Guild Wars 2

Umut.5471:

Perma evade thieves need to be nerfed asap, they don’t even take damage while doing tons of damage. I can’t even understand why anet allows these ultra-broken op builds to stay in game?

LOL

Do you have any idea how badly our vigor was nerfed last patch? We were hardly “perm evade” before, we certainly aren’t now. Mesmer, guardian, engineer, and ele all easily have as much vigor as we do and probably more.

And if you couldn’t counter “perma evade thieves” beforehand and still can’t now, you seriously need to L2P. You can take advantage of casts/aftercasts on various skills easily, and you can hit a thief using LS pretty easily as well. Heck, the last time I fought another S/D thief that was running a meta build, all I pretty much had to do was auto attack at the right time and the thief would go down pretty quickly. In fact, the majority of my damage came from auto attacking, and in the end it became an extremely easy fight. FS does relatively little damage, and LS makes thieves extremely vulnerable to damage. Just know when to hit and you can bit a S/D thief easily. It’s really not that difficult…

As a USCF member myself, I know a bit about the Elo. I wouldn’t consider it the “best rating system in the world”, but it is extremely effective and certainly infinitely better than our current ladder system.

Yes and no.

You’re almost right on the ball, but the stat that you’re looking at should be power, not attack. Attack is actually completely irrelevant when you’re computing damage, but power and weapon coefficients are not. Specifically, the formula looks like this:

Power * (Weapon Coefficient) * (Skill Coefficient) / (Armor + Toughness)

Where power is, obviously, your base power (916) plus any power received from additional stats. Weapon coefficient is a random number that is chosen between the two numbers listed on your weapon tooltip, so that, in the case of, say, Greatsword, a random number between 995 and 1100 (inclusive) will be chosen. Skill Coefficient is a skill-specific number that changes based on what your skill is. For example, a Backstab to the front of a player has a coefficient of 1.2, whereas a Backstab to the side/back of a player has a coefficient of 2.4. Armor is basically extra toughness you get from being able to wear one set of armor that is heavier than another.

If you want to include precision/critical damage in the aforementioned damage formula, you would change it so that it looks like

(Power * WeapCoef * SkillCoef) (1 + Critical Chance ( Critical Damage -1 ) / ( Armor + Toughness)

… I think, anyways. I just did that in my head (including simplification), so it might be incorrect, though I doubt it.

So anyways, back to your question:

If you have 3000 Power and you increase it to 3,300, then yes, that is a 10% damage increase on average (I say “on average” because weapon coefficient is a random number, but it does have a static average for a given weapon). In practice, though, you typically want to use the marginal formula (“how much benefit does a +1 increase in a stat increase my damage or damage absorption?”) when evaluating one stat in comparison to another, however.

Because many of the issues we brought up to them haven’t been addressed to this day (or took forever to be addressed, like the sPvP reward issues), because ANet uses whack-a-mole balance and prefers revolutionary balance over evolutionary balance, because many of their promises to different classes have yet to be fulfilled (the one that sticks in my head is the Thief P/P buffs that ANet promised in May), because ANet uses some extremely obscure and vague methods of balancing that virtually nobody in the sPvP community understands, and then implies that we’re incompetent because our theorycrafting has no bearing on reality when in reality it predicts the effects of different balance changes.

Christ, what have people been suggesting?

Qaelyn.7612:

Great stuff guys. Thanks a lot. I’ve actually done the DB/signet thing before and get the concept.

I will be happy to get “tired” of being invincible. I should have such problems.

So do you think I should go with that build you linked, Jorun (with some adjustments in traits to taste) or were you still thinking up something else?

My two main concerns…

1. I’m a little nervous about 12.8k health as it just seems I might be “burstable”, especially if I get jumped by another thief.

2. The DB method with the signet makes sense but requires me to be doing damage to heal. If I’m running from a zerg then I won’t be healing. But then I guess the regen while in stealth and so forth is there for that?

3. I’m a bit of a coward in melee, lol. But I guess I can spam hits with the SB too, yes?

I’m definitely going to try some variation on this. Thanks again.

1. No non-GC/burst build should ever have less than 15k health. If it does, you’re doing something wrong, especially if you’re trying to be a defensive scout, as you’ve said.

2. Who the heck are these people that are saying that Lowell’s build is any good for scouting? It’s one of the worst scouting builds physically imaginable, as a matter of fact. As you mentioned, you’re definitely not going to be making pretty little jumps in the air that make you move 90% slower and give you one of the worst evades on a weapon skill in the game when you’re running from a zerg, and if that’s what you do, you certainly aren’t going to survive. Are you trying to have a scouting build or a PvE build? Because if you’re going for the latter, sure, Lowell’s build will help you out. But as far as scouting goes, you’re going to be an absolutely godawful scout. You’re not going to hold any zergs back (in fact, no build across any class is going to do that, except maybe a few Guardian builds which can only do it for a few seconds anyways). You’re just going to end up going through a storm of blades as soon as your opponents see you in their path and you’re going to disappear immediately. Even in 1v1s, your build isn’t going to work no matter how good you make it unless you’re playing against some super-noob who got the game thirty minutes beforehand. You’ll have very little mobility and stealth as compared to other builds that can get a lot of both. You don’t need to punish yourself that much in order to get damage and utility out of a thief.

Dedicated stealth builds and dedicated mobility builds are going to be infinitely more useful than any condi build (including P/D condis, but to a lesser extent than D/D condis) will ever be. If you’re looking for good healing, you can get it out of any regular stealth build, and there are many mobility builds that can heal you for a decent amount as well.

3. If you’re worried about melee then you’re going to either want to stick to a P/D or SB build, or you’re going to want to use a S/X build. Sword builds are great for hit-and-run scenarios. They tend to be best with mobility builds, however.

Kagamiku.9731:

Arganthium.5638:

You’re already running a warrior, do you really need a specified “beginner’s” build?

Are you not even able to post decently to a beginner asking for help…if it involves a warrior?

Wow, some people seem to take my jokes far more seriously than I do.

I basically run the same build for every single game mode. Here’s the sPvP version:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAsYVlYm6OncS6E/5Eh3DyO2wqVgmdP4qV1KA-TsAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNKYZxkCA

Since you want to be tanky, simply change the soldier’s amulet to zerker. After that, I’m sure it’ll easy for you to convert the build over to WvW.

I’m personally not a big believer of stealth. As far as scouting builds go, it’s probably going to have to come down to a decision between either staying in stealth a lot or being able to move quickly, and I personally prefer being able to move quickly. The first reason is that you’re obviously a more effective scout, since you’re able to scout out various enemy movements and kill dolyaks at a much faster speed. Furthermore, the mobility that you can use to get to various locations can also get you away from them very easily; I don’t know that I’ve ever been outrun by another build in WvW before. I’ve hunted down enemies easily and been able to get away from them easily as well. Also, while stealth might seem to be a really sweet thing to have on you for scouting, realistically speaking, zergs are virtually never going to see you while they’re zerging along as long as you keep a good distance (probably ~2000 on flat ground, and you can probably get 1500 or less when you’re on high ground). I’ve personally never been chased down by some splinter group from a zerg before, so that should encourage you.

