DHawk you are right i dont usually play thief… However i have one at lvl 80 fully equipped for burst so i do know what im talking about. Cant access my stats during work but might post them later.
have you played the thief post patch?
pre patch thieves were much better, mine e.g. had less power and less crit dmg and did more dmg with every backstab than now with those super buffed stats
the only thing you really are able to kill quickly now are thieves that didn’t get the memo yet that full zerker gear is not viable anymore
one CnD + BS and they are dead
for every other class I need about 1 1/2 backstabs to get them close to 50% life
while the thief gets killed by almost every class within a few seconds
but ppl still cry about thief being op, just fyi (all of you) there are posts in the thief forum of ppl crying that they got killed within 10sec by 3 thieves (which is kinda bad for 3 thieves tbh) and that that is so op thieves need to be nerfed
so….
6k.. you talking about spvp or something. you know you are in the wvw forum, right? Where people run around with ascended gear, bloodlust stacks, food and what not.. if you hit for 6k in wvw you probably didnt crit xD
uhm, and you probably don’t play a thief, e.g. my thief has 2,85k power, 251% crit dmg and 100% crit rate on backstab
now what dmg does the backstab usually do…. 8k, 10 tops (very seldom, chances are higher to get struck by lightning) and more often than not it’s only 6-7k
hell i backstabbed a condi mesmer yesterday and did 2,7k dmg, wtf anet?
They also fixed Smiter’s Boon and Smite Conditions to clear weakness now too
of course he’s trolling, doesn’t know wtf he’s talking about and never played the thief class
hey Vieux, a Necro killed me yesterday, does that mean necro is in a good state, no wait necro is op right??
This patch didn’t help out the thief at all, feline grace is a start but still this is just dumb
at least they punshed the good old mesmers in the face ^^
Lol, all I read was “I’m a Mesmer and d/p thief are amazing because I said so and you need to believe me.”
so we better all believe him right? :/
this sounds like a troll post to me…
I die all the time in PvP as a Mesmer.
I have all 8 fingers and 2 thumbs.
Therefore Mesmers are not OP.
well to be fair you could be just not that good with the mesmer ^^
Cloak and dagger is the absolute lowest cost stealth a thief has. You can literally do it off anything you can do damage to.
WvW that means any NPC, any wall, gate, deer, angry looking skritt etc.
In PvP that means, minions, clones, any other garbage AI running around. Besides I was under the assumption it’s mostly for steal into C&D then BS while your opponent is dazed/stunned with basi venom or steal.
technically you are right, but you don’t always have somthing to cnd of off, and a smart player will just kill the mob or kyte away
plus the ini cost is very high for a skill that NEEDS to hit something, compared to dp, the range is very small and you need to get close to the enemy
the steal CnD BS combo is very basic for CnD
but it still doesn’t work all the time, since the enemy mostly moves it results in you missing the steal cnd and needing to re-cnd
meaning you have 1 to 2 ini left, congrats
plus, yes MI has a cast time, but so what, you are mobile while channeling AND if you already are in stealth the cast time won’t mean anything
SR is worse compared to MI, you have to stay in a big KILL ME I’M HERE circle, as soon as you walk out before every tick is done, you loose stealth and even are revealed
and since knockbacks, pulls, etc are all over the place using SR infight is a death wish
on demand stealth, that’s true, BUT let’s see here, the 2 insta cast stealthes are blinding powder, and stealth on steal
now letst see here, the most popular way of gaining invis as thief is dp #5 and #2
meaning you see a circle on the ground, and the start of the heartseaker, one daze, knockback, interrupt etc will destroy the stealth combo
CnD has been mentioned above
- plus #2 Shortbow (clusterbomb)
thief needs to stand within a small circle
the dust is visible to everyone, very easy to spot, simply stand in/near the circle to let him hit you once with the bomb
thief revealed
thieves stealth is so easy to counter
oh i forgot the heal skill, 3/4 second cast time, notible sound and animation
screams interrupt
now how many stealth skills of the mesmer are easy to interrupt…. oh just 1
and if combo it with torch #4 or decoy it’s irrelevant
14+ seconds of stealth you cannot counter or foresee
give torch a 3/4 second channel time
DHawk, if we give blinding powder a cast time too then feel free to give decoy a cast time.
