Guild Wars 2

First of you should never concern yourself with not useing stuff in a game just beause some people call that stuff cheese or whatever.

The problem with SA is that it actually works, the traits there synergize meaningfully and offer options other that do X more damage. A lot of people do not like that because they do not understand how to capitalize on that and are affraid other players might.

Generally SA is associated with shadow’s rejuvination and thieves coming back from stealth wih full health all the time or reseting the fight if pressured, people do not like that because frankly they expect their opponents to stand there and take their hits and die after one succesful combo, you can not blame them for that the game educated them that way (just start leveling a warrior and you will know what I mean).

Also humans fail at realistically judgeing their abilities and their understanding of their enviroment (even in games), so if something scratches their view of themselves as being in control and challanges them and their way of action based on that, they do not revise adequatley and failing to do so produces frustration, which will be vented by insulting and badmouthing anything and anyone associated with their failure but themselves.

For his basic introdution to human nature I charge you only 100g special offer only today.

Lorelei.3918:

or 222 spam? Don’t hate, Karolis.

Besides I do use my other skills.. CnD to stomp and escape. Heart seeker as gap closer and on people who are low hp (I have 2k power, even if they don’t always crit HS still hurts) and whenever I get feathers I stealth and do a back stab (usually crits around 3.5k). I also use my short bow when the enemy aoe is too heavy and also as escape tool.

I main a necro, so going to this is like night and day. I’m having way too much fun with this build.

That’s not the dark side that’s the the shy purple with a hint of green side.

On a more serious note, you would do probably better with ignoring crit alltoghether and useing full carrion gear, the damage from BS and HS below 25% will be enough to complement the conditions and utility from trickery I tend to use stuff like this in spvp and on my “off-thief”. It is great for killing other thieves

To make the playstyle I meant in my 1st post and which I think was the original design of the set work you would have to get an equal spread of crit chance, crit damage, vitality and condition damage. Getting that would need a lot of different gear in the mix, and as far as I see it, if it comes to ascended trinkets you will not be able to get that equal spread.

Take a look at this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Venom-Share-Something-you-may-want-to-try/first#post3361764

The build outlined there works pretty well, you also might want to check the changes to that build I suggested in one of my later posts there.

I am going to comment because the thief forum is in desperate need of “constructive posts”.

Basically you suggest a variation to a trickery build, your build stays “remotley viable” because of trickery and the utility it offers, this build can be used because of that utility.
However there is a good reason against useing it: Retaliation will destroy you, especially if you use Ricochet, retaliation has very high uptime and basically destroys any build relying on multiple fast hits, it is based on your opponents power and can not be mitigated by tougness you will hurt yourself more than your opponent.

SPVP does not count face it, WvW is the only thing that matters, SPVP reduced a great game with awesome maps to fighting on a circle with 1000 diameter and mindless AoEspam on said circle, that is the reason why it is as boring as KITTEN. (infact KITTEN is way less boring). The dominance of S/x for thieves in spvp and the overall lack of creative builds stems from this, mindless cleaves make you win because everyone needs to stay on the point.

Steal and infiltrator’s signet should cancel PW.

I ask for this just out of spite, actually I think S/P is a joke and is no problem whatsoever for anyone with half a brain and a semi-decent build, but the more mindless builds get removed the better.

If you got problems with PW your build is probably bad, that’s what you get for copy-pasting the “meta”.

I use and will definately continue to use a more aggresive version of this based on the original “ninja nurse” idea.

After the patch it will be 0/0/30/10/30
IV VIII and Resilience of Shadows
I (cause this is where skillful playing happens)
V VII XII

D/P Sigl of Intelligence and Precision

Sb Sigil of Generosity and Torment

Gear will be a mix of Dire and Brezerker ajusted with other pieces and food to 42% crit chance approx. 70% bonus crit damage approx, 500 condi damage approx. 3.2k attack (all including guard stacks). Rest vitality and toughness.
Runes of the Traveller (most likely).

Hide in the Shadows, Roll for Initiative, Blinding Powder (this slot will see other uses depending on situation), Shadow Refuge, Daggerstorm

I think you are onto something very interesting with your pure lockdown build.

To get rid of the cons:

Bring a thief and moa morph and all your thief problems are gone, your build will synergize insanely with thieves (you will cut through bunkers like they were made of paper) and to stop the enemy thief it takes a thief anyway.