The problem with P/D is twofold. First of all, its damage is rather pathetic. Against Dolyaks, you might do okay with caltrops, but against everything else you’re going to die, simple as that. I know that you stated that you’re not looking to kill opponents, but you can easily do more damage and remain just as survivable if not more survivable with the build I linked above with Soldier’s gear. Furthermore, however, and certainly more importantly, P/D has the second worst mobility of any thief weaponset (the lowest being P/P- at least P/D can get a movement buff with Acro VI and a little more mobility with its 3 skill). Personally, I would make a defensive SB build over a P/D build any day of the week. SB is universally useful, has much better mobility, a great mix of direct and condi damage, and is easily one of the best if not the best utility weapon in the game. I can promise you that you’re not going to flip a camp (in any realistic time frame, at the very least) with a P/D build.

Hope that helps. The best scouting builds really aren’t nearly as defensive as you made yours, and the S/D build I suggested is going to have far more utility in a large variety of situations than a lowly P/D build will ever have.

PS: since you seem to be trying to build defensively, though, I’d suggest swapping Roll for Initiative with Shadow Refuge in my build if you choose to use it. It’ll also give you a stealth if you ever need one for scouting, though Roll for Init is extremely useful as a stunbreaker, initiative gainer, debilitating-conditions remover, and mobility skill (the evade allows you to travel a fair distance, especially in combination with Withdraw).

Furajir.3815:

now now Arganthium, beeee nice! And do my calculus homework!

Haha xD

You’re already running a warrior, do you really need a specified “beginner’s” build?

Warcry.1596:

Thieves should have a cooldown of anywhere from 1/2 to 2 seconds on their 2-5 skills on all weapons. I never understood why it has been okay to spam Heartseeker to get kills. Or spam Headshot a few times causing someone to be unable to act, while the party kills him. These are just a few examples, but I hope you can understand my point.

So you’re a HS spammer? Lol.

And have you seen what the cast time and incredibly short daze duration on Headshot’s like? If you’re “causing someone to be unable to act”, they’re probably AFK.

Initiative is fine, and it’s the only thing that really gives thief a unique flavor to it. If your opponents are dying because you’re spamming one skill, then they’re just bad, and so are you. I’ve faced so many thieves that spam 1, maybe 2 skills, without any thought as to what they’re doing, and they’re complete rubbish.

But go ahead, remove initiative. Completely remove thief from the game.

azuzephyr.7280:

Arganthium.5638:

I’ve disproven your poll using facts about statistical observation; .

You literally have done the exact opposite, come in with 0 evidence and just bashed mine which is disproving you. But if you’re that deep into the well then just stay there.

A difference of over 50% caused by order bias in a totally optional poll? Get out of this thread and take that claim to be a theorycrafter out of your sig, this is embarrassing.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/08/behavioral-bias

Did you even read this? You’re not disproving me of anything, because the only claim that I’ve really invested myself in is that your poll is clearly biased. All claims I’ve made about Lyssa being okay has been justified using theoretical evidence related to Basi Venom and the fact that only the 4 and 6 abilities on Lyssa are useful whatsoever.

Stop rattling off about “disproving” me, all you’ve done is said that your poll is unbiased and that apparently the percentage of people that disagree with me in your clearly biased poll disproves my point.

DaliIndica.9041:

Arganthium.5638:

azuzephyr.7280:

Arganthium.5638:

azuzephyr.7280:

I’m waiting to see any from your side, coffee pot is on

All I can see atm is two frequenters of the thief forum trying desperately to rip up any shreds of evidence that might highlight a cheap OP mechanic that they are relying on

As I have said many times already, create a counter poll that is as value free as you desire, in fact you can leave out Lyssa as an option altogether and just wait for people to post asking where Lyssa is.

Because it’s not evidence.

You’ve clearly shown in this statement that you are biased against Lyssa Runes, and while that may not have been a problem in and of itself, the fact that you (sub?)consciously placed Lyssa at the top of your poll shows that you have allowed your biases to greatly influence the results of your poll. I’m not creating a poll simply because neither I nor Evil wants to create one; that’s completely irrelevant as to whether or not your poll is accurate.

I don’t have any doubt that many people think that Lyssa is OP (even though its only good abilities are its 4 and 6, and the elite that thieves have to use in order to make Lyssa worthwhile gives a relatively short stun for being an elite and is easily evaded), but your poll seems to only have the goal of showing that Lyssa is in fact OP in mind, and you’ve altered your poll so as to create a voter bias against it.

Your post is a pathetic excuse for what you seem to call “evidence”, and has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on reality.

Actually I have never once said that the poll is flawless, quite the opposite, I don’t believe in value freedom, that’s all you.

But if you think you are fooling anyone by saying that Lyssa is flying to the top by a landslide in an optional poll by virtue of order bias, you are insulting the both of us.

That poll might be inaccurate to a degree. Without any evidence of your own, your claims are wildly more inaccurate, you just don’t like it, so kindly put them to rest where they belong.

Nor have I ever claimed that you’ve claimed that the poll is flawless.

Nor have I ever claimed that Lyssa is “flying to the top by a landslide” by “virtue of order bias”. I have, however, claimed that it has produced some degree of a bias that you cannot account for, and therefore the poll must be faulty. The degree to which it is faulty is debatable, but it clearly is, which is what matters.

Your definition of evidence seems to be purely empirical and opinion-based. That’s nice, but opinions are inherently biased and are therefore somewhat flawed. I base my evidence off of theoretical knowledge about the game, the basis of which I’ve justified many, many times.

Of course Lyss is OP really, and only a few classes have a use for it. Thievs are not the only ones, as others have said, any elite with a low cooldown will greatly benefit from the rune set. No two ways about it. Its a clear advantage that only two classes can use, the rest just see it for a side grade (or worse).

Did you listen to a single thing I said about how terrible Basi Venom is? It’s the most godawful utility that you’ll actually see used in tPvP. It’s really only useful with Lyssa Runes anyways, which combined means that it’s a pretty good elite but requires you to completely sacrifice your rune set on top of your elite, and the rune set isn’t that good in and of itself anyways. RageSig is a completely different matter, but if that’s the elite you’re really concerned about, then perhaps the CD should be reduced on that; doesn’t mean Lyssa needs to be nerfed.

azuzephyr.7280:

Arg, you are the most biased and unempirical person in this thread, you are trying foolishly hard to disprove this with zero facts of your own to back any of it up.

So unless you want to make a perfect poll of your own that would disprove the findings in this one just take your passive aggressive rage back to the thief forum where everyone will give you a pat on the back and tell you its ok.

I have literally no idea why you are still here unless you are so terrified that this could suggest something against your views. The evidence isn’t perfect, no evidence is, but what is your evidence? Personal vendetta based around 0 supporting numbers. You are the last person who can talk about empiricism here.

Don’t lecture me about empiricism when you’ve consciously allowed your observations to be influenced by your previous ideas about what the results should be.

I’ve disproven your poll using facts about statistical observation; if you need empirical facts to support my counterarguments, just follow Evil’s link. It’s really not that difficult.

Slim.3024:

Arganthium.5638:

You’re statistically illiterate. If I asked you to choose between two ice cream flavors and determine which is better, and then I told you that your options were chocolate and chocolate, I wouldn’t conclude at the end of my study that chocolate is better than vanilla. Or, if I went into some ultra-conservative part of the US- say, Texas- I wouldn’t conclude that the vast majority of Americans are Republicans. Those are just two examples of ways in which a researcher can influence his/her results, and, similarly, Azuze has chosen to bias the results of his poll as well, and thus it is just as unreliable.

Are you seriously trying to say that the different degrees of bias you are comparing are irrelevant and that any form of bias automatically destroys any statistics?