As for the rest of it, no, change the torch trait first, then we can make an accurate analysis of PU, currently the pledge is simply too strong with PU and borderline useless without it. The majority of the QQ we get is from mesmers with high stealth uptime, that trait is the cause.
The prestige is similar to C&D however C&D has only initiative cost and no actual cool down, for that it pays with a 1/2s cast.
SR is about equal to MI, MI has a very long and obvious channel you can interrupt, SR has the circle to bombard. Though it is worth pointing out the -25% damage in stealth thieves get.
All things being said, fix the pledge to not be stealth camping orientated and promote active combat (not burst) and I would say thieves and mesmers are about equal for stealth with thieves having more on demand stealth.
besides that you NEED to hit CnD to be able to gain stealth, CnD has a cast time and high ini cost
meaning, it’s very easy to dodge, stun, evade, simply take a step back
thief lost almost half his ini, isn’t in stealth and needs to reattempt to cnd
mesmer hits torch 4
give it 1/2 or 3/4 second cast time
Mesmer did not go from zero to hero. It went from bottom of the classes to on par with the classes. That simple. I understand the angst over not being on the bottom but in all fairness ele burst is the same with great sustain. Guardian burn burst builds. Warriors are still wearing sneakers instead of plate armor in wvw the list goes on and on. We are balanced and relevant to any other class now. Forgot condition thief those hurt!!
give all the mesmer stealth skills a cast time (just like thief) to make it counterable
take away/rework pledge
decrease PU to about 50%
THEN mesmer is on par with every other class
I question your “high skill” players. I also find claiming something needs changing because of a made up duelling game mode is questionable too.
TLDR: learn to dodge the giant GS flying at you, even from stealth you can see it.
to be honest, a good mesmer will use #2 right infront of an enemy because of the bounces and might, and then insta shatter depending on the situation
and when doing this out of stealth you’ll see the blade for about 1/4 of a second, try to react and dodge in that timeframe
Just saying
I think it depends what kind of immob you are suffering from, the binding roots skill from ranger will reapply the immob, so that could be one factor in your equasion
the 980ti won’t improve your FPS in guild wars as much as you think,
i run a 980 from gigabyte on max settings 1080p and the lowest I’ll get is like 37fps, since I’m still using my i5 (forgot which one ^^ just now it’s the strongest on the market) which is overclocked as well
I wouldn’t recomend 4k, you won’t be able to run games at max settings on it most of the time, and honestly, you’ll hardly notice a difference
stick to 1080p and supersample it to 2k,3k or 4k
thanks for giving the forums reasons why and ideas on how to balance them.
I don’t play mesmer often, I think he needs adjustment
but the stale, “mesmer need nerf” will not improve anything
How are you not able to dominate in a 1vs1? It’s not like every guy you’re fighting is a d/d ele or a PU mes and is also a top 100 in the rankings. For example, you should never be losing in a 1vs1 to a thief, and that doesn’t mean thief is worse than guard, it just means guard hard counters thief.
IMO this is only partially true
in a fair 1v1 situation a guard will win about 8/10 times
but as soon as the thief just kytes you and resets over 100 times being a little pu**y
it either ends in a draw/retreat or he annoyes you for so long you’ll die to him eventually
the thing is that would force players to take a shadowarts to make x/d somewhat ok, while x/p stays stronger without it
that doesn’t balance the weaponset, it only limits the variations of builds even more
D/D needs a buff to death blossom and throw dagger
death blossom shouldn’t have a delay (why even give an evade a delay?!), throw dagger needs to either do more dmg, have a longer cripple duration and/or less ini cost
CnD doesn’t need blind on successfull hit if they rework CiS to not be a GM trait,
if not CnD needs either less ini cost, a function that “on successfull hit gain 1-2 ini” or blind on hit.
