Guild Wars 2

Travlane.5948:

yea …math can prove a photoshopper wrong. like the guy claiming 18k BS’s in spvp/tpvp. its not possible. math can prove it/ him wrong. idk what ur talking about as i showed pics of me doing 28.5k against a fully armored warrior :P videos of 18.5k agianst a fully toughnessed armored engi. :P mine are authentic. what i said is if somebody photoshops all you have to do is math and can figure it wrong or right if its a full picture.

Yes, and, in this case, contrary to what you said, it is right, or at least possible. But you said that it wasn’t.

For example, if you have 3000 extra power, flanking strikes, 110% additional crit damage, Executioner active, Nightmare sigils active, Flanking Strikes active, Ogre Runes, and are hitting a player who is naked (meaning that they have the base 916 toughness), then you hit an average of 27.5k on a critical hit.

Travlane.5948:

pffft. lame. i dont get the point of that stuff. just seems silly. pure math can prove em wrong.

Nope, it’s possible. Obviously you don’t know the math whatsoever.

It’s just extremely difficult to pull off, costs a lot of money, requires a practically naked friend, tons of buffs via stuff like Flanking Strikes, Night Sigils, etc., extremely high crit damage, Hidden Killer, and a bunch of other stuff that makes this impossible to occur in practicality.

Alex Behemoth.4952:

So how many Karka Shells do you have? I have 13k

I quit. I give up.

This.

Just.

I can’t even.

… Geez.

ChaosDoom.8459:

Thanks for the feedback. Just one question (I am a new thief), when you combo stealth (Black Powder + HS). Does your HS consider an stealth attack, meaning after executing HS you will be revealed? If so, crit chance will not be important as Hidden Killer ensure you 100% crit chance while stealth.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Here’s how it works.

The combo applies only after the entire animation has finished, meaning that you don’t gain stealth until you deal the HS damage (assuming you deal HS damage). This means that if you’re visible and use HS+BP, then you’re going to go into stealth, assuming that you don’t have revealed. However, if you use this combo and hit something while stealthed, then the Revealed hits you, and the combo tries to apply but fails because you are immune to stealth as the result of Revealed.

Again, it is true that crit chance is not nearly as important as power and crit damage with Hidden Killer, but I would advise that you look more into other options. For example, with your build, you could always ditch the signets traits (which I would advise, they’re pretty kitten bad, particularly in PvP and WvW) and replace them with Side Strike and Practiced Tolerance, then grab Executioner instead of Hidden Killer. The result? Well, your Backstabs will be significantly less powerful on average, that is true. However, all of your other attacks will increase in power because of your very high crit chance and, of course, Executioner, which, with your Crit damage, increases your damage on crits by the equivalent of more than another 50% crit damage, and, of course, the damage on non-crits by 20%. Remember, though, that this is only when your opponent has <50% health (which isn’t actually that difficult to find given that there are so many enemies in WvW, it’s not hard to find one with <50% health on them). So it’s a tradeoff. However, it is also my suggestion.

Personally, I despise crits anyways, so I wouldn’t even run the build. Still, since I’m certain you’re determined to play this build, this might be what I would suggest to you.

But anyways, yes, with HKiller, crit damage and power are more important than crit chance.

Some of the responses here are just dreadful.

People suffer from the mass delusion that the thief needs to revolve around crits and power. This is only true in one situation: BS GC builds that focus on BS for practically all of their damage, and, furthermore, run Hidden Killer. In that case, run maximum Power and Crit Damage; any additional precision is just redundant, unless you’re planning on backing up your BS with your auto, HS, etc.

That aside, however, precision and crit damage are just stupid. For example, I can guarantee you that the people commenting here don’t know that the damage amplification resulting from 2000 additional precision and 60% additional critical damage is actually less than the damage amplification coming from 1000 power. It’s just stupid, really. Furthermore, the damage soakup that can come from additional vitality and toughness that is missed out in these builds is huge. For example, going by Woaden’s suggestions (which would be the equivalent of an additional 1084 power, 1084 precs, 60% crit damage, 184 toughness, and 384 vitality), the amount by which you’ve amplified your damage is actually over twice as much as the amount by which you’ve amplified your direct damage absorption. In WvW, this is a bad idea as you often have to take damage from a large variety of sources, while your damage is distributed among a wide variety of sources; you have to focus on single-target damage and run with zeros to make up for this. In PvE, you take damage from a huge number of sources as well, as the result of mobs; to be able to kill them, you have to be able to avoid the majority of damage dealt by mobs, or, failing that, be able to heal it off. In PvP, you have to stay with your team at all times, because getting 2v1’d is almost certain death. This hurts you because it means that you can’t use your thief’s mobility to the fullest extent that you can.

These hyper-aggressive delusions are a large part of the reason why many thieves are simply ineffective in PvP, PvE, and WvW; the relative damage that they take is greater than the relative damage they deal, and they go down, at which point it’s essentially GG.

Cynrain.6245:

You guys are awesome :] thank you so much…yea i’m not really buying the 17k crits, but i really do enjoy the sig burst burst…lots of fun but i’m sick of being one shotted by trebuchet’s -.- i think the one i’ve settled down on is a 20 30 20 0 0 build. Hidden killer is just awesome…i run around daggerdagger popping in and out of stealth heartseeking anything i can get my grubby paws on. i win all 1v1’s so far with it…except when their friends come to save their sorry kitten ’s but other than that i roam around looking for the sorry folks who decided to roam alone. not good to do in a match against me. i suppose i’m the reason for zerging but with that being said i don’t really know why people get mad about it.. easy counter zerg…go cap the other two points they aren’t at…game over. Now to get back on topic i like my build cause it doesn’t leave me quite so squishy, while still being satisfied with lots of crits ranging from about (mostly) 1k to 2k but they happen fast enough, i feel like literally strike after strike of my basic attacks, i do my best to stay behind the enemy or at the very least the side that i can pop into a fire fight, take someone out and then quickly jump back out w/o anyone noticing what happened to their buddy. Strong enough to still take out ppl quickly, mobile enough to get away if two or three of his buddy’s try to intervene. Man i love that Hidden Killer rune. It’s pretty dirty :p just sayin.

