Guild Wars 2

Kiriakulos.1690:

Kargath.6598:

Can you say kitten one more time? also according to you people are – “QUITING LEFT AND RIGHT!”

How is this a counter argument to anything he said?

It’s a counterargument because he’s a warrior.

frans.8092:

Arganthium.5638:

My suggestion is that ANet nerf this trait to 2/3 or ~1/2 of its current value and revert Infiltrator Return’s cast time.

No, it’s not only S/x that uses dodges.

Interceptor.2653:

Arganthium.5638:

Thoughts?

Hell no. Unintended consequences all over the place from nerfing several non-Sword builds in order to buff one set. If we ever get the cast time removed on IR, it won’t be at the expense of some innocent bystander.

And on another note, keep the editorializing out of balance suggestions.

Thief builds are built on one of two (and a half-ish) types of defensive mechanisms. The vastly more popular one is stealth, and the other one and a half-ish mechanisms are the combination of evasion and mobility. Virtually every top thief in the game, over time, has based his/her builds off of one of these two mechanisms (if either of them at all). Caed’s defense (as little of it as there was) came from stealth. Cruuk’s defense came from stealth. Jumper’s defense came from evasion and mobility. So on. Yet, I’d be hard-pressed to find a single thief that had to rely upon both of these mechanisms in order to function.

Apparently, however, you two believe that builds should be created that rely upon both of these mechanisms significantly. I say this because every non-S/X weaponset (excluding the godawful and already useless P/P, and SB, which is a utility weapon anyways) has significant access to stealth and/or the offensive strategy of these weaponsets fits very nicely with stealth, but not so much with evasion. D/D, D/P, and P/D are the three serious weapon sets (and I’m seriously straining myself by calling P/D a “serious” weapon set ) that fit into one or both of these two categories, and, coincidentally, these three with S/P and S/D make the five different weapon sets that thief builds can revolve around.

I’m not arguing that all hybrid stealth and evasion builds are bad (but most of them are), but nerfing Feline Grace is going to have little to no overall effect on those other weaponsets because of the fact that they have stealth anyways. I think it’s safe to say that it’s quite thoroughly been proven that 95% of all builds that don’t stick to one pillar of defense or the other are bad all the time anyways.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Look at it this way. There’s only 2 builds that uses Infiltrator’s Strike compare to the number of builds uses Feline Grace. IMO, Feline Grace is a staple trait that most, if not all, builds must have.

No, no it’s not. That’s really all I have to say to you.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I think I recall a nerf to Infiltrator’s Return in which a cast time was introduced, making it impossible to use the skill defensively like a dodge.

I really don’t think you play thief, Arg. Nobody in their right mind would nerf this trait in the state thieves are currently in. Sure, it might be annoying to other classes, but you don’t see dodge thieves simply owning everyone and everything like warriors, mesmers, necros, and guardians do currently. The extra dodge is necessary for thief survival, and if Feline Grace was moved to a 25 point trait, sure. That might be fine. But the fact is that there is already a trade off for any thief who wants to be offensive: Shadow Arts or Acrobatics? Those are our two defensive trait lines, and simply nerfing Feline Grace would be detrimental to the non-stealth thief, further forcing each and every one of us into stealth, and decimating build diversity.

The people asking for nerfs to key traits are so out of touch with the world of PvP it’s like they don’t even play the class, let alone this game. Even with sword 2 reverted, I feel that it would dumb the sword playstyle down. I actually like it right now. It requires a lot of skill to use, and I’m not spamming it every time I have a few conditions or get CC’d as it was prior to the nerf.

Sorry Arg, I just don’t agree with this. “People asking for nerfs” is directed at everyone suggesting them, not just you. At least you consider compensation in other places. Judging by ANet’s decisions with class balance, however, it’s highly unlikely that they provide compensation for any nerfs.

I almost decided to grace your terribly ignorant and unfounded post with a picture showing how much I play thief, but I decided that that’d be giving you too much credit for who you are anyways. All I’ll say is that Jumper agrees with me about a FG nerf and, if I remember correctly, a IR cast time reversion, and I think you’re the only one that thinks having more mobility and fewer evades would “dumb the sword playstyle down.” Also, it’s not like people have to have make some huge decision whether to take SA or Acro in a S/X build…

I think it’s pretty easy to say that Feline Grace, objectively, is a pretty powerful minor trait overall. It reduces the cost of dodging to 70% of its original amount automatically, and that 30% allows us to dodge, in general, 3 times in a row while in combat.

My suggestion is that ANet nerf this trait to 2/3 or ~1/2 of its current value and revert Infiltrator Return’s cast time. As it currently stands, Feline Grace is the trait that allows the line between good S/D (or, perhaps more generally, Acro) thieves and bad S/D thieves to become much murkier, as it allows for a huge number of dodges. On the other hand, after the most recent nerf, Sword’s mobility has been at least halved by the absolutely ridiculous difficulty of using IR effectively, and we’ve become largely more vulnerable to conditions.

Thoughts?

alamore.1974:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Kargath.6598:

Ostricheggs.3742:

I’ve come to the conclusion that arena-net just doesn’t give a kitten anymore. There isn’t any excuse. Something should have been done over a month ago. Instead we have red posts talking about buffing the active on healing signet before nerfing the passive. There are so many reasons why heal sig is the best heal in the game by far and there’s talk of a buff before a nerf can happen?

Guys, your game is dying. Players are quitting left and right. People are kittening sick of this and you need to get it through your head that we’ve been dealing with healing signet and it’s meta-destroying effects for months. Further inactivity only makes us lose more faith in this game.

I’m at my wits end

No. whats happening is people got used to warrior being a giant pinata that they nuked from 1200-1500 range or loaded up with conditions to get a player kill and win easy matches. Now you have to DRUM ROLL PLEASE!!! – PLAY AND USE ALL OF YOUR SKILLS AND UTILITIES TO WIN AGAINST SOME ONE!!!

This response is expected from a typical warrior player. They don’t realize how incredibly ez-mode that class is. Playing warrior requires perhaps 20% the skill required to play anything else in this game. You literally need to be like 5x better than the person playing warrior in order to down him/her.