I like that idea
it would give anet the incentive to rework some under water skills and that would make us not just use them more, but use them gladly
I really like the fact that gw2 has under water combat and the way it works is a lot of fun
I wish they’d give this mechanic a little more meaning in wvw
ShadowPlay
Nvidia
I’d use GS and sword for the blinks and leaps to get around the map fast, also Judges Intervention is very usefull
when it comes to gear, you can run full zerker gear and be successfull
I mean it’s pve ^^
big kitten deal haha ^^
I won’t play my Guard like the kitten trapper condi rangers do
but I am looking forwart to the dragon hunter, I will defenitly try him out
Hey Yeti, can’t help you with mesmer but I can give you a few tipps on thieves, since i used to play GS/H warrior and I also play thief
the best thing to do in a 1v1 situation is to keep constant presure on him, don’t give him any time to think and make him blow his skills early
btw you can fake the Hammer F1 by starting it and then hitting (put weapon away) if you bound that to a button, meaning you start the animation, he’ll dodge, shadowstep, blind etc, you canced it (skill has 4sec cooldown, no big deal) he wasted a skill or a dodge making him an easier target in the long run
it will also help to start the fight in a relativly normal speed and then suddenly step it up a notch or two, throwing him off and getting him hysterical
In addition to that, when fighting a DD thief, know that he MUST get close to you or a mob to stealth (unless he uses blinding powder or shadow refuge) so if you know he’s close use Hammer 4, he wasted 5 ini (a big chunck) and is knocked down
DP players mostly start with #5 then #2 to gain stealth
when you see the blind field and you have a stun or knockdown of your hammer ready use it NEAR the field, not in it!
Most thieves are very squishy post patch because they didn’t get the memo that full zerker gear isn’t viable anymore
so to sum it all up, keep constant pressure, you dictate the fight, don’t let him toy with you, fake pushes and stuns to make him waste skills, lock him down once for good and he’s done for
Hope I could help
I love Litany of Wrath on my Medi Guard
if you combine LoW with GS#2 and some other high dps attackes, combined with the fury uptime and the high crit rate thanks to it, I can heal myself for about 11k hp
very strong
BUT it is an offensive heal, the base heal (when traited into meditations) is 3600 on a 24sec cd, which isn’t too bad
Shelter has a slightly higher heal and a block but a slightly higher cd
I don’t have the healing symbols trait tho, you’d have to check that out, but without it it’s technically a stronger heal than shelter on a lower cd
Since I couldn’t find a post about this topic I just started one^^
I have a few bugs or rather weird things happening with my guard and this thread can hel us exchange what we learned and maybe anet will read it to improve on the guard
ok first bug I’ve encountered is that smite conditions does not remove Weakness
neither does Smiters Boon ( trait )
Secondly the GS skill #5 Binding Blade often doesn’t pull every binded enemy or/and won’t pull them to me but just simply knock them down (on a flat surface)
That is not a true claim at all. You have so many conditions thay require critical hits, meaning precision is needed toaximize the benefits. As well, players invest in condition duration. Add in condition damage, and that is three stats.
Using a 1 offensive stat condition build, is no worse damage then being hit with repeated direct damage from someone in pure soldiers gear.