The 17k crits aren’t anything you have to worry about, believe me. just a mathematical anomaly.

Anyhow, if you wouldn’t mind, could you share your build? I can help give you a bit of a more mathematical perspective on how to improve it, if you’d like.

EDIT: I should say- your build in its totality, rather than just the basic overlay.

Aquin.3192:

I think you and skyro would get along with your spreadsheets… hes also good with math homework… maybe you should join the group.

Math was always my best-est subject.

Nah, I don’t think they want me, my rank just isn’t high enough (yet!). Still though, I’m sure that we could have some interesting conversations on the mathematics of this game.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Warrior is fine long as you build the comp for it. Did it and beat some of the best teams for the 1 day we were a team. Maybe even have the VODs handy to back up my claims.

Warrior is given way too much crap for some things that it lacks (which it does lack a few things). However, running the math past a few spreadsheets of mine, I found that warriors, just by the nature of their starting statistical distribution, have an automatic 13.46% decrease in damage done to them relative to my base thief stats (I compare things to the thief because that’s the class that I have the most experience with). Furthermore, the health increase is just stupid- warrs get the equivalent of an automatic 756.7 points of vitality, which basically soaks up damage and conditions as much as the warrior needs, in all honesty. And this is just the base stat distribution, too. I found Valkyrie amulets to be extremely beneficial; I didn’t want to add any gear that increased vitality (which would soak up more damage than I dealt) so that I could maintain the strength of my heals. Just with that, I found that the warrior soaks up 44.6% more damage than my base thief stats. On my build, the warrior soaks up 5.2% more damage in terms of defense (still), just with base stats and the amulet. None of this includes runes, traits, or utilities.

The major weaknesses with warriors, then, must arise in other areas of influence, as they clearly have a far superior statistical distribution.

Maketso.5602:

TsukiNoEi.4570:

What’s the point of the most powerful BS…?
even you can to 20k BS, you won’t be able to take down a Guardian…

I give up trying to be an BS Assassin.
It’s much better to use S/D to stay in a longer battle

Umm….go play a Guardian and see if you get over 20k HP comfortably with other stats.

/lol’d

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARSlUgyCXFyvDfIFRuAbBYPwI8741DHSRGC-TgAA1CtIQShkDJDSSksIB

Fits snugly, just copied the Paragon build and put it in PvP, with PvP gear. It’s actually extremely easy because vitality typically soaks up damage better than toughness. The only issue is that vitality also shores up how much healing pulls off, so I never, ever suggest pulling extremely high vitality.

With toughness, the build shores up the equivalent of 31,442 damage, relative to base.

Also, here are the extra gains in your skill-specific coefficients depending on which option you choose:

Power:
BS increases by a factor of .39, increasing from 2.4 to 2.79 (assuming it hits the back).

Precision:
Auto, in its totality, increases by a factor of .0816, from 2.72 to 2.8016.

HS (weak) increases by a factor of .031, from 1 to 1.031.

HS (mid) increases by a factor of .0465 from 1.5 to 1.5465.

HS (strong) increases by .062, from 2 to 2.062.

Shadow Shot increases by .03875, from 1.25 to 1.28875.

ChaosDoom.8459:

Thanks guys for your advice. Any advice on my current build?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUmaNXcS5E/5Ex2DfKUiy9wpJtpaFuJA-jkyAYLI81QGJKAEIEqg0Y6rIasVwioxqYwUmER1ujioVLFQEjBA-w

Change the utility to MastMaint Oil; your crit damage is so ridiculously high that you actually gain more from increasing precision than from increasing power. Unless you’re planning on sticking solely to BS, which I’m not sure I’d advise, necessarily. Furthermore, if you’re planning on dealing more overall damage (but less damage on BS), then I would further advice Curry Butternut Squash Soup as opposed to your current Sweet and Spicy choice.

The difference all depends on just how often you’re going to BS. If you BS a ton relative to the other attacks that you do, then I would suggest additional precision because of your extremely high crit damage.

By increasing your precs in this manner, you increase your total damage output by 3.1% (not including BS) more overall than you would if you had added the toughness, but that’s on non-BS’s. On BS’s, you would amplify the damage on your BS’s by 16.25% more if you took the power over the precision. So it depends on what you think you’re going to do more, BS or other attacks. Also, the other utility and food (the oil and the curry) cost less than do your current food and utility, so you might want to consider that as well.

randomfightfan.4091:

Incurafy.6329:

Knobby.4078:

Was doing this in some spvp server with a friend the other day, highest i got was a few 18.5k hits so i would imagine higher is possible in wvw.

No you didn’t, don’t lie, we’re not idiots.

I can hit 30k backstabs easy in pvp, don’t get mad. All I need to do is get 20+ might stacks, have a couple warriors omm the target, make sure the target stripped all armor, have assassin’s signet activated, wear scholar runes, have the guy already bellow 50%, and w/e other factor you need before achieving max damage.

Like 1377 additional power and 50% increased critical damage. On a critical hit.

randomfightfan.4091:

Scholar runes op.

Well. Only when you have over 90% health.

Knobby.4078:

Was doing this in some spvp server with a friend the other day, highest i got was a few 18.5k hits so i would imagine higher is possible in wvw.

Again: completely impractical, virtually impossible.

evilapprentice.6379:

Go on, take a break from the forums. Try to have fun in this horribly balanced BS game that’s so obviously run by the stealth abusing FS spamming thief Illuminati of your worst nightmares.

Made my day.

FS was not overbuffed. FS has a coefficient of .75 and LS has a coefficient of 1.5. FS is required to pull off LS. The total maximum coefficient possible is thus 2.25, which, may I remind you, costs 4 initiative, and both skills require half a second to happen, giving you plenty of time to evade or block, or counterstrike. Furthermore, LS is essentially the Sword equivalent of CnD; it has an extremely similar animation and requires a very close distance that shouts “hey, imma use my LS now, be ready!”. Also, as mentioned by Jumper and Markus, it’s one of the main skills on the bar, meaning that we have a lot of the skills on our bar restricted to us, like Dancing Dagger (which is usable, but only in specific situations), and CnD (which is just stupid to use, in all honesty).