Yeah, Ostricheggs! You need to lrn2play! What do you think you are, one of the best engies in the game!?!?

…owait -

Coming from some.one who plays a mesmer lol. Talk about easy mode. He is right what it comes down to is people are not use to having to actualy use skill to defeat warriors. Here try this exercise. Wright down all the classes and how much % they beat u and why
Ill give u a example.

Warriors – 50% – stunns
Thieves- 65% – stealth
Ele – 45% – steady dps
Gaurd – 55% – boons
Mesmer – 60% – clones
Ranger – 50% – kite (65% to spirit rangers
Necro – 50% – fear/hvy condi pressure
Engi – 60% – boons

Answer the truth and u will realize that warriors are not as elite as you think.

Elementalist- 5%- Burst
Engineer- 50%- Area Control and Conditions
Guardian- 10%- Good High-Damage Guards
Necro- 30%- That kittening Signet of Spite
Mesmer- 40%- High Damage
Ranger- 5%- They’re those annoying as kitten Spirit Rangers.
Thieves- 20%- they get the drop on me and I can’t recover quickly enough for whatever reason
Warrior- 50%- insane lengths/numbers of stuns, immobilize/bleed from LB 5, and heavy tankiness from HealSig, heavy armor, and the high base health of warriors

The only reason why Warrior isn’t higher up is because most of the people that play it are just downright awful in general, mostly because Warrior is the easiest class in the game to play and get into.

Also, I doubt the above numbers are entirely correct, but I certainly don’t think that I have a loss rate of above 50% against any of those classes. I based this off of XvX fights where both sides had equal numbers. I can certainly say that some of those classes, like Guard, Ele, and Ranger, are probably extremely close to the listed percentages as a result of class design being faulty (though guardian less so than the other two; it’s only so low because there aren’t a ton of people that run DPS guards).

So all that aside, not sure what your point is, except that you’re clearly a godawful player at worst and a mediocre one at best if all of your percentages are that high.

Rafahil.2857:

I’m not joking, but trust me when I say that the dual shortbow evasion thief with energy runes and the trait that gives initiative when you switch weapons is THE most annoying and even effective build there is. (pvp and wvw obviously) It’s the best troll build around and they will hate you for it.

Gotta love #3 skill on SB

Lol, that’s true. Nothing more infuriating than seeing some idiot mindlessly spamming 3 on SB. It’s not like he’s doing anything useful, but there’s a burning hatred inside of you to kill him/her, and it’s ridiculously difficult to do so.

A dual-S/D evasion thief.

P/D only bothers me because of how stupid the people that play it are (presuming they’re using it as a serious weaponset as opposed to using it just for the fun of using a MH pistol).

Reevz.2617:

yep, not just s/d though s/p even— sword mainhand teleport is kinda kittened. on demand instant gap closer that also immobilizes and you can teleport back with it? you can pre cast pistol whip and teleport. but in all honesty thiefs in general right now are too powerful they fill their niche role, and only thiefs can counter thiefs ;/

Seriously? I used to have some pretty major respect for you as a player, not sure about that any more after this post though.

The immobilize is extremely short (1s), especially compared to immobilizes of other classes. I’d be okay with removing the immobilize on #2, but only if every other class had the vast majority of their immobilizes reduced by at least 1s as well.

Also, IS is not an instant gap closer. In fact, overall, the entirety of its animation (from activation to damage to being able to use your next skill) is quite long, empirically speaking. It’s not skill-breakingly long, but it’s certainly more than you seem to be saying. Also, the teleportation back is a double-edged blade. As long as it’s up (which is a fairly long time) you’re unable to use IS again, and using it prematurely (or at all) can cause you to get off-point. It is also the an expression of the single defining characteristic of S/X builds- mobility. Without it, our mobility is practically zero, and all skillful play involving high levels of positioning and tactics go right out the window.

There are only two realistic ways to pre-cast PW and teleport to your target (Steal and Infi Signet), and if you’re any good at reading casts, you should be able to see these coming. If not, you can still stunbreak out of them with minimal damage dealt to you.

I can kill just about any thief with any class right now (the exception being non-Spirit Rangers, and possibly elementalist). I can counter them because I understand how their cast times work, how their aftercasts work, and how their general strategies work. Hell, I don’t even have to run the “strong meta” builds against them, I just run my own builds. I can easily crush a thief with my 0/20/30/20/0 S/F + GS Lockdown Mesmer, or with my 20/20/0/20/10 Rifle + EG Elixir engi. I can give thieves a taste of their own medicine with my 0/30/30/5/5 Sw/Sh + St Guardian build, or I can beat them positionally with my 0/0/20/30/20 Ele Area Control build. It’s not any type of challenge, it’s simple knowledge of how to counter thief, and then implementation of that knowledge.

It’s not really 4 different sigils, since sigils only apply to a single weapon (i.e. a force sigil on your Sword will not apply to your Shortbow), meaning that if you had Force Sigil and Fire Sigil on two different weapons, and you used each weapon half of the time, then you’d be using both Sigils, across all the time you played, the exact same amount as if you had used those two sigils on, say, a staff ele.

On the other hand, let’s say you have lightning and fire sigil on one weaponset, and force and fire on the other. Now, let’s presume you use the first weaponset 75% of the time, and the other weaponset 25% of the time. In effect, each sigil is used as follows:

Fire: 100% of the time
Force: 25% of the time
Lightning: 75% of the time

Those numbers add up to 200%, which would be the same if you added the percentage points of two sigils on any of the ele’s weapons.

If nothing else, the fact that you can “weapon swap” much more easily with attunement changes should offset what little disadvantage you have.

Proven.2854:

…Still, the build is a bit OP. It’s getting nerfed. But level of difficulty to play aside, do people really not want to see builds like this in the meta? If builds in GW2 were supposed to be about Damage, Control, and Support, doesn’t it make sense that the backbone of a team consist of those that can take hits while remaining a threat? And isn’t the primary way for an enemy to be a threat in any situation is through Damage, Control, or some combination of the two?

