S/D is inviable; there are always ways to patch up weaknesses in S/D. However, doing so often leaves other weaknesses in other places. The point is- the build isn’t perfect. In fact, I’d be willing to say that no build is perfect, or even has weaknesses that are difficult to spot.

Do your research, kids. And don’t forget to cite your sources. c:

While I agree that some passive stuff may be OP, I think that getting rid of passive benefits overall is an awful idea. Active benefits often supersede passive ones, with the drawback being the diversion of focus and/or other resources. Passive benefits give your character the ability to focus on what’s most important in a fight, rather than having to focus on every little bit and piece of the puzzle. This has become incredibly important to me. Because I have a decent array of passive benefits that my character is able to access, as well as a number of active benefits that I have been committing to muscle memory, I can now focus on positioning and territory much more with my S/D thief build than I ever could have done before. It’s one of the reasons that I disagree with Jumper; his playstyle focuses on having many active benefits while mine focuses on passive benefits. The difference is that he directly gains more from the active benefits in his 0/30/0/30/10 S/D build, but that focus causes him to have to sacrifice weapon options as well as time that could have been spent focusing on other intricate details of the battle. It’s funny how important the placement of a single Shadow Return is to the outcome of the entire fight, or a single immobilize can help you cap or decap a point.

Stealth.9324:

No you are not Sexy,though I will give you the other part.

Pfft, I have a holographic sword and a glow-in-the-dark dagger that’ll cut you to threads, with my special hat on top of my head sporting a sexy mixture of both black and red.

You have no idea.

^ done, keep the builds rolling in guys.

Ensign.2189:

When you see the sell price shoot up quickly without a similar change in the buy orders it’s usually because one (or a very small number) of people bought up a ton of stock at once; if a bunch of people were involved you’d see spikes on both the sell orders and buy orders.

The long tail of the price working its way back to where it was before the spike is similarly evidence that whoever did this proceeded to lose a lot of money. This is a speculator blowing himself up, nothing new here.

This is more what I was leaning towards. Of course, in this scenario, I’m sure whoever bought all of the dyes did lose quite a bit of money (mostly by overpricing the dyes even at monopolistic/oligopolistic levels), and that the monopoly/oligopoly couldn’t gather enough information about its consumers to find a more accurate pricing before the price of the dyes fell again due to newcomers entering the market after having seen the large potential profits within it.

Still, it concerns me that it is so easy to cause such a spike in price.

“spam 1”

Are you kidding me? Look, if you actually, truly believe that thieves can spam backstab, I have some lightly scorched underground property to sell you.

Yes, if only this actually happened in sPvP.

I think none of you are getting the point here. According to the numbers, demand hardly changed whatsoever. It did go up, certainly, given the higher value on buy offers, but only by a few silver. On the other hand, sell orders went up nearly fivefold. Somehow, in all of the rocks that you guys call brains, what happened is that demand went up significantly because of the new armor, and then went down after a few hours. And yet, the fact of the matter is that buy offers went up by so little, that this explanation is not only ridiculous, but it reflects an absolute abyss in place of what could have been even the slightest amount of economic knowledge. It’s getting hilarious, really. Somehow, in all of your minds, you are convinced that it could not have possibly been one person buying up the majority of the dyes; that’s just absolutely impossible. And yet, somehow, it’s as if all of the sellers were controlled by some kind of Hivemind that told them all to increase prices significantly while the buyers’ offers hardly went up, in some sort of massive unconscious cartel agreement.

It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense whatsoever.

Astraea.6075:

It’s a completely legitimate explanation. If you’re an experienced flipper, you may have seen similar patterns with other markets (just not to the same degree). I’d guess that the main reason why buy orders didn’t shifts upwards as much as you might expect with other markets is that I suspect most flippers avoid the dye markets due to a lower volume of transactions.

That is, there’s a run on white dyes as everyone receives their first radiant skin, but due to a lower number of traders flipping dyes (in comparison to other markets), there isn’t a corresponding rush of traders bidding up the buy price in an attempt to capitalize on the changing market. I’m not 100% sure that this is what happened, but it’s a plausible explanation.

This is completely and horrendously wrong.

It’s funny you mentioned flipping in the dye markets- ironically, that’s the exact market in which I flip. It’s also the reason why I saw that the price of Icing Dye had skyrocketed. But anyways, flippers don’t shift market prices up- in fact, they shift them down. The idea behind flipping is to overcut and then undercut- buy something slightly higher than the highest bidder, and sell it slightly lower than the lowest seller. Except that when people undercut one another, the people above them realize that they’re not going to make any profits once their sell order is buried under 5000 more, so they take their items off the market and put them back on at a lower price. This slowly lowers the price of an item to where it should be with taxes, while raising the buy orders in a similar fashion. What this does not do is raise both the selling price and the buying price.

Furthermore, prices don’t just magically rise while demand stays the same, but that’s what apparently happened here. Now, it’s possible that, via some statistical fluke, the number of Icing Dyes being dropped suddenly fell to such a degree that the price was much higher, but the Law of Large Numbers basically ensures that that isn’t what happened. This is why your explanation is implausible. It requires prices to rise by a significant amount while demand stays the same. Looking at any set of microeconomic graphs displaying this market, the only likely explanation would be that the demand went from being highly elastic on average to being highly inelastic on average, which would happen if the number of sellers in the market dropped significantly, or if one seller controlled so much of the market that he/she essentially became an outlier that dragged the average up significantly.