The skill was not overbuffed. One has good range but a sucky coefficient, and the other has a decent coefficient (equal to a mid-damage HS) but a sucky range, and requires the first skill to be used.

Overbuffed? Uh, no.

EDIT: also, LS is a hard counter to boons. Don’t like it? Don’t run boons. It’s that simple. You might as well complain that necros should be nerfed because they ruin your stack of boons with Corrupt Boons. That’s not a requirement for a nerf, that’s just a requirement for you to change your play style.

AikijinX.6258:

Arganthium.5638:

Some guy said that he pulled a 34k backstab on his friend in WvW yesterday… Then again, he was the guy that said that he also managed to pull a 17k CnD… Which, while apparently possible, is highly unlikely and extremely impractical, and requires a special set of prior conditions.

He would have needed to have 25 stacks of vulnerability on his target, while the target was below 50% Hp, either had runes of ogre scholar, ruby orbs, or rune of infiltration, with signet of power proc’d to gain might and venomous strength trait, with assassin signet of course, maybe just maybe agility signet, for extra 5 stacks of might. With 25 stacks if bloodlust, and sigil of force, or sigil or impact. (Basilick venom is a stun, so 10%extra damage on knockdown or stunned targets from sigil of impact) so many factors had to play a role in this. Oh yes. And the target had to be Lvl 30 or below.

I know, I basically explained that to the guys over in the PvP forum.

Either way, I don’t think anybody needs to worry about getting 17k’d by a CnD any time soon. :P

Well, first of all, I never go LFG’ing specifically for a tPvP group, unless I just played a match with some people and they want to party up with me. I just join solo roster and play, which, statistically speaking, should make your leaderboard ranking a bit more of an accurate indicator of your performance level.

Furthermore, if you want to improve your solo playstyle, then there are a variety of ways to do that. For example, as a thief, I theorycraft. A lot. I develop all of my builds from scratch; the only thing that I might take from other builds, occasionally, is an idea or two, here or there. Otherwise, when I’m not playing, I like to sit at my computer and punch in numbers into an Excel spreadsheet that I have developed for my thief. That being said, you don’t need to be a theorycrafter yourself. Just go to your profession-specific forum, and find a build that works for you. Then, try out other professions so that you know how to counter them.

As a final resort, you can always directly contact one of the top players in a given forum to ask them for advice on something. If you main a thief, for example, you could try to contact me (you could also try contacting one of a few others, but… They aren’t as often available as I am). If you main a mes, you could go contact Pyroatheist, Osicat, or Chaos Archangel. You get the idea.

Hope that helps.

By the way- with PuG (aka solo roster)- it’s certainly not impossible to win more than lose. Ever since I started getting into tPvP, my tournament record has been shooting upwards as I get continuously more wins than losses, mostly because I develop very tPvP-oriented thief builds, which give me the opportunity to perform all the functions that a team needs you to pull off. Also, prior to a PuG match, just make a very brief outline of a strategy, such as “ok, I’m going to go between the mid and far points”, and get all of your teammates to try and dedicate themselves to some two points as well. If nothing else, this at least gives them a feeling of dedication to the point(s) they are assigned, which is extremely helpful given that you probably don’t want 3 people capturing the near point when there aren’t any enemies within 3000 units of you.

Some guy said that he pulled a 34k backstab on his friend in WvW yesterday… Then again, he was the guy that said that he also managed to pull a 17k CnD… Which, while apparently possible, is highly unlikely and extremely impractical, and requires a special set of prior conditions.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Arganthium.5638:

Still looking for a team guys (it feels like it’s been forever at this point)… Nobody wants this thief?

Or…you can start looking for members for team Arganthium! haha just a thought, but I know any teams recruiting I’ll send them your info.

I have been, actually. However, I can’t guarantee the commitment of any of the people who are currently on the roster for my possible team. Two of them already seem to have dropped out. thanks though, and I’ll keep searching.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Arganthium.5638:

Ross Biddle.2367:

GuardianOMS.8067:

Have mesmers use/chain Moa Morph > burst him down

Use a lot of CC, like guardian weapon skills.

Place stealth traps in front of each gate.

zerorogue.9410:

Stealth traps? Apparently no one wanted to use them. The idea was floated in the chat but no one bothered to buy any.

Isn’t that your problem then? ANet has literally given you something to help in a situation and your server refused to use it. I have no pity for you guys despite agreeing that it should tap more than tap to contest a wp.

Going into stealth costs nothing. Traps cost 15 badges (and do hold some value). In the time it’d take to kill the thief, for him to respawn, and hike it back from the WP to his intended target, the WP he’s contesting will not have dropped its swords.

Yeah…

… Which is why you then bunker down, drop some ranger traps, send out some scouts, and murder every rabbit that comes within 100 yards of your keep.

And then watch as you still can’t actually stop them from reaching the gate, you can only maybe stop them from getting away afterwards. Which they are unlikely to care about. And then they’ll be back by the time the swords run out again.

If that’s the case, then any profession could just run up to some gates, hit them, get killed, and then run back. The only difference is that they could do it with more range. A ranger could do it from 3000 units away. A mes could use clones to distract NPCs and then hit the gate, all while teleporting around traps and juking you out. A guard could just bunker his way through damage up to the gates. An ele could RTL/Lightning Flash/Mist Form/Earth Armor/Swiftness his way right up to the gates. So this isn’t an issue about thieves, then, it’s about players being too incompetent to stop somebody from touching a gate. Which is extremely easy to do, particularly when you know where they’re going anyways.

Ross Biddle.2367:

GuardianOMS.8067:

Have mesmers use/chain Moa Morph > burst him down

Use a lot of CC, like guardian weapon skills.

Place stealth traps in front of each gate.

zerorogue.9410:

Stealth traps? Apparently no one wanted to use them. The idea was floated in the chat but no one bothered to buy any.