The problem with warrior is that it can use damage, control, and support- and all at the same time. A little bit of each is okay. Some of two of them is okay. A lot of one of them but very little of the other two is okay. But warriors are able to get some to a lot of all three at once, which makes them an extremely formidable (and OP) force to have to deal with.

Yes, I would like to see builds in GW2 move more towards those three playstyles of damage, control, and support. It encourages far more skillful play, and gives a better goal for balance. The issue, however, is that we need to be able to balance professions so that they don’t get that Trinity of abilities, as Warrior does right now, so at the moment, that’s why warrior doesn’t fit into the build archetype that you seem to be looking at.

There are much better examples of bruisers and the control-DPS-support builds. Many S/D thief builds (though I would argue 10/0/0/30/30 the most since it doesn’t use 30 CS) are bruiser builds. They do a good deal of damage while remaining, technically speaking, tanky, and have just a slight sliver of support and control to back them up.

An elementalist build that I developed myself (note: that was just an early prototype, it’s changed significantly since it was first created) does a bit of all three, with emphasis on control via skills like Churning Earth, Gust, Static Field, and Icy Ground. However, to counteract that its direct support, in spite of what it may originally seem, isn’t huge, and its damage isn’t huge either, particularly given the overwhelming usage of the often disappointing auto-attacks in order to deal damage.

There are many other builds that I could link (guardian builds, engineer builds, etc), all of which are viable, and all of which follow this same trinity. However, in the current state of the game, some classes are able to get all the goodies concurrently while other classes get little to none of them.

I recommend everything except Necro, Warrior, and Ranger (unless it gets buffed any time soon, in which case long-range LB builds might become viable and extremely fun). Here’s how I see things:

Thief- mobile, stealthy, aggressive, and has an extremely unique mechanic (initiative). Good for aggressive and active players. Has an average variety of builds, each of which is averagely flexible. Can be good for tactical players (though not as good as mesmer is), but can also be used very well strategically (though sharply) via mobility-based play.

Mesmer- somewhat mobile, somewhat stealthy, generally quite aggressive, and has an extremely unique mechanic (clones). Good for players who want to have access to a large variety of builds, though each of these builds isn’t very flexible in and of itself. Has other extremely unique and powerful mechanics/buildtypes that aren’t seen in any other profession, and good for players who want to play extremely tactically in combat.

Engineer- mobile and aggressive, and extremely versatile both in-combat and OOC. Good for players who like an average variety of builds open to them, each of which is extremely flexible by itself. They can also have really amazing mobility through a large variety of traits and weapon skills. However, they probably aren’t going to be as aggressive as mesmers or thieves, and they lack any particularly unique mechanics.

Elementalist- can be mobile (however, they are extremely good with Staff at limiting their opponents’ mobility), can be anywhere from defensive to moderately aggressive. Has a small number of builds, each of which is above average in terms of flexibility. Good for newer players to get used to the game, but is usable across the board (though it is extremely UP right now). Can be either extremely tactical (burst builds, Arcane skill builds) or the most strategic class in the game (staff’s has a variety of mobility-limiting and mobility-enhancing abilities that makes this possible).

Guardians- good for players who are seeking to be a bit tankier, even if it’s at the expense of a little bit of damage (though not much). Has a wide variety of builds to choose from, each of which are averagely flexible. Also good for people looking to incorporate some direct team support into their gameplay. Mostly strategic, but can become tactical.

Just about any sPvP-viable S/D build that doesn’t include S/D as a secondary is viable in WvW. Examples are:

10/30/0/30/0 (Nag Nag)

0/30/0/30/10 (Jumper)

10/0/0/30/30 (Arganthium)

And a few without any specific and designated creators or people who have made the builds rise up to popularity:

10/30/0/0/30 (current meta along with Nag Nag’s, it’s being played by a lot of people but doesn’t seem to have any specific champion, unless Sizer is running it, which I don’t think he is)

25/30/0/0/15 (an odd one, but apparently exists, for some unknown reason)

10/0/10/20/30 (not a big fan of this one, but it’s become better since Acro started becoming less relevant to some players)

There are a whole load of options, and they all vary in playstyle but have the same general flavor. Just try out one of the builds (with SB or D/P in OH, though I’d suggest SB for most builds), give them a little touch of your own preference, and get rolling. S/D is an amazingly fun weaponset, even if it’s been nerfed a ton.

Luto.1938:

As some of the other posters here have said, other than stealth thieves only have evade for defense. Evading damage typically takes more skill than buffing yourself to absorb/negate/reflect damage because you have to actively hit the evade button at the right moment. There are some builds (s/x) that give thieves the ability to evade a lot more than others. It just takes timing and knowing when they are evading.

The two are almost entirely mutually exclusive.

Doctor Orderly MD PhD DDS.7625:

I agree the earlier nerf to RtL can be partially reverted. The extra mechanic on it atm encourages skillful play, so I’d say keep that but reduce the recharge from 40 (20 on hit) to 30 (15 on hit).

Actually, quite the opposite. It encourages you to use the skill solely for damage as opposed to mobility, and so there isn’t a risk-reward tradeoff any more because it’s almost infinitely more beneficial to use the skill just for damage than it is to use the skill for mobility purposes.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Did you dare Arganthium to say L2P ?
A sorry excuse of the Theorycrafters

15 months ago i told you to use the current traits that offers increasef initiative regen (that s/d current use) and equip any weapon that offers Evades , and you and Travale told me that <<not a single high ranked player dont use it and evades moves are worthless >>
And you come here today to argue with the community , while you argued a while ago with Helseth that evades are about skill cap a moves ?

Dont force me to name other things you have told ! Like :
<<If they nerf mug , the classs will be worthless>>
<<if they nerf quickness the class will be worthless>>
<<If they nerd S/d the class willbe worthless>>

Use yor brain as a Theorycrafter , (and some other ppl) or i will Prybar you to the forums !!!

What? I didn’t even say any of that nonsense anyways, and even if I did, that has no relevance to this post here, especially given that quite a lot has changed after 15 months…

I did argue with Helseth, but I have no idea what point you’re trying to make, or, for that matter, what you’re even saying.

saVdoom.2067:

If you just watched the tournament Good Fights Invitational you’d see how thiefs are completely broken right now. They simply made the whole tournament by nuking players while evading… while having insane mobility.