63% have voted for Lyssa and you are trying to attribute this to the somewhat biased representation of choices.

I get that you are bored and like to argue on the forums, but not everything can or has to be twisted. Sometimes you’ll just look stupid and it’s best to move on.

As Evil said, Azuze had the option to fix the poll very soon after it was posted, as he was alerted to its inaccuracy. This is something that any undergrad should be able to do.

I cannot say that the 63% is completely a result of the poll bias, but the poll is clearly inaccurate and is at least somewhat influenced by the bias.

Slim.3024:

Of course the poll constitutes evidence. It might not be proof, but it certainly is evidence.

You’re statistically illiterate. If I asked you to choose between two ice cream flavors and determine which is better, and then I told you that your options were chocolate and chocolate, I wouldn’t conclude at the end of my study that chocolate is better than vanilla. Or, if I went into some ultra-conservative part of the US- say, Texas- I wouldn’t conclude that the vast majority of Americans are Republicans. Those are just two examples of ways in which a researcher can influence his/her results, and, similarly, Azuze has chosen to bias the results of his poll as well, and thus it is just as unreliable.

azuzephyr.7280:

Arganthium.5638:

azuzephyr.7280:

I’m waiting to see any from your side, coffee pot is on

All I can see atm is two frequenters of the thief forum trying desperately to rip up any shreds of evidence that might highlight a cheap OP mechanic that they are relying on

As I have said many times already, create a counter poll that is as value free as you desire, in fact you can leave out Lyssa as an option altogether and just wait for people to post asking where Lyssa is.

Because it’s not evidence.

You’ve clearly shown in this statement that you are biased against Lyssa Runes, and while that may not have been a problem in and of itself, the fact that you (sub?)consciously placed Lyssa at the top of your poll shows that you have allowed your biases to greatly influence the results of your poll. I’m not creating a poll simply because neither I nor Evil wants to create one; that’s completely irrelevant as to whether or not your poll is accurate.

I don’t have any doubt that many people think that Lyssa is OP (even though its only good abilities are its 4 and 6, and the elite that thieves have to use in order to make Lyssa worthwhile gives a relatively short stun for being an elite and is easily evaded), but your poll seems to only have the goal of showing that Lyssa is in fact OP in mind, and you’ve altered your poll so as to create a voter bias against it.

Your post is a pathetic excuse for what you seem to call “evidence”, and has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on reality.

Actually I have never once said that the poll is flawless, quite the opposite, I don’t believe in value freedom, that’s all you.

But if you think you are fooling anyone by saying that Lyssa is flying to the top by a landslide in an optional poll by virtue of order bias, you are insulting the both of us.

That poll might be inaccurate to a degree. Without any evidence of your own, your claims are wildly more inaccurate, you just don’t like it, so kindly put them to rest where they belong.

Nor have I ever claimed that you’ve claimed that the poll is flawless.

Nor have I ever claimed that Lyssa is “flying to the top by a landslide” by “virtue of order bias”. I have, however, claimed that it has produced some degree of a bias that you cannot account for, and therefore the poll must be faulty. The degree to which it is faulty is debatable, but it clearly is, which is what matters.

Your definition of evidence seems to be purely empirical and opinion-based. That’s nice, but opinions are inherently biased and are therefore somewhat flawed. I base my evidence off of theoretical knowledge about the game, the basis of which I’ve justified many, many times.

azuzephyr.7280:

I’m waiting to see any from your side, coffee pot is on

All I can see atm is two frequenters of the thief forum trying desperately to rip up any shreds of evidence that might highlight a cheap OP mechanic that they are relying on

As I have said many times already, create a counter poll that is as value free as you desire, in fact you can leave out Lyssa as an option altogether and just wait for people to post asking where Lyssa is.

Because it’s not evidence.

You’ve clearly shown in this statement that you are biased against Lyssa Runes, and while that may not have been a problem in and of itself, the fact that you (sub?)consciously placed Lyssa at the top of your poll shows that you have allowed your biases to greatly influence the results of your poll. I’m not creating a poll simply because neither I nor Evil wants to create one; that’s completely irrelevant as to whether or not your poll is accurate.

I don’t have any doubt that many people think that Lyssa is OP (even though its only good abilities are its 4 and 6, and the elite that thieves have to use in order to make Lyssa worthwhile gives a relatively short stun for being an elite and is easily evaded), but your poll seems to only have the goal of showing that Lyssa is in fact OP in mind, and you’ve altered your poll so as to create a voter bias against it.

Your post is a pathetic excuse for what you seem to call “evidence”, and has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on reality.

azuzephyr.7280:

Opinion noted, awaiting counter statistics

It’s not a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of statistical fact.

azuzephyr.7280:

Arganthium.5638:

azuzephyr.7280:

evilapprentice.6379

)This is the problem with forum discussions with most players – you’re not interested in any argument or reasoning that doesn’t lead to your conclusion.

Oh, the irony.

Since you don’t seem interested in data which doesn’t lead to your conclusion then I don’t know what else to say to you, other than to again, stop derailing this thread with some rant and step away from the keyboard

And if you want to run acceptable p values to correlate the response bias you are more than welcome, I’ll hand over the SD/response values as soon as the poll closes. However given current trends, I doubt it’ll be necessary.

Your data is pointless if it’s faultily collected. Statistics 101, kids.

1) there is no such thing as value freedom, by your logic all data is pointless, correctly all data is flawed it merely has value attached to it
2) anyone who believes that the landslide lead by Lyssa is due to order bias should really skip the college level classes

If you believe that order bias is at hand, then create another survey. That free website does not provide randomized answers as an option.

1. No, of course there isn’t, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t try to reduce it as much as possible. You haven’t even put in any effort to do that.

2. No wonder you’re so ignorant of statistics.

azuzephyr.7280:

evilapprentice.6379

)This is the problem with forum discussions with most players – you’re not interested in any argument or reasoning that doesn’t lead to your conclusion.

Oh, the irony.

Since you don’t seem interested in data which doesn’t lead to your conclusion then I don’t know what else to say to you, other than to again, stop derailing this thread with some rant and step away from the keyboard

And if you want to run acceptable p values to correlate the response bias you are more than welcome, I’ll hand over the SD/response values as soon as the poll closes. However given current trends, I doubt it’ll be necessary.

Your data is pointless if it’s faultily collected. Statistics 101, kids.

evilapprentice.6379:

Cute, putting Lyssa at the very top and Ogre/Scholar at the very bottom. At least you’re aware of how biases work. Why not alphabetically?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/08/behavioral-bias

Gaming the results (consciously or unconsciously) won’t help your argument.

What Evil says is true; at least put them in alphabetical order, or, better yet, if you have the option, randomize their positions for each time somebody looks at the poll.