Isn’t that your problem then? ANet has literally given you something to help in a situation and your server refused to use it. I have no pity for you guys despite agreeing that it should tap more than tap to contest a wp.

Going into stealth costs nothing. Traps cost 15 badges (and do hold some value). In the time it’d take to kill the thief, for him to respawn, and hike it back from the WP to his intended target, the WP he’s contesting will not have dropped its swords.

Yeah…

… Which is why you then bunker down, drop some ranger traps, send out some scouts, and murder every rabbit that comes within 100 yards of your keep.

Behellagh.1468:

EDIT: it is true that, if the jackpot is high enough, you can, theoretically, earn more money than you spent, but no rational person is going to sponsor a lottery like that.

Well …

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/massachusetts-lottery-loophole-closed-investors-win-big/story?id=14213887#.Uab4bkCsiSo

Haha what the kitten did I just see

Oh my goodness. xD

Sadly, this doesn’t pop up often enough for the more mathematically inclined of us to be able to take advantage of (that, or we just don’t realize it). Still an interesting story, though.

Still looking for a team guys (it feels like it’s been forever at this point)… Nobody wants this thief?

bomber.1540:

@arganthium, I wouldn’t take any notice of helly regarding those numbers.. we are all experienced enough with a thief to know that just doesn’t happen.

Apparently, it can happen (in theory), but the fact of the matter is that it’s impossible unless there are extremely special circumstances. As in “my character is running completely naked around the battlefield”-type circumstances, and on a pure glass (as in 100% glass, no exceptions) thief with approximately 5000 power (the highest I could pull it up to on the GW2 build editor) with 113% crit damage, Executioner active, Nightmare sigil active, 25 stacks of bloodlust, 25 stacks of might, the Ogre Rune 4% damage buff active, the Dagger Training buff active, with the weapon coefficient as high as possible (I suppose it could be slightly lower, but not much lower)=. It certainly couldn’t be the standard average 952.5), and on a critical strike, of course. Even then, the damage just barely reaches over 17k- 17.1k, as a matter of fact. Since every profession has 916 base toughness at level 80, this further means that the person getting hit couldn’t have been wearing more than… Well, a loincloth, essentially.

Either way, I think we can thoroughly conclude that under normal circumstances, this damage is impossible to achieve, so in that regard you are correct. But apparently it’s theoretically possible… Not the kind of thing you have to worry about in battle though.

Oh, and this is only in WvW. Anywhere else, it’s impossible.

randomfightfan.4091:

Legit surprised you don’t have any of my thief pve content in there.

He has a good point. I respect RFF for being one of the few (only?) good PvE thieves that I know.

If you’re going to talk PvE/dungeons at all, or include guides on the subject, you simply can’t skip over RFF.

Mystic.5934:

Lisa.6102:

silly silly you.

I want to win the lotto too, but buying more tickets doesn’t guarantee that win.

I guess you can thank yourself luck that you only used pretend money and weren’t so foolish that real $$ weren’t tossed into the wind

actually, most lotteries you can, technically, buy enough tickets that it guarantees a win.
However, I know that most lotteries also require payment in cash and you can only buy them at most like 10 at a time, so it’s rather tricky to actually buy enough to guarantee a win.
odds of winning Mega Millions is currently about 1 in 175,711,535
so you would have to buy 175,711,535 unique tickets (gl keeping track of that)
if the jackpot is high enough, you would be guaranteed to make a profit.

Anet’s gamble-in-a-box is NOT like most lotteries, though. each open is a roll of the dice, where it is possible to lose 175,711,535 times in a row

Nope.

Lotteries are designed so that, from a probabilistic point of view, you always lose money. For example, if I held a lottery where the probability of winning the jackpot was 1/10 and the probability of winning the second prize was 1/5, and, furthermore, the jackpot was 5$ and the second prize was $2, and, finally, each ticket costed 1.50$, I would make

(.7)(1.5)-(.1)(5)-.2(2) = 1.05 – .5 – .4 = .15, or 15 cents per ticket bought on average. Buy a million tickets, and I’ve just made $150,000 off of you, on average.

This is how casinos, lotteries, etc. survive: by intentionally “rigging” the game against the player so that it is statistically in favor of the casino or lottery.

EDIT: it is true that, if the jackpot is high enough, you can, theoretically, earn more money than you spent, but no rational person is going to sponsor a lottery like that.

Gaiyeerishima Cat.1082:

Sure, I can do that. I don’t really want to pull up all my trading post records, but I got a ton of passiflora/fruits/karka shells obviously, 2 minis that were 17g each, 1 mini worth 3g, a couple tiki masks and shark/consortium skins that were pretty worthless. Altogether it was worth maybe 70g? I used that money to buy some more crates. Oh, and two single use mobile crafting station and a single use mobile mystic forge.

Oh my god.

Now I really don’t pity you whatsoever.

Softspoken.2410:

So I probably shouldn’t snark at this but:

Crawford.4135:

When using [Infiltrator’s Strike] to an ememy/mob the [Shadow Return] ‘buff’ on the buff bar disappears randomly – thus not allowing the Thief to “return to original location” the [Infiltrator’s Strike] was first laid down at. This has been a problem since BETA, and it is still a problem.

Is a pretty vague and unhelpful bug report. I’m more interested in how someone can apparently use Infiltrator’s Strike multiple times without using Shadow Return or waiting for it to expire.

Essentially, Craw is trying to say that there is a bug that happens on the Sword (although, admittedly, I’m not quite sure how it triggers, personally speaking) that, when you use Infi Strike, you teleport in the general direction of the enemy but Shadow Return doesn’t pop up, it just resets back to Infi Strike as if nothing had ever happened.