Insane mobility? Ha, yeah right. What a joke.

If you still can’t counter PW, then, sorry, but L2P. It’s such a gimmicky weapon set, and the 10/30/0/0/30 build is so glassy that it’ll usually burn extremely quickly anyways (just look at how much damage Toker was doing, it’s pretty obvious that if the other teams had put in just a little more effort to at least try and kill him that he would’ve just melted). Just play actively against active play, otherwise you’re going to lose 100% of the time. S/X thieves basically define active play, and if you’re going to play defensively or passively against them, they’re simply going to go right through you.

This isn’t a problem with thieves, it’s a problem with your play style.

Mrbig.8019:

Flanking strike has no aftercast

Flanking Strike has a pretty noticeable aftercast.

There are a few reasons why…
- If you’re running a non-Spirit Ranger, then you’re more than likely going to be vulnerable in some way or another. Rangers simply don’t have many defensive mechanics without Spirits, which makes them easy to take down.
- If you’re running a Spirit Ranger, then you’re going to be a large target for thieves simply because of the amount of team support you have, and the fact that many, many players (myself included) despise Spirit Rangers anyways.
- Thieves are more of a single-target class anyways, even with SB and general cleave. A lot of a thief’s strategy in a fight or a game is simply to hunt down one player and harass him/her into making a mistake. This is especially true of the more common D/P or D/D thieves.

I’m okay with Necro having 18k health, since it has light armor. Warrior, on the other hand, is a problem.

I would love to see Wave of Wrath turn into some kind of 1200-range skill. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I play staff in all of my guardian builds the way it is right now. Wave of Wrath is, by no means, a weak skill, especially with something like Fire Sigil. However, Guardian does lack range, as Scepter is a relatively weak long-range weapon in its current state. Something that shot out, say, a quick-moving bolt of light for single-target (or small AoE around the target, like Ele’s Fireball) would certainly diversify Guardian greatly.

That being said, I’d also like to see the Symbol of Swiftness buffed back up… 4s is just way too short.

My comments are bolded and in brackets…

Einlanzer.1627:

The issue with Zerker is actually very obvious. Part 1 is encounter design, but part 2 is indeed the stats themselves. Here’s why-

Precision masquerades as a normal additive stat but is actually a % multiplicative stat [what? All stats stack up multiplicatively. For instance, a +100 increase in armor to a mesmer will reduce the amount of damage it takes to 94.83% of its original value. It’s not like “if I take X amount of a stat, I will increase Y by Z” where Z is some kind of integer.]. Zerker (and its subordinates) are the only sets in the game that have bonuses to two % stats that directly affect each other [Wrong again. First of all, every defensive stat scales with every other defensive stat (though HealPow’s relationship to Vitality is a bit different), and the same goes for every offensive stat. For instance, if I reduce the amount of direct damage I take by 10% by increasing my toughness, and I also increase my health by 10%, then those two effects stack together- i.e. I live longer than if those stats were independent. To an extent, even offensive stats scale with defensive stats. Second… Again, every stat in the game is a % stat, not some kind of direct integer increase]. This creates a very obvious issue with relative scaling -

In a nutshell, zerker stats are backloaded, where all other stat combos are frontloaded. Zerker stats are weak at the baseline but scale hyperbolically [This isn’t really true. First of all, as mentioned before, due to the scaling of defensive stats related to one another, I can argue that they scale hyperbolically as well. Secondly, and more importantly, however, is that it’s not really a hyperbolic relationship anyways. For instance, in sPvP, putting on a zerker amulet actually decreases the relative values of power and precision. It actually increases the value of critical damage dramatically, but because CritDam can only come in very small quantities anyways, this tends not to matter too much. Also, see note at the end of this post.] Other stats are healthy at the baseline and scale linearly with moderate diminishing returns [Diminishing returns applies just as much to offensive stats. For instance, 1 point of power initially increases your damage by 1.18 times the amount that 1 point of vitality increases your defense. However, increasing your power by a a mere ~165 makes these two stats become the same in terms of strength.] This can be seen as easily on a level 30 toon (where direct damage skills are weaker than condition skills) as it can be on a top-geared 80 (where it’s the opposite) [not necessarily].

Changing crit damage from a percent to an additive stat was actually a very good move to make the whole system more scalable [it already is], and that’s how it should have originally been implemented, because that’s how it works for every other ‘grouping’. Now, direct damage will have a stronger baseline and scale in a more linear fashion [no stat can or does scale in a linear fashion; it’s physically impossible without making the value of other variables effecting that stat’s strength go up at the same time. Economics 101], making it much easier to both achieve and maintain relative balance (assuming Anet doesn’t drop the ball somewhere).

Of course, it’s clearly not the only thing that needs adjusting, but it’s the best starting point.

Note: The question of whether or not offensive or defensive stats scale better with stats of their own type is somewhat controversial. In the final formulas that I use for offensive and defensive amplification, these amounts are indeed multiplied. However, in marginal analysis of these stats, these values are not multiplied together, for a variety of reasons. So it depends on your point of view.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

The problem comes from multipliers.

Assuming Critical damage simply added +1000 damage.

Unfortunately, this is not the way it works. One easy way to prove this to yourself is the following: which attack deals more damage: Headshot (Thief) or Kill Shot (Warrior)? Kill Shot, obviously. Now, let’s assume you have 100% critical chance. Does it not follow that a 150% + Extra critical damage buff to Kill Shot will be more beneficial than the same thing to Headshot?

Stats in this game do not work in the way you describe, they work as multipliers- amplifiers- by amounts like 1%, 2%, and so on. Not by amounts of 100 damage, 1000 damage, or whatever.

Name: Arganthium
Build: S/F + GS Lockdown
Preference: sPvP, WvW/ Support, Mantra
Hates: More lockdown builds (yes, I know the one I posted is an LD build, but I like to broaden my horizons), Conditions, anything that is full glass

If there aren’t enough people for this, though, I’d gladly try out some other people’s builds.

What: I don’t even know.

Why: what, am I expected to know what I’m nerfing now?! Christ, this is thief we’re talking about, just nerf whatever you want, I don’t give a kitten. Just stop harassing me!