The problem as I see it, is that players need to dodge the biggest condition application skills, in the same way they learned to avoid the hardest hitting, direct damage skills.
so what gear has condition duration in it? I think you are talking about runes not the actual armor sets
so my point still stands, 1 offensive stat 2 defensive stats
and how many skills need a crit to apply a condi, honestly it’s not that many, at least not as meany that or worth spending the points in precision
the problem is simply that condi players dish out almost the same dmg as raw dps players do, but in addition to that they are much tankier, so it ends up in being condi counters melee dmg
It’s not as hard to be successful with condi as it is playing a relativly squishy dmg build
noone minds condi being viable, especially not in pve, I like the fact that they are really able to make a difference now in boss fights etc
but for pvp and wvw it’s just broken
zerg fights aren’t as badly effected by it since there are so many cleanses it doesn’t make too much of a difference
but as soon as it’s in the roaming department, or scales of 5v5 a team with condi players will totally destroy zerk players if they are at equal skill lv
I run 3 cleanses on my build and if I don’t keep constant preassure on the enemy and don’t give him a single second to think and have ALL of my skills on cd I might come out of that fight alive
playing condi on the other hand fells like brain afk bag of loot farm
the best counter to condi is a stronger condi
As i said balancing ideas could be to make your armor reduce a % of condi dmg
or that classes don’t have so many condi they can apply, e.g. max of 3 or condis a class has access to
the fact that condis are very strong and still very tanky at the same time is simply put unfair
(Sinister gear is the only condi spec I’ll find balanced, since it doesn’t let you be both at the same time)
As an example how easy it is to play condi, I played some 1v1 with a friend of mine, both running a dmg spec playing as thieves
he’s like, I’ll try out condi, just for the lols
he adjusted his traits for less than a min, had hardly any clue of what he was doing and almost wrecked me and the random that came into the fight
that is simply put not balance
low risk high reward
The Problem ppl have with condi players, and that includes me, is that as condi you only need one offensive stat in your gear “condition dmg”, as raw dps player you need at least 2, technically you always need 3 “Power”, “Precision” and “Ferocity”.
What does that mean, for a raw dps build you will be fairly squishy if you want to be able to dishout massive dmg, meaning high dps but easy to kill
a condi player only needs condi dmg, so while he can dish out the same or even more dmg than a raw dps player, he can still be tanky as hell, meaning the dps dealer is even more at a disadvantage since he needs to kill a tanky player, that deals the same dmg as a dps dealer, a damage you cannot avoide as easily as normal melee attacks
and all those arguments “take condi cleanses” is honestly just pathetic, as soon as you cleanse the condis, they are almost instantly re-applied, the only thing you got out of it was a skill on cd. the only way to beat a condi player (if both enemies are at the same skill lv) is to be a stronger condi OR the condi player running sinister gear.
A balancing idea i had was to make armor decrease condi dmg as well, since playing with high toughness won’t help jack kitten against condi, since it directly dmges your hp
but since so many ppl are roaming with condi now I’ll just get flamed with a l2p argument, from players using condi builds that mostly end up in a very low risk, high reward scenario.
What do you guys think? Which build is better?
Hope someone can help
Well burning really needs to be toned down across the board if you ask me, but if someone isn’t paying attention and doesn’t cancel the attack in question, shouldn’t it be fair that they actually get punished for it?
If burns needs to get toned down then conditions cleanses need to get toned down in compensation.
yeah because cleanses are so powerfull against condi classes
you clenes, condis are re-applied, skill on CD
aha..
There’s a difference in trying to killshot through a magnetic aura without Unblockable, and firing a killshot only to have a magnetic aura put up before you can cancel or react.
The warrior in your example doesn’t cause damage with his blocks. When burning didn’t stack intensity, this was also fine, because even though you could stack might to 25, burning was only ever one flat amount of damage. It was only once you could stack burning in intensity that Shelter alone was able to get 5k burn ticks on people. It was the sum of the potential parts that forced the change, not cherry picked portions. Shelter still works as it always has, it’s just the synergy with 2 traits that was affected.
that doesn’t change the fact, that the burn tics can be avoided by just canceling your attack, I mean everyone knows how shelter looks like, just stop attacking, as soon as it says block once, if you weren’t able to see he is triggering shelter (since he is low health… duh) just stop attacking after you see the first “Block”
this is not a balancing issue
it’s simply being aware of what your enemy is doingYou’re dodging the real issue. Its not that reactions don’t exist. Its that the trait combination (capable on only one class mind you) can potentially kill all their attackers by activating one skill that also makes them momentarily invulnerable.