Essentially, it looks like

Infi Strike → Teleport → Automatic 15 seconds pass on sword in no time whatsoever → Infi Strike pops up again right after you’ve teleported

Helly.2597:

17k CnD

That’s hardly possible. I calculated the glassiest gear on a thief with the glassiest possible traits… I mean, seriously. All of the gear is Ascended zerker. The weapons are Zerker. The traits are 30/30/x/x/x. I mean… When I finally did all the calculations- and this is given certain other circumstances, i.e. at night, a critical hit, that the weapon hits akittens maximum possible power, etc- the maximum amount of damage CnD can do is just barely 17.1k. Oh, and this was on somebody with 1000 defense (toughness + armor).

Are you sure you actually managed to pull this off?

Lokheit.7943:

Arale.4207:

As a phantasm mesmer, the typical glassy gank thief is easy bags for me, but have you tried a P/D Rabid Thief? Out of all the thief builds I’ve faced, that one gives me the most trouble by FAR. Good direct damage, great condition damage, and fairly tough. Seeing such a thief in action played by a good player was rather awe inspiring.

I think you meant Carrion instead of Rabid? Rabid is pure mathematical garbage on a condition Thief (and on most classes except very specific builds). The total damage (direct+condition) on Carrion even if you’re getting Sigils to bleed on crits (and in other professions traits for the same effect) is faaaaaaaar superior to Rabid. And defensively with Thief being low tier HP it’s good too specially to resist ocasinal bursts when they CC you.

I actually just checked out the math for this on my thief Excel worksheet (which I just managed to get a lot of work done on… Thank goodness for that -.-)… I was actually really surprised to find out the damage deficiencies that rabid has compared to carrion. Actually, it’s completely ridiculous, unless you have unrealistically high crit damage %.

Of course, there’s the vitality versus toughness debate too, which complicates things a bit more, but I’d have to maintain that carrion is actually far superior to rabid. Interesting.

Also, I’m gonna start separating the guide into three sections, with heavy damage on top, mid-damage, and then low damage on the bottom.

Yachiru.5684:

Bump… Just posted a new build if anyone wants.

Damage / Survivability Build – http://philz.cc/13iy1vo

Editing now.

Yes, it can work.

I never, EVER run SRefuge, because it Reveals you so easily and generally just sits on your bar doing nothing.

Stardrift.7360:

Why do people feel the need to insult an honest guy who started a topic to learn? In my opinion someone as (over)confident as you is (over)compensating. You NEVER lost a 1v1? I bet you lost more than you can remember so you decided just to roll with the zerg so you can maintain that warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment. I got all that from your implying that D/P and D/D lack tactical value while S/D (that`s all that`s left) is superior. But most people agree that while FS – LS might be decent at best the auto attack chain is simply horrible. It`s a zerg weapon set where you can sword skill 2 someone vulnerable and return back to your team mates.

First of all, I’d like to say that Ex is trying to learn, but all I see in his post is a flat-out attack on the D/P and D/D specs that doesn’t suggest that he wants to learn, but that he’s just trying to stir up an argument about the two specs. Sure, at the end of his post he adds something about a vid, but everything beforehand was just “WTF D/P AND D/D ARE SOOO BAD LIEK SERIOUZLY GUYZ”, and that’s what I was replying to. Typically, what I think of when I think of a post that wants to learn about these two weaponsets does not include commentary that the two weaponsets are awful for the majority of the OP. To me, it doesn’t make sense to say “omg these weaponsets are horrible” and then say “can somebody give me a video tutorial for these weapon sets?”- it just seems contradictory to look for a tutorial on something that you think is bad. Thus, my comment wasn’t directed to Ex’s desire (?) to learn, but rather at his rant-like post that was absolutely meaningless, apparently.

Now, I never said, personally, that I always win 1v1s. I don’t claim that this is the case, and I’m not going to, because it’s simply not true. I’m not trying to be overconfident here (although perhaps that’s how you interpreted my reply), I’m simply responding that if you’re going to call a weaponset terrible and then ask for a tutorial on how to use it, that either you’re going a bit crazy or you just need to L2P. Obviously the weaponset can’t be that bad if you want to learn how to use it.

Furthermore, I never even used the word “tactics” or “tactical” in my post, so any interpretation of my saying that the two weaponsets lack value because they’re tactically worthless is on you, not me. I will say, however, that I’ve never like D/D, and D/P isn’t very good for PvP, IMO. However, S/D does have the advantage of being a very stealth-less build, making it good for fighting on points. Furthermore, what “most people agree on” isn’t what I agree on. Personally, I feel that a very large proportion of the thief community is mistaken in that they play overly aggressive builds that lack the sustainability required to carry out a proper fight. For example, on last night’s “Revealed” podcast, I asked the two speaker, Jumper and Markus (if that’s who it was, can’t remember his name, exactly) how necessary 30 points in CS is. Both replied that it’s essentially the only source from which thieves get their damage. I, for one, however, disagree with their idea, for reasons that I can explain in a later post. The point is, though, that just because the “majority” of the thief community thinks that the Sword auto is horrible (which is actually something that I haven’t seen the community believe in myself, but I’ll take your word for it), I don’t think that the auto is bad at all. For example, people neglect to mention that the chain, overall, scales better with power than does the dagger auto (the entire sword auto attack has a coefficient of 2.9, whereas the entire dagger auto has a coefficient of 2.82, but only if both strikes on Double Strike hit). Of course, you could argue that the sword auto chain has longer animations, however, the issue is that the shorter animations on the dagger auto make it much more easy to miss on dagger than on sword, and if you miss even once then the total damage reduction that will result from your missing is quite significant. Even the 1/4 second on Lotus Strike is a decent enough animation to be reliable; it has a very noticeable “hard-hitting” animation on it. Furthermore, the poison on Lotus doesn’t deal enough damage or last long enough to be a good heal mitigator, but cripple and weakness on the sword are both very powerful conditions that amplify the attack’s effectiveness; weakness can mitigate damage up to 25% and reduces endurance regeneration significantly, which works well in tandem with the cripple as a way to really lock down enemies and keep them controlled. With IStrike, FStrike/PW, and DDagger/Headshot, this makes the sword a very reliable weaponset that has very good control opportunities relative to the dagger.

As a matter of fact, the sword probably has an overall better auto that works better with the weaponset than does dagger.