Warrior- faceroll (I literally tried to faceroll my keyboard in sPvP once. Didn’t work to well since I ended up hitting all of the buttons that weren’t on the left side of my keyboard, which are my hotkeys, but smashing my hand against that side of the keyboard worked very well)

Necromancer- faceroll

Engineer- a very slightly more sophisticated face roll

Ranger- faceroll or just 1 spam

Elementalist- faceroll

Mesmer- depends on build, not too faceroll-ish though

Thief- not so much a faceroll as a spam (since half our weapon skills suck), but a slightly more sophisticated spam

Guardian- depends on build, probably somewhere between engineer and mesmer

Kicast.1459:

Low thief ?
Hum….I see plenty of thieves playing top level tournament. plenty.

“Top level”… uh huh. Whatever that’s supposed to mean nowadays.

Most of those thieves are overrated or, simply put, bad. I’ve seen them play. They’re hardly effective (perhaps annoying, though).

Low:
Thief

Worthless:
Ranger (not counting Spirits)
Elementalist (unless your opponents are too bad to counter burst)

silentnight warrior.2714:

Any decent player will cleanse poison before the heal, so in some cases poison = 0% decrease on healing.

I can make the argument that “any decent player will poison [his or her opponent] before the heal” as well. I know that I do, at least as often as possible.

Against HS poison is working from the first second you apply it on the warrior until he clean the poison. Lets say 8 seconds average with poison (assuming you poison the warrior after and not before he used his longbow burst) This means that his HS healed for 33% less for that time.

Yes, but 8 seconds is not the duration of a fight. In, say, a 15 second fight, that’s still about 1/6 of a total reduction.

I’m even being liberal here because most poisons don’t last 8 seconds, whether it be in theory or in practice. For instance, ranger’s SB usually only keeps you poisoned for 2-4 seconds. Necro’s Chillblains only keeps up poison for 6 seconds, and Putrid Curse for 4. Thief’s Choking Gas, for 5 seconds, and so on. With Cleansing Ire, those longer durations tend to be cut short extremely quickly anyways.

392 hps – 33% = 262 hps (with poison). In 8 seconds you managed to keep the warrior from healing 129 hps x 8seconds = 1032 less healing only with poison in 8 seconds. Not counting here the damage poison does by itself.

HS is way more afected with poison than other passive heals because its always active. No matter when or how you put poison on warrior, is healing is afected from the start.

Even with the 1032 healing reduction (which, again, is unrealistic anyways), HealSig will still tend to heal for more than most other heals in the game.

As for HealSig being affected from the start, that usually isn’t enough to make the heal much worse, and it isn’t nearly as effective as putting poison on a burst heal.

mini.6018:

Arganthium.5638:

it takes more damage to reduce a warrior to 3k health than any other class in the game.

And again you prove to us in a blatantly obvious manner how little ideea you have about the game you are playing and how unfounded all your claims and ideeas are.

Literally Speachless.

If you’re talking about necromancer, it doesn’t have a 14% damage reduction and the heal is far inferior to that of warrior. Even without the heal, though, the warrior will by nature last longer from its base stats because virtually every attack deals some direct damage, and warrior can decrease that amount with its heavy armor.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Please stop pulling numbers out of your kitten as well. The Berserker’s Amulet gives a *whopping* 15% crit damage, where 30 points in CS gives double that. I don’t think that’s only a 10% damage increase between taking 30 in CS or not. The jewel gives 5% crit damage. This means that taking 30 in CS _alone_ over taking a berserker’s amulet/jewel _alone_ is 10% more effective.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Berserker%27s_Amulet

That’s amusing, you’re one of the dogmatic "omfg crits so stronk" group, by the looks of it. First of all, I was assuming that the 30 into CS and taking Zerker amulet were mutually exclusive for the purposes of my last post (otherwise, if you take both, the damage increase from 30 CS jumps up by 29.63%, or 2.372 times that of the amount by which it would otherwise increase your damage).

Now, continuing. 30 into CS increases your total damage by 12.49% relative to base, which, incidentally, is only 1.58% more than 10 DA increases your damage by. Now, on the other hand, from base stats, +798 power, +569 precision, and +15% critical damage increases your damage by 120.58% relative to base. Dividing the two out, you find that 30 CS only increases your damage by just under 10% of what Zerker amulet does.

Now to tie things together. You’re one of those linearly-minded drones that thinks in terms of "okay, if I have 30 CS, then I get 30% critical damage, whereas Zerker amulet and jewel combined only give me 20% critical damage. Thus, taking 30 CS is 10% more effective [whatever the hell that means] than taking Zerker amulet and jewel". This is, quite simply, not how the game works. First, you need to evaluate how powerful critical damage is, something that you have clearly failed to do. You average damage buff from precision/critical damage is equal to

(1-CritChance+CritChance*Crit Damage)

Which means that, with 4% critical chance, you’re dealing a whopping 2% more damage from crits. If you take the additional precision (2006 precision) required to reach 100% critical chance, then you deal ~46.72% more damage from crits (not 50% because of the base critical chance that all players get, and we’re comparing to base), which at that point scales almost directly with critical damage.

That’s all well and good, but if you look at the damage formula, then you’ll find out that your total damage buff from power is equal to (916+P)/916-1 relative to base. An additional 2006 power thus increases your damage by 118.996% relative to base. That’s a massive margin; you essentially need another 74% critical damage in order to make the investment worth it. In WvW, that investment might in fact be worth making, but it certainly isn’t in sPvP; you can’t reach 100% critical chance, and not even 74% critical damage even if you have 30 in CS + Zerker Amulet/Jewel + Runes + Sigil.

I’m sorry, but you’re simply wrong. You’re just another dogmatically-inclined individual with a puffed-up chest, trying to talk big when you honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Arg, it’s pointless trying to lecture me on the mechanics and diminishing returns of stats. We both know that the Berserker Amulet in PvP doesn’t provide nearly as much damage opportunity as the gear can in PvE, and thusly most damage stats come from trait lines, ala Critical Strikes. I’ve run both on my S/P team build and the damage increase is minimal while the survivability is drastically reduced. In most situations, however, I will agree that Berserker is the optimal choice. In my particular case – which is what I was arguing for – the extra defensive stats are necessary due to the lack of stealth my build has to lean on when things get heated.