Put a condi necro on top and things will get really nasty, people will not be able to do anything.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I see us recieving a lot of QQ over Team Deathmatch more than anything. No class can outmatch a thief’s ability to kill and disengage in a heartbeat.

Oh, I have not even thought about that yet.

Thief/Mesmer in 2v2….

Maybe TME will be the new RMP in 3v3

Oh, and regarding the burn on healing you should realise that applying conditions does not break stealth… QQ

Yeah I know itis a gimmick, but one that will be driving people mad especially since the Blathazar runes will go from power to condi damage.

^Sigil of intelligence crit remains after swaping away from the weapon that has it, it also remains if you leave combat.
To get into combat jumping down a ledge will do, so you can pre-load that, people already guaratee their CnD crit this way now. Not to speak of ambient critters and such.
Shooting with your bow before swaping to your daggers is the “conservative” apporach.

Your comments above just illustrate you do not even really understand how the burst combo is done best.

3x 100% crit will be sick. especially with executioner on top….

Ok, since you asked for opinions here is mine.

I belive that D/D actually was originally designed for a different playstyle than most people associate it with. I was in my opinion designed as a hybrid weapon set that complements high crit chance and low power with condition damage and on crit effects.
Unfortunately people did not get that and turned the set into a one trick pony, this is understandable to a degree since to make the original design work you would need more vitality than you can usually get (especially with the rampager gear you would want to use for that kind of playstyle).
Also the power creep with ascended gear has blown the efficacy of the one trick way out of proportion, the stat budget at the moment is way to high across the board but especially when it comes to crit damage.

So what people usally call D/D playstyle is more of an accident than intended by the original design.

Dee Jay.2460:

I disagree.

I don’t see any of the Sigils making up for the ¬ 20% loss in Critical Damage we’re experiencing. I know this is a universal change but one that hits Thieves and Warriors harder than most since we could actually pull off near full Berserker in WvW.

The Rune and Sigil changes won’t make up for that. Runes of Strength for example are getting a mere 7% damage increase while under the effect of Might (up from 5%). Other Runes will follow suit and I doubt they’ll get anywhere close to compensating for the loss in Critical Damage.

Sigils are a little harder to predict but here too I don’t see a fundamental shift taking place since they affect all classes equally.

The most disturbing trend however is that Condition spam seems to have been reduced in no tangible way. I don’t see anything that leaves me to conclude Conditions builds are going to be toned down in any way.

Even Rare Veggie Pizza, the food that is 400% over budget, is escaping unscathed.

We both can generously share our disagreement with eachother, but that still means I am right and you are wrong.

Warrior and thief damage at the moment is pure overkill if you get a lucky crit streak, and that sums up current problems.
A reduction of the damage on crits and an increased control over when the crits happen (along with the associated on crit effects) will make the damage more focused and much more deadly in player versus player combat.
The deadliest thief build I could come up with in wvw uses “only” 63% bonus crit damage at the moment (that is without food).
Damage is not the problem at all we will still have more than enough.

Elementalists deserve better defense options, putting those into earth fits the idea of that attunement and honestly the longer they stay in earth the better (haha).

You seem to understand mesmer so I will take that as a base for comparison.
Mesmers have great synergy between traits in different trait lines, if youmake a mesmerbuild you usually fous on getting traits from different trait lines that support what you want to do, for example PU and reduced recharge on torch, or shatter skills with clones on dodge etc. You can create very distinct builds that way but you also have to do that so the number of builds is rather low.

Thieves have only very weak synergy between trait lines and traits, the traitlines stand more on their own, so basically you can combine more stuff but the effect is less distinct and has less synergy than in the case of mesmers. This allows for a very high varietly of builds but the variation is often very subtle, it can make huge difference in the gameplay though.

Basically you have a huge number of different builds that work, especially in wvw.

I usually base my game against “fellow thieves” on guessing if they run a uitility heavy build (30 points trickery) a crit build (30 points crit strikes) or a condition build (which usually is P/D, though not confined to that) or maybe a “hybrid” which combines any of those.

After the feature patch the anti-thief QQ will go through the roof, you will remember the current situation as “the peaceful old days”.