The SR nerf wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but I do think it was unnecessary and non-beneficial. I think that ANet failed to realize that infinite range SR isn’t the same thing as an infinite range Shadowstep, which, to me, is the root of the problem. Also, I find another buggy teleport skill unnecessary, given that we already have STrap. the skill is still pretty good in average situations, but I do think that ANet added some very unnecessary problems with this patch.

execullent.8560:

Porch Donkey.1673:

I’m going to put it bluntly here, the main problem is you’re a bad thief.
Thieves do not need buffs or anything in PvP, they’re fine as they are.
I run with a S/D initiative regen. build and I have no problems with 1v1’s with any classes, I’ll lose if I am outplayed admittably.
So stop your whining and learn to play.

Omg i said previosly that S/D and Condition thief has chance to win elem/mesmer/ enge/necr but D/D and D/P dosent !

Porch is right; sorry, but you’re probably just a bad player, and that’s all I can say about it. However, I will note that D/P GC is the build that Caed runs, and while I don’t agree with his strategy, he is extremely successful even in top levels. Furthermore, D/D- another weapon set that I don’t entirely agree with, from a strategic point of view- is extremely successful against players who don’t know much about thieves, so I can’t say that D/D and D/P are bad weapon sets, just not the ones that I prefer to use.

Rezzet.3614:

Daecollo.9578:

Orpheus.7284:

Rezzet.3614:

reason it was nerfed was because it is a non cooldown stun breaker

too much range enabled to hit players and escape out of their absolute field of combat

enabled thiefs to attack from 2 places at once for example jump from high place hit enemy a bit teleport back to wall shoot em a bit rinse and repeat.

It’s still a non cooldown stun breaker.
1200 range is still out of a lot of players ‘absolute field of combat’, whatever that means.

All it did is reduce the range. and made it buggy where you get stuck in random things a lot.

It has a cool-down, its based on our initiative pool, if we have no initiative we have no IF/SR.

yes but you got traits and a signet that enable you to pretty much have infinite initiative

No, we really don’t, and if this is what you believe then I seriously suggest that you play a thief in tPvP. Sure, we can spam a single skill over and over, but realize that unlike you our weaponsets don’t get automatic full CD’s on our skills whenever we change our weapon set, and building a full-initiative build means that you have to give up a lot. For example, I run 10/0/0/30/30 S/D, and although I like the initiative system, it would also be nice to manage to pull 30 into CS as well, but I need 30 in Trix because otherwise the cooldowns on my skills become too long.

Pvp.2758:

Arganthium.5638:

Oh wow, finally, a clear hard counter.

Thank goodness.

finally? that’s been a known skill for … 3+ months?

… I’m sorry, probably just really tired right now. should probably go to a doctor to get a sleeping aid. -_-

Oh wow, finally, a clear hard counter.

Thank goodness.

Navzar.2938:

So why should a weapon skill be stronger than a high cd utility?

Because it isn’t.

SStep is a utility that is used for its step towards a point- a given point that you can manipulate and use for aggressive purposes. SReturn is a weapon skill that grants you a fixed point that you can make a tradeoff for; you can either teleport back to that point and burn two initiative, or you can keep it sitting on your bar granting you no offensive opportunities for 15 seconds. Also, SStep provides two stunbreaks, whereas SReturn provides one. SStep is ground targeted, meaning that it can be used essentially anywhere, allowing for far more opportunity, which IS/SR doesn’t have.

Utilities aren’t meant to be used over and over again (unless your build relies on them solely, i.e. trap rangers and venom thieves), and SStep has much, much more utility than SReturn. To call SReturn “stronger” is a dreadful mistake.

Navzar.2938:

And no, this fix doesn’t allow more spamming. You could have chosen to use shadow return with less than 1200 range before to warp around before as well.

Nope.

Beforehand, all an enemy had to do to stop spamming was… Walk away. Every time you used SReturn, you would be farther and farther away from your enemy. Now you’re guaranteed to be within ~1200 range max every time you port away, with only 600 of that range needing to be covered to use IStrike again. Against stationary enemies, of course, this skill could be abused both prior to and after the patch, but it had a very easy counter to it.

YourOwnFear.2743:

Arganthium.5638:

YourOwnFear.2743:

Ghokan.2418:

“For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game”

There is also the necromancer spell Spectral Recall which teleports you back to where you have started. and has no limitations, goes through walls which stops shadowreturn at times. Surely this needs to be limited aswell?

That skill has a 60 second cd and isnt on a weapon. It also doesnt remove conditions and leaves a big green trail reminder instead of a small circle that can be hidden by terrain. Just saying.

That skill also provides 30 seconds of swiftness and grants you life force on damage taken, and can be traited to have a reduced cool down. Furthermore, its stunbreak is reliable and not buggy like ours is.

Furthermore, the fact that the utility isn’t on a weapon, IMO, can be reversed and actually claimed to be advantageous by the necro. I state in another post,

“… Furthermore, what makes the ability to teleport far away overpowered? IS/SR is one of the few- oh wait, the only mobility skill that sword has, unless you count FS, which doesn’t have a very long range anyhow. Thus, having it sit on our bar for a long time while we wait to use SReturn isn’t exactly advantageous, as we now have one important skill just sitting on our bar. Furthermore, if we’re trying to win the fight, teleporting halfway across a map is actually disadvantageous. The only time the skill, then, is any use for teleporting so far across a map is when you engage in a fight with the intention of escaping already in your mind; it’s not simply an “lol I can suddenly tele halfway across the map” kind of a deal, it requires planning, and, when not used correctly, can actually be very bad for a thief."

See, with infinite range, it is extremely rare to have to abuse that by going such a far distance, so having a 60 second cool down doesn’t really mean much. It’s like Shadow Refuge; we don’t need it enough to justify throwing it down whenever we want to, only when we absolutely need it. However, a weapon skill takes up a slot on your attack bar, the bar that you’re supposed to be using to the largest extent possible; having a button like SR that doesn’t change back to its original mobility skill for 15 seconds can actually be disadvantageous. Many professions often need one or two utilities on their bar, but it’s very rare for them to require three, and usually even when they do that’s because they run a very thematic build, like a venom thief for example. Thus, that third utility tends to be very situational, and SWalk is one of those types of situational utilities.