I think you’re trying to argue more along the lines of WvW/PvE, to be honest. Any buildcrafter who’s been at it since launch knows that the diminishing returns in PvP are extremely limited due to the nature of the limited amount of stats per amulet, mitigating the effectiveness of going full out due to the limits of each build and the statistics that coincide. Bunkers are a bit of a different story due to how crit damage scales in PvP and their lack thereof, so keep in mind that this is about crit damage sets and setups themselves.

Aside from that, stop comparing the thief to the warrior. We’re not warriors, period. They’re the most powerful class in the game currently, and we’re one of the weakest. That comparison just doesn’t cut it when you’re trying to talk balance of any sort.

Back on topic, the only time I would ever run a full berserker setup is when running a backstab build, where with a sword build you’re focusing on sustained damage rather than direct burst and shouldn’t be concerned about hitting hard when your damage isn’t front loaded, and you need to stay alive to burn an enemy or enemies down using that cleave.

Are you kidding? I can make the exact same argument that, say, Soldier’s gear doesn’t provide nearly as much defensive opportunity as the gear can in PvE, but that doesn’t seem to sway you from using defensive gear. Personally, I would say the exact opposite- that running Zerker gear has greatly increased my damage output while there have been minimal effects on my defensive capabilities. Then again, if I remember correctly, you run S/P, which is an inferior weaponset anyways… You don’t need stealth if you’re running S/D, and you certainly don’t need defensive stats.

A 30-point investment into CS increases damage by only about 10.36% of what Zerker stats does, stats-wise.

I’m not arguing from the point of WvW or PvE. I’m using the diminishing returns on different stats as evaluated by their relative value to one another. For example, power initially increases your offense by 1.224 times how much vitality increases your defense (in my build, anyways). However, after a fairly small ~205 power increase, they’re equal to one another in terms of strength. This happens throughout all stats; an increase in one will cause another to rise in relative value, etc. Mathematically speaking, the diminishing returns aren’t large, but they certainly aren’t negligible.

I keep comparing to warrior because I’m trying to make a point of why you would run a thief when a warrior would be far more effective, in your case.

Stop saying “sword builds”, because while it might pertain to your build, it certainly doesn’t pertain to mine, Jumper’s, Nag Nag’s, Sizer’s, Toker’s, or just about any other thief’s Sword build in the game. You can maintain sustained damage easily without defensive stats. As somebody who used to be one of the foremost advocates of Soldier’s amulet, I can testify to this.

Impact.2780:

I see what you’re trying to accomplish, but it’s too restricting to have only S/D available. Sooner or later you’re going to find yourself in a fight wishing your alternate was SB or D/P.

^ yep. In sPvP this might be acceptable due to the smaller size of the battlegrounds (as Jumper displayed), but in WvW you absolutely need to have some more flexibility, preferably with SB.

Also, I’m personally not a fan of the 10 into SA. You already have enough condition removal from IR, Withdraw, RFInitiative, and Shadowstep for 99% of the situations you’re going to be in, the points into SA are just a bit pointless.

Liewec.2896:

i don’t get the big deal with healing sig, sure its nice but its not “OMFG THATS SO AMAZING!”
1. you lose the ability to heal if your health gets low
(i don’t count the puny 3k active as a heal)

2. there are soooo many healing skills that out-heal healing sig, and most of them have secondary effects and can be traited for even more secondary effects.

again, it’s nice, but its not OP, the reason it gets this image is the combination that warriors can access (regen, heal sig, adrenal healing, + condi clears) that stacking is godly, but healing signet isn’t the problem.

1. No, you just have Endure Pain, Zerker Stance, and heavy armor to absorb that damage. And either way, it takes more damage to reduce a warrior to 3k health than any other class in the game. Even then, I’ve still found HealSig to be an extremely effective tool even when I’m low on health when I’ve played warrior.

2. Not even close. There are two heals that can be greater than HealSig (Healing Turret and Med Kit), but the total activation time across all the skills required to make those skills worth more than HealSig not only reduces their HPS to levels below HealSig, but also sacrifices damage potential that those cast times could’ve been used for as well.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Lordrosicky.5813:

What I am saying is poison on a burst heal will hit the whole heal. Poison cannot be timed to be put on a warrior when they would want to heal. So poison has an effect but it is very minor vs such a passive heal because the heal is spread out over time.

minor? are you sure?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Poison
Deals damage every second; heal potency decreased by 33%; stacks duration.

healing signet 392 × 0.64 = 250.88 per second
adrenal health 360 × 0.64 = 230.40 per 3 seconds

poison basically neuters healing signet to 250 health per second.

minor?

You’re missing the point. For instance, over a 15 second period, if I have poison on a HealSig for 5 of those seconds, then I’ll reduce the equivalent of 1/3*1/3 = 1/9 of my opponent’s total healing. On the other hand, if I use poison on a burst heal, I’ll instantaneously reduce its effectiveness by 33%. The difference is that, against HealSig, we need to have a constant uptime of poison in order to reduce its average effectiveness to that 250.88 health per second. On the other hand, against burst healing, we only need to keep up, for example, a second of poison in order to counter one.

And either way, Cleansing Ire is one of the best if not the best condi cleanse in the game anyways, which makes the poison “counter” even more futile.

mini.6018:

Lordrosicky.5813:

The biggest strength of healing signet is there is no counter play.

There is a counterplay .It’s called DPS.Hs can’t burst heal and that is a huge counter and drawback.Stop this embarrasment.The developer sounded really capable to me.

Your post is a clutter of imaginary things combined with whining.

Lol. Do you realize how little time is required for HS to start outhealing a burst heal? Any half-competent warrior should be able to last that long. I know that I certainly can.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Arganthium.5638:

Back when thief was better, you could run Soldier’s ammie (sPvP) easily.

Nowadays, they’re simply not strong enough to use anything short of Zerker. Any less DPS and you simply become an extremely underpowered warrior.