Also, it’s extremely difficult to say which rune set is “the best”. There are a few runesets that I set aside as my go-to runes for specific types of builds when I’m just trying to make a quick build (Undead for condis, Ogre for direct damage, Dolyak for bunker), but there are a number of runesets that shine in very, very specific circumstances. As a result, I don’t think that it’s wise to evaluate the power of runesets without putting them in the context of a build.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

DanSH.6143:

First of all: No, it wouldn’t nerf the warrior, warriors aren’t used too much to cap points anyway. Also, warriors usually have 2 stances up at the same time, so they ‘no-cap’ time would be pretty short.
The problem with Warriors as of now is the amount of damage they deal vs the amount of damage they can endure.
Main problems:
1. Healing Signet is way too strong.
2. Being able to stack stances (which makes no sense)
3. Hammer is still too strong. Setting itself too good, if foe has no stab – hitting him with 1 stun guarantees hitting him with the 2 other stuns remaining and another skill. Compare it to the GS, which relies on other weapon sets / utilities to get combos on foes.
4. Lyssa works amazing on warriors, making them have more condi cleanse and more stab.

in conclusion, nerf healing signet = balance

1. not really. can be countered with burst & heavy conditions
2. stances have short duration & long recharge times anyway
3. dodge when you see the warrior jumping? earthshaker has 0.75 seconds activation.
4. fastest is every 48 seconds anyway. on par with stances down time.

DanSH have you played warriors?

1.

Oxygen.5918:

Durzlla.6295:

It DOES have counters 1) BIG Burst, 2) Constant Poison 3) have more constant damage than their heal, oh look, ranger builds….

How is poison a counter to healing signet any more than it is a counter to any other heal? If anything, it’s less of a counter because you need a constant duration of it while you only need 2 seconds of it to reduce burst healing by 33%. Logic isn’t your forté.

Arganthium.5638:

Durzlla.6295:

It DOES have counters 1) BIG Burst, 2) Constant Poison 3) have more constant damage than their heal, oh look, ranger builds….

1) what Oxygg said, and apt. Not to mention that very few classes have access to poison anyways, and even fewer to longer durations of the condi.

2) there are a few problems with this. First, it would mean that every build in the game would need burst to counter warr. Secondly, Endure Pain greatly increases your life span against burst. Third, bursts have to occur in succession and quickly- your heal doesn’t stop healing you when you’re being bursted. Fourth, you only need to live for a few seconds to have a higher HPS than the bursting class has (ie thief’s Withdraw heals for about 100 HPS less than HealSig and about 200 HPS les than HS with Adrenal Health, meaning that you only need to live ~9s to start out healing thief). Fifth, warr has the highest base health and heavy armor to shore up burst anyways. If these don’t convince you, I don’t know what will.

3) yeah, that’s how you beat any build, surprise surprise. But doing 1000 DPS to a class that heals for 300 HPS and 15k health is going to kill faster than doing 1000 DPS to a class with 400/500 HPS and 23k health.

2. Stance duration can be increased. Both Balanced Stance and Zerker Stance have 8s durations, which are pretty long, and the CD on Balanced is very short. The game-changing effects of Endure Pain justifies its long CD and short duration.

3. Evading a burst skill doesn’t affect a warrior’s adrenaline, and it’s extremely hard to evade all of those casts when there are so many of them (seems you have to dodge something else every three seconds).

4. Do you have any idea how powerful RageSig is by itself? At least thief’s Basi Venom is extremely weak (a relatively short stun for being an elite that burns as soon as you evade it), and Necro’s Flesh Golem takes more than 60s, realistically speaking, to recharge. RageSig is insanely strong (half a minute of fury and 5 stacks of might is ridiculous), which doesn’t match with other low-CD elites.

Anastasis.7258:

-snip-

There’s a very fine line between being a glass cannon and being high-damage. An example of a GC would be a Rifle warrior that attempts to 1-shot players through maxing offensive stats entirely, through traits, runes, and ammies. A high-damage player will use zerker amulet but won’t trait/otherwise build to deal absolute maximum damage. Most warriors, thus, don’t run GC, but there are a lot that run high damage. GC is just the extreme end of the spectrum, and honestly, stating the effectiveness of HealSig by evaluating its usage with a GC build is extremely dishonest in this regard.

As for sustaining yourself, warrior has heavy armor and 18k base health. That kind of damage absorption brings in a lot of different benefits over a long period of time. It means that you can always keep healing up, that you can absorb burst damage, that all direct damage, in the long run, is going to be very significantly reduced. You don’t need to have “lol spammable sustain” in order to survive; with Endure Pain, you can greatly magnify the effects of those aforementioned variables by being able to absorb significant amounts of damage in a long enough period of time to heavily counterattack and benefit from your 400 HPS. Not to mention- each of those aforementioned “spammable sustains” that you mentioned come with some kind of serious disadvantage. With stealth, you give up capping a point. With teleport, you give up on capping a point as well by being off point. As for protection, you have to build specifically so that you can sustain large amounts of the boon, and even then, you can only get very small amounts of it anyways.

Most classes don’t have poisoning abilities, and even those that do can only get small amounts of it at a given time. Furthermore, you need permanent duration of poison to completely decrease HealSig’s healing ability by 33%; with burst heals, you only need to poison the burst, at which point the entire heal is reduced by 33%. As a result, HealSig is actually better at countering poison than any active heal in the game. As for burst, because of warrior’s 18k base health, Endure Pain, and 7/14% damage reduction over medium or light armor respectively, burst becomes a very ineffective tool at countering HealSig. And, in fact, if you do the math, against a class like, say, thief, you only need to survive ~11 seconds maximum to start out-healing the thief from just HealSig alone, and with Endure Pain, that already fairly small amount goes down to even less. Either way, though, if you can’t live beyond 11 seconds in a 1v1 against a burst thief, then you really need to check your build out, because I run zerker amulet and I can easily live that long.

I run a 30/0/25/0/15 build and it works like a charm. There is literally nothing to worry about if you’re running this kind of build. The only problem the weapon-swap idea is going to create is making every single warrior run a single build. I honestly have no clue where you’re getting this idea that Healing Sig will only benefit bunker warriors, that’s absolutely absurd.

No, not every thief is running 10/30/0/0/30… Nor is it a good build with anything but D/P or S/P, both of which ran this build before Dec 10th anyways.

No matter what happens, your type will always think that thieves can “spam their skills without thinking any consequences”. If you’re dying to some kind of PW-spamming or HS-spamming noob, you really need to L2P.

Nerfing teleportation abilities is only going to make the thief an even more useless class to have on your team, and will further drive them into the depths of being underpowered warriors.

Why don’t you not continue before you keep trying to pour these godawful ideas down on our heads.

Reikou.7068:

Arganthium.5638:

And don’t even tell me that 30 Acro should be replaced with 30 CS in an S/D build for sPvP… There’s a reason why no professional player runs a 10/30/0/0/30 build for S/D.

There are no professional players in GW2…

That said, the “meta” S/D builds is still 10/30/0/30/0, and some people have been playing with 25/30/0/15/0.

25/0/0/15/30 is one that Sizer has been playing around with for a bit, as well, but it seems more experimental than anything.

“Professional” as far as you can be professional in GW2.

Not sure why you’d run 25 DA with S/D, tbh.

Ha.
Haha.
I found Sorrengild on the forums.

I agree with your points- Hammer is definitely a great weapon (in sPvP as well); it’s hard to say otherwise. Still, the third attack in the auto chain could use a little bit of a rework. I don’t main a guard, but I’d think that since it’s a symbol, it’ll probably trigger whether or not you hit an opponent (please correct me if I’m wrong). If that’s the case, then the skill in and of itself isn’t that bad, but it probably could use a change to its functionality so as to make the Hammer a more fluid weapon. In its current state, I find it too sluggish to be all that useful for me, though that’s probably mostly because of the fact that I’m in love with mobility of all sorts.

Lopez.7369:

That’s fine. The developers have my feedback, so I’m content with what I’ve said.

If you want to learn more about high-level play, look up some streams.