If you honestly believe this is balanced, then we NEED this on all other classes, as they are now severely under performing across the board if this is true.
“Endure Pain” “Signet of Stone”
4 and 6 sec invulns, in which you are able to attack, heal, kyte, etc.
but yeah a heal of 4,5k and a few burn stacks is op, wtf
that’s sweet, I guess I’ll be switching out that trait every now and then ^^
thanks for your help guys (well 99% Dristig)
what do you think about the Dragon Hunter btw?
so in a group of, well I’d guess about at least 3 ppl shattered aegis could be the better choice?
it would be smart if arenanet gave us legendary armor, it would make a lot of players more interested in the game again because they have something new to work on getting, imo
Little change of subject, do you think we’ll ever get legendary Armor? ^^
I didn’t know it doesn’t give the aegis to me
because most skills consider yourself as an ally as well, so i thought i would get the aegis too, that’s weird
do you consider streanght in numbers to be better? but that doesn’t help out being solo either if I’m not mistaking
but anyway, I don’t just solo roam, often enough with 1 or 2 friends so Communal Defenses has it’s uses, even if i don’t get the aegis
well if I Know I’ll 1v1 a thief I’d probably take shelter, but standardized I’m really enjoying Litany of Wrath
There’s a difference in trying to killshot through a magnetic aura without Unblockable, and firing a killshot only to have a magnetic aura put up before you can cancel or react.
The warrior in your example doesn’t cause damage with his blocks. When burning didn’t stack intensity, this was also fine, because even though you could stack might to 25, burning was only ever one flat amount of damage. It was only once you could stack burning in intensity that Shelter alone was able to get 5k burn ticks on people. It was the sum of the potential parts that forced the change, not cherry picked portions. Shelter still works as it always has, it’s just the synergy with 2 traits that was affected.
that doesn’t change the fact, that the burn tics can be avoided by just canceling your attack, I mean everyone knows how shelter looks like, just stop attacking, as soon as it says block once, if you weren’t able to see he is triggering shelter (since he is low health… duh) just stop attacking after you see the first “Block”
this is not a balancing issue
it’s simply being aware of what your enemy is doing
Make fast hands base line,
introduce new minor trait:
Precised Hands,
gain 2 seconds of fury whenever you swap weapon, 4 seconds cooldown.
why the cooldown, you can’t swap after 4 sec within combat anyway, or has that changed?
I think the easiest way to win against a Thief is to practice hitting them hard during the small timeframe inbetween their dodges, since they have almost infinte dodgerolls as it sometimes seems. It should not be hard to hit with Smite Condition, which crits them for 1/3 of their max health if they are zerker.
Ok will try that,
btw max amount of dodges a thief could do now are 3, the trait got nerfed ^^
I’ve been wondering, is the trait Shattered Aegis worth it?
It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me, or am I missing something ? :/
Fashion Wars
Btw you are more special with BLT skins then having legendary weapons….
If you’d put all ppl with a legendary GS in 3 groups you’ll notice those groups (maybe not eternity’s group but I gurantee the other 2 are bigger then any of the BL ticket skin GS’s….. not to mention older event skins -.- Maybe they do not have the bling… but they are way more exclusive.
Oh and I’m very against -any vertical; progression I have 17 lvl 80’s 154 with ascended weapons and trinkets, 6 with (partial) acended armors…
I guess you meant 15 ^^
No and it won’t happen.
A-net made ascended gear after legendaries were released because they thought that the stat-gap was a problem. It meant that people felt forced to pay thousands of gold to have BiS. They do not like the idea of vertical progression.