Personally, I’m okay with that. As a player I’ve become more aggressive over the past few months anyways, and I prefer to play my thief dynamically rather than statically. I reserve static play for my mesmer and guardian.

…unless you’re running a sword build that already has 30 in CS. At that point the risks outweigh the benefits, and you’re no longer gaining much damage and sacrificing all survivability. It’s still completely viable to run a soldier’s amulet as a thief in sPvP. Nothing has changed with the way we fundamentally function.

No.

Warriors have 8k health and 147 more toughness (in the form of armor) than we do. That’s the equivalent of 182.65% of our base defensive stats. Warriors are already far, far ahead of us in terms of defensive ability, and when you combine that with the fact that warriors also have Cleansing Ire, HealSig, and Adrenal Health, there is absolutely no reason to run Soldier’s Amulet over Zerker on a thief. You might as well just roll a warrior.

On the other hand, though warrior might have better defense that thief, naturally, thief might have, say, offense that’s 82.65% better than Warrior’s (which it most certainly isn’t, at least for average or even high skill levels- only on extremely high skill levels, possibly). That is, however, for thieves to prove and Warriors to test. But if thief’s offensive capabilities are not greater than warrior’s defensive capabilities, then thieves have a theoretical disadvantage against warriors, and that is, quite simply, an inarguable point. In which case there is no competitive reason for us to run thief, but instead we ought to run warrior.

The point is that there are economic diminishing returns on all forms of defense, so once us thieves have a little bit of defense, say, from evasion, stealth, and/or base stats, we’ve already markedly depleted the marginal benefit of additional defensive stats. On the other hand, our offensive stats are the exact same as all other classes, save for our skill coefficients and, particularly for us thieves, our skill regeneration system. Unlike defensive stats, by which each point of toughness or vitality you take reduces the effect of every other point of toughness/vitality (up to the point where an additional point of either of those is worthless), weapon coefficients and skill recharges actually enhance the benefit from offensive stats, simply because they 1) allow them to scale better in the damage equation, and 2) allow us to maximize damage done (and, in fact, minimize damage taken) more effectively.

We simply have to hope that our combined defensive and offensive capabilities are greater than those of our opponents by assuming that our defense is already high enough and that our offense is high enough to make their multiplied value greater than those of other classes. Currently, given the situation with our base stats, I think it’s safe to say that we absolutely must invest into offensive stats, hoping they’re amplified by our weapon coefficients and skill recharges enough to put us on par with other classes.

Back when thief was better, you could run Soldier’s ammie (sPvP) easily.

Nowadays, they’re simply not strong enough to use anything short of Zerker. Any less DPS and you simply become an extremely underpowered warrior.

Personally, I’m okay with that. As a player I’ve become more aggressive over the past few months anyways, and I prefer to play my thief dynamically rather than statically. I reserve static play for my mesmer and guardian.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Actualy my second main is a thief with s/d in wvw so I know the weaknesses quite well and have played s/d before the 2 part chain was made. I was just using that as an example to show that thieves in high level play can kill mesmers effectively. I personally am not scared of s/d and more afraid of d/p trickery right now. The realllyyy good ones I am terrified of since they can murder me so fast x. x

Well then, you understand the situation.

Personally, D/P is a bit too gimmicky for me, and isn’t aggressive enough (at least, in the way I like builds being aggressive). They are, admittedly, a problem for newer players, but as you start getting more used to fighting against them, you realize that their skill ceiling, honestly, is hardly any higher than their skill floor.

I used to think that defense was, or could be, the best offense. Then I learned a few things about strategy.

Though, admittedly, auras could use a buff and come in larger quantities. That would be a very neat, unique, and defining class characteristic. However, their weapon skills need to be massively overhauled, especially some of the Staff ones.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

The only reason were unviable Arganthium sadly, is thieves can still murder us right now, as shown by the latest ESL. Sizer was murdering Helseth the entire game and there wasn’t much that Helseth could do. Otherwise, besides thieves focusing us, I agree with Arganthium. We have a lot of unused potential in our builds, since we’ve only really explored shatter/phantasm. Lockdown still remains to be used still which I love using coming from gw1. Hopefully it will be seen soon :O

Mmm. I just watched the replay (though only the first match, felt that was enough for me).

I almost no respect for Helseth, either as a person or a player. Unfortunately, the video in which he did this is now gone, but…

Arganthium.5638:

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

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

He’s not a very friendly person, and he’s extremely egotistical (okay, I know that he at least seems to mean a lot of these comments as jokes, but after the fifteenth such joke in a 5-minute span they stop seeming like jokes). He’s probably the person that hates S/D the most out of anybody ever. While I do think there are some things that could use nerfs (but many more things that could use buffs), the way he describes (or, at least, described) it makes it seem like warriors are elementalists compared to S/D thieves. In truth, they’re not. They have some relatively long cast times (empirically speaking) and after casts that can be taken advantage of by a wide variety of different types of play. For instance, Mesmer’s GS is one of the weapons that I point to as being the most natural counter to S/D. The auto attack, in and of itself, can take advantage very easily of those aforementioned cast times.

However, as you play more with S/D thief, and do more experiments with it, you find all kinds of holes in its playstyle. Tankier builds have a theoretical advantage against S/D. Mathematically speaking, the extra vitality that Mesmers have over thieves tends to be far more valuable than thief’s 7% damage reduction. Cripple, chill, and weakness are all absolutely devastating against thieves. Mobility-impeding abilities, like Line/Ring of Warding and Unsteady Ground, are all extremely powerful against S/D.

Then you delve even further into the weaponset, and that’s when you find its ultimate weaknesses. See, S/D relies almost entirely on evades as a defensive mechanism, with mobility via Shadowstep, Infi Signet, and IR taking up the lion’s share of what’s left. Each evade that a thief makes, however, has some kind of weakness. When it’s a regular evade, that weakness is the time right after the evade has finished. When it’s FS, then it’s the last part of the animation (by the way- FS does very little damage. It’s LS that does the vast majority of it). The better thieves know ways to combine the after cast on attacks like Slice and LS with evades, but usually that doesn’t suffice for those other weaknesses. Granted, this isn’t novice-level strategy; this is, IMO, specialist knowledge that only those of us who have stuck with the weaponset since its revival with the FS/LS chain know. However, once you understand its application, S/D almost ceases to exist. The last time I played against another S/D thief on my own, I killed him/her using mostly my auto attack for damage. There’s simply no reason for me to invest time and initiative on non-auto skills when I can basically just auto at the right time in order to kill my opponent.