Looking at the first few glimpses of the changes, especially the sigil changes I come to belive that the changes to crit damage will be more that made up for by more controlled and more frequent crits (this of course affects wvw spvp only).
For example the superior sigil of intelligence will provide 3 guaranteed crit after swaping weapons, this will effectively ensure that CnD BS and the next HS will 100% crit which will allow you to run executioner on crit d/d builds. Damge will go through the roof, if you build like that. No more hope for a lucky crit streak or run if you hit it will be guaranteed to hurt. (It will be even worse for warriors they will crit ALL their hard hitting skills if the do it right).

The changes from on crit to on hit for manny sigil effects will make a lot of “tricky” stuff possible you will be able to calculate the proc effects into your gameplay since they will be reliablely occur on your 1st or 2nd hit, this will be really fun. It will drive your opponents insane if you do that right.

A lot of new builds will show up that people will have no clue about how to deal with, stealth support thief inc, FINALLY. Condi thieves will be insanely strong, start thinking about the changes to stuff like the Balthazar Runes…

Like with the initiative changes thieves will florish and profit, like then the “thief community” does not get it and starts complaining, like then I tell you: wait and see it will be awesome and thieves will be hated even more.

^the 50% damage reduction affects your team aswell, Shadow Refuge ressing, super AoE protection with Blinding Powder basically reducing crit burst on your whole team etc. this trait will be game changing.

Hammer train on your team? Guardian protection and shadow refuge on top, stand there invisible and /laugh. Think about it.

30/0/10/0/30 S/D SB PVT will be the new thing in spvp, ignoring crit alltogether, AA chain will hit like a truck and will be supported by the rune changes and the sigil chances from on crit to on hit.

0/0/30/10/30 D/P SB with mixed gear val zerk PVT will be the new wvw roaming build, this will be awesome you will never die.

The acro gm trait will be very interesting with lyssa runes due to the increased boon duration from runes and the trait line.

The other 2 traits pale compared to what you can already get, the crit one is totally misplaced, 250 or so healing on a 5k crit will offer next to no sustain you would need to do 5 of those hits to heal 1 warrior greatsword auto attack or 2 of those hits to heal 1 tick of burning from a guardian, a pointless trait. Slight of hand is the single best trait thieves have nobody will drop that for some confusion stacks, confusion does neglectable damage anyway.

So 3 good traits is what we get, dependant on what they will do with the lower tier traits, those might be interesting.
Imagine they would make Improvisation reset atleast 1 utility that is on recharge….

Thieves heal to much, haha, whenever you think you seen it all…

Playing warrior damages your brain, something like 10/30/30/0/0 will never hit 10k backstabs, and to get the healing numbers you describe you’d have to get SA and Acrobatics to 30 points if you do that your backstab will crit for less than 2k on 2.5k armor.

Your “infamous” 10/0/30/0/30 S/D build is a joke.

10/30/30 D/P haha, HAHA!!!

Keep spamming sowrd 1 chain, put 1 on your ouse and spam like crazy especiallly if you can not the them. The chain will let you track them in stealth, move more eratically and change direction more to mess up the backstab. Watch the blinds and do not waste ini, use CnD on critters walls etc.

And most inportant: Drop P/D get a bow.

There is no “if he does that do this way to win” if it comes to thieves the whole point in the class is quick changes to tactics and guessing what the other guy is going to do.

But…

Keep spamming 1, the sword does a lot of AoE cleave damage.

tom.7468:

Bazzoong.7145:

I would suggest the warrior proffession be deleted, it would be good for humankind as a whole as playing one obviously alters your brain in a bad way.
As an alternative I suggest you delete your warrior and play something else do your remaining braincells a favor.

Hes a guardian not a warrior , I have no problems with thieves on my warrior.

Ah, that clears it up, I indeed was mistaken about cause and effect in my first post here…

On second thought: It might be possible I am mistaken about cause and effect in my earlierpost.

I would suggest the warrior proffession be deleted, it would be good for humankind as a whole as playing one obviously alters your brain in a bad way.
As an alternative I suggest you delete your warrior and play something else do your remaining braincells a favor.

Another pathetic D/D thread by someone who obviously has no clue about how that set works.

Get it in your head D/D has higher in combat stealth uptime, CnD is easy to land and does very good damage.

Dancing Dgger is a protictile finisher that hits up to 4 targets, learn to use your teams combo fields.

Just more inconsistent and mindless complaining, you hate D/P and love D/D then go on about every aspect of D/P being better and D/D being inferior.
All you want is D/P utility on top of the high damage burst combos of D/D.
You will never get that because it would be stupidly overpowered.