Feedback is pointless without the evidence to back it up. In your case, you’re just citing a couple of so-called “professional” teams. Many, many actual professionals would disagree with your evaluation.

Lopez.7369:

Yeah. People citing minion master are very obviously inexperienced at high tiers and basing their experiences off solo queue or some low-level meta in team arenas that I’m completely oblivious to.

Using that as your argument proves nothing; it doesn’t show anything about whether or not MMs are actually good and, assuming they are not, why they aren’t.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Arganthium.5638:

Ozie.4176:

Arganthium.5638:

kekuso.5837:

I’d like to see that pvp build Jorun. I find it extremely hard to kill any bunker without 30 CS…

I can kill bunkers in sPvP easily with 10/0/0/30/30. The damage boost you get from zerker amulet is much, much higher than what you get from CS. CS just ends up being more like a tiny bonus.

I’m not sure if this is serious, anyone can kill a bunker, a bunkers role is not to live forever 1v1, its role is to stay alive until someone else shows up. Furthermore 20% damage from JUST executioner is not “just a bonus”. Also, having zerker gear and CS are not mutually exclusive, most people run both. Literally nothing in this post made any sense what so ever.

If you mean your own post, sure.

I said “kill bunkers easily”, as in “I can kill bunkers in the same amount of time that a 30 CS thief can”. That 20% bonus is still a 0% bonus until you get your opponent under 50% health, so it averages to a 10% bonus which honestly isn’t all that impressive. The stats from 30 CS give hardly any more of a bonus than 10 DA, and all of the non-Executioner traits that you take from CS are fairly pointless. This isn’t the same with the traits from Trickery; all of them are useful and they all lend to increased damage output.

The point of my post was that 30 CS is not necessary to kill bunkers easily; I didn’t say they’re mutually exclusive. I said that you can just as easily kill somebody without 30 CS as you can kill them with it. Don’t twist my words.

As someone who buildcrafts night and day to optimize my playstyle and as someone who plays a 10/0/0/30/30 thief in WvW, I don’t see how you’re getting enough critical damage out of your build in order to make the precision from your Berserker Amulet worth it. No combination of amulets and jewels can get past 20% on their own, without the aid of traits, making your precision null when it comes to maintaining cleave. Sure, you can survive with the vigor from Bountiful Theft and Vigorous Renewal, but in the end your job is to roam and win team fights when you aren’t capping empty points, and putting 30 into Acrobatics rather than CS is crippling your team, due to the inability to stack critical damage in sPvP solely through gear. I would be happy to run 30 in acrobatics as I do in WvW, but the stat limitations of gear pigeonhole thief into Critical Strikes unless running a condition build, in which case you should just role a necro or engineer which can do ranged condition cleave better.

/PvP

Even with 50% critical damage, the bonus you’re getting from the precision is relatively small anyways.

The attached graph displays the tradeoff between additional power versus precision at different levels of critical damage, starting with base critical damage as the last graph to intersect the x axis and increasing by amounts of 10% until you reach the innermost graph, which displays the tradeoff with 220% critical damage. In each of these, the vertex of a given equation represents the point where precision starts becoming worth more than power.

Given the sheer volume of power (x axis) required to make 1 point of precision equivalent to 1 point of power, it would make sense that precision is worth very little in comparison to power, and, indeed, the math shows this.

Rather, the precision is going to be more useful for Air and Fire sigils than it is going to be for a direct damage bonus.

And don’t even tell me that 30 Acro should be replaced with 30 CS in an S/D build for sPvP… There’s a reason why no professional player runs a 10/30/0/0/30 build for S/D.

redslion.9675:

Arganthium.5638:

I thought that this post was a joke originally, but apparently it isn’t. So lemme just rattle off all of the problems with these changes:

Warrior:
- HealSig will still heal for more than every other heal in the game, you’re completely missing the point of why it’s OP

Healing Turret (drop, activate ’n pick up) heals for (2520*2+ 130*3 + 130*5)/15 = (6080)/15 = 405 HPS.

Medkit has (4920/20 + 3000/12) = 496 HPS.

No healing power, no trait investment.

Now, HS shouldn’t be that easy to use. I agree for that.

Factoring in cast times, if we upped the total time between heals for Healing Turret to 16 seconds (a very small 1s difference), that would immediately drop the heal to 380 HPS. In reality, this value is going to be much less. You also have to assume that regen doesn’t get boonstolen, which is certainly a possibility, as well as for the damage output lost as a result of the cast times on this heal.

As for Med Kit- as others have said, it’s not nearly as easy as that. If we factor in cast times as according to gw2skills.net, then already those heals change to 4920/21+3000/13.5= ~456.5, but if you’ve used the kit before, the cast times are obviously much more than that, and then you have to factor in cast times resulting from transitioning into Med Kit and then transitioning out of Med Kit. Again, you also have to consider damage output lost as a result of the cast times for this.

It’s obviously because of how easy HealSig is to use, as you said, that it heals more than every other skill in the game.

Lopez.7369:

Arganthium.5638:

Thief is in S tier and Necro is in B tier? Let’s be honest, that’s more than just a bit unrealistic. Putting thief at the bottom of A or in B tier is more accurate, and Necro can easily go into the middle of A. Engineer certainly isn’t worse than guardian or even ranger.

No, it’s not. I go by high-level team arenas. Necromancers would be higher if warriors were lower. Thieves are simply incredible right now.

Too many people judge this game off one-on-one fights or very selective encounters. They’re important, but they don’t decide everything.

It’s really bizarre to see this forum still complain about conditions as condition necromancers slip out of the high-level meta game.

I’m not sure what “high-level teams” you’re looking at right now, but I’ve never seen a single one (or a single player on a high-level team) say that necros aren’t good for those teams.

Warriors are the only reason Necros aren’t in S tier, and MM builds are starting to make that evaluation look very doubtful.

Thieves have 8k less base health than necros. They do have better armor, but that’s more or less offset by the damage absorption necro can get from DS. In order to even become half effective, thieves have to go all-in into damage, or else they just become UP warriors or necros. The net result is that they’ve become extremely gimmicky, and are fairly easy to counter when focused in a team fight, debilitated, or likewise.

Condi necros really aren’t slipping out of this game. Even if they were, it would be very difficult if not impossible to objectively prove that they’re leaving because they’re becoming underpowered.

Flissy.4093:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Wait, if you interrupt a gamechanging skill like Battle Standard it only goes into 4 second cooldown? Where’s the punishment/reward? Seriously?

4 seconds is plenty time to put a stomp on someone.

Yeah, that’s a friggin’ eternity.

Either way, I think you’re missing the point of Quickfoot’s post…

I thought that this post was a joke originally, but apparently it isn’t. So lemme just rattle off all of the problems with these changes:

Warrior:
- HealSig will still heal for more than every other heal in the game, you’re completely missing the point of why it’s OP
- Um… What? Zerker stance would still be ridiculously OP, not to mention that the 100% decreased duration effects that you mentioned make no sense whatsoever
- Still, nobody’s going to use this healing skill, HealSig is much more reliable and powerful.
- At least you got the changes on Endure Pain right
- With the Fear Me changes, warrior will become the new Necro
- Why don’t you just reduce the length of immob and the number of bleeds on Pin Down? Would probably be more effective, in truth.
- Sure, I can agree with the 100b changes, but there’s no reason to change Greatsword’s burst skill.
- Rifle is already an extremely powerful burst weapon just through Volley, all of the changes you mentioned (apart from the fairly negligible Rifle Butt changes) are just going to make warrior replace thieves even more as the best burst class

Thief:
- all of our initiative traits were nerfed, now you’re really suggesting that we nerf initiative regeneration back to pre-December 10th levels?