I’m not saying that S/D is the worst weaponset in the game or anything, but there are a wide variety of specialist’s counters that you can take for virtually any build in the game that take advantage of the weaknesses that S/D does have, and run to the bank with this.

I’ll just add one more thing: Helseth’s near-complete apathy towards the S/D thief was, in general, a mistake, particularly when he was on-point. You can’t beat an S/D thief by playing passively, defensively, or otherwise non-actively. S/D builds are some of the most annoying builds in the game, and that’s because they attack vigorously (no pun intended) and they keep up the onslaught. If you play too defensively, you will lose. That’s why Helseth wasn’t all that effective against Sizer (though Sizer only actually killed Helseth when there were additional players backing him up, if you watched carefully).

Ryota.8539:

what about dungeon builds?

Those typically are going to fall under the category “PvE”. To be honest, I’m no expert at dungeon builds (though I could probably craft an effective one fairly easily), so I haven’t put down any dungeon-specific builds. The problem, however, extends beyond that anyways; thieves are typically seen as being unviable in dungeons, or extremely weak in comparison to other classes. Personally, I’m not one of the people that finds them excessively weak, but I do think that they could arguably be the weakest class of them all. Either way, the point is that there aren’t many dungeon builds that float around, and the ones that do tend to be very stereotypical of PvE “DPS DPS DPS” builds anyways. Not to mention- apparently some thieves have been kicked (more often recently than ever before, in my experience) or told to reroll in both dungeons and other game modes.

I know that’s probably not the answer you were looking for, but it is an explanation.

PS I just BS’d a dungeon build about 10 seconds ago, here’s the link. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUmKO3eS6E95Ey2jdqC5J+DOlODaqlA-jACBYfCikFRkKAIzsIasFSFRjVXDT5iIq2erIa1SBExyI-e

Though that type of playstyle might disappear after the next balance patch.

In a manner of speaking, mesmers have the widest variety of viable builds available to them in TeamQ at the moment. They’re certainly not unviable (and they certainly aren’t worse than thieves are atm). It just depends on your team comp and strat, though there are all kinds of different options available to you.

This is what my server (ET) looks like all the time.

A better question would be- why is warrior’s HP so high?

Elementalists? I suppose so.

Oozo.7856:

Atherakhia.4086:

What mobility issues in WvW?

Um, the fact that some classes have way too much escape mobility.

Yes, nothing worse than a thief spamming HS to run away from you at a rate of like 123984612037846 meters per second. Or worse, Monarch’s Leap.

Right.

BTW these are not in fact “mobility issues”, at least have the common sense to call them something like “disengage issues” or something.

There is not a single build in the current sPvP meta running SEmbrace, or, for that matter, Shadow Arts. The trait line basically turns your thief into a floppy punching bag that does virtually no damage. Anyways, the average thief stealth build has anywhere from 50 to 60 absolutely dedicated trait points that can’t go anywhere else.

If you can’t deal with a thief that is going any more than 10 points into SA in WvW, then you have a serious problem.

Cynz.9437:

Only time anet played a thief (at least from what i recall) was new fractal preview and all they did was spamming unload and being dead 90% of the time so go figure… don’t believe me? Check their stream.

As far as complains go, majority do pve, pve spoils players, they expect you to stand still and fight toe to toe which thieves can’t do due to survival mechanics… stealth requires you to use brain and predict what thief will do next… most people just wanna press 1 2 3 4 5 and win.

Actually, I think I remember them using a thief in a LW update (one of the Southsun ones) where, again, they just spammed unload.

There was also a PvE video where Jon was using some kind of P/D thief. I zoned out after about five minutes.

To be fair, nobody ever uses the stealth trap (and I’ve only seen the supply trap used once in actual play before). That being said, it goes to show how badly ANet hates thieves.

Atherakhia.4086:

No one cares about the crafting costs and the name of the game is DPS and not damage per attack. Most one handed weapons have a higher DPS than 2handers.

This is, quite simply, wrong, based on both experience, direct damage comparisons, and empirical observations from a variety of experiments measuring the casting times of different weapons, both 1h and 2h.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

2: Two-handed weapons already have a weapon damage advantage over one-handed weapons, which also affects slot skills.

This was my original argument, but I realized that this is not in fact true. That’s because the tooltip for a skill always takes into account weapon coefficient.

For instance, warrior’s Greatsword Swing states that it deals 259 damage at base (gw2skills.net/editor). Similarly, thief’s Slice deals 269 damage. However, both of these numbers take into account weapon coefficients already. For instance, if GS had the same weapon coefficients as Sword, it would actually deal something more like 235.5 damage. This is true of all 2h weapons. Thus, we can “normalize” skill coefficients by assuming that weapons like GS have the same weapon coefficients as weapons like Sword. Under this assumption, GS Swing has a normalized skill coefficient of .77 (which is the regular coefficient, .7, times the damage amplification from having a weapon coefficient ~110% that of 952.5, which is Sword’s average weapon coefficient, and the base standard for comparing weapon coefficients) while Slice has a normalized skill coefficient of 0.8. As a result, the total damage of these two weapons is nearly the same, as all weapon-specific factors (skill coefficient and weapon coefficient) multiply out to nearly the same number, except that thief’s Slice has a coefficient that is .03 more than GS Swing. Given that GS Swing applies vulnerability, this small differential makes the two weapons essentially equal in terms of damage.

This pattern tends to be true of all 2h weapons. Guardian’s GS and Hammer, Ranger’s GS and Longbow- of all of the many, many 2h weapons, all factors considered, they are all roughly equal in terms of strength.

That being said, the argument that people are making about 1h weapons being better in more circumstances than 2h weapons is complete kitten. They’re generally about equal in terms of strength, with perhaps 2h weapons having a slight edge.