Heya,

The 10/0/0/30/30 build that you have posted under my name under there, while reflecting the majority of my trait choices, isn’t my build. You can give yourself credit for it.

I’d say that 10/0/0/30/30 builds are one of my specialties, though I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself the father of a certain string of builds.

Unlike other people out there. You guys know who I’m talking about.

EDIT: I should also say that I’m trying to find the time to write about my build on this thread, as you suggested. I’m just waiting to get over my current “oh-it’s-summer-time-to-be-lazy” mood.

Stealth.9324:

DarthDragonVanquisher.6912:

Deku-God is the king of all spirit rangers! I’m still really interested in joining a team or making one.. At rank 80 on the NA Leaderboards atm.. Hey Kaane! maybe someday hahaha

Boom for awesome player <3.. Maybe you could teach me to play a Thief. I suk hard at thief LoL.

STEALTH. I promised you I’d get a Twitch! And see?!

Bump because we’re awesome, and I’m sexy.

Extremely strong engi here, got to play with him for the GW2 Community eSports night tonight. Fits very well into just about any team. Seriously, this guy is a star waiting to get his time in the spotlight.

Please pick him up, you’d be extremely lucky to have this guy on your team.

Curo.2483:

The lowest sell order went up because people bought up all the lower sell orders before they could naturally be replaced. This is due to increased demand (from radiant vambrace users). Simple.

Which is why the highest buy offer only went up a few silver while the lowest sell offer went up nearly five fold.

Seems legit.

Aratoa.7398:

wish.1027:

x/x/x/30/x
Then get the traits for regen 2 ini every 10 seconds, and gain 3 ini on weapon swap, and run dual S/D. Beyond that you’ll have to decide your own traits, but for DPS, Executioner in the Critical Strikes line is going to be best.

And dont listen to people who say Soldiers gear is bad. Soldiers in correct slots (like Hat/Body/Legs) with Berserker everything else is mathematically superior for DPS and Defense compared to Valkyrie mixed with Berserkers.

Big Tower.5423:

Dont go solider armor get valkyrie armor, you loose very much dps by going pvt (loss of critdamage, which is the main dps factor)

Like this guy…

Do you have a link to the math? or the math itself?

It’s extremely complicated for WvW, but I could give you a brief overview of how it works. If you’re interested, just PM me.

Big Tower.5423:

Dont go solider armor get valkyrie armor, you loose very much dps by going pvt (loss of critdamage, which is the main dps factor) go valkyrie armor rest berserker, almost all builds uses this combo. becuse its super effecient at thief.

If you haven’t done the math, then don’t speak out about which stats are better than others.

I just love how everybody has interpreted a picture I put up on the forums for a bit of a laugh as being some kind of taboo QQ’ing session.

Velron.3729:

Lol so many angry people.

I laughed as soon as I opened thread and saw the pic, thanks.

This guy gets it.

Shalla.3967:

It’s funny cause they’re three, and you’re one, and you expect to have a chance.

This was in solo queue; I wasn’t exactly going against professionals.

I should also mention that I didn’t know that three opponents would be on/near point when I got to mid.

But anyways, my build allows for me to fight within a 1v2 capacity on-point fairly easily, although it’s difficult/impossible for me to win a 1v2, ultimately. Of course, there are a lot of variations that could allow me to win, but… In general, I’m not going to win. Eventually, I’ll just have to retreat.

1v3 isn’t much different, except that at that point the odds become so heavily imbalanced in my enemies’ favor that I have to be extremely careful. I have to create an easy retreat option once I enter the battle.

Apart from that, 1v3 is mostly only different in that my enemies are highly congested, making each deal less damage on average but dealing more total damage than a 1v2.

But no, I did not come expecting to win. I came to the point expecting to delay my opponents significantly.

EDIT: I should also mention that I run Soldier’s ammie, which has caused me to be the subject of much criticism, but does allow me to 1v2 and occasionally 1v3, especially with evasion.

vicious.5683:

Arganthium.5638:

vicious.5683:

What a bunch of qqers.
Just dodge in and all those marks will disappear.

Normally I would, but given the wide range of those marks, there’s no way that I could evade past all of them. I’d still be hit by at least one or two of them once I landed, and possibly even three.

But if you’d like to show us a video of yourself dodge rolling through seven marks spanning that distance, please, be my guest.

You can wait some seconds for the rest to disappear.
Two necros put those marks, why you think it should be easy to stay unharmed?

I didn’t say this. What I was responding to was simply the volume of marks, which I found amusing (and caused a bunch of people to suddenly spit out random insults at me about QQ’ing and whatnot). I found the picture amusing, and for that people in this community want to behead me. Yet again.

On the other hand, the guy I was replying to did seem to believe that you could simply go through the marks unharmed.

DanPowers.1096:

Turn around, spam 3 and dodge roll backwards. Then begins the real challenge of winning that 3v1

Actually, if you look closely, there are four.

Either way, if I did that, I certainly wouldn’t get through all of the marks. I’d still be hit by some of them, severely crippling me (in both senses of the word), and I’d have used up some of my CD’s. All so that I could get melted on the other side.

I can 1v2 fairly easily, but at 1v3… Well, you know how it is.

EDIT: nevermind there are only three. It’s been a long and rough day, and I’m tired.

vicious.5683:

What a bunch of qqers.
Just dodge in and all those marks will disappear.

Normally I would, but given the wide range of those marks, there’s no way that I could evade past all of them. I’d still be hit by at least one or two of them once I landed, and possibly even three.

But if you’d like to show us a video of yourself dodge rolling through seven marks spanning that distance, please, be my guest.