Comparing a utility and a weapon skill… Those are two very different things right there.

Take away the swiftness and put that sucker on any necro weapon with say a 10 second cd to compensate for no resource usage and I dont think you will hear 1 necro complain. A free utility and an infinate stunbreak teleport with no to low cooldown sounds like a great day.

Except that you have to plan beforehand in order for the infinite mobility to mean anything; it’s not like SReturn is a free Shadowstep with infinite range in battle. If you put it down right before a battle, attack briefly, then retreat, then its infinite range is useful, but you people put it up as if it’s saying “lol I can instantly teleport from Rogue’s to Mendon’s with a press of a button!”, but that’s not what it is. The 15 seconds, first of all, is surprisingly short, and the use of teleporting so far away is so rare anyways that it’s difficult to think of a good situation where you would really need to use it. Harassment and ganks are really the only two situations I can think of, and then ganks have effects that are usually predetermined by how you use your other mobility skills anyways. I argue against it, however, as the fix allows for lots of unintended consequences: skill abuse, glitches, and a generally unreliable skill overall. The skill is actually fairly costly- 5 initiative (total) out of our 12 initiative pool, so it can’t just be used nonsensically, unless you build around using the skill like that. Beforehand, however, if you were trying to catch an enemy running away, then you couldn’t just press the skill over and over again, as you would just teleport farther and farther away from your enemy each time. With this patch, however, that is no longer the case. This means that the latest change has brought about a lot of unhealthy consequences.

Setun.4368:

It’s a 1200 range from your point of origin. That gives you plenty of space to control territory and still have a relatively safe area to port back to. Yeah the pathing is buggy now, but that’ll get fixed. Having an infinite range on that skill was not ok. That’s like if the beginning and ends of a Mesmer portal had infinite range from where they can be dropped. Thief class still maintains a lot of mobility, this is merely a fix, not a nerf.

There are, however, a few issues.

First of all, how easy is it to fix the pathing bug? After all, STrap has been like this for ages, and yet it hasn’t even been addressed slightly by the devs. It sounds great in theory, but can you actually think of a way to address the pathing issue that fixes the bug but also can teleport you to a point up to 1200 units away that isn’t your original starting point? I certainly can’t.

Now, it’s true that the 1200 range is a decent bit; in fact, the infinite range was hardly an issue beforehand with being abused for its distance anyhow. However, realize that this “fix” allows for much more spamming of the skill back and forth, which I doubt was the dev’s intention with the skill. Rather than teleporting away 2000 units now, you only port back 1200 units (or less with the bug), meaning that you’re in better range to use the skill again. I can easily envision this resulting in a new build that just focuses on hit and run, over and over again, whereas the infinite range meant that you had to be careful that you weren’t too far away. Some people might want to reset the fight, but realize that the only reason a person would lay down SReturn and then engage in a fight (which is the most common case for this skill, given that in battle you need the skill for mobility and immobilize), and so the only “abuse” given by the skill is the ability to harass players while not doing much damage to them anyways. By the time you land a hit or two, you’ll probably have to port back, because, let’s face it, you can’t go particularly far away and expect for most of your 15 seconds to still be on the clock, unless you choose to burn all your mobility skills- but that’s another topic that I discuss elsewhere in the OP anyways.

Finally, the difference between an infinite distance mesmer port and an infinite distance thief port is that a thief is one player, but a team can consist of 50+ players. Zergs have the disadvantage of being very visible in WvW; that’s the price they pay for being so powerful (among a few other minor things). A mesmer port bomb from halfway across the map would essentially be the same as nuking enemies from your base. However, a thief porting so far would be no different from throwing a nail at an enemy. Also, there are two other things. First of all, mesmer port gives a 60-second time window to lay down the second portal, allowing for much more distance for a mesmer. Also, mesmers have an “aggressive” port; they lay down a portal to where they want to attack, in this situation of zerg bombing, whereas thief infinite range SR is a defensive port that is simply the place you want to return to. One allows you to control where you go later on, allowing you to predict enemy movements and port based on that, whereas the other doesn’t. I’m sure you can figure out which is which.

YourOwnFear.2743:

Ghokan.2418:

“For the first argument, let’s check virtually every single teleporting ability in the game”

There is also the necromancer spell Spectral Recall which teleports you back to where you have started. and has no limitations, goes through walls which stops shadowreturn at times. Surely this needs to be limited aswell?

That skill has a 60 second cd and isnt on a weapon. It also doesnt remove conditions and leaves a big green trail reminder instead of a small circle that can be hidden by terrain. Just saying.

That skill also provides 30 seconds of swiftness and grants you life force on damage taken, and can be traited to have a reduced cool down. Furthermore, its stunbreak is reliable and not buggy like ours is.

Furthermore, the fact that the utility isn’t on a weapon, IMO, can be reversed and actually claimed to be advantageous by the necro. I state in another post,

“… Furthermore, what makes the ability to teleport far away overpowered? IS/SR is one of the few- oh wait, the only mobility skill that sword has, unless you count FS, which doesn’t have a very long range anyhow. Thus, having it sit on our bar for a long time while we wait to use SReturn isn’t exactly advantageous, as we now have one important skill just sitting on our bar. Furthermore, if we’re trying to win the fight, teleporting halfway across a map is actually disadvantageous. The only time the skill, then, is any use for teleporting so far across a map is when you engage in a fight with the intention of escaping already in your mind; it’s not simply an “lol I can suddenly tele halfway across the map” kind of a deal, it requires planning, and, when not used correctly, can actually be very bad for a thief."