You probably play the wrong proffesion.

Personally I think games with heavy cc are fun, I also think games with stealth are fun.

I bet I am not the only one in that regard.

The original post is one big complaint about the game and about it’s mechanics, it is a poor attempt to reduce other players fun for the sake of the posters fun. The OP is not about tweaking or balancing it is about fundamentally changing the game at it’s core.

If you do not have fun playing do not play.

The whole argument is totally inconsistent and only based on the poster preferences disregarding other players, The game as a product was advertised and sold with stealth and cc, the proffession trailers showed tons of it, people bought the game for that stuff because they want that stuff and because they think that stuff is fun.

One morning Pei Mei head of the white lotus sect was walking down a lonely mountain road somewhere in north china. And as he was walking down that road pondering with his unfathomable mind all the things ordinary mortals would not even dare pondering to ponder five shaolin monks came along the same road moving in the opposite direction as Pei Mei. And as they passed him Pei Mei in a unusual moment of generosity greeted them with the slightest of nods, what drove him to even acknowlege the meer existence of those monks I dare not guess at maybe itwas the spring morning sun or just a weird quirk of the old man’s mind. However the monks caught up in conversation did not notice the old man’s generous gesture.
In another fit of generosity Pei Mei did not imeadetly respond to this grave insult just paused on his way for the briefest of moments.
Later that day though he visited the shaolin temple and demanded the heads of the offenders be brought on a silver plate to his house by morning as recompensation for the insult, another unusually generous gesture.
The abbott however refused Pei Mei’s polite request. At that point in time Pei Mei’s generosity ended once and for all. The events ofthe following half hour and twelve mintutes are known among scholars as the first destruction of the shaolin temple and started the legend of the infamous five point palm pressure heart explosion technique….

Tao.5096:

Bazzoong.7145:

Could you please leave the stuff that actually works alone, thanks.

I mean it, just because you do not like it because it does not make 5 diggit numbers appear on your screen does not mean it is bad.

you really seem to misunderstand what most players want.

DB isn’t supposed to be a hit-truck skill for us, or give us immortality.
We want to rework it so it’ll be useful, and would allow some combinations in battle.
Because currently it’s better to use Heartseeker on target with 100% hp than DB.

No, I do not misunderstand.

Comparing HS to DB is not legit those are 2 totally different skills with totally different functions and the last thing we need on our skill bars are skills that provide similar effects with different animations.

Dancing Dagger and Death Blossom work, both are situational and provide utility over damage.

What you want, to be frank, is more direct damage which we do not need we have cnd and BS for targets at 30%+ and HS as a gap closing finisher for targets at <30% hp, the other skills provide uique utility and unique combinations due to providing different finishers for combos. No need to change them.

First of the difference in full ascended to full exotic is not minimal rather it is a big difference in stats, it comes down to the guy with the ascended stuff wearing 2 more exotic items than the other player. The amor has way more defense and you get to use wvw infusions with ascended gear, anyone calling the difference minimal is an idiot.

As a guideline get to about 3000 attackpower including food, then focus on crit chance and crit damage.

Less than 17k hp is very dangerous but still playable, spread vit and toughness as you prefer it, movment and utility can make up for a lot you need to find you personal comfort zone when it comes to health.

Sharpening stones allow you to fine balance vit vs power, since you do not lose so much damage for vit if you use those.

Butternut Squash Curry gives a lot of crit damage if you want more or run a defensive build with it and still do decent damage.

Precision scales better then power (even with lower crit damage) if you have the choice take precision over power.

You may feel yourself included, purely a metaphor there, I feel generous today.

Nina Simone in the background, anti-tief rage on the internet + derailed topic, is there a better way to start the day? Nay fellow paractitioneers of the shadow arts there is not.

Sweetbread.2679:

Bazzoong.7145:

Sweetbread.2679:

I don’t think having a little consistency between class mechanics and counterplay warrants thieves getting any sort of buff. Initiative already ignores chilled for god knows what reason while other classes can be utterly crippled by it, ignoring interrupts as well is just icing on the double standard cake. It’s gimmicky, counterplay ignoring crap like that that makes everyone hate kitten like Healing Signet. It isn’t the fact that it’s a really good skill or that it’s hard to outplay that makes it aggravating, it’s that the opportunity to outplay that mechanic just flat out doesn’t even exist beyond the warrior completely kittening up. Initiative is the cooldown equivalent of Healing Signet.