Necromancer:
- None of these changes is going to do anything.

Ranger:
- This doesn’t fix the other 1012873401287334 problems the class has

Runes of Lyssa: you should change the description to “now unusable”, because it’s already bad enough apart from its 4 and 6 abilities, nerfing the 6 ability into oblivion will just nerf the rune into dust. Not to mention that this is really a stealth nerf to S/D thieves, anyways…

omg
teef used devorer venim
couldnt avoid hits
couldnt condi cleanse teefs amazing OP condi apply
venom share bild to OP
i git hit by 9s immob all teh tyme
its so bad
so OP
much good
no block
no evade
4ever alone

devorer venom says it only apply twice
but it can three times
with Residual
and 30% condi dur means i can be immob for 7.5s
i cant evade or condi clean 3 hits
2 powerfull

pl0x nerf anet

Lopez.7369:

These lists are difficult to make when accounting for various roles.

For example, guardian is obviously a must-have in team arenas. But it’s not really overpowered because nothing about it feels particularly outrageous; it’s just the best designed bunker.

With that said, here is my list:

S tier
Warrior
Thief

A tier
Guardian
Ranger
Engineer
Mesmer

B tier
Necromancer

C tier
Elementalist

My list assumes classes are using their apex builds, so necromancers are conditions, warriors use hammer and longbow and so on.

I don’t consider anything in A through C tiers overpowered, while the classes in S tier need to be brought down a bit more than other classes to be in line with my expectations.

I actually think balance is in a pretty good spot right now. The issue is all the classes, particularly those in S, A and B tiers, have cheesy mechanics. In an ideal patch, I would nerf every single class while making adjustments that move everyone toward A tier.

Thief is in S tier and Necro is in B tier? Let’s be honest, that’s more than just a bit unrealistic. Putting thief at the bottom of A or in B tier is more accurate, and Necro can easily go into the middle of A. Engineer certainly isn’t worse than guardian or even ranger.

Ozie.4176:

Arganthium.5638:

kekuso.5837:

I’d like to see that pvp build Jorun. I find it extremely hard to kill any bunker without 30 CS…

I can kill bunkers in sPvP easily with 10/0/0/30/30. The damage boost you get from zerker amulet is much, much higher than what you get from CS. CS just ends up being more like a tiny bonus.

I’m not sure if this is serious, anyone can kill a bunker, a bunkers role is not to live forever 1v1, its role is to stay alive until someone else shows up. Furthermore 20% damage from JUST executioner is not “just a bonus”. Also, having zerker gear and CS are not mutually exclusive, most people run both. Literally nothing in this post made any sense what so ever.

If you mean your own post, sure.

I said “kill bunkers easily”, as in “I can kill bunkers in the same amount of time that a 30 CS thief can”. That 20% bonus is still a 0% bonus until you get your opponent under 50% health, so it averages to a 10% bonus which honestly isn’t all that impressive. The stats from 30 CS give hardly any more of a bonus than 10 DA, and all of the non-Executioner traits that you take from CS are fairly pointless. This isn’t the same with the traits from Trickery; all of them are useful and they all lend to increased damage output.

The point of my post was that 30 CS is not necessary to kill bunkers easily; I didn’t say they’re mutually exclusive. I said that you can just as easily kill somebody without 30 CS as you can kill them with it. Don’t twist my words.

kekuso.5837:

I’d like to see that pvp build Jorun. I find it extremely hard to kill any bunker without 30 CS…

I can kill bunkers in sPvP easily with 10/0/0/30/30. The damage boost you get from zerker amulet is much, much higher than what you get from CS. CS just ends up being more like a tiny bonus.

They have an advantage but I think that most people overrate it.

I’m not going to link my own build (for once), but one of the many ideas behind it that I’ve developed over the past year is to be extremely mobile via Infi Signet, Shadowstep, Infiltrator’s Arrow and Infiltrator’s Strike (both with high initiative regeneration), Withdraw and Roll for Initiative (turn 180 degrees and roll backwards- you can hotkey this), and a low CD Steal. You can basically set up a combo like Shadow Step + Infi Strike + Infi Signet + Steal to literally travel up to 3600 range in about a couple of seconds (note: I’d try out this combo in the Mists on some golems first, may take some time for you to get used to and even if you do, you need to have a good instinctive feeling of when you can and can’t use the combo). You can even boost Steal’s range through the Trix trait line anyways, allowing you to travel a grand total of ~4500 range in the blink of an eye. It’s an extremely powerful combination, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been able to catch up with yaks and opponents or flee because of these types of things. You don’t even need to sacrifice much if any damage.

If that’s what you’re looking for, then an S/X (preferably S/D because of some other characteristics of the build, but it’s your choice) and SB combined with Shadowstep and Infi Signet and probably at least 15 in Trix (I’d personally say 30, but again, your choice) will allow you to map travel very quickly, especially if you can supplement it with small bursts of swiftness.

hooma.9642:

-snip-

1. Yeah, damage is buffed to skills that aren’t even relevant to S/D… That, or they come with major nerfs as well. IS does less damage than the auto attack- it’s extremely small. The immob is also hard to utilize. We don’t have “boonsteal on demand” (it requires a relatively long amount of time for us to steal boons with LS because of the chain, and “filler” boons are generated to quickly for us to get the useful boons), teleportation is just another form of a leap (just without the finisher) and is just as predictable, and our evades are much fewer in number than most people seem to believe- and even if they weren’t, there are easy ways to take advantage of certain casts on Sword. Either way, though, Jumper suggested nerfing Feline Grace to help get rid of evasion-spamming, and I agree with him, so you can’t blame us for the evasion issues.

2. If you can counter stuns more easily than condis, then you simply need to change your build. Maybe you haven’t learned that condis appear much more often than CCs, even if CCs appear a ton. And I don’t claim to agree with every point that Jumper makes, but I don’t see any harm in making a hardly spammable skill less spammable, unless you’re some kind of big fan of spam.

3. Being a good player gives a player’s statements credibility because they have empirical data in the form of experience to back up those statements. The difference between your analogy and reality is that monkeys simply don’t have the capacity to understand things within a particularly large depth, but humans do. Thus, your analogy automatically assumes that Jumper is incapable of the same understanding that you or I can have of this game, and as there is no evidence to suggest that this is in fact true, your analogy is quite certainly faulty.

4. Did I say that hot join is the same as tPvP? No; stop lying. Everybody is to some degree biased in some manner or another to some issue unless he/she is apathetic to it. However, a single person’s bias does not affect the truthfulness of his/her statements. If I said that person X killed person Y, and I have videos, fingerprints, ballistics reports, etc to prove him guilty, but it turns out that I dislike person X, does that mean that person X is innocent? Of course not. Stop using bias as your main source of argument, it isn’t getting you anywhere. And, again, I never said that hot join players are automatically bad.