See, with infinite range, it is extremely rare to have to abuse that by going such a far distance, so having a 60 second cool down doesn’t really mean much. It’s like Shadow Refuge; we don’t need it enough to justify throwing it down whenever we want to, only when we absolutely need it. However, a weapon skill takes up a slot on your attack bar, the bar that you’re supposed to be using to the largest extent possible; having a button like SR that doesn’t change back to its original mobility skill for 15 seconds can actually be disadvantageous. Many professions often need one or two utilities on their bar, but it’s very rare for them to require three, and usually even when they do that’s because they run a very thematic build, like a venom thief for example. Thus, that third utility tends to be very situational, and SWalk is one of those types of situational utilities.

Comparing a utility and a weapon skill… Those are two very different things right there.

Sunflowers.1729:

Edit: In case I wasn’t exceedingly clear enough, the patch had only bug fixes.

Whether Shadow Return deserves a buff is another topic entirely, but to call this change not a bug fix is just silly.

The point of my post was not about bug fixes, it was about nerfs.

I define a bug fix as a change made to the game that makes it better fit the developer’s intentions. I define a nerf as a change made to the game that decreases the DPS vs damage taken ratio that a class has.

It’s intention versus effect.

I do not deny that this patch was a bug fix, but I argue that it was also a nerf, and in that it was an unjustified nerf, given that the developer’s ultimate intention is to bring balance to the game.

Sunflower:

First of all, I didn’t post this so that we could debate whether this patch is a bug fix or nerf, yet that seems to be what you think my intent was. It was to determine whether this change was justified or not. Thus, until you can address the four arguments that you didn’t reply to, you must concede them.

However, to address the two you did refer to:

For the first argument, you cite a variety of different teleportation skills and state that because all of them clearly have a range even if they do state that they “teleport”, that that means that SR has a range just as much. However…

First of all, “Blink” simply states that it teleports you to a target location. However, it does not state where that target location is limited to, at least not explicitly. However, the 900 range would suggest that the target can be placed anywhere with a circle of radius 900 units. This would make sense with the skill as the skill would still function as the tooltip says, but the target circle can simply only be within a certain area. Thus, Blink doesn’t work for your argument.

On the other hand, the other three tooltips refer to a mechanic that SR does not: “teleport”. SR states that you “return” to your original location. Although it may seem a minor point, the fact that these three skills refer to a different mechanic (“teleportation”) than what SR refers to (“returning”) means that the two cannot be compared. You’re trying to compare two skills of different types. The GW2 Wiki- a reliable source, given that you cited it- actually refers to Flashing Blade and JI as both being teleportation skills, while Shadow Return isn’t even on the list. It is, however, on the list of shadowsteps, suggesting that “Shadowstep” and “Teleportation” are, as a matter of fact, different mechanics entirely.

Either way, none of your post actually gets at the heart of my counterargument- why does it matter what the tooltip says? If the tooltip says “does 123789054709 damage”, does that make it correct?

As for my second argument, I use “theoretically correct” on these forums to refer to the theory behind GW2 strategy, tactics, and balance. That is what the term referred to. Not once did I state that the tooltip was “theoretically incorrect”, anyhow, so your argument is irrelevant.

Now, on the other hand, the Jade Maw idea would not be theoretically correct, as it provides the engineer with such a large damage output vs damage taken advantage thakittens performance ability is unparalleled by any other class. “Theoretically correct” is not the term I use as my “such-and-such should be like this because I like it this way” term that I use, it is a term that I use to refer to balance among classes.

Your final comment simply refers to the fact that you completely misunderstood the intention of my post in the first place.

Fuzzion.2504:

JQ could surely use another NA

NO, I THINK THAT JQ

OF ALL SERVERS

IS ABSOLUTELY OK

Edit: now I’m not sure whether or not that was a joke on your behalf… :P

Leogolas.6941:

Come to ET , end of discussion .
Always out numbered by opposing servers.
Your guild in ET WILL be a great help in evening the odds.

This is actually true. I can’t remember the last time that we had superior numbers to our enemy; it’s always been about tactics and moving forces to where they need to go in ET. It means that we’ve become a bit more efficient in using our resources, because a single tiny mistake can result in a wipe and then losing about 100 points worth in objectives. The one thing that we really lack, however, is commanders. I would get my tag, but I just don’t have that kind of money.

This all being said, please don’t come to ET on a recruiting trip and then leave after a week of fighting, like [Agg] did. I don’t respect them for what they did; they essentially came in a highly-publicized guild movement, and then suddenly disappeared almost as quickly as they came. They claimed not to have been on a recruiting trip, but they made their trip so highly publicized, relative to their later trip to Dragonbrand…

But that’s just me.

MightyMe.1356:

Argue all you want, being able to teleport back so far away to the pointthat you actually need to let a loading screen commence is just too powerful.
No player should have the ability to do that, it was a bug.
So wipe away your tears and get over it.
Furthermore,just because this patch did not include addition of mobility to the class does not mean its never going to happen.
Anet said on SoTG that they are working on something for thiefs mobility, and this patch was about bug fixing,not about balance.

This is a faulty argument in that it not once explains why my arguments are invalid and thus concedes them, and, furthermore, doesn’t provide any evidence to back your own arguments.

“No player should have the ability to do that”

“Should” by whose standards? Furthermore, what makes the ability to teleport far away overpowered? IS/SR is one of the few- oh wait, the only mobility skill that sword has, unless you count FS, which doesn’t have a very long range anyhow. Thus, having it sit on our bar for a long time while we wait to use SReturn isn’t exactly advantageous, as we now have one important skill just sitting on our bar. Furthermore, if we’re trying to win the fight, teleporting halfway across a map is actually disadvantageous. The only time the skill, then, is any use for teleporting so far across a map is when you engage in a fight with the intention of escaping already in your mind; it’s not simply an “lol I can suddenly tele halfway across the map” kind of a deal, it requires planning, and, when not used correctly, can actually be very bad for a thief.

Also, the fact that this patched nerfed thief mobility while adding none to it just shows that they have put thief mobility low on the list of their priorities, particularly when they promised enhanced mobility for the mug nerf.

I suggest you now go and actually read my post, given that you didn’t reply to any of it… Then again, neither have any of the other commenters saying that the thief SR should have been nerfed.