Thief weapon skills are affected by chill, the time inbetween skill uses increases, you lose the time even if initiative is not affected a chilled thief can use less skills in the same timeframe than a thief without the chilled conditions.

In addition to that there are special effects hindering thieves while chilled, heartseeker will jump only half the distance for example.

Yeah obviously people generally use chilled to make leap skills shorter and not for the giant 66% additional cooldown it applies. Were you actually thinking that having a fraction of a second additional aftercast was somehow the same thing as being locked out of a 30 second weapon skill for an additional 20? What fantasy world do you live in, why do you people even reply? It’s just embarrassing.

You assume for that that you are chilled over the full 30 sec of the cd, which is never going to happen, the cd increase is only actve while you are chilled once the effect wears of or is cleaned the cd will continue normally.

Embarassing indeed.

Sweetbread.2679:

I don’t think having a little consistency between class mechanics and counterplay warrants thieves getting any sort of buff. Initiative already ignores chilled for god knows what reason while other classes can be utterly crippled by it, ignoring interrupts as well is just icing on the double standard cake. It’s gimmicky, counterplay ignoring crap like that that makes everyone hate kitten like Healing Signet. It isn’t the fact that it’s a really good skill or that it’s hard to outplay that makes it aggravating, it’s that the opportunity to outplay that mechanic just flat out doesn’t even exist beyond the warrior completely kittening up. Initiative is the cooldown equivalent of Healing Signet.

Thief weapon skills are affected by chill, the time inbetween skill uses increases, you lose the time even if initiative is not affected a chilled thief can use less skills in the same timeframe than a thief without the chilled conditions.

In addition to that there are special effects hindering thieves while chilled, heartseeker will jump only half the distance for example.

The system is more consistent than you make it look. The initiative loss you see on HS happens due to the skill actually starting, when you interrupted BP you interrupted the precast phase not the cast, I doubt you can interrupt the cast there the cast as such seems instant.
Another example would be shadow shot if you get dazed after the shot but before the stab lands (which is the cast time) you will lose the initiative and the stab will not land.
If you get interrupted on the precast you will not lose initiative.

If that is balanced I can not really judge, since I next to never get interrupted, but this is certainly by design and not a bug it is consistent on all weaponskills.

Prysin.8542:

Bazzoong.7145:

I run a thief beceause I hate you (yes, I am talking to you dear reader, specifically you) and I will jump on your corpse because I hate you, to be exact I hate everything about you but especially that bear…

Everyone hate bears, their OP!!!!

No they suck, fluffy cuddley monsters, ALL OF THEM.

Could you please leave the stuff that actually works alone, thanks.

I mean it, just because you do not like it because it does not make 5 diggit numbers appear on your screen does not mean it is bad.

They say that among all the illusterious practitioneers of the craft the name of Slith stands supreme. I dare to disgree. I say that Slith lived in easier times and that the manner of his death has given him a mystical aura that was not matched by his skill.
The pinacle of the craft is represented by none other than Nuth. Of all the many arguments supporting that I will mention only one. Even in this modern day and age of competition and reason Nuth does not have to advertise the services he offers…

I run a thief beceause I hate you (yes, I am talking to you dear reader, specifically you) and I will jump on your corpse because I hate you, to be exact I hate everything about you but especially that bear…

Zero Day.2594:

BlackDevil.9268:

…
We need less passive play, more active play!

The irony….

The IRONY indeed, the IRONY!!!!! even.

We need more active application of boon staking to allow more skillful, active face tanking.

Scarlet did not see what she thought she saw when she was inside that cube.
Everything she did she did for all the wrong reasons.

Have faith in the mother tree, children.

The dream is a gift, the gift of choice.

I wish to add one thing: If it comes to initiative recovery the latest changes to the recovery mechanics actually have weakend PW. Due to the fact that passive regeneration has been increased but recovery of initiative by crits has been drastically reduced, before the change PW was essentially free of inititive cost if you would land 2 or more crits since with this by the time it was over you`d have all of your initiative back.

Crit builds like the builds relying on PW effectively have less initiative now, while non crit builds have more now, this was one of the best changes made to the thief proffession so far the 1st step away from being pidgeonholed into crit strikes traits which made initiative management a no brainer.