5. Because while the travel speed is bad, the utility from the skill is also extremely bad. The cripple is nice against fleeing opponents but that’s it; X/D builds are melee based (unless it’s P/D, though that weaponset has its own weaknesses anyways), and thus cripples aren’t going to be very good anyways. On top of that, any half-decent player knows that unless he or she builds specifically for mobility, fleeing from a thief is never a good option; thieves are meant to be mobile, and once you release pressure from one, he/she can rain damage down upon you easily. So certainly, for D/D and S/D, the cripple is fairly meaningless except for filler damage at a range when you’re, for example, standing on a point and don’t want to/are unable to swap weapons. For builds like D/D, you don’t have enough initiative to do that anyways. It’s easier just to keep the animation like it currently is, but to buff the skill so that it becomes a high risk, high reward skill.

6. Thieves only have two realistic ways to be able to condi cleanse at a reliable time right now: SA IV and Sword #2. SA traits are hardly ever taken because they just make stealth builds more gimmicky than they already are; it’s usually better to just play on the edge of a razor with a stealth build and either kill your opponent quickly or be killed. S/D can condi cleanse reliable with IR, but with the cast it’s become more difficult to do so. However, overall thief builds suffer from a lack of diversity because so many builds are vulnerable to conditions- that’s a major reason why P/D and P/P builds are weak, and it heavily limits D/X options. No idea how the number of condis thieves can apply has any relevance to whether or not we should buff our own condi cleansing.

Hooma, to address a few points:

- a 10% damage nerf is massive. Given that LS is one of our main sources of damage (it has the highest coefficient of all of our damage skills), a 10% nerf is a pretty significant blow to the amount of damage we deal. People take stuff like Force Sigil and Ogre Runes for a reason; those small percentages add up. A 10% damage nerf would be like removing 200 power from somebody with 2000 power when they use LS. That’s the equivalent of 20 trait points into a power tree; it’s worth more than the amount of power you can get from a jewel and is a pretty significant amount of both stats you can get from amulets and base stats.

- Immobilize is easier to counter (with condi cleanse) than stun, which is currently what PW applies no matter what side you’re on. The initiative cost on PW makes it difficult to spam, and if you talk to most S/P players a lot of them will tell you that spamming PW is bad anyways. Infi strike only applies an extremely short immob, maybe long enough to get in a single hit.

- Caed is an extremely good thief, and Acandis is overall a very good player. Jumper himself is practically a god of the sPvP thief community. Also, if you’re going to tell somebody that he/she isn’t any good, please at least have the respect to write as though you weren’t a chicken scratching a wall…

- Any video, even one of hotjoins, can at least give a rough idea of how good a build or class is. There’s no reason to think otherwise; you can simply watch how Jumper plays and how his opponents play, and then compare them to any standards that you want to set, and you still have all of the quality of a tPvP video. There’s no reason why every vid needs to be a tPvP one…

- Dancing Dagger is extremely hard to hit due to its large windup and the linearly traveling projectile that it uses. In a D/D build it is almost impossible to use with positive effects; D/D runs on low initiative and it thus can’t be wasting time on slow-moving projectiles that probably won’t hit anyways.

- You don’t need to compare to other classes in order to determine a state of perfect balance for all classes to strive for, you just need to set out a standard for what balance should look like. After that, all balance patches just need to revolve around that idea of balance.

Ozie.4176:

The main reason is for Bountiful Theft which REALLY needs a nerf. Most people dont know Bountiful Theft has a priority list that it uses when you steal boons. This means it will ALWAYS steal stability and aegis if they are on the target. The steal happens before the daze so no matter what you get a 1s daze no matter how many boons the enemy has.

The daze is extremely short anyways, and is only good as pretty much the game’s only counter to stability stomping (outside of just trying to do lots of damage or trying to move away with, for example, Thief down state #2). Aegis is a pretty crappy boon, especially when you just get it thrown onto you. And it’s difficult to steal might, and even when you do, it only converts into one stack of might on yourself.

glaphen.5230:

Arganthium.5638:

glaphen.5230:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Dojo.1867:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

How is a grenade any harder to land than a Cluster Bomb Ostrich?

They are equally hard to hit but an important fact is that engi commits to the fight and will die when missing while thief can disengage (even though this will be suboptimal for the team on the long term).

I see plenty nades engis running with rocket boots, thats a solid disengage

Really stupid waste of space to use that instead of Tool Kit or Bomb Kit.

Not if you’re already running Bomb Kit and/or nade kit. Tool Kit really isn’t that useful, unless you’re on Skyhammer. Rocket Boots are also extremely good for the blast finisher.

3 second block on a 20 second cooldown, a pull on a 25 second cooldown and 5 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds every 15 seconds is worse than more mobility that doesn’t help them stand on the point as their conditions are ticking. Just the block alone makes it 10x better than most utilities in the game.

It’s a melee weaponset without, realistically speaking, a wide range of utility. The condi cleanse and mobility improvement with Rocket Boots on a short CD, on the other hand, is extremely useful. You already have Bomb kit and Grenade kit, adding a third kit is extremely limiting to your abilities. Anyways, Concussion Bomb already deals 5s confusion on an 18s CD (but it’s also an AoE), and the push/finisher from BoB is more useful than the pull on Magnet (unless, again, you’re on Skyhammer). Rocket Boots just makes you more versatile.

TimTWW.5867:

Arganthium.5638:

My first piece of advice would either be to move 10 DA into SA, or move 15 SA into DA, and move 5 SA and the 10 Acro into Trix. The builds are, respectively, then, a D/D far-point assaulter/psychological/Cruuk build, and a D/D burst build. Your current build is just a bit inconsistent, trying to get a midpoint between the two aforementioned buildtypes, and you don’t really want to have an “undedicated” build that floats between two builds like that.

Also, try swapping to D/P. It’s going to be much more useful in the vast majority of situations in sPvP, though it may take a bit of time to learn and get used to. Probably not too much, though.

Final word of advice for now- if I remember correctly, Force Sigils don’t stack, so it’s pointless to have two of them. Thus, I suggest swapping one to either an Air Sigil or a Fire Sigil, whichever you prefer.

TY for the advice. I was thinking it was a play style problem not a build problem.

No problem

Well, they’re kinda the same thing. Your build really affects your play style, see. For example, an S/D build requires a very different playstyle from a D/P build.

glaphen.5230:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Dojo.1867:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

How is a grenade any harder to land than a Cluster Bomb Ostrich?

They are equally hard to hit but an important fact is that engi commits to the fight and will die when missing while thief can disengage (even though this will be suboptimal for the team on the long term).

I see plenty nades engis running with rocket boots, thats a solid disengage

Really stupid waste of space to use that instead of Tool Kit or Bomb Kit.

Not if you’re already running Bomb Kit and/or nade kit. Tool Kit really isn’t that useful, unless you’re on Skyhammer. Rocket Boots are also extremely good for the blast finisher.

Most of these changes are very good, of course, and do in fact identify with many of the thief’s problems currently. I definitely like the changes to Unload- condi removal is, IMO, easily the number one problem with that weapon set. Any other changes are pointless until that is fixed, so the chain looks pretty good to me. Overall the changes to the weaponset that you proposed are my favorites as well; it’s always been a weaponset I’ve wanted to use.

A few things I might change:

Sleight of Hand- perhaps increase the daze slightly. Honestly, I don’t have enough experience with this trait to say whether or not the 1s daze is very useful, but from when I have used the trait, it never seemed very useful. Of course, if a balance patch which included this nerf also included nerfs to CC of other classes, then the 1s daze would be fine as is.

Roll for Initiative- this skill could use a reduced CD, but I’d put it to 50s, at least for starters. It still is a good stun break/mobility-impairing condi remover, and its burst initiative regen isn’t too bad either.