The benefit of having a legendary, aside from the skin, is the fact that you can change stats on the fly (when out of combat). This means that a legendary weapon is better than an ascended weapon in the fact that you can easily change your build/stats without having to craft a different weapon.
well ever since the patch i can simply change the stats on all my ascended weapons and armor, for a little prize true, but it still kinda makes the endless farm for a skin kinda meehh
Hey,
I was thinking, since we work so kitten getting everything we need to craft ourselves a legendary weapon and the only advantage it gives us is a nice skin, but the stats are the same as ascended weapons that kinda made me think, is a skin worth the trouble?
So i was thinking, what about we slightly increase the stats so there is an actual difference to the other gear making it (to me) deserve it’s name as Legendary
what do you guys think?
my burst to PU/Zerk mesmer=>~11-12k =>decoy+blink GG
his burst to me 15-17k=> i’m dead GG
Yes d/p needs nerf….and of course L2Pa friend of mine ( DP thief ) called me recently and wanted me to go OS and watch this bs ( his words)
i enter the sanctum and see him starting a 1v1 with a mesmer, 1 sec later he was instadead, funny thing was, the mesmer felt sorry for him and let him do a backstab to compare, mesmer health after backstab 50%
mesmer goes GS #2 F1
thief deadbut hey, the mesmer all say it’s balanced soooooo
nah mesmers say now they are on same footing with other clsses and deserved this because they were most nerfed class in game~
maybe it’s the same footing, but their Feet are a LOT bigger ^^
It’s relativly glassy yes, because it’s made for roaming not bigger zerg fights
I’ve noticed that if i manage to get the thief once, they’re mostly dead after my first burst (because so many thieves still play full zerk)
anyhow mobility is one thing, the blinds are ok to manage
the heal works well with this build, if I hit a low health pool area of about 30% ish i use my heal combined with GS#2 and Judges Intervention and I’ve managed to pull off 6-10k heals that way
I was wondering what kind of mechanics, e.g. Mace#3 are effective against thieves
Gamemode WvW
Build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR5dnkICVDhdDBmDB8Dhj4hKvivYMWDgGoev77kmDA-T1SEABKqWBAHEAtUCukyDJVVJiLAATKx4QzAO7PwmOAHeCAkCQPdWA-w
sorry about that ^^
my burst to PU/Zerk mesmer=>~11-12k =>decoy+blink GG
his burst to me 15-17k=> i’m dead GG
Yes d/p needs nerf….and of course L2P
a friend of mine ( DP thief ) called me recently and wanted me to go OS and watch this bs ( his words)
i enter the sanctum and see him starting a 1v1 with a mesmer, 1 sec later he was instadead, funny thing was, the mesmer felt sorry for him and let him do a backstab to compare, mesmer health after backstab 50%
mesmer goes GS #2 F1
thief dead
but hey, the mesmer all say it’s balanced soooooo
To be honest, I don’t understand what your post is there for 100%
could you tell me what your goal is? ^^
What bugs me since the patch is, that even tho i got major buffs to my power and crit dmg ( pre patch 2300 power, 220% crit dmg; post patch 2850 power, 251% critdmg), yet my attacks do LESS damage than before
usually i did around 11k with every backstab, now it’s 9,8 at best, wtf happened
Is it just me or do the increased stats have no impact post patch? :/
I might be mistaking but that’s just what I’ve been noticing on my thiefso many zerkers, u would be 1 shot by a mez, but u can’t 1 shot him.
the only thing i can oneshot (well CnD + Backstab) are full zerk thieves
that’s it
but yeah thief op xD
If been playing around with my new Roam Medi Build and having a blast with it too
Fighting thieves isn’t a great deal for me but it can be annoying sometimes,
so i was just wondering what kind of moves guardians have to effectivly slap thieves in tha face ^^
What bugs me since the patch is, that even tho i got major buffs to my power and crit dmg ( pre patch 2300 power, 220% crit dmg; post patch 2850 power, 251% critdmg), yet my attacks do LESS damage than before
usually i did around 11k with every backstab, now it’s 9,8 at best, wtf happened
Is it just me or do the increased stats have no impact post patch? :/
I might be mistaking but that’s just what I’ve been noticing on my thief