Grim.4795:

IMHO the problem with PW is three fold:
1) Its a quick access to a stun at a moments notice to interrupt every and any skill needed to by a thief – coupled with their seemingly infinite shadow steps – could land every time if played correctly.
2) It’s amazing defensive qualities. When i manage to apply pressure to thief running with S/P they just press their 3 skill allowing themselves to evade until their defensive CD are up again (not to mention the DMG they are doing at the same time – or the fact they can just stealth and reset over and over until they feel confident they finally have the advantage and can win).
3) The damage it deals itself. The skill deals a metric kitten ton of DMG and due to the initiative thieves rely on that just got buffed, can be spammed like there is no tomorrow not allowing players to re-act (because it stuns), fight back (they are evading) or even dodge (the sword 2’s immob is easy to land allowing the combo to rarely miss). Not only all of this, but even professions with ‘the same’ skill or similar do not gain half of the dmg PW has, like mesmer for example. Their sword MH #2 allows them to be invul, but doesn’t even do a third of the DMG PW is capable of or stuns.

This is how i feel, not stating it as a fact, but please read it and consider mine and the other poster’s experiences with this truly un-balanced skill.

Below i attacthed an image of my combat log of a fight i had with a thief. I was on my mesmer running with staff, blink and decoy. The fight lasted roughly 5-15sec in which the thief started off in stealth (couldn’t summon my clones/phantasms) then he opened with a steal and PW combo, i used blink to get away and stun break, he used a shadow step and continued the dmg, i then used staff #2 to get farther away, he used another shadow step, i then used my F4 shatter, but PW outlasted it and i died due to the overload of DMG without a way to fight back even though im rank 40+ and have a thorough understanding of the game and shouldn’t meet an opponent i can’t seem to land a hit on. I added this picture not to QQ about how OP of a skill PW is, but i believe in order to get my point across an example cant do any harm.
Thanks for reading.

Basically you did it wrong as wrong as you can do it: Decoy, dodge backwards: Steal and 1st PW wasted clones up to soak damage thief loses target and you got time to get 1st phantasm while he is rooted by his own skil, you can swap weapon and get 2nd phantasm here if you want, when you come out of inv he will use infiltrators signet or sword 2 and PW you counter with blurred frenzy then dodge, if he now blows everything useing infiltrators signet or respectively sword 2 and PW you blink. 0 damage taken phants and clones up each of his moves countered.

If he`d used S/D I`d understand your troubles but S/P….

Thief main since beta, if that is important.

PW is not unbalanced it mirrors other chained sword skills of other professions (blurred frenzy, hundered blades e.g.).

Like all sword and greatsword melee builds S/x on thieves relies on the “extreme” range of the cleave cone and the disproportional high base damage on all sword attacks, pistol wip is the culmination of that.

Generally sword damage is to high on all proffesions given that it has a AoE cone of great range, compare this to dagger damage which is single target and does not cleave and has less range.

In sPvP this makes S/x for thieves superior since by the nature of the conquest mode everything and everyone is usually stacked up on the point.

The thief is defined by being able to repeatedly use the same move PW evades are the only option thieves have to stay on the same spot for several seconds without getting shred to bits in seconds or being cc’d into oblivion thieves have no stability and no protection to passively achiv that goal so they need the active version the evades provide, this is what makes PW strong in sPvP since that mode is all about staying on the point and area denial (here done by AoE cleave damage and evades).

PW forces your opponent to move away if you can not you get punished hard, there are lots of options for other proffessions to do that way better therefore PW is balanced. People complain about it because they are not used to it and not used to being forced to move away from a thief nor to thieves being able to stay on point like almost any other proffesion.

On a personal side note: I do not belive that S/P warrants the attention it gets at the moment it only makes the thief an “inferior” version of a warrior.

Supreme.4051:

DeWolfe.2174:

Yes, burst builds with Macro are a meta. Not really new, just more powerful due to power creep. Adding Ascended gear and Applied Strength boosted burst builds a bit too high. The dev’s know it that’s why the crit nerf is incoming.

So all us without power creeped gear/stacks are pretty much devoid of roaming till the proper nerfs are here… meh

In essence this is exactly the case now and will be even after the “nerf” the changes to crit damage will have next to no impact since crit damage atm is overkill anyway.

The real problem is that you can get a significant advantage with nothing but time investment. “New” characters are at a disadvantage, acount bound wexp will only displace that problem, it will become “new” players will have a disadvantage, since every “old” player will then have the stacks on all their characters.