Larcenous Strike- hmm. I suppose that, for starters, it might be better to change the cost to 3 initiative and the initiative return that you proposed to 1 initiative. I see where this change is going, but since FS/LS is such an integral part of S/D, it might be better to make this a smaller change for starters.

Infiltrator’s Return- this is the one I’m going to have to disagree with most. At least, the part about the cast time, anyways. The cast really needs to go back to 0s and interrupt the skill queue. It’s really sword’s main source of condition removal, and is a large part of the fluidity behind the build. Heck, I might even suggest upping the cost to 4 initiative if we got a 0s cast in return. I’m worried that a .1 cast from a .25 cast (which is more like a 1s cast at the moment…) won’t be a very effective change.

Trickery traitline stat changes- sure, but it would probably work better if “X on steal” traits got a very slight buff in return. Not enough to offset the nerf if steal is used whenever it comes off CD, but enough to offset it if steal is used at very particular times in the course of a fight.

EDIT: one last thing- for all the thief NPC’s, I might suggest starting by buffing them by only 50% health. Just a little side note, though.

My first piece of advice would either be to move 10 DA into SA, or move 15 SA into DA, and move 5 SA and the 10 Acro into Trix. The builds are, respectively, then, a D/D far-point assaulter/psychological/Cruuk build, and a D/D burst build. Your current build is just a bit inconsistent, trying to get a midpoint between the two aforementioned buildtypes, and you don’t really want to have an “undedicated” build that floats between two builds like that.

Also, try swapping to D/P. It’s going to be much more useful in the vast majority of situations in sPvP, though it may take a bit of time to learn and get used to. Probably not too much, though.

Final word of advice for now- if I remember correctly, Force Sigils don’t stack, so it’s pointless to have two of them. Thus, I suggest swapping one to either an Air Sigil or a Fire Sigil, whichever you prefer.

Mrbig.8019:

Arganthium.5638:

@Mrbig: if you’re going to tell me my my his wrong, you sure as hell better have the evidence to back it up. Ironically, the person I was speaking to in the thread from which my quote was borrowed also tried to say that my math was wrong, linking me to some guy named Arcturus who had come up with a different conclusion than I had. I refuted his methods through some basic facts.

And if you’re going to doubt the usefulness of Trix in my build, go do some research into the build and then tell me what you think.

tbh I’m not saying your math is wrong, neither I’m questioning trickery usefulness.

I’m just saying that your math is right EXCEPT for thieves, mostly because, thanks to CS having both precision and crit damage, making it easy for thieves to go beyond the needed trashold for max dps.

in all otber situations, it woukd be better to avoid precision OR crit damage traitlines (according to the build), favouring strong traitlines (med guardians best dps would, for example, come with increased power rather than increased precision, mostly because it would be too hard of an investment in trait points to go beyond the precision trashold, unless they play 1h weps only).

thief strange nature allows for easier min-maxing, to a point where adding sustain is not necessary, since you effectively lose tons of damage altough gaining good sustain (tbe point is that it’s not really needed, you already hqve good sustain o sword builds).

it’s not that 10-0-0-30-30 is not a good build, it’s just that 10-30-0-0-30 is stronger, without losing that much sustain/versatility.

since minimap change, shadow refuge really lost its purpose, so if you’re brave enough to remove it and go for double signet+shadowstep, you can even slot soldier ammy and zerk jewel and hqve basically the same damage output of a standard glass sword build with increased armor.

I play it with S/P and I really feel it’s the best possible thief build out there: you can seriously win any 1vs1, sad part is the set’s still too slow to solo skilled bunker guardians ( I had a 1vs1 with Tage at Raven which lasted about the full match, with the point contested the whole time)

The math that applies to other classes applies equally to thieves. It’s not like thieves have some alternate damage formula that other classes don’t.

There is no “threshold for max DPS”; you can’t max out DPS, by definition, unless you set the limits as the perfectly optimal mix of precision, crit damage, and power, and you cannot get any more of any of the three stats. Thus, your definition must be faulty because it assumes that you still can get more offensive stats.

My calculations do in fact take account for the fact that 30 CS includes both precision and critical damage. And, statwise, 30 CS only buffs damage by very slightly more than 10 DA.

10/30/0/0/30 loses 3000 health and 30% boon duration, but more importantly, it loses Feline Grace (fewer evades), Vigorous Recovery (vigor on heal is extremely powerful), a small but not negligible amount of swiftness useful for going between points, Fluid Strikes (an extremely good damage buff), and Quick Recovery, Quick Pockets, Pain Response, and/or Assassin’s Reward, four traits that range from being at least good to awesome (not a big fan of PR but many, many other thieves like it). There’s a reason why you don’t see an S/D build without 30 into Acro, whether it’s my build, Jumper’s build, or Nag Nag’s build. Without 30 in Acro, you lose tons of benefits that you could get for being a non-stealth build, and to say that you don’t lose that much flexibility is a huge, huge misunderstanding.

If you’re still running soldier ammie on thief (not necessarily jewel though) then you’re just an underpowered warrior, nothing else to it. Go reroll. Shadow Refuge is still excellent, and if you think that not running 30 CS means that you have a huge damage rebuff but not running zerker ammie doesn’t reduce your damage much or gives you equal damage to what you’d get with soldier ammie, then- honestly, you’re just wrong. It’s just that simple.

You run S/P? That’s cute.

Ostricheggs.3742:

-snip-

I know that you’re a skilled engineer Ostrich, and I have no doubt that placing your grenades perfectly is a difficult skill to learn. However, I and many others who have played engi or currently alt/main one have found that just spamming grenades tends to work extremely well for the vast majority of situations. Poison fields, bleeds, chills, blinds- there’s really no reason not to spam them, which is unfortunate.

As for being good in all scenarios: if you want to play engi optimally, then of course you need to learn how to play in all scenarios. However, a base knowledge of guarding a point and taking a point are all you need to be able to succeed, at least at mid-level tPvP, which has resulted in engineers who will take out their Bomb Kit (before or after using every skill in their grenade kit) and then faceroll their keyboard, using each and every skill in their kitten nal as quickly as possible.

As long as a player aims his/her grenades and bombs at the real mesmer (which, for the sake of argument, I’m going to say is a skill that is required to be an average player, since otherwise you’re going to be ineffective with all builds anyways), then incendiary powder will benefit from spamming. Of course, this is difficult against PU mesmers, to an extent, but you can always just spam auto on Nade/Bomb kit, which should be sufficient in dealing damage. As a result, Incendiary Powder will almost always in fact benefit from spamming, whether you realize you’re spamming or not; naturally, spamming your skills will give you more crits, and more crits mean more burning.

I wouldn’t call myself a noob, but I do think I have a bit less experience with engi as opposed to other classes (this isn’t entirely true- I have more hours overall on engi than my warrior or ranger, but those classes don’t require much experience anyways compared to other classes…). I don’t doubt that the skill cap is extremely high for engis, judging by their very nature (though there are many builds across professions that have a similarly high skill ceiling, though you need really do need to play near that ceiling in order to be effective with those builds), but judging by my own experiences, engi has a really high skill floor. It’s extremely unfortunate for such an interesting class, but it’s true. I can’t tell you how many scrubs I see that are able to play amazingly with an engi with Bomb kit and Grenade kit in their hands.

I think mighty meak is God’s account.

What’s your build? Only way we can help you.