In my opinion as someone who has the best available gear and a very high rank for someone doing only small group and solo stuff 90% of the time, this has gone so far that any group of "new"players will hit a brick wall if encountering a group of “old” players.
A lot of the “class balance” issues people complain about are actually gear, rank and consumable related.

The nerfbat needs to hit even harder, to much crit damage in the game way to high crit chance in the game.

Especially since there is way to much AoE in the game even “melee damage” has stupid range an AoE, swords and greatswords cleave for stupid amounts of damage for example.

All the overpowered healing and regeneration was only introduced because of to much crit damage, the game will be better with less crit RNG and more planning beyond: Lucky crit streak? Yes, I win. No, reset and repeat later.

There is cheese and there is cheese that stinks.

Cheeese that stinks is AoE spammers (like D/D eles) complaining, Warriors complaining, Guardians complaining.

Mildly stinking cheese is people complaining about conditions.

Cheese is consumables, ascended gear and guard-stacks.

What to do about it? There is nothing you can do, move along.

The real difference between D/D and D/P is lies in the increased control over your target offered by D/P, when it comes to damage D/D has more spike damage whereas D/P “spreads” the damage more.

In combat D/D has higher stealth uptime due to CnD being cheaper than BS+HS on the initiative, CnD is not hard to land and does incredible amounts of damage on crits.

The real reason why D/P is superior is ranged interrupts with headshot and the damage reduction offered by blinds, this makes D/P superior in small group fights mutual support will win out eventually.

Interrupting stomps with daze or protecting stomps or ressing with blind fields is not possible with D/D.

D/D however has incredible damage spikes, those do not require much setup and can be initiated from range, the combination of mug, sigil of flame, cnd and BS will usually be decisive if it lands, you do not need to run a one-shot build for that. D/D is way easier than people make it appear and basically all about CnD and the blind on stealth trait.

So it comes down to hang back and wait for the weak spot then hit on D/D or the damage support with D/P it is a matter of playstyle.

Generally both builds depend on active avoidance, you must never stand in the bad stuff and always must avoid any hard hitting abilities, both weapon sets cave in against AoE and especially AoE conditions both builds can not deal with constant pressure and areeasily forced to retreat.

(as a sidenote: if you want long periods of stealth (esp. out of combat stealth) it is way better to swap in smoke screen on your utility bar for your HS than swapping in a pistol.)

Kadin.2356:

I’d simply be happy with an F2 that just discarded the F1 without using it

Just incase any dev looks at his topic: IMPLEMENT THIS, PLEASE.

See my thread here for the why of it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Suggestion-Drop-stolen-item-F2/first#post3623980

Yes, it is more common, basically if you have the rank to get applied fortitude and strength and do not get it you will put yourself at a severe disadvantage against players who have it, just as it is with consumabeles. Anything outside running with the zerg basically requires both these days because you will face players with those.

Together with the stat increase on ascended gear over exotic gear this has led to a situation where “old” charakters have a significant advatage over “new” charakters, it is not so bad that you can not overcome that advatage (atleast with most professions) but the advantage is very noticable.

The one shot builds you entcounter these days are the logical answer to stuff like healing signet and high defensive sustain while maintaining relatively high damage on warriors and to a lesser extend guardians. The only efficacious way of dealing with those is to get it over with fast, win fast or lose fast because in the long run you will lose anyway.

That’s the way it is now, no point denying it, GW" has gone the way of all other mmos in this regard, though it could be much worse it was and is worse in other games.

Buy superior runes of speed now way cheaper and due to cosumables like superior sharpening stone the damge stats go up with these aswell, I would not spend 60g+ on a runeset before the patch, there might be changes that will make other runes way more desirable.

^ With that signet build I will dish out about 20k damage in 1s on a Mug CnD BS combo with superior signet of air and I will initiate that combo from 1500 range, honestly HS spam is a joke, it does not work.

And you should either stand in your AoE or have a defensive shield or protection up as a ele always, in case of doubt ride the lightning outranges HS spam. Of all things that should worry you about thieves as a ele HS spam is the least, if you can not even deal with that how would you ever deal with a Hambow warrior or a decent S/D thief.

You really should try to change your way of looking at things or you will never stand a chance, just imagine what will happen if you actually meet someone decent?

JETWING.2759:

Rabid and Settler rules now

this was in less that 10s

I smell BS, 32 hits of torment in under 